Preparation for Shadowlands - Guild Admin

[Poisonenvy]

As the launch date for the new expansion has now been confirmed, I'm going to take this opportunity to remind everyone of a bit of forthcoming guild maintenance, and also some potential tweaks for guild raiding in the new expansion.

Firstly, the maintenance, as always happens just prior to, or just after, launch:

• The roster will have a clearout.  Any members who do not return for the pre-expansion patch are considered unlikely to return for the expansion itself, and unless their main is already tagged as coming back in the near future, run the risk of being removed from the guild.  The clearout will happen either just after the new expansion launches or, more likely (because I'd prefer to actually play rather than do admin during the first few days of a new expansion!) just prior.
  
  
• If you do not intend/are unable to come back prior to the new expansion release date, however, would like to remain in the guild, please contact me as a matter of urgency.
  
  
• The usual rules for removal will apply - I will check all of your linked alts to make sure none have been active within the qualifying timeframe.  Please ensure all of your alts are linked to your main (your "main" generally being the character you first joined our guild with).  "Inactivity" will be deemed as around a month for the first rank, and around 4-6 months for any rank higher.  Please contact me if you're unsure.
  
  
• The "Werewolf" rank will be reset.  Any character currently in that rank will be transferred back to either Wolf or Wolf Alt rank, in order to prepare for a new raiding "season".  In Shadowlands, characters can then attain the Werewolf rank as normal, ie, already be a Wolf/Wolf Alt rank and actively raid ("active" meaning on a regular basis as and when you can .. taking into account real life, jobs, etc).
  
  
• Guild Vault clearout.  Items within the raider tab, and various other items from tabs such as Food/Buffs, will be cleared out and sold either on the Auction House or vendored.  Other tabs will be thinned a little to allow for new materials from the new expansion.   Please check the guild vault and, if there's anything you need for personal use, for your characters (ie, not to transfer outside of the guild either to a non-guild character or to sell), please feel free to take.  A Fair Use Policy IS expected to be followed.  Taking a full stack of high quality gems, for example, will not be deemed as "fair use".
  
  

Secondly, we're considering tweaking the guild raiding rules a little, to allow a fairer raid experience:

• We have some members who only raid with us.  We also have some members who raid regularly elsewhere (ie, with another guild or a regularly organised external group from a discord channel, community, forum, etc).  At the start of an expansion there is often competition for raid spaces within the guild, so in order to make it fairer for those who solely raid with Dark Wolves, we'd like to ask, as a voluntary initiative, that those who raid primarily elsewhere sign up to raid events initially as tentative.  This would allow those whose only raiding opportunity is with us, get priority access to that opportunity.  I foresee that, initially, this may not be a problem, as some will level faster than others, and later on will also not be a problem as the initial rush wanes .. however, there is potentially a point in time where raids could well be oversubscribed and I'd like to call on those who are willing, who already raid elsewhere, to allow others the chance at a raid.  Once a raid group has been established for a particular event, if there are spaces, then those who had signed tentative are welcome then to join if they wish.  Again, this is purely voluntary, and just a suggestion, and may well not even be required.  However, it is worth doing that little bit of preparation in case it is.
  
  
• We are currently unaware of any raiding requirements going into Shadowlands, however, what often seems to be the case with a raid is that the last one or two bosses are harder than the previous ones, and drop higher level loot.  Up until now we've not differentiated between the earlier and later bosses, however we feel that this is wrong.  The later level bosses, due to their difficulty level, should also require a higher gear level.  Therefore, once the new raids have been assessed, we may well be placing a higher gear level requirement on those later bosses.  Basically this would mean that, if we are running a raid and fully expect to get to those higher level bosses, the higher level requirements would be in place.  However, if we just happen to get to them anyway, during an event with the lower level bosses, we're not going to remove anyone from the group at that point.  Please note that a higher gear level doesn't just have an impact on output, but also on survivability - and output is worth nothing if you're dead most of the fight.
  
  

If anyone has any comments, suggestions or questions, please feel free to mention below or speak to me direct.