KOU Guild

Bring out your dead!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 14:48:00 +0000

Our strategy for downing the Stone Guard includes a very important preliminary activity of covering the ground in bones! - Beartooth

Survey: Raider Availability

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 17:11:00 +0000

All of our raiders and raiders in the iRaid group, please take the very brief moment to complete and submit the survey so that we can take your preferred raiding times into account as we consider changes (if any are required) to the raiding schedule! Last time we checked was back in August and we have new raiders and we also understand some of you have noted other nights you are also available.

Thank you! - Beartooth

Survey is located here.

Stone Guard down!

noreply@blogger.com (Guild Master) — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 07:12:00 +0000

nicely done everyone!

-Beartooth

MoP - with a BANG!

noreply@blogger.com (Guild Master) — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 14:17:00 +0000

Always fun times when you see so many KOU people ranked in the top ten for their class and spec - some in the top one or top two for their class! ALSO exceptionally fun when the guild is ranking 5th on the server!

This week we did not have a guild group working through MSV as some of our team is still gearing or leveling. However, our KOU-lead pug has made better progress than most guilds on the server, and world! Last night we dropped Gara'Jal to 19% before we ran out of time on the raid clock for the evening.

It was brilliant fun and solid to raid with some like-minded raiders who typically are saved to their own guilds' raids.

More fun to follow!

- Beartooth

Cata Raid Success!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 15:26:00 +0000

We accomplished all of the raiding goals that we set as a raid group for the Cataclysm expansion.

That is worth repeating: we accomplished everything we set out to do, and we accomplished it as a group. Of course there are always circumstances that lead to some raiders needing to leave and some new raiders joining the raid group; however, for the most part, the raid group that is closing out Cataclysm is largely the same raid group that started out our raiding during this expac. That is a huge accomplishment in of itself.

Why were we successful - despite a late start - in our raiding and in accomplishing them as a stable raid group? Simply, because of each and every one of our raiders! Everyone embraced and took to heart our raiding culture of keep it respectful and fun, be reliable, perform - or as I often remark, "do what you say you will do, and do it well."

Our raiding goals included:

establish and preserve a respectful and fun environment - CHECK!
provide a reliable and stable weekly raid and foster reliability in our raiders' attendance and performance - CHECK!
do what you say you will do, and do it well! - CHECK!
structure the raid group (iRaid) so that it crosses guild boundaries and provides fair and common sense-driven raid leading and loot distribution - CHECK!
reward reliability - CHECK! (two raid mounts have already been distributed)
clear all content for the expansion - CHECK!
obtain at least one current tier legendary - CHECK!
successfully begin Heroic raiding - CHECK!
down Ragnaros - CHECK!
down "xpac final boss" - CHECK!
cover raiding 'costs' as a raid group (repairs, flasks, feasts, etc) - CHECK!

We succeeded in landing in the top 50 of several hundred raiding guilds on our server. Our peers in server standings raid the current tier multiple times per week whereas we raid it only one night a week.

We succeeded multiple times in having guildies rank as #1 on the server or in the top ten - without having to become a 'hard core' 6-nights a week raid group.

We repeatedly encountered something new and overcame it shortly thereafter - be it a new boss, a new achievement, a heroic version.

We successfully morphed around players' interests to try out new raid roles and new characters while preserving our overall raid performance and raid roster.

We did what we said we would do, and we did it well!

(On a personal note, "thank you" from your raid leader for such an awesome year and such an amazing group of people to raid with!)

Mists Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 15:25:00 +0000

Below is the link to the document containing details discussed last night and expanding on the high-level strategy going into Mists xpac (release date 9/25).

Mists Strategy

Don't forget to complete the survey linked in the previous post.

Survey to Assist in Scheduling Raids

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 14:43:00 +0000

As we tend to do at least each year, we have posted a survey to assist us in ensuring that we schedule raids at times that are best suited to the personal schedules of the raiders. With the coming expansion in less than two months, and a new Fall season schedule for many, we would like to confirm when are the best times to schedule raids.

Please complete the survey.

Thanks!

July 2012: Summer, end of xpac, storms, diablos, mists

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 17:33:00 +0000

June and July have seen, as usual, the downturn in online presence that summer always brings and this year it is compounded by the beta for the near releasing Mists, the released-and-long-awaited Diablo III, brutal storms that have decimated the Eastern region with power outages, and of course, the pull of family fun during the sun!

Yet, we have seen a larger than usual online presence, and we have seen the downfall of Ragnaros and Madness of Deathwing.

Our goal was to see those people presently raiding downing Rag and DW before the release of Mists - and this has been achieved!

There has been a steady influx of new people into the guild and despite the summer usual downturn, we have a strong enough presence - storms aside - to continue raiding and having fun.

Several people are "wrapping up" or "working on" different things and can be found online very regularly. Others are on more sparsely and are suitably enjoying family and summer fun.

We are looking forward to seeing the new end game in Mists later this year and getting into the groove of exploring the new content and raids. Blizzard has re-designed the end game so that there is more to do at level 90 than there ever was before at 85, 80, 70, or even 60.

Good times, now and ahead!

6th Guild Anniversary

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 18:58:00 +0000

On April 14th, 2006, the guild charter was completed and the present guild formed. Last night, in celebration of the guild's 6th birthday, we lived the moment. Thank you Novastorm and crew for throwing a great pre-raid birthday party! It has been a long time since I have seen many of those trinkets, toys, and special effects - and it is always good to see them pulled out en masse!

A grand party!

Once the 'clean up' was complete, we had one of the best and most fun nights of raiding in Firelands that we have ever had. Brilliant!

Happy birthday to KOU, and to all present and former KOU members!

Boss Down!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:59:00 +0000

Fun, quick clear to Yogg, down he went on second attempt and mounts for everyone! W00t!

iRaid website

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:56:00 +0000

If you are looking for the iRaid website:

https://sites.google.com/site/iraidalleria/

DS 10M started...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:56:00 +0000

A week ago, we were not fielding even 5 KOU guildies into current raids. Last night, we had a KOU (8/10) DS 10m raid kick off it's first night and we even had one KOU guildie away last night. So a week later we are standing at capable of fielding 9/10. Good progress for 7 days.

The sheer preparation for getting to the point where we could zone in with legitimate expectations of downing a boss and making progress was intense and rewarding to see. Congratulations to all that participated and made it happen. A lot of work went into it before we ever even zoned in. Keep it up.

More work is needed. Everyone should know the fights - information that is published in the common sources such as FatBoss TV (YouTube), Wowhead.com, tankspot.com, wow forums, and your favorite boss strat website. It is, of course, not enough to know that Morchok has a spell - Stomp - which you can watch the effect of, and hear about on FatBossTV, and read about on wowhead.com in the Morchok write-up, you have to act on that knowledge when you are in the raid. If you are outside the range of his Stomp, you are not affected by it -- which given the ability, may or may not be a good thing! The point is that you should know that. In the raid, we can discuss how we are going to respond as a raid to the encounter, we should not be spending time explaining what the encounter is as this is not only time-consuming and unlikely to register correctly the first time, it is a strong indicator that you are not prepared.

Reviewing the logs: the tanks are geared enough and need to work on their footwork and the smoothness of their managing the series of events that are a boss fight; the healers are geared enough and need to work on casting the right spells rightly (timely and on the right targets) and to always be casting (interrupt those casts if you do not want to finish the cast but always have one loading up to deliver); and, the dps is mostly geared enough (some need to gather more gear and we knew this and that was fine with overall raid gearing) and need to work on eeking out more dps by having more uptime on targets and stronger execution of their rotations/priorities. ALL of this is standard, published information either in the boss fight strategy write ups or videos and the handling of your class' role and performance is well documented and advised in the wow forums for your class.

Which is to say, we need to work on our footwork, people -- it isn't the dance clothes that make us look stilted and rough on the dance floor.

This is good news. We have the right people with the right track record of looking at what we can do better and then doing it better each time.

What I would like to avoid, is people zoning in next week with little or no additional work on their footwork. Take the next several days to make some personal progression so that we can make some raid progression next week.

Start by watching the FatBossTV fight videos for each boss... at least 3x times. THEN go read about the fights. Then go read about your class in your role in those fights. Then go watch the fights again! Then run those fights in LFR in your role. As you are doing them, pay attention to where LFR is different than 10m. Watch for boss timers. After you run LFR for VP, run it again, and likely again, until you can predict what abilities the boss will cast and when and what effect you expect it to have.

When you can anticipate that the raid group's health is going to collectively plummet within 25 yards of Morchok and that the two closest characters to Morchok will take twice as much damage as everyone else, whether you are a tank, a healer, or a dps, you will be the better enabled to help your raid seamlessly transition from pulling the boss to looting the boss.

This week, work on your footwork and envision seamlessly transitioning from pulling the boss the looting the boss.

Go be awesome and bring it next week!

Smoking Hot!

noreply@blogger.com (Guild Master) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 16:47:00 +0000

Outstanding work last night! We formed a Saturday night raid group by recruiting awesome people into it that are just a pleasure to spend time with and then stepped into Firelands. For almost half of the group it was the first time entering Firelands yet we still cleared our way through up to the fourth boss in the limited time we played for.

Fabulous performances by all! We have made some new friends and had a blast. We fully expect to clear the first few bosses much faster next week now that everyone knows the fights first hand.

Congrats New Starcallers and Rust-bound Drake Owners!

noreply@blogger.com (Guild Master) — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 07:49:00 +0000

Job well done tonight - some very impressive footwork on execution of the fights. Fun times and great to see a new crop of people go through and accomplish the Ulduar achievements and challenges.

The Algalon fight in particular was executed amazingly well with a record clean kill time.

Azeroth saved from re-origination!

noreply@blogger.com (Guild Master) — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 21:52:00 +0000

There are some finicky points to preventing Azeroth from the reset button called 're-origination'. Namely things like black hole handling and the whole Big Bang.

Last night, KOU handled them with impressive footwork including a couple of pugs. It took a couple of wipes to see and learn the specific footwork demands and the timing of tank swaps -- no, you cannot just sit back in 85 gear and hammer the boss down -- however, once people saw it, it was a beautiful thing to see them execute against it.

Congratulations to all the new Starcallers!

Totemlly Awesome

noreply@blogger.com (Guild Master) — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 00:07:00 +0000

Some nights, things click just right. Some nights, not at all and your footwork can be completely off, your timing just not right and the simplest of tasks becomes infeasible.

We like Ulduar hard modes for a number of reasons: it's a great fun raid environment to be in with a bunch of friends in a relatively non-stressful setting; it challenges you to execute mechanics with finesse and to respond to changes in the fight and raid leader requests; it requires you to develop the habit of going to learn fight strategies and to become familiar with the tools where you find the same; and most of all, on some fights, it demands exceptionally high "raid handling" or "footwork". ICC is a poor "training ground" for new raiders: the fights are simply just not complex enough as evidenced by the simplicity with which they can now be brute-forced with level 85 gear. Ulduar, on the other hand, has mechanics that have nothing to do with gear - for example, going insane in Yogg's prison with no Keepers. (Of course we also like it because you get a nifty looking mount and titles.)

The other night, after raiding enthusiasm had set in a little too deeply and we were up way too late, we suddenly stopped clicking and kept making small mistakes that prevented us from working the General correctly in hard mode: we would accidentally nick an unseen saronite vapor spawned inside the boss and have to start over; or someone with the Mark would happen to run past a bunch of us and heal the boss enormous amounts.

It was late - we were tired, and we were getting sloppy. True to KOU form, we didn't get upset - rather, we took a breather and gave it another push. We had been making cleaner and cleaner passes at it. This time we executed it perfectly and it was a major rush at the end - as if it were current tier! Not because it was difficult to handle the complete lack of mana re-gen or because the boss fight itself was hard, but rather because our footwork had been impeccable and it was an exemplary personal performance each new raider put in!

We do not have to wait for challenging mechanics like Yogg-Saron to sharpen the saw - we each have an opportunity in every heroic we do to improve on our footwork and in our execution of our role.

As you gear up and rep up in heroics, take as many opportunities as you can to perform each boss fight and each pull with the best footwork and execution that you can - it will serve you well in the demanding fights ahead in Tier 11 and coming in future content releases.

Missing: You!

noreply@blogger.com (Guild Master) — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 17:39:00 +0000

Last night, we kick started doing raids and raid yoga again together. It was good to stretch out those muscles and habits again and it is the beginning of consistently raiding again. What was missing was most of the guildies. We need you back! Log back on!

As should be expected, the next few weeks will be 'painful' in the sense that we will schedule raids and have fewer people show up than needed - which always has its issues and bumps. Plenty of time has past for people to get to 85, get geared, take some time off, recover from departures and arrivals, and whatever else has impeded us from returning to a steady raid schedule of progression.

Everyone I have spoken to online has requested that we get a raid schedule up and running right away.

So there you have it. The schedule will be going up tonight (it is our 'usual' raid days and times until influenced by people to change it).

Raid 'seats' are going to be given in preference to those who consistently support the raid group -- so please do not show up 'once it is all running smoothly' expecting to take the seat of someone that 'helped get it running smoothly from current state'.

As always, those that do not have 85 mains and are leveling up, will take their place in our raid group once they get appropriately geared (and 85!). However, all those above 60 can contribute now by supporting the legacy raid events.

We will continue to fill empty seats with pugs and by raiding in combination with other guilds -- until we have no more empty seats.

We are raiding again. We need you. Work with us and we will get back up to progression speed sooner.

See you online.

Raid Yoga

noreply@blogger.com (Guild Master) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 15:59:00 +0000

Yogg-Saron hard mode is still harder than ICC LK. It has nothing to do with gear or damage; there is fancier footwork and coordination needed with Yogg-Saron. Now that we have enough guildies leveled and geared to form steady Tier 11 raid groups, the challenge in downing the bosses lies in the execution of good responses to raid situational awareness.

Raid yoga helps us practice our raid situational awareness, our good responses and our execution of those responses. For example, the Magmaw fight requires raiders in the ranged/healing group to immediately stop what they are doing and move out of the soon-to-be-erupting flame and requires all the other ranged/healers to be move away as well - all together, preferably. With everything going on, heightened raid situational awareness triggers our recognition that the erupting flame is about to happen or if we missed that cue, that someone has initiated the move to avoid it. The good response is to interrupt casting and move - which often goes against the grain, especially if there is very little left in the cast bar. The awareness, knowledge and discipline to execute that fight properly comes with practice and not from leveling activities. This practice is what we refer to as 'raid yoga'.

You can work on your raid yoga in heroics, in BH and in prior-tier raids such as Ulduar or ICC hard modes. In essence, it is practicing your raiding skills. Take every opportunity you can to hone your skills when not actually in the specific Tier 11 raid fight! There are many opportunities in heroics where you can practice the raid skills - which I believe Blizzard did on purpose. For example, in Stonecore, you need to interrupt casting to jump during Quake; in VP you need to jump to avoid static cling. Every time I run Stonecore or VP, I see people taking damage from Quake or getting static cling - myself included sometimes, too. We can all benefit from honing those skills to make clearing our current progression tier time-effective.

DKP system posted for discussion

noreply@blogger.com (Guild Master) — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 20:59:00 +0000

A DKP system for use in KOU raids (mainly to keep looting fair and respectful in the combined KOU25 25-man raid and with regards to none-guild members raiding with us) has been posted on the 'Raiding' page of this blog.

The information therein is for discussion so that we can adjust it accordingly (which can include not using DKP at all!). It is presented well in advance of being put into implementation to give us copious time to discuss. Please take this time to familiarize yourselves with it and discuss with the guild officers. We will, additionally, have this as a topic of discussion in the next open town hall meeting within the next 14 days.

All DKP balances are currently set to zero - we recognize that the Earlier Starting (ES) raid group is still gearing up and the purpose of the system is a suggestion on how to keep the looting in the combined 25-man equal - not lop-sided to the Later Starting (LS) raid group which has started raiding. We may decide to give it a dry run in the LS raid group and then reset values to zero in a few weeks when both raid groups are 'online' for raiding current progression content. We will be very careful to not give one group or another any advantage over the other - again, it is meant to keep clear and present that looting in the 25-man is fair and that looting in either 10-man or 25-man is fair to non-guild members.

Take the time to discuss and make suggestions.

Reading up on raids

noreply@blogger.com (Guild Master) — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 22:41:00 +0000

For most of us, we are coming close to the point where we will have gathered what we are going to gather in terms of gear from reputation, crafting and heroics. Now we turn to the new tier raid content and look to the entry-level raids. We've been raiding content we are familiar with for so long and have grown somewhat accustomed to 'someone else' knowing the heroic fights and explaining them that a gentle reminder to read up on the raid fights ahead is due diligence.

Frankly, most of the many sources of "how to" guides or strats have slim pickings in regards to 'win' strats with the new Tier 11 bosses - strategies are, understandably, still being improved upon. An exception to this is Tankspot.com which just uploaded this week a whole host of win! Go watch them! Hence, we will need to prepare ourselves old school, by also referring to write ups found in Wowhead.com (old school would have been Thottbot) and wowpedia.org (formerly wowwiki). You can find a wealth of information on the instances, bosses, and mobs as well as strategies in the comments on wowhead. e.g.:

Baradin Hold wowhead wowpedia [wowhead comments]
- Argaloth (boss) wowhead & comments wowpedia

You will find that tankspot has the strat videos up and also that, for example, the Argaloth tankspot video is on wowhead.com.

The theme here is: Go prepare for raids! Go now! What are you doing still here?! Go prepare!!

The resources available to us in advance of stepping into an instance mean no one should need any boss abilities explained nor should there be any surprises on boss phases - tankspot videos pretty much lay out everything visually for you.

All raiders that will be in Tier 11 content are by default progression raiders! This is not like doing Naxx when ICC is the current tier - all raiders must step into the raid instance prepared both in gear, consumables and mindset. It will take far, far, far too long to explain every nuance to every raider for every trash pull and boss in the new content if people do not know the mechanics of the fights. What raid leaders will explain in the instance is how we will tackle the mechanics, will explain the strategy we will use and will answer questions. The raiders by default must know the mechanics before they zone in.

For example, Argaloth does a meteor slash. It is on the 'Abilities' tab for him on wowhead. Raid leaders will not be explaining that ability. When it lands, it should not come as a surprise to anyone and everyone should know what caused them to just lose 40k health on one shot and the healers should have been anticipating it as soon as they see the cast bar in DBM. Tanks should not need to be told that it places a debuff on them, just how we are going to handle that debuff (the other tank taunts the boss once their debuff has dropped).

Raiding windows are very small as people have to get home from work and have to go to bed - please come prepared so that we can maximize how much content we cover rather than how many hours we spend on the same bosses.

Thank you in advance!

Recruiting for Raid Groups

noreply@blogger.com (Guild Master) — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 06:56:00 +0000

KOUGuild is currently recruiting all classes and all specs for new Cataclysm raids. Specifically, we are recruiting great people who are good players and have a character with an average gear ilvl of 340+

As always, great people are welcome even if their character is lvl 1. However, for the near and present raid groups for Tier 11, we are focusing on recruiting people that have been gearing up in heroic 5-mans already and are about 'done' gearing therein.

Contact in game any one of the following officers: Locksmith, Beartooth, Kimonorose, Orderedchaos or Ahnuksar.

Heroic Expectations

noreply@blogger.com (Guild Master) — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 16:27:00 +0000

It is exciting to see all the people arriving in at 85 and moving up through the levels. It bears worth mentioning some notes on heroics and preparing for them in order to make the transition from leveling into dailies/heroics/pre-raids.

Pre-Heroics Gear:

"Too long, didn't listen" (tldl) version: Treat gearing for heroics in Cataclysm like you did gearing for raids in Wrath. Run instances a lot and get the drops and faction rewards before you put a serious amount of hours into the heroics themselves.

The guild message of the day for several days was a suggestion to complete your leveling in the Twilight Highlands (TH) zone. (Note: I would even go one further and suggest completing all of the quests in that zone until you have at least gathered all of the rewards that are Best in Slot (BiS) for you pre-Heroics even if that is after you ding 85.) If you didn't get a chance to do that, it is highly recommended that you check your favorite wow information sources (blogs, forums, person-in-the-know in the guild) to see if the BiS items for you pre-heroics come from quest rewards in the TH zone. If they do, get there and get them.

Those same sources will also give you a sense of where to find most of the normal instance drops you need. For the most part, I would expect them to be in Halls of Origination, Lost City and perhaps Grim Batol; if you have not yet discovered those instances, go do that to make grouping and queuing easy.

The final pre-heroics gear sources are faction reputation rewards and crafted gear. You can check for faction rep rewards with your trusted sources, atlasloot or wowhead.com amongst others. For who can make which crafted items in guild, open the guild pane ('j') and look at the professions that craft your needs. You can search to see who has that pattern specifically. You can also see who is leveling close to the right skill level to make your item(s) if there are none already there and help them. The auction house right now is pricey and it makes better financial sense right now to supply a guild member with the mats to craft your piece than to buy it on the AH - unlike the last few weeks we saw in Wrath where people were selling off crafted items lower than cost to make them.

You have to be geared as close to BiS (pre-heroics) to have the game even let you into the heroics and certainly for you to be able to contribute and not be a liability to the group. Due your due diligence and get the best pieces of gear you can get within reason and within the expectations of the group that you are running with (some won't mind, others working on bosses deep into the heroics will want you geared).

Strategies:

TLDL: Chat with fellow guild members who have been doing the fights a lot recently.

There are few if any strategies posted and published right now. Most guilds are working through the fights and are not sharing strategies because they are trying to get realm firsts in the raids and do not need to help others get to the raid stage. Having said that, there are several members who have been at level 85 since the first few days and have a lot of experience with the early bosses in the heroics. In Heroic Deadmines, we are working on Admiral Ripsnarl - hence we have a lot of experience with the prior bosses and can happily share that for in house knowledge.

Clearing:

To manage expectations, in the beginning, plan to clear bosses - not instances. This is very similar to stepping into ICC for the first time: you hoped to clear a boss or some bosses; however, did not expect to clear the entire instance. Same here. While they are called 'heroics' - these are not the heroics of your Wrath grandfather. Yes, you will be doing 'progression' in a heroic! At least in the beginning you will.

So many classes have crowd control now that it is almost inexcusable to wipe on a pull after not using crowd control. We have all read about and heard how these heroics were going to be much, much harder and that healers would have a hard time with mana and tanks a hard time with survival. Use crowd control and avoid stressing the healers (don't stand in the bad). If the fights are taking too long, your dps needs more gear. If the tank is dying too quickly, the tank needs more gear. If the healer cannot keep the tank alive, the healer needs more gear. These are straight forward. However, one of the ways to compensate for any of the above, is to reduce the number of mobs that are pounding the health out of the tank at a rate that the healer cannot replace fast enough. Crowd control. Thus, set up your groups accordingly - you will want at least two cc'ers.

Knowledge Management:

When you learn a new way to do a fight or a way to pull / etc: Share that in guild chat with others. Share your knowledge so that more guild members can gear and clear. Be attentive to what the other roles are doing and pass that information on (e.g. if you see a tank do something that was very effective, pass that on if they are not in our guild and if they are, encourage them to share that tip with others).

Heroics are very demanding and they take a long time right now. We are very fortunate to have absolutely amazing and fabulous players in our guild that bring a great attitude and sense of humor into these demanding and stressful situations. Don't be afraid to ask for help or laugh at when the group failsauces. It's good times in there, however come prepared so that it does not just wear on your repair bills!

Former guild structure retired

noreply@blogger.com (Guild Master) — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 02:26:00 +0000

Effective immediately, the by-laws, ranks and rules listed on the old guild forums are retired. By way of background, there have been many incarnations of structure the different leaderships of the guild have used in order to bring everyone the most satisfaction we can through the belonging we call colloquially “our guild”. The previous manifestation of said structure was created by those of us currently serving the guild in our capacity as officers and was created as a means to immediately assume the roles of officers and share the weight of leading the guild at a time of sudden change in order to prevent the guild closing its doors. However, the tenets upon which the structure was based were never fully realized and the by-laws were not given their full support nor exercise. Since then, the guild has prospered and returned to a healthy state and the former structure is obsolete and past its time.

The guild is currently structured in that traditional incarnation of a sole guild leader supported by active officers and the great people that make our guild such a wonderful and rewarding experience. We are evaluating whether to create a new home for our forums which would contain newly published rules; meanwhile, our traditions and culture continue to be in place and drive our behaviors: respect, fun and reliability.

Recruiting

noreply@blogger.com (Guild Master) — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 02:23:00 +0000

In less than two weeks, we all have an opportunity to once again enjoy the wonders of leveling and gearing at end cap! As you level and gear to re-start raiding at level 85, your paths will cross with a myriad of types of players - some kind and some inconsiderate. We would like to attract and retain the respectful, kind and fun players! We encourage you to keep an active eye open for the kinds of players that you think we would enjoy spending hours with in raids and in vent, or just in general guild chat with. As always, the foundational characteristics of players we seek are respectful, fun and reliable.

Watch for players we should invite into the guild and let both them know and an officer know right away so that we can chat with them and get them into the guild before they get lost in the leveling shuffle.

Everyone in the guild has the power to recommend someone for a guild invitation. Sergeants and Officers can approach and invite players to join the guild.

Officers: Reminder to give potential new guild members your utmost attention if within your ability at the moment and to make a note in their Officer Note field as to who referred them. If at the moment, you cannot spend the requisite time to discuss the guild and themselves, set a time when you will both do so and follow up with the person making the referral.

On Comings and Goings

noreply@blogger.com (Guild Master) — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 02:19:00 +0000

With the arrival of the Cataclysm expansion, we fully expect that long-time dormant players will return to the game - some of whom have their toons in our guild and some that do not. There will be all kinds of comings and goings. You should expect to see some people re-activate their accounts and stay in guild, and some will leave to be with friends that had departed in the past or been removed. Some re-activations will return to KOU from having left at a prior time. Active players may leave to be with old friends returning to the game and some will return to KOU for the same reasons.

Remember that just as re-activations will be people familiar to some and unknown to others, many of us will also be unfamiliar to them and some will be quite familiar. Our guild has changed significantly since the time when many players went inactive and has also stayed the same. Our structure and leadership has changed; our principles of respect, fun and reliability have not.

Changes of this magnitude can have unsettling effects and foster uncertainty. They are also opportunities to be times of great fun and reunions. Throughout all the comings and goings, KOU will be here and we wish everyone a happy holiday season and fun times during these cataclysmic changes!

We look forward to the exciting times ahead and to raiding the new content together.