Guild Name: Scarlet Phoenix
Server: The Rathe (Karana)
Guild Leader's Name: Boornador How did your guild name get chosen?
The name was chosen by a group of members/officers of a previous guild that had disbanded our original name intended was Crimson Phoenix - We chose Phoenix because we arose after the parent guild we came from had disbanded. I was the GL of that guild and left which caused an unfortunate chain reaction ultimately leading to the death of our former incarnation. So SP was born out of adverse circumstances. Are you the original leader of the guild?
Yes, I made the original application and petition to the GM's for the formation of the guild. When did your guild come into existence?
We were officially born on February 3rd, 2005 2 days after our original parent guild disbanded. Do you have a website dedicated for your guild?
Sure do and quite a nice one - www.scarletphoenix.org How many members do you have in your guild?
We have about 100-120 Active mains and a total membership of 475 toons this includes most alts and some trader toons. We also manage an applicant guild to house our applicants during the application period and to provide them with guild portal usage etc. What kind of ranking system do you have? Is there much opportunity for advancement within the guild?
We have a VERY small guild leadership structure. 2 Guildleaders and 2 officers (ideally we want about 4-5 in total but never had more than 4 active officers). Sometimes too many chefs in the kitchen spoil the souflette. We also employ a raid leader team of about 8 Raidleaders and we have a class leader for each class to help in coordination at raids of class specific roles and to field class specific questions and mentoring to our applicants. What are your current recruiting goals?
We have an excellent class balance over all - we are looking for 2 more raiding enchanters, 1-2 better solid SK's and 2 Bards and I think we are golden. SP does not however "recruit". We open classes up and that is the extent of our advertisement - oh and we do use the LFPlayer tool in the guild lobby so I suppose we do market ourselves somewhat. Does your guild have a 'charter' and other rules that you abide by to help hold the team together?
Yes, it is found on our website. What are some benefits that your guild offers that other guilds don't?
I think we have an excellently structured guild; policies are well thought out and attempt to be fair to all members. We have a great loot system that rewards players essentially via participation but has its own built in "balancing" process. Basically, raid participants earn DKP per kill shot of each named and then accumulate those points - we use a silent bidding system. In this system the more you raid the more DKP you earn and thus the more buying power you. The responsibility of how you spend that DKP is on the member is not governed by leadership. So I make nmo decision about who gets what as long as your bid beats mine it, you win regardless of whether the item is "better " suited for me if it is more of an upgrade for me. I have repeatedly found that leadership decisions around loot often end with drama. Something we have a minimum of here. Does your guild exist in other games?
No, EQ takes an enormous amount of my time and running this guild even with all of the help I have from our leadership team still takes me the equivalent of a full time job each week. I think everyone else puts probably an equal amount of time. What type of guild do you have, i.e. family, casual raiders, hardcore raider, etc.?
We are NON-MANDATORY raiding guild but with strong ties of family and friendship. In this type of guild you have to grow and cultivate a guild of probably double raid size to fill a raid regularly. That means more gearing up and more time spent procuring flags for a larger base. One would think this would drag our progression down but I don't think it has. We have steadily been among the fastest moving guilds on this server. We will never be number one on the server but that is not our goal, Ill settle for top 5. I think we are closing on that position. What content are you currently working on in the game?
We are currently in Demi-Plane Tier 1 - Redfang is evil... but we did kill all but Redfang in side of 3 weeks in the zone so I cannot complain about our progress. We are farming Vishimtar weekly, and starting to push into flagging towards Deathknell albeit we have a ways to go there. Is role playing an important aspect for your guild?
Not at all. Can you go through some of your great battles and quests you've conquered as a guild?
Oh we have won some events where we were SURE we were wiping and I thought I have no idea how we recovered. A few recent ones: WE went in a few months ago to "practice" Master Vule, It was our 2nd or 3rd attempt on him. I think 3rd. We had 38 people only but wanted to poke and see how we did we got him to 21% Sooooo, I said well there is no way I'm leaving here tonight without a kill. SO we rezzed up came back and we lost about 10 people and gained like 4 so we ended with 32 people in zone. Kinda got discouraged but gave the pep talk and we went in and pulled out our first win. Another, great kill was our "practice run" of Queen Sendaai back in December - we had 43 people figured not going to win this but lets see how we can do controllilng Wave 3 rather than having it control us. Well, we should have wiped so many times (3 in total) but we got through wave 3 with very little information about dealing with her directly. So, we were wiping again and off-tanked Queen while we got the whole raid up medded up and rebuffed. Finally, we engaged and my heart was pumping through the whole fight it was pure and total chaos and when that Green text Pop-Up came up, I think you could hear screams all over the US. We had a funny almost uneventful Vish kill last week. WE have done this event enough that we don't even get concerned until the final 25% and even then we have gotten real calm about it. So, we push thru it everyone is doing great 1 death perhaps the whole fight nothing to be concerned about. Vish is at 5% and I hear "Omg, an Egg hatched" I jumped out of my chair to look around and to see who am I going to start healing by that time 6-8 epople had already been killed and we had the chain reaction wipe incoming .. Vish was at 3% - we were not even sure if had done enough cures but all the RL'ers start spamming BURN VISH! BURN VISH! I kept spamming /who and we went from 46 to 36 to 30 to 25 and we won by a hair with 21 in zone and a Paladin kiting 4 drakes 5 drakelings and about 12 skellies. Great times. How often does your guild participate in these events on a weekly basis?
We raid 6 nites a week, Sundays are free. Summer time we reduce our schedule to 5 days... weekends free for family summer time fun. We also rotate 2 free nites on a bi-weekly basis scheduled in advance to allow time for members to spend with family, work on quests etc. We raid during a 4 hrs window per raid nite. Who would you say is the toughest battle you have encountered?
So far I'd have to say the 5 toughest battles we have done to date: 1. Redfang
2. Queen Sendaii
3. Vishimtar
4. Jelvan's Tormentors Event in Anguish - we used to need the "perfect" class balance now we move it down with half a raid force and a hodgepodge (no pun intended) of mixed classes.
5. Vrex Barxt Qurat What your most exciting event you can recall with your guild. Something that makes you think back and say to yourself, "This is why I play this game..."
Beating Uqua was an incredible rush for us. Of course so was beating Sendaii - its the moments when you beat something you had no business beating because you either had no information or a horrid class balance but you beat because you work your tail off during it. What has been the best expansion for the guild?
I think DoDh was a great expansion it helped guilds acquire near Qvic level loot without the tedium of GoD flagging but honestly. GoD was what taught us how to raid. The encounters are difficult it requires everyone paying attention and being on their toes. What advice might you give to people just starting out with a new guild or planning to start one?
Hmm..., I'd have to say "Don't do it!!" - No, seriously, I think my answer is contingent upon what kind of guild are we talking about. I think all guilds need a guild structure with well thought out policies and rules of conduct with predictable consequences to violations of such rules. I think it is incredibly important to have a system that equally addresses all members including leadership. I believe leaders are subject to the same rule-set the entire guild is. Lead by example and if you screw up acknowledge it - it's the only way to gain the trust and respect of your members without that - good luck; also, a fair unbiased way of distributing loot. I cannot emphasize this enough since many applicants have come to us from :loot council" guilds unhappy because they feel their dedication is not rewarded through acquisition of loot upgrades because in loot council the lesser geared is often the one to get the loot first. That gets old after a while. What makes your guild unique?
Keeping in mind, EQ is a social environment with real human beings behind these characters, having an in house psychotherapist helps. Yeah, it's me and I have to tell it comes in handy for brokering conflicts, managing different personalities and working on guild morale issues. Having lots of experience in business has helped me "market" us well too. What makes SP the guild it is? I have to say its leadership team is excellent and its members are dedicated the two work in unison strengthening each other. I cannot think of another guild I would want to be part of.