A little story time. I swear it relates to the rest of this post, or at least it does in my head. Bear with me.

Back when I was in high school, I was in marching band (yes I was a band geek, feel free to mock. I was also an art geek and math geek, triply damned). Through a bizarre series of events, I ended up having to be a substitute marcher in 11th grade, and got moved around week to week, depending on who was sick. I learned the routines anew every week, half the time on the fly. As a result, I ended up being a student trainer my senior year, because of all the moving around, fast learning, and quietly doing what was my “job”: marching and not screwing up while being directed by a excellent but demanding director who actually scared the hell out of most of the university band directors in the southeast. It made me a better marcher and I got to see a side of certain sections of the band I hadn’t before, since instruments tend to clique together (at least in high school they did). Yey for pointless experience! (”Why yes, sir, if you need something marched to a jazz version of ‘My Favorite Things’ with 5 instant tempo and time changes, while keeping up with 249 other people and wearing a wool uniform in 90 degree weather, I’m yer woman!” “Um, we just need these ads made.” “Damn, there goes my big chance! /sob”)

In WoW, lately, I’ve been raiding as a guest on another guild’s raids. Why don’t I join their guild? Kinda attached to mine, and really, don’t wanna switch guilds. Right now, I’m getting my raid fix in and having fun. I have other friends that are also guest raiding with other guilds on other servers. It’s the summer slowdown/pre-expansion ennui that’s hitting so many guilds right now, so there’s spots open for more and more people on other guilds’ raids.

But there’s something that I’ve noticed, something that once again is pretty common with “casual” raiding guilds. Most of the things that I’ve muttered over with over in my “When raids go bad” post crop up again and again. But this time, it’s different. This time, it’s another guild, one that does things differently from the way you’ve done it with your guild or other groups you’ve been with. Even “better”, it’s a group of people that all know each other (whether they like each other or not), and are used to the way they all work together. And here you come, into a raid with a different setup and mindset than what you’re used to. What’s a guest to do?

Well first, actually be prepared. Being a guest is a weird situation: sometimes, you feel you almost have to be better than everyone else in the raid so you don’t have that “why the hell did we bring THEM?!” feeling (Hey, this may be my own paranoia talking, YMMV ). And while you might not have to be “better” than everyone else, you at least owe it to these strangers to show up on time, prepped, repaired, having read all the strats/watch the movies for any new bosses, with consumables ready and ammo to spare. Did I mention on time? Oh raid leaders loooove that.

Learn who the raid leaders and/or class leaders are. Ask if you need to be in a special channel, like a healer channel if you’re there to heal.

Be polite. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with who’s an alt of who, even in your own guild. When dealing with other guilds, it gets even dicier. That ‘lock you just called a “noob” could actually be the usual healing lead stepping out for some DPS action.

Keep any bitching and whining to other channels. The other guild doesn’t care that you’d waited for months for that upgrade and some “scrub” from their guild just got the Shiny Pony Idol of Uberness. Guess what? They’re there to gear their guildies. The good raids will actually consider those guests that come regularly and really assist the group in their gearing decisions, but don’t count on it. Bottom line: being a whiny loot whore doesn’t win you friends, or spots in the next raid with them.

Finger-pointing isn’t your job. It’s the raid leader/guildmaster of the other guild’s job, unless you’ve been asked to specifically do that. See: “being polite”.

Do your job. Don’t try to tell everyone else theirs. If you think something could be done another way, offer suggestions in /tells to class leads or the raid leader. That’s suggestions, not orders or demands.

Be situationally aware, awake, and ready to switch what you’re doing at a moment’s notice. You’re a hunter that’s being cruising along DPSing away while the other hunter MD’s everything, but they suddenly get disconnected? Be ready to MD in their place. The nature resist tank for Hydross has a sudden family emergency and you’re on your rogue instead of your awesome tank? Be ready to switch characters. In short, be ready for anything that might happen.

So be polite, friendly, prepared, on time, read up on new bosses, and ready to turn on a dime mentally. Sounds like a lot, but it’s really not.

But what about the other guild? Don’t they have any responsibilities to you? Me, I’d say yes, but keep in mind this is just me talking, after listening to friends vent at me on their experiences.

1. Don’t air your guild’s dirty laundry in raid chat or on Vent. Nothing like having your guests feel uncomfortable and not want to come back, or even better, warn others from guesting with you.

2. State the loot policies up front and follow them. If you make any changes on the fly, explain why.

3. If a guest offers, politely, a suggestion on a situation that the raid is having trouble with, either listen politely or ask them (again, politely) to post it on any website/message board you may have or discuss it after raid. It may be worthless advice, but it might also be something you can use to help everyone get more phat lewtz at a faster pace.

4. Treat the guests as you’d like to be treated if you were guesting with their guild. I’m not saying suck up to them. Just treat them with some respect, especially after they’ve been with you on a couple of runs and prove themselves to have a braincell or two. If they’re not up to where you think they should be, then fine, tell them you don’t think they’re a good fit for your raids, but don’t be a jackass about it. Word does get out when you’re an asshole and it can taint an entire guild’s reputation.

It’s amazing how much all of this boils down to politeness. No, you don’t have to be sitting around a table, drinking tea (mm tea), and inquiring after each other’s family between pulls. No, no heartwarming stories need to be shared, no bonding needs to be performed. But a simple “Hey, thanks for coming!” and a “thanks for having me!”, neither delivered with a snarky attitude to each other, along with some trust that the person you brought just -might- know what they’re doing, goes a long way into building better guest/raid relationships.

And I tested it out the other day. I can still SO do that one-beat 180 degree spin-turn I had to learn in marching band. That’s gonna get me far in life! I just know it!

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 12:47 am and is filed under raids, ruminations.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.