Looking for a small leveling guild where you can be part of the initial founders? Searching for a spot to lodge your alt? Leveling and hoping to find others to group with? Join and help grow a community that feels yours.
Here is some info about us if your curiosity has been peaked =)
Curious as to what Laconia stands for? Laconia is a historical region of Greece, it’s capital was Sparta. The word laconic in English, to speak in a blunt and concise manner, comes from this region. The Spartans were notorious for speaking bluntly and many of their enemies viewed them as primitive and uneducated.
Others disagreed. The famous Athenian philosopher Socrates felt that while the Spartans disdained rhetoric and long-winded speeches; they were far smarter than they appeared. He claimed that they cultivated this primitive and savage reputation so that their enemies would underestimate them.
A prominent example is when Philip II of Macedon invaded Greece. Having subjugated several Greek city-states already, he sent a warning to Sparta, stating, “You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city.”
The Spartan response was simply “If.”
Guild Charter
Guild Description:
Laconia is a World of Warcraft guild for fans of all levels of dedication. We strive to have an active, close-knit community that enhances the play experience for all of us.
Rule Number One:
“Don’t be a dick.”
To be completely and totally clear, “being a dick” is knowingly acting in a way that degrades another player’s play experience. More positively stated: “Do value other people’s play experience.” We always want to make the game better for people. For example, ninjaing loot wastes the time of everybody that contributed to getting the drop. This is a clear degradation of folks’ play experience, which is why it’s a universally hated practice. Bailing on an instance wastes people’s time getting a replacement, degrading their play experience. Of course, sometimes one’s playtime is cut short unavoidably; the player that tries to secure his or her own replacement before logging is for this reason regarded more favorably. Why? Well, it’s not rocket science. He or she gave a damn about the rest of the group having a good time.
PvP on a PvP server, even under unfair circumstances, is part of the fun of the game. Keeping an eye over one’s shoulder while leveling adds an extra layer of suspense and challenge to the game. Dickery arises when the suspense of challenge fades away into the pointless wasting of somebody’s time; a skull repeatedly killing a gray represents neither suspense nor challenge. One person getting their jollies out of ruining another’s day, whether by habitually preventing them from completing their dailies, camping an inn, or exploiting game geography (rooftops, etc.), is simply pathetic and sad.
Failing to honor specific requests for no swearing or other obscenity (e.g. Kids are in the room, headphones are broken, please no F-Bombs on vent.) is a prime example of dickery out of failure to respect difference of opinion.
Guild Values:
Guild Culture.
Since guilds that have a focus that is larger than a single raid are generally not the sort that can enforce rules by direct means (FIFTY DKP MINUS!!!) other than kicking people, it is important that a guild’s leadership actively pay attention to the indirect forces operating on guild members’ behavior. Guild leaders and Officers will set examples that will affect their communities, whether they want to or not. As such, actively ensuring that such examples are good ones is a duty inherent in leadership positions.
Laconia wants to be a bright spot on people’s play experience. Members go beyond helping each other and their allies to create a mutually beneficial community. We believe entertainment should be derived from the game, not from interpersonal conflict. Drama in Laconia is neither published nor classified, so keep it out of /g and other public channels. If a dispute cannot be resolved by the involved guild member alone, he or she should get an officer.
Participation.
As in, guild-wide participation. Everybody is expected to actively fight the completely natural yet problematic tendency to only hang with your clique/arena team/10-man guys/whatever. Whenever someone puts the time and effort to host an event, or get an organized PvP group going, or decides to host a raid, it is our duty as fellow guild members to support that individual and participate as much as possible in the events. If you’re a badass PvPer, that’s great, but learn how to hold up your end in PvE in case you randomly need to fill in. This not only leads to more fun for us, but it also makes us a closer-knit guild.
Recruitment:
Laconia values slow growth. Too many people too fast will shock a guild culture, promote the formation of cliques, and lead to old-guard/new-guard situations. No guild ever stays the same, and there is never any way to return to the “glory days” of bygone times, so nobody should ever seek to walk through the same river twice. Nevertheless, it is possible and desirable to keep the community’s identity from fracturing into cliques as individual people come and go. Slow acquisition of new members allows them to fully integrate with the guild. Three vouches for each new recruit shows us that the new recruit means business, and ensures that everybody joins with at least three new friends. One vouch per member, per month, entered in the recruit’s forum thread, makes people be careful with their vouches, keeps the speed of growth down, and promotes wider circulation of recruits throughout the guild during their process of looking for vouches. Generally speaking, we want people to come and stay. (Great, to be implemented at a later date)
Duties of Guild Leaders:
Activity.
Guild leaders ought to actively lead their guilds, regularly interacting with their officers and guildies to build a community that enhances the play experience for the guild as a whole. The same basic duty plays out on a larger scale in any guild alliances, regularly interacting with other guild leaders and officers to actively build the larger community as well. Guild Leaders unable to discharge this duty have an obligation to step down, either temporarily or permanently.
Inspiration.
Guild leaders should not just be active in their leadership, but should also be decisive. Obviously this doesn’t mean ignoring the officer corps or general membership, but once a vision for the guild’s next step has been identified, it is the responsibility of the Guild Leader to recruit believers and make it a reality. By that same token, if an initiative does not appear to be working, it is the Guild Leader’s responsibility to abort mission, spearhead the reassessment process, and carry the standard for the new direction.
Grenade-Jumping.
If something unpleasant has to be done, like kicking somebody, suspending an officer, or stripping them of rank completely, it’s the Guild Leader’s job to take one for the team. If such necessary evils incite such personal animosity towards the Guild Leader that the happier aspects of the job become at all harder to fulfill, then it is the responsibility of the Guild Leader to step down and let an Officer take the reins and steer the community back towards happier times.
Duties of Officers (and Guild Leaders):
Activity.
If an officer isn’t around and in circulation with the entire guild, or at least a significant number of people beyond their own raid/arena team/instance team, then they’re not serving their community, and should step down at least until such time as they can resume their duties. Not all officers are on at the exact same time. This is a good thing, since it means better coverage for the guild.
Conflict Resolution.
Helping people resolve conflicts and keep drama to a minimum is one aspect of Officer duties. It’s also an unavoidable consequence of holding a position of authority and responsibility. As such, ideally every officer should be skilled at conflict resolution.
Deliberative Virtue.
Logic is awesome. Not everybody has to be attending Law School night classes, but things like being able to separate messenger from message, or understanding the concept of a straw man argument, are really helpful for getting things done. You have to at least understand that there are ways of thinking and discussing things that are more constructive than others, and you have to be open to and value learning a little about and employing those ways.
Kool-Aid Drinking.
Officers need to buy in to the guild vision and guild culture. They need to wave the flag, beat the drum, and get people excited by example. If they can’t or aren’t doing this, they need to make recommendations for changing the current vision or step down.
Event Planning.
Each officer should plan, adequately publicize, and run a guild event once every 3 months, regardless of whether it’s a game event like a WSG throwdown with a rival guild, a service event like Deadmines escorts and run-throughs for Dark Iron in general, or an entertainment event like a naked gnome race.
Please message Jaeager, EggAfterDark or FrozenTreat for an invite or more information.