Bigticket's Blog

The Dambusters guild bank is a simple yet valuable tool. It has 8 tabs in total, one ‘deposit’ tab called Grand Slam, six general use tabs categorised for ease of use and one raiders tab called Gibson which is reserved for the guild raid team and our officers.

Throughout its life, our bank has been a valuable source of income for our repair allowance, materials for professions and has helped the guild finance extravagant competitions with big prizes etc.

The guild bank is very often packed full to the extent that it becomes difficult for the management to manoeuvre deposited items into their intended tab for general consumption. I would request that guildies never feel guilty about taking a few items from these tabs. If you feel there is something there that you can use then grab it and help clear a little space in the tab. If you insist on feeling guilty, chuck a few gold in

This brings me to the fantastic Diputs who has proven over a long period to be a helpful, reliable and friendly guy. He is the typical Dambuster and someone who I have considered decorating with an officer position for quite some time.

He recently raised a point about the state of the guild bank which brings me on to our original banking maintainer Pocahunter and her many alts who has recently been on holiday in Scotland with myself. Her absence has led to a rapid filling of the guild bank and although some helpful officers have tried clearing Grand Slam, missing the relentless Poca’s daily maintenance has caused a blockage.

When I introduced Poca to the game of WoW almost 3 years ago and invited her to join our guild, I gave her the unclaimed role of bank manager to help her gather information about all the different items and materials used in the game, as a helper for her learning the game. It really worked and people have done a great job assisting her over the years but inevitably, the most thankless task in the guild has fallen heavily on her little shoulders.

Diputs has taken on the task of directly communicating with Poca and the two of them will hopefully go on to become a great partnership around the guild bank.

The drop tab/withdraw tab system may not be perfect but with hard working officers maintaining it, the bank will continue to flourish and assist the guild in our ever-solid future.

Remember, your guild bank activity is monitored but your withdrawal of your given (by me) daily permissible allowance is to be expected within reason. If you remove your entire daily allowance every day without ever putting in then you might be asked to explain but taking what you need is your right as a Dambuster and what we want to see.

Keep giving to your guild and it will grow stronger and stronger. It’s your community, you will get out what you put into it.

Onwards we march!

/Salute

To ALL DAMBUSTERS, the new website is active!  The link is http://www.dambusters.eu so please bookmark the site and visit often

It remains incomplete due to lack of a forum which will be added soon.  Please bear with me as I adjust the site until it fits our needs for the future.

/Salute

Spyrot will be promoted tonight at the Cathedral of Light in Stormwind. The time is to be determined but all are welcome and I will be spamming /gchat to let you know when it’s about to happen.

Promotion from Flight Sergeant to Warrant Officer is a massive step from junior to senior officer as the responsibility level doubles with the authority the higher rank provides. Please read the link I have provided and become familiar with the differences between the ranks because this change could affect you.

Please be aware that Warrant Officer has the same power of control as my own alts so ensure you afford Spyrot the full respect the rank entitles him within the guild.

Spyrot has taken a lot of time and put in a lot of work behind the scenes as leader of our raid team and makes daily contact with myself to discuss and learn guild management techniques from a Dambusters perspective. This dedication deserves reward. He is only a recently recruited guild member but he has proven that the right attitude, willingness to follow his GM and some hard work, you can rise up the ranks. Use this guy as an example if you want to be an officer!

/Salute

Bigticket

Having struggled to get my head around the layout of the web design package I recently installed, it became apparent that I might have been digging too deeply in my efforts to streamline the guild’s online strategy. Having come to terms with domain names, name servers (DNS) and File Transfer protocol (FTP) I started to get frustrated with the actual structure layout of the web editor itself. The HTML and CSS coding elements are easily learnable but the way the program laid out the file system was very confusing, not the hierarchecal file setup I had expected and that made for a messy feel that was very off-putting.

A few days ago I began wondering how to keep my blog and the website linked, I found the idea of simply creating a link to the blog from the website to be clunky and decided that maybe I should incorporate both website and blog together. I already know the layout of the blog site and have found the tools available to be both very customisable and powerful although the blog itself displays an air of simplicity with the curent theme.  My plan is to adjust the site as I learn and understand the more powerful tools available while trying to decide how best to implement a forum for the guild’s feedback and discussions.  I also need to change the domain name to http://www.dambusters.eu but seems there’s a problem accessing the site’s domain settings and I am currently awaiting a support response.

I stil have the option of starting from scratch with the ‘under construction’ website and returning to the old wowstead site aswell as working on this current site so our options are open, I would love to hear your feedback to determine what the community are thinking regarding these changes.  Feel free to make comments here….

 

In addition, thanks for the responses I have received regarding the previous Class Leaders post.  I have a few candidates in mind but I am still hoping for more people to come forward, don’t make me chase ya now!  

Having a specialist in a particular class is a great way to teach people who want to learn to play a particular class for their own benefit aswell as that of the guild.

The guild needs class leaders. If you consider yourself to be a fine example of your chosen class then please come forward. It is possible more than one person will apply for your role but please apply if you believe you have the knowledge and let me make the decision of who becomes the authority on all things related to your class.

This position requires experience and understanding aswell as willingness to offer friendly and helpful advice. If you get a class lead position and feel you would benefit from the assistance of a friend then by all means, make it so. This might help if you are not 100% on one of the specs, I will expect you to still be able to cover advice rendered from your junior guildies in need.

Class leaders will also help to determine who is doing well among others of the same class in the guild, maybe for recommendations to the Raid Leader or Rated Battleground Leader. Your advice may also be requested when recruiting specific players for these teams in the future.

Your name will be mentioned around the guild’s online spaces to advertise who people need to contact if in need of advice.

Remember we are a social levelling guild, new players look up to the more experienced Dambusters as figureheads of our community. Take hold of a leading role and do us proud!

Death Knight
Druid
Hunter
Monk
Mage
Paladin
Priest
Rogue
Shaman
Warlock
Warrior

Let me set the scene…..

Big guild, full of friendly people all busy doing dailies, dungeon runs, farming materials, afking, talking on vent etc etc etc.

This is a very busy time in the game. Most wow maniacs are beavering away trying to level up alts, gearing their main or any number of other chatbox distracted task.

If you need assistance and go to your first ‘port of call’ the guild chat, you are absolutely right to do so. It’s usually a good place to join in on a conversation, especially in the evenings.

If you ask a question there and nobody replies, please don’t assume you are being ignored because that simply ain’t the case. Not in the Dambusters!

There could be any number if reasons for lacking responses in the gchat. Last thing such an occurrence needs is for you to start bitching about being ignored etc. logging off in a mood is simply rofl embarrassing. If you feel your topic of conversation is ignored then try searching the Internet for advice, there’s loads of it out there. Or you could simply wait a few minutes and repeat the question. DON’T SPAM tho haha, that ain’t cool

Chances are people may not know the answer to your question, they could be in the kitchen making a coffee, they could be embroiled in a bitter 1 v 1 world pvp moment as some homicidal orc warrior decides to use his new MoP overpoweredness to cut a hole in every alliance face they meet. I’m sure the guild likes you

Try to consider these things before spouting QQ drama in the guild chat. I’m sure 99% of the guild would fully agree.

/Salute

The days of open invites are numbered in the Dambusters. Until now, the guild has been free and open with its recruitment policy, happily inviting everyone and anyone into the guild regardless of who they are or what they may bring to the guild.

This policy is coming to an end soon but please, don’t worry! The access to the guild will still be easy for anyone who wishes to become a member, so long as they show us they can access our website -new site creation currently in process- and care enough to read what we are all about a swell as answering a few fun questions about themselves.

The good people who really want to join us will have no trouble in doing so. What this means is that as people leave the guild (which always happens due to many factors over any given period of time) the guild will refill its ranks with people who, we can be confident, will share our values as a guild.

People already in the guild should see no change, ofcourse you are the reason for the guild’s success. If you have an alt character you wish to bring in, the process will remain the same as now. Just contact a recruitment officer or myself for an invite on your alt.

The benefits of such a system may seem obscure at first, it has taken me time to consider all the pros and cons of such a move but as you will no doubt be aware, I do my homework on matters of guild management as emphasised here and you can be sure I have carried out the forethought required of such a move.

Having an application system allows us to vet our incoming members to ensure they will be more likely to be trustworthy. In the past we have been stung by douchebags who have abused the trust we offered to them by way of guild bank accessibility and leadership roles causing us massive drama and forcing me to rethink my strategy of trust. Having a vetting system will allow us more flexibility with the rank perks and bank tab access aswell as having a more fluid rank progression than we currently have.

Another bonus of the new setup will be that it ensures any prospective new member MUST access the new website, forcibly directing traffic to the online spaces we use to keep our members most reliably informed about the general goings-on around the guild. We need to get the information contained in this blog and the Facebook page out to our members in a more efficient way and the website will be designed to allow that.

You may be thinking ‘hang on a minute, how do we keep recruiting from around a low-med pop server like Xavius?’
The answer to that is, we use the server forums and use our growing community reputation to cast a wider catchment net to not only Xavius, but all of the EU. I read so many posts on the WoW community sites about people who can’t ever find a decent guild that fits their needs and that Dambusters, is where we come in. People will be able to find us on the forums and can access our simple website application process and join us on brand new toons to try us out if they wish. Remember new toons are great for levelling guilds!

The whole idea is to get the majority of the guild talking on our forums which ofcourse will be updated with the upcoming website.

Any thoughts are very welcome!

/Salute THE GUILD