Rules n Regs

[Mossclaw]

It is a lengthy work, but DFC is an outlier in that we are fully covering two gameplay styles – RP and Raiding. Reading this document closely will assist you in determining if our guild is for you. Questions that are raised are always welcome!

• Social R'n'R

• RP R'n'R

• Raiding R'n'R

 

Social R'n'R

For OOC conversations, we have the dfc channel in game and Mumble channels for VoiP. While we are all adults, some common social conventions apply:

• Cursing. Feel free to curse about a thing spontaneously, but do not curse at another player. Moderation is your friend.
  
• Trigger topics/words are never a good idea. Take it to whisper with those you know would not be offended/hurt.
• Drug use, when maturely stated and handled, fine. Step out of line and you will be 86'd.
• Racism/Sexism/Ageism/Homophobia/Hate speech: No.
• Leave room for others. Be aware of your contributions and take note if you find yourself dominating the channel. Encourage participation from others in the channel. Be aware of your social surroundings.
• Harassment is not tolerated at any time and is grounds for immediate dismissal. If someone asks you to stop something - stop it.

The “Safe Word”, is this phrase: “Pull Over”. At any time a member hears this, they should cut off interaction with the player until the player indicates to you that they are ready to speak about what has upset them. 

Escalating disagreements between two members that have been brought to the attention of the Caravan’s leadership will be dealt with by the Caravan Master and one other member, picked and agreed upon by both parties. The issue will be dealt with in the following manner: 

1) The issue(s) will be framed in terms that both parties can agree upon

2) The CM and chosen party will then listen to both sides - without interruption  

3) The CM and chosen party will then ask any questions felt needed for clarification 

4) Each party will be given a chance to add anything they feel has been left out 

5) The CM and chosen party will pass judgement on the issue.  

6) Both parties agree to abide by said judgement. 

If there is a situation that cannot be resolved, assistance will be offered to both parties in finding a guild that is a better fit. 

If the judgement is broken, it is grounds for dismissal.

 

RP R'n'R

The basic premise is simple: would you do it in RL? If not, don’t do it. So.. no, don’t ride your horse into a building or bring your gigantic spider up to the vendor with you. Don’t cover others with your mounts or run through people. Walk when not on the field of battle or engaged in RP that lends a sense of urgency. If you need to go OOC, do so in the privacy of a location that has no traffic, or roll onto an unguilded alt so you can express your joy of jumping around the AH w/out our Guild Tag above your head. 

Guild Channel is IC. Exceptions made only when you are having channel issues, just use your brackets: (( )). 

Whispers are IC. However not everyone shares b-tags, so feel free to use brackets here if you wish to speak OOCly. 

B-tag is always OOC and does not require brackets 

RP spelling/typo corrections and other clarifications: Please use the DFC channel or other, hidden channel for these corrections. Do not bother to correct something if you can understand it, it’s immersion breaking and we all know that you can spell “from” and that when you mangled that word, at least you nailed it phonetically. ~.^ 

Separate your emotes from your says. This is critically important for when we begin to tie things together through the use of logs. 

The Caravan Tag is operated on the telepathy model, not a mic/speaker model 

Beacons are invites. Once you accept a beacon, you can locate a member on your map. 

The Caravan Tile will show roster, rank, and professions – but not location until a beacon is set. 

Treat all walk-up interactions as if they happened whenever possible. Sometimes the event is too brief (someone covering you with a mammoth and then running off), most of the time it’s players that are interjecting themselves into your conversation. Address it, have fun with it, riff off of it. Incorporate it whenever possible, but above all treat it as a challenge to remain in character. 

Players care about how their avatar is coming across – Do not use toys that modify another member’s look or actions w/out their consent.  

Tuesday and Thursday we raid, but time should be spent a bit ahead of the raid for the journey out to the portal, then after the raid as our characters process the evening’s events. Raids burn a lot of energy, so we do not plan events after, but starting a stub of RP will move you nicely into the next evening. Expect to celebrate on an evening that we down a particularly difficult encounter. 

The “Safe Word”, is a phrase: “Pull Over”. We all work hard on our characters and sometimes the RP triggers an RL memory or emotion. We encourage our members to respect this and disengage or pause when another member sees fit to use this phrase. When this happens, just give the player space and wait for them to ask you for what they need or how to continue.

 

Raiding R'n'R

The Caravan has maintained an active, consistent raid schedule for close to four years now. Throughout that time, we have learned and discussed many things within our roster, and have codified decisions regarding how the administration and etiquette of our raid should function. This document will serve as an introduction to what we expect from our members in the raid, and what our members in the raid can expect from the guild. 

What can I expect from the Caravan? 

• A consistent, prompt weekly schedule. Deep Forest Caravan raids weekly every Tuesday and Thursday from 7:00 pm server time to 10:00 pm server time. This does not change week-to-week without discussion from the entire raid, and we both begin promptly at 7:00 and end promptly at 10:00. 

• A consistent, logical loot system. Deep Forest Caravan utilizes Suicide Kings to distribute our loot. For a more thorough explanation on what this entails, please see the end of this document. 

• Provided flasks, potions, food, enchantments, and gems. Deep Forest Caravan provides all consumables and enhancements for their members. However, we do ask that all members help with acquiring the materials to make these in whatever way they can - whether through playing the Auction House, farming them, or using shoulder enchants to passively get goods. 

• An atmosphere that encourages learning. Deep Forest Caravan is a training guild – meaning we emphasize improvement rather than immediate performance. Everyone we take in is a long-term investment, and we analyze combat logs, seek out insight, and work with individuals to ensure they have all the tools needed to become better raiders. 

• An understanding of outside circumstance. Part of the Caravan’s philosophy is that our hobbies, including World of Warcraft, should enhance our life – not diminish it. We all have jobs, families, and other commitments that may occasionally prevent us from raiding. This is normative and all we expect is to be informed as to any schedule shifts as far in advance as you are able. 

 

What does the Caravan expect from me? 

In short: We do not ask that you be the best, but we do ask that you bring your best. DFC is, at its core, a training guild – meaning there will always be some level of breadth to the level of skill and experience in our raid. “Get good” is not a phrase we use unironically. However, we expect every member to put in their best effort in our raids. 

Here is how we define “bringing our best:” 

Before the boss: 

• Have a familiarity with the mechanics of each boss we will be doing that night. Familiarity does not mean “ability to execute flawlessly,” but all raid members should have at least watched videos or read guides and have at least a passing mental picture of how the fight should function. 

• Have a familiarity with your class and spec. As a rule, raid members are permitted to run whichever spec they like, regardless of where said spec parses on the meters. However, with that freedom comes the expectation that a raider will play their spec to the best of their ability. In practice, this means following the stat priority, talents, pet choices, etc. of the current reliable resource until we see solid performance - on both the DPS and “Damage Taken” meters. When solid performance is attained, then raid members may tweak and experiment to enhance their gameplay further.  

• This familiarity should also extend to a DPS offspec if a raid member wishes to main a tank or a healer - as the number of positions for those roles are limited, and we would rather not have to sit raiders because adding them would be too much healing, etc. Additionally, if a DPS main wishes to offspec into tanking or healing, we welcome and will accommodate that. 

• Come with consumables and item enhancements ready to use – and plenty of them. Deep Forest Caravan provides its members with all raid consumables, enchantments, and gems for free. However, our raid time is very precious to us, and our raids can quickly grind to a halt if every member must stop to take food out of the guild bank. As a rule, every raid member should enter the raid with enough consumables to reasonably get them through that night of raiding. All gear should be enchanted, and all gem slots filled before the raid begins, barring reasonable scheduling conflicts. 

During the boss: 

• Have fun being a cog. We are all friends with each other in this guild, and it is natural and acceptable to want to joke and have fun with friends when they are all gathered. However, the purpose of raid nights is not to have fun with shenanigans and horseplay – it is to have fun raiding. Things such as: killing people as a joke, pulling extra mobs as a joke, and cluttering mumble/raid chat while we are “on” impedes the fun of raiding and wastes everyone’s time. Raiders should be in the raid because they like raiding, not because it provides a platform for their comedy. 

• Keep talking to a minimum when we are “on”. Every boss fight in every raid, regardless of difficulty, requires intense focus and precise coordination. Therefore, anything that impedes such focus must be discouraged, such as lamenting the bullshit way you died, how good your DPS is, etc. By all means, call out pertinent information, but always strive to keep callouts short and concise. 

• Keep all communication respectful and positive. As stated before, we are all here to have a good time. Things such as spamming the raid leaders with whispers, linking damage meters, blame-gaming, or vocally wishing we would do something easier are counter to that good time. 

After the boss: 

• Move on to the next encounter quickly. Because of the way we conduct loot, the loot master is the only one who needs to touch the dead boss for everyone to receive their gear. Therefore, there is no reason for the raid to sit there to receive drops or look at what’s on the boss – we could spend that time clearing the next boss’s trash instead. Resses also fall under this category – if you do not receive one in a reasonable time, simply release and start running. You will never be far from the rest of the raid, and it prevents someone from needing to run back to help you specifically. 

• Keep the channel we’re doing loot in clear. It is natural to be in a good mood after a boss fight, but no one can get their gear if they don’t know what gear has been dropped. Excessive spam and talking while loot is going out makes a 1-2 minute process take exponentially longer for no reason. 

• Enchant and gem your new gear later. If you have bought enchants and gems ahead of time, you obviously may use them on upgrades on the spot, but we cannot halt the raid to make these things for a single person. While this may seem counterintuitive, consider that, until you got that drop, you were fully prepared to do the entire raid without it. It will not hurt much to wait the extra hour or so for the next break to go buy these things. 

 

You mentioned Suicide Kings. What is that? 

 Suicide Kings is a method of distributing raid loot in a method that is guaranteed to be fair, unbiased, and low-maintenance in its application. It is named after the King of Hearts in a deck of playing cards (the “Suicide King”) and works as follows: 

1. At the beginning of the tier, all raid members will roll. 

2. These rolls will be seeded into a table, with the highest roll at the top and the lowest roll at the bottom. 

3. When a piece of gear drops, all members for whom that piece is an upgrade will indicate that the want it by typing “1” in raid chat. 

4. The person who typed “1” and is highest on the list will “suicide” for that piece of gear, receiving it to use and moving to the bottom of the list. 

Deep Forest Caravan also uses several modifications of this system: 

• Separate lists are used for normal gear, tier gear, and relics to prevent the “saving” of spots on the list. 

• A raider on the list can only move around those who are present at the raid to prevent absent members from trending toward the top. 

• When a new raider joins mid-tier, they are placed at the bottom of the suicide list. 

We have found that this loot system leaves no room for drama, as it is automated, and guarantees an even distribution of gear across the raid so that everyone advances at roughly the same pace. 

 

What is your policy on pugging? 

 Our current policy on pugging – raiding and receiving loot with a group outside of the Caravan – was the result of a very long deliberation between our members. Eventually we reached a compromise in the form of two rules:  

• We ask that raiders do not pug content on their mains that we have not downed as a guild. For example, if we as a guild have cleared 3 bosses of a heroic raid, we ask that members do not pug the 4th, 5th, 6th, etc. bosses of that raid. Pugging the first three bosses is acceptable, and as we progress further into the instance, pugging further will be allowed.

• We ask that no pugging be done until we are done raiding for the week. While we understand that all the “good pugs” happen on Tuesday, having raiders already saved to a boss going into the raid reduces the amount of loot we will get for killing it, and therefore reduces the chance of someone who has not pugged receiving gear.

We have found that this policy will create the most consistent and level field for our members to participate in. Any questions on these policies may be directed to any officer (Outrider rank and above) at any time.