I've been thinking about leading some raids for my guild in EQ. I have a lot of thoughts on the matter. I will eventually share them with the other raid leaders but I want to compose them first.

The most important thing to consider when you lead raids in EQ is that you are leading people who have VOLUNTEERED to follow you. They aren't conscripts, they have a choice. Their commitment to following you will have, quite reasonably, limits. People play games to have fun. Your job is to organize the fun... not to take it away. This is a HARD task.

Things I have learned watching our raid leaders:

First things first: This, like anything else set down in writing, is bound for obsolescence. Plan for it. ADAPT. Being dogmatic will screw you.

Delegate - More than one or two groups and you aren't going to be able to do all the things that need to be done quickly enough or without going Nuts.

Know your Target - Duh.

Plan - Know the strategies you want to use ahead of time. Plan for the things you know WILL happen. Plan for the things that MAY happen (Inny's up? Let's get him). Be ready to adapt.

Communicate - THIS IS CRITICAL. Tell the people you have delegated authority to their part of the PLAN. You want groups made a specific way, TELL the group maker ahead of time. You want the OAAs to stomp on specific bad behaviors, TELL them ahead of time. Might even be useful on big raids to have all the raid leaders meet the day before.

Communicate - Part 2. Tell the raid what's going on. People get restive if they have to warm their butts while you make decisions. Restive people leave to do other things. Keep the raid informed as best you can.

Lead - Listen to advice but don't let people take things out of your hands. You might be wrong but letting this happen slows down a raid by causing confusion when the masses get mixed messages. Do not let people take your authority, period.

Stay Calm - Sure, things need to happen quickly but don't let anyone rush you. Take the time to do things right and stay calm. Hell, try to have fun, even.

Things that are guaranteed to happen on raids:

Some people will be late. Decide ahead of time how you want to handle this.

People will fiddlefuck around when you've told them to do something and report to you. You have no choice but allow some of this. They're individuals. Try to keep it to a minimum and plan to acommodate that amount of time. This is a game not the marines.

People that aren't you or people you've delegated authority to will try and give orders. Squash them. Even if they aren't giving bad orders make them stop otherwise they won't hesitate to do it again... and that time their orders may not be so good.

Someone will flip out. Raids are stressful. Plan for it. Do your damnedest to make sure it's not you. Call a break if you need it. Half the guild will want to pee, smoke, or eat by the time you're tired anyway.

People will not listen to orders. Nothing to be done about this in most cases, when it comes right down to it. It's not that they don't want to listen... they don't really care. They just don't always hear orders or take them that seriously or feel compelled to carry them out in a timely manner. One idea is to spam them with the orders. This should irritate them enough to do whatever you're asking just to shut you up. *shrug*

Some Specifics That May Be Useful

Ask your raid to turn off everything but the channels you want to use. I bet this makes a 50% improvement in how well people listen. We'll see.

Debrief after raids. This is something Maeg does that I think is very useful. Take comments and advice at this point... not during raids.

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