Guild Customs

The process of joining Hard Chores differs from regular guilds.

With regular guilds, you accept an invite, usually from a complete stranger. Then you show up on time, wrangle a spot, follow the herd, get gear, rinse and repeat. Over time you build connections, vie for stronger fights, and sometimes switch guilds as needed.

With Hard Chores, there is only one guild. On every dungeon and raid, your character's life is on the line, and so are that of your companions. Some mistakes end in tragedy. Also, we have an abnormally large pre-raid grind due to the need to gear everyone up, backfill for required classes, and have the best consumables.

So what exactly is expected of players who wish to sign up for such a journey? What norms do people have to learn and adopt for themselves? What qualifications or qualities are required?

## Trust, Competence, and Support

Hard Chores values trust, competence, support, and safety. These values emerge out of necessity, because without these values, hardcore 60 is a lost cause.

A group that has high competence is one that makes the optimal, most efficient, and safest decisions. Competence is learned, is often hard-won, and is linked to high real-time awareness and in-game knowledge. For example, Chidi, a former raid leader and main tank and a paragon of competence in the guild, was in particular acknowledged for his ability to immediately sense and predict dangers in real-time. Many of those who had the opportunity to be in a group with him, performed to a much higher level, because of how he held them to standards. When he ran Molten Core, pretty much everything happened as he explained it, even the time split we spent in the dungeon.

A high-trust group can react to bad situations quicker because they can expect their teammates will behave as predicted, thereby achieving the best outcome for the group in a given situation. Groups that trust each other also have more fun, teach the skills to new players more effectively, and enjoy more latitude to express themselves. Players who understand trust well, are able to effectively protect, mentor, and manage the guild's greatest assets: its players. As an example of how low-trust can impact a group, imagine a Zul'Farrak run where a hunter hearths out mid-fight when you are fighting the zombies, leaving everyone else to their fate. To date, Hard Chores has never wiped in a dungeon or raid; and it never will, because we are doing everything we can to prevent it.

A high-support group is one where players are given the tools, resources, and opportunities to learn, grow, and succeed. Support is a key strategy for recruiting, retaining, protecting, and growing players, because it allows players from all kinds of backgrounds to overcome any limiters they have in their experience. For example, some players like levelling so much that, despite having played the game since vanilla, they have never actually spent much time in raids; a high-support guild allows these players to safely acknowledge their lack of experience, and effectively remove it as a limiter.

## Safety

Safety is often achieved as the outcome of actually practising the other 3 values. But there is a strategic element to it as well.

If we cannot go into a situation and have a sure-fire, repeatable method for it, then there needs to be a balanced weighing of risks. Sometimes that means we don't go (example: Stormwind Vaults). Or if we go, everyone is required to bring a Petri (Scholo, DMW).