I have always said I am happy to throw my tips into the ring on almost any topic, and then I got a real whopper in the old mail inbox this morning. It is so big I can’t get to all of it today, which is good as that allows me more time to mull some answers over but I think I can shoot from the hip at a few parts.

A little back history with out copying and pasting parts of the email and the things that I think are important.

The writer of this email (hence forth Bobby) started playing DDo on the recommendation of a friend.
Bobby’s Friend is now his guild leader.
Said Guild leader happens to be many time zones separated from Bobby.
Guild is very small and not super active when Bobby is on.
Guild leader has alts in another guild and is fairly active on those alts.
I don’t think Bobby is allowed in this other guild due to it being a local guild.
Joining said guild wouldn’t help a lot anyway as most of those player are separated by many time zones like the guild leader.
Bobby has reached a DDo plateau and wants to reach higher levels but is unsure how to proceed as well as is worried that this guild doesn’t have the structure to support him on his desired path.

Questions I want to try and answer today:
How does one grow in DDo?
How can you tell if it is time to leave a guild?
How does one leave a guild, (with out a lot of hurt feelings)?

How does one grow in DDo? To me one grows in any field when they set measurable goals and works towards those goals. Ideally once reaching or realizing those goals are no longer achievable or desirable you set new ones and that process repeats.

So that was a really long line of crap. I mean what does that mean? How does that even relate to Bobby’s situation? Something I didn’t share was a short list of goals that Bobby sent in, design builds, learning/teaching and to BE better (I assume at playing DDo). To me all three of those things are very measurable goals.

Design a Build, this is not hard, grab the planner and get to work. Feel free to take one of the ideas that I have throw out over the years and build something. Not every build will be good. Hell if you’re lucky 1 out of 10 will be worth wild after the vale. Think I am at like 1 for 20… Build one try it, take what you learned, tweak it and then try again. As long as you are not trying to do all your testing on your main via TRs I think you will be okay. I think the Iconics have real potential in this regard, as throw away build concepts.

Teach/Learn, again this is not hard. Pick a quest you think you know well or want to know better and learn it via looking for a guide/s in the form of walkthroughs/pug/forum/channels then once you are a master of that quest (ideally something like Tempest spine simi unloved by the masses) then start throwing up teaching runs where you are the teacher. Raids are always a good place to start. There are always new players that want to learn the ropes and in need of a few good vets to help.

Lets jump to Guild talk… It is tough; I have never left a guild. Tobril and I founded the DG and even when we butt heads we have worked things out and we have each had different aspects of guild leadership that we have gone through. But I can tell you this like in most relationships being forward and honest with the other person is often the best way.

The other day Tobril was being a little whiny (think he had the on call phone) but he was motivated to do things and I was a little apathetic but trying to be a helper, we wanted to run some challenges for the Arty Cannith ring. I was moving a little slow, plus I remembered from the other day doing the same there was some things we talked about doing, like remembering a hire to heal kobolds and grabbing my Rodic’s wand for boosting hires/pets. And we had a little moment of hey your pissing me off, well good because you’re pissing me off. But when he realized that even though it seemed like I was dragging my feet I was being a team player his mood changed and my mood changed because I cleared my chest and because his mood changed and we had a good hour or two of running challenges.

So I say first off if you’re not putting it all out there then that is on you. If your friend blows up then that is on him. But I think real friends will see that you are trying to be upfront and support you as long as you give them the chance.

That said there is two ways to leave a guild, slowly and all at once. I recommend slowly, but by that I don’t mean leave one bank alt in that remains on the active list with out giving anything back to the guild. I mean either set up a channel or use your friend’s list to keep in touch and be willing to make time to play with your former guildies or if you want to keep some alts in be sure to play those alts from time to time so not to be a leach. I know from being part of a guild leadership guild goals are always shifting but there is nothing more aggravating then a player that is active but doesn’t play guild alts and ends up dragging the guild down. You just don’t know what to do with those players.

How to find a new guild? That will need to wait for another post.

<3s