As some of you know and others of you may have noticed,  I haven't been online much lately.  I am dealing with an explosion of soap opera in my real life.  Thus, many of the things I was excited about implementing as a new guild leader are stalled at the moment.

For now, I still intend to make all raid nights I can, and I hope to work back towards my old schedule as soon as real life allows.  I don't really know how long that will be.  In the meantime, take any questions or issues to an officer, and I'd like to give a big thanks to Kinral, Hilldelver, Syn, Crispin, and any others who have stepped up to organize various events and raids in my absence.

Be excellent to each other, party on, etc.

1157 Views | 11 Replies

Some of you may have noticed that I've been editing the guild rank system.  Guild ranks are the first of three changes I'm planning to make in the near future--stay tuned for announcements about guild repair help and about an actual system (not just a forum thread) for becoming a raider if you want to.  

Stalwart Shall Not Change

Stalwart has always been a social guild that was friendly to raiders--that is, until Cataclysm forced us to become a social guild that is also a raiding guild.  Or a raiding guild that is friendly to socials.  Or a social guild with some raids in it.  Or some raids with a social guild around them.  You see the problem, I hope.  It becomes fuzzier, I think, just what we are doing, and who we are here for, and why, other than the guild perks, we are doing it together.  But I believe we can still be a social guild friendly to (successful) raiders, and I have plans to get back to that place.

Transparency

Part of the solution is to borrow some of the structure found in raiding guilds, which exists to make the workings of the guild as transparent and objective as possible. Streamlining the process of how raids form and how they recruit will help the raids succeed without overshadowing the community as a whole.  I needed the ranks solid before we can get into that, though, so let's start small for now.

Ideally, you can look at the new ranks and understand immediately what roles they describe.  They are heavily based on the former ones--in fact, most of them have exactly the same function.  I'm a little sad to lose the ambiance of the old ones, but I don't think we can get away with fanciful rank names anymore--it is too important, now that the guild has grown, for everything to be absolutely clear.

On a related subject, I'll also be working to standardize guild notes.  All alts should be the same rank as the main, except in the case of Rated to Raid.  Alts of a Rated to Raid character will be noted in their officer note.  If you have the permissions to help me with this, please do =)

The Ranks:

Empress
--Omnipotent.  Obviously.  Like a Duke, but female, and nicely alliterative with "Elnore."  All bucks stop here, so do let me know if one is trying to sneak by.

Officer
--This is the new name of the "Regent" rank.  Officers have long, respected standing, and they give of their time and effort to help organize events, keep Stalwart running smoothly, and preserve the sanity of the Empress.  They are often experts in their class/role, and along with the Empress, are definitely the ones to go to if you are having problems with another guildie or with a guild policy.  May invite, promote, and demote.  May also be a crafter or raid leader.

Crafter
--New name for "Artisan".  A Crafter is a Veteran who is likely a recipe completionist and who has agreed to do guild crafting without tip (though guildies may need to provide mats).  Rare Crafting bank access.  May invite.

Raid Leader
--The new name of the "Captain" rank.  This person is a Veteran who happens to be organizing a raid--and this is the only Veteran rank required to be Rated to Raid, for reasons that should be obvious.  Raid Materials bank access, able to see officer notes.  May invite.

Veteran
--The new name for "Thane." Veteran rank labels a person who is probably a good resource in terms of how to play a class, optimize a spec, find a particular flight point, etc, but gives them no official responsibilities other than maintaining the guild spirit they already had. Common bank tabs access. May invite.

Rated to Raid ***Still Under Construction***
--A Member's character who has met or exceeded raiding benchmarks for their class and role.  Raiding characters ranked Veteran or above will be noted as Rated for Raiding in their officer note.  This is not a guarantee of a raid spot, but merely a label for both active raiders and characters ready to break into raiding.  It *is* a guarantee that you will be approached to sub when your class is needed and seriously considered when regular raid spots open up.  Nobody carries this rank yet, not even current raiders.  A future news post will explain further.

Member
--Formerly called "Knight." A Recruit who has reached honored with the guild and is clearly a good social fit with other Stalwarts will be made a full Member and given access to bank tabs 1-5. If you are a Recruit who needs your rank bumped (and there are probably quite a few of you), please notify an officer.

Recruit
--Formerly called "Yeoman." A newly assimilated guildie who has bank viewing and deposit but no access without assistance.  Anyone inviting a new recruit should put the sponsoring Stalwart's name in his or her guild note.

Retired
--A player who has deactivated his or her account, or who hasn't logged in on anything for over a month.  No bank withdrawal, because hackers suck.

2066 Views | 20 Replies

I has been awhile since my last update, twenty days in fact. Since my last post we have all survived the holidays for better or worse. Hoping everyone had a good time, and we all seemed to come back in one piece. The guild has definately been hopping with activity in that time period. I could tell we were extremly active when we would cap out our daily guild experience by 9 am on most of the holiday days. As a result of this activity we have knocked down a whole bunch of achievements that I want to brag on my guildies for.



Going to start off with the big one. As of posting this we are a rank 10 guild, with all the perks that it entails. As of last night we were bearing down on rank 11 with fury. I am so proud of us, because since the release of cataclysm we have easily capped out our guild experience each and every day. This puts us in the top tier of guilds as far as activity goes on our server. Based on wowcensus we are the 5th biggest guild on Argent Dawn, but I would be surprised if anyone could match our levels of activity.

I want to take a moment to congratulate all the folks who have leveled one or more characters to 85. Can you believe that we have 98 characters at maximum level? I know we have been seeing almost daily achievements as folks reach level 85, but when I took the time to count them up I was honestly shocked. It is taking some time for me to get adjusted to the notion that somehow we have transitioned from "the little engine that could" to a veritable powerhouse.



Another big achievement that feels good to get behind us is Critter Killer. I know each of us has been going out of our way to whack the little fellows as we run dungeons, quest, and tradeskill. We have known about a way to cheat our way to this achievement, due to a bug, but I am proud to say that we managed to get this one 100% legitimately. Now maybe the cute little critters can get a break from our mass slaughter.... naaaaah. One thing is certain, once we start hitting exalted with the guild we will be able to purchase the adorable Armadillo Pup



As an additional result of all the activity we managed to get the profit sharing achievement and unlock the Guild Herald. This is an upgraded version of the existing Guild Page we have had for awhile, with the key difference of being able to summon it twice as often (4 hour timer instead of . This is yet another reason to faction up to exalted with the guild.



Thanks to all our resident faction whores, we managed to get the United Nations achievement as soon as our player base started to reach revered with the guild. This unlocks the very desired Dark Phoenix Hatchling pet as soon as a player reaches exalted. Nice to see the OCD of our faction conscious players has paid off yet again!



This one is a bit dated now, but still worth mentioning. Thanks to all our players for pushing up those tradeskills quickly to 525 and unlocking this achievement. This got us another battle standard, the Banner of Cooperation that is purchasable at friendly with the guild. This will help players push through those levels, and honor grinds a bit faster. In the next patch they will be adding rep gains to these battle standards, which will start to benefit all those 85s that got us the achievement.



More specifically within the tradeskill community, our cooks have been slaving over those hot stoves all hours of the night to get us this achievement. This is a follow on to the achievement that earned the guild cooks the excellent Broiled Dragon Feast. Our fishers are feverishly working on fishing those pools to earn our guild That's A Lot of Bait which will unlock the upgrade pattern Seafood Magnifique Feast. At last count we were well over halfway to the 10,000 fish from pools.

Raiding

Our raid teams are starting to pull things together, and some beginning to raid or at least do heroics as a team on their scheduled nights. Within the next few weeks we should start to see a large volume of activity surrounding this. As said before the various guild 10 man teams are autonomous units and if you are interested in joining a forming team, or filling in please talk to the individual captains. Currently the teams that are formed or forming are.

Team........................Schedule................................Captains
Hillamorah..................Friday 9pm-Midnight...................Hilldelver, Elnore
Littlerock...................Tues/Thurs 9pm-Midnight Server.....Steakknife, Thalen
Melybelnore...............Tues/Thurs 9pm-Midnight Server......Melyloss, Elnore, Belgrave
Oldschool Aggression.....Friday/Sunday 8pm-11pm Server......Tamien



Last update I mentioned that several guild members had participated in our first Baradin Hold run. However due to the kill happening at like 4 am, we were unable to get a full guild group together. Since then we have fielded numerous all guild, and mostly guild Baradin Hold raids. These are always quickly thrown together, and form from guildchat, so congrats to those who have been lucky enough to be online while we have held the illusive Tol Barad.



Some of our raiders have start to make progress in the Blackwing Descent dungeon. Hopefully we will start to see more of those names crossed off that achievement along with other zones as well. Magmaw is a relatively tough encounter, with alot of situational awareness and volumes of furious healing. Gratz to our folks for pushing through it.




A tradition we are carrying over from Duranub is the Artists Recreation. It started from us downing a new boss in Icecrown, that no one remembered to take a screenshot of. After weeks of listening to folks asking me to post a screenshot of the kill, I resorted to creating my own. I thought maybe the tradition would die with our previous raid group, but through much begging I have agreed to keep doing them. So here is the artists recreation for Magmaw.

Thank You All

I just wanted to take a quick few moments to thank each and every one of you for making House Stalwart the success it is today. It could never have existed all these 6+ years were it not for the hardwork and dilligence of it's members. Bravo to you all.

2118 Views | 16 Replies

It's been another wild week here in House Stalwart. The guild and its members all continue to level at breakneck speed. We currently sit at guild level 6, with 415 characters in guild, 59 who have reached level 85. Just want to give out a general bravo to everyone for pulling together quickly. It makes me happy to look out amongst the guild and see 3 or 4 groups going strong, running heroics, or level 85 normal zones.


With guild rank 5 came the ability to buy a 7th bank tab slot. I want to take a moment to recognize Bezaleel, who jumpstarted the plan to purchase the bank slot by purchasing it for us himself. As a result bank tabs 1-5 are now open to general access, with 6 and 7 being restricted items. This gives us alot more room to spread out, so everyone should send him a tell of thanks.


Another big accomplishment of the week was earning our Dungeon Diplomat achievement. This involved pushing up each of the new factions to exalted, in addition to having all the old dungeon factions at exalted before. In order to qualify guild members had to be at honored rank, and sure enough as the first few reached that level we got this one out of the way.


As folks have geared up to 329 there has been a flury of heroic action in the guild. As a result we also knocked out the Guild Cataclysm Dungeon Hero achievement. It's good to see everyone progressing through the heroic ranks, and getting the much needed upgrades that will allow us to move into raid content.


And last but NOT least... at a hellaciously late hour several guild members noticed that we for once owned Baradin Hold in Tol Barad. So a plan was hatched to pull together our first kill of the first boss, Pit Lord Argaloth. After a few wipes we managed to pull out a victory by a number of very very sleepy players. While the hour of the night kept us from getting a full guild group, it was a major victory nonetheless.

1546 Views | 3 Replies

Today is the one week mark.  We've had 7 days worth of time spent in the new cataclysm content and our guild members and shot off like rockets.  I just wanted to take a quick moment to congratulate all the players who got a character to 85 in this first week.


Ahinoam
Argyan
Arilith
Belenie
Belgrave
Bezaleel
Crispin
Dallian
Euron
Giulietta
Glindi
Hilldelver
Kinral
Kylana
Lleandryn
Maxximuss
Melyloss
Nylara
Nysya
Rakuen
Ravener
Snowsanc
Tamien
Thalen
Valanya
Valkkon
Walid

Congratulations folks

1569 Views | 3 Replies