Builders League United - Let's Talk About BLUnacy

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But first, exposition

Some of you may remember me briefly posting about some burnout associated with raiding as a member of Caffeine; those who watched my posts carefully (like stalker-level careful) might have noticed when the word officer got crossed out and replaced with member. Not long afterwards I reappeared as a member of the Horde again. This is all related. We had a guild merger, it didn’t go quite as planned, guild went kaboom, I left (though not without a bit of soul-searching, and a contact to my GM and ex-GM). Caffeine was good while it lasted, but I knew something had changed it from the guild I liked being in to one that I didn’t, and I knew I had to pin down what it was.

The first step, however, was going Horde-side again. Sorry, Alliance - I did an extended tour of duty on your side of things, I saw Outland and Northrend as a member of the Alliance, but I’m back where I belong now. Lok’tar ogar and all that.

The second step was figuring out what I really wanted.

What I really wanted

Looking back, all the times I had left a guild could really be boiled down to short list of flaws:

  1. Guild attempted to transition from a 10-man guild to a 25-man guild, and did so by absorbing anyone and everyone who would raid, bringing in unfamiliar and often non-meshing elements to what had been a small, familial guild.

  2. Guild had gone from casual raiding times to hardcore raiding times, affecting my sleep patterns and thus my actual, outside-the-game life - including work.

  3. Guild master had in fact gone insane.

Barring number 3, I knew the best way to avoid the flaws I didn’t like was to start a guild that would start with the principles I wanted to install in a guild. Hopefully that would keep #3 from ever happening. So, settling in on Cenarion Circle, I grabbed a guild charter and started forming an idea.

Enter BLU

BLU Starting a guild is the easy part.

I took a look around at other guilds that seemed like they probably would satisfy what I wanted, and examined some of their principles. Of particular inspiration was House Stalwart of Argent Dawn, which I learned a good deal about from Belghast (who probably never knew I was cribbing ideas from him – thanks Bel ;)). I also had a read through Scott Andrews’ The Guild Leader’s Handbook on my lunch breaks (thanks, Kindle version). Here’s what I had in mind:

  • I wanted a guild without a huge, crushing amount of rules that a member has to obey or suffer the gkick. Basically, BLU’s two rules boiled down to -

    1. If you want to join, someone in the guild has to vouch for you, and

    2. Don’t be a dick.

  • I wanted a small, familiar guild. I like people saying hi to each other, congratulating each other, partying up and just generally doing stuff. I want to know who people are when they sign on. Rule #1 would help with that, but I think it helps to narrow the focus more: Builders League United will be a 10-man raiding guild in Cataclysm. I prefer to wrangle that number of cats, plus it means we don’t have to get huge before we’re able to do anything.

  • I want the game to remain a game, without impinging on real life. If people want to have marathon 8-hour gaming sessions five days a week, far be it from me to discourage it - but it won’t be because they’re raiding that much. BLU is going to have intentionally few raiding sessions, with the idea being that during raiding time, Serious Business takes place. Show up, know your spec, know the fights, execute well, and you don’t have to have marathon raiding sessions keeping people up until 2, 3, 4 in the morning.

So that’s the core ideas I had in mind when I started Builders League United.

Technically recruiting

My joking reply when someone says, “what do you need?” is “warm bodies.” I’ve done little to no promotion of BLU until this post; we’ve mostly been growing by word of mouth. Still, there’s only so far word of mouth can go. So here’s the deal. If you’re interested in

  • a non-enormous, friendly, Horde-side guild

  • raiding 10-man raids in Cataclysm (and, most likely, heroics before that)

  • doing other fun stuff (for guild achievements!), even if it’s not cutting-edge

  • hanging out with fun people online

  • not feeling pressured to raid for huge amounts of time per week

  • being a cool cat

then Builders League United is interested in you. On the other hand, if you’re interested in

  • raiding exclusively 25-mans

  • being a dick

then I recommend you look elsewhere. ;) However! If you’re looking for an Alliance guild like this? I encourage you to check out Pix’s Hilarity Ensues - it’s a lot like this, but Alliance side.

Oh, and since everyone on the Guild Recruitment channel seems to think it’s necessary: we do, in fact, have a tabard. Five bank tabs, too. Most of ‘em even have stuff in them.

Let’s talk about the guild

Are you on the fence? Got questions? Need an invite? I’m really, really easy to contact, I promise.

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