How Quintessential Operates

• >> Guild Alliances: --"The friend of my friend is my friend"
  We maintain healthy and mutually beneficial relationships with other like minded, similarly sized, guilds allowing us to cooperatively experience larger end game raid content.
  
  - In practice, the allied guilds effectively become an extended guild wide friends list.
  - We share an in game private chat channel with allied guilds.
  - We take advantage of WoWStead's allied guild system.  An alliance between guilds may be established by the Guild Masters/Site Administrators allowing any guild in the alliance to create an event on the WoWStead calander.  The event will then appear on the calendars of all guilds within the WoWStead alliance.
  
  

  
• >> Guild Rules: --"No Hot Dog Buns."
  1. There is no Quintin but Quintin and He is Your Quintin .
  2. A Quintessential Shall Always use the Official Quintessential Document Numbering System.
  3. A Quintessential is Required during early Illumination to Go Off Alone & Partake Joyously of a Hot Dog on a Friday.
  4. A Quintessential shall Partake of No Hot Dog Buns.
  5. A Quintessential is Prohibited from Believing What s/he reads.
  
  Hope you enjoyed the laugh.  =-)
  The official Guide Guidebook and Guild Rules are linked, as well as always available in the main menu of our website.
  
  

  
  
• >> I want to know more!
  "This is all well and good, nay, great!  Though, I want to know more about your guild and/or I have specific questions I want to ask.  Where do I go now?"
  
  If you are already a member of the guild you may find more general information about Ventrilo (our VoIP system), in-game chat channels and more in stickies located in the General Forum.
  
  Otherwise you should contact one of the officers via web mail or in-game mail or whisper.  Once you register with WoWStead you can send us mail through our website.  You can find a roster here and you may contact any one of the officers; however Quintin and Sagen are typically the most active in responding to new applicants.
  
  

  
  
• >> Once I apply for membership, how long until I hear back from the guild?
  It will take time.  In some cases the decision has taken up to two weeks.  The people who will see the longest time to a response are those who apply without a referral.  In these instances we take extra effort to make sure that the person is a good fit for our guild.  Even with a referral we still need to speak with the referrer and arrange an interview with you.
  
  You can expedite your application by helping us get to know you.  Contact Quintin or Sagen and see about getting invited to an instance run.  Be proactive.
  
  

  

• >> PvP: --"If it's red, It's dead!"
  
  Several Quintessential members engage in PvP quite often.
  However, we are not a PvP guild by any stretch of the imagination. 
  
  - We have had a few Arena teams in each bracket.
  - We occasionally conduct raids on Horde cities, for the fun of it. (now for fun and achievements)
  - We do engage the random flagged opposite faction characters
     for spur of the moment world PvP.
  
  

  
  
• >> Raiding: -- "We are unique"
  There's been a long standing debate over calling ourselves a raid guild or not.  Quintessential maintains a very active raid schedule, typically 3 nights a week, but can sometimes be 6 or 7 nights a week depending on demand and availability or special occasion.  At the same time though the leadership community places a great deal of value on supporting an environment where those members whom are not into raiding will still feel welcome and respected. 
  
  Everyone is encouraged to take advantage of our calander system, web forums, and other guild resources to schedule old-world raids, 5-man runs, group questing, or even birthday parties.  We will never force anyone to do anything they don't want to do, but it is very important to understand that the design of the game logically leads to raiding and that is where the majority of the guild will want to be.
  
  Guild Raiding is handled in two catagories:  Raiding 101 and Progression.
  
  

  • Raiding 101 (Typically on Tuesdays)
    
    • Designed to be an intro to raiding with Quintessential.
    • Slot priority considerations:
      • New to Raiding
      • New to Quintessential
      • Could benefit most from loot drops in the particular instance.
    • No gear restrictions or requirements.
    • Generally Need before Greed with /random.
    • Slot priority goes to new and under geared guildies first, however...
    • If slots are available, upper geared folks are always welcome, especially if they enjoy helping fellow guildies.

  • Progression Raiding (Typically Thursday and Friday)
    
    • All events use the Forced Queue feature where all players will be assigned raid slots by the raid leader.
    • Raid leaders will take player and character abilities into consideration when making assignments.
    • Overall success of the raid is the priority.
    • Will pick up where Raiding 101 left off to save time. (same raid key)
    • Gear is awarded to the character who will best benefit future progression. (usually the most needy)
      • Off-sets are considered as only slightly above an all-greed scenario.

  • Non Guild Raiding (allied guild or PuG)
    • Most are still scheduled, however some may be spur of the moment.
    • Raid leaders will take player and character abilities into consideration when making assignments.
    • Key lock outs for future guild raids are a critical consideration.
    • Loot rules vary depending on the situation, so pay close attention.  However...
      
      • Master Looter will always be in effect.
      • Rules should always be made crystal clear up front.
      • Typically the rules are 1 'needed' epic item per person.

  
  
  
  While progression raiding may seem "hardcore" we have yet to actually run a raid where someone was forced to play a role they didn't want to.  A better geared player not needing loot will often volunteer to drop so someone in need of gear may participate.  When we do raid, we do encourage everyone to be the best they can be, but always in a manner that is encouraging and helpful.
  
  - We currently raid on a fairly regular schedule of about 3-6 nights a week.
  - We use a Web based calendar as the official sign-up for all sheduled events.
  - We do have Addon Requirements, but only for Progression Raiding.
  - We ask that if you sign up, you show up.
  - We dance when we down a boss.
  - We laugh with each other when we wipe, but we also remember and learn.
  - We have a common sense, cooperative Loot Distribution philosophy.
  
  

  
  
• >> Rank Structure: --"chaos is as important as order."
  Our ranks range from being only titular in nature,
  to having more specific associated responsibilities.
  
  Our Ranks include:
  

  Guild Master	There is no Quintin but Quintin and He is Your Quintin.
  Officer	Leadership Community
  Officer Alt	Same access level as Officer. Just so it's clear we don't have 55,555 Officers
  Lead	Leads are generally responsible for driving raid events. This rank is a non-voting Leadership Community participant.
  Expert	These individuals have stepped up to the task of being Class Experts and welcome your questions about the classes that they support. This rank is a non-voting Leadership Community participant.
  Elite	A declared "Main" toon for raiding or other purposes.
  Member	Most guildies are Members. All Alts are Members.
  Initiate	New guildies start here.  At least two Members must sponsor your promotion.
  Hold	This rank is used for toons that have not logged in to the game for 3 months or more.  At 6 months you are eligible to /gkicked for the purpose of pruning.

  
  
  More detailed information is available in the Quintessential Guide Book
  
  

  
  

  
  
• >> What the guild will provide you...
  Quintessential agrees to always provide you only two things.
  

  • A Guild Tabard  (may need to remind an officer)
  • The benefit of the doubt

  You must understand that you alone are responsible for your success and happiness in the game and guild.  It's your $15 a month after all.
  
  
  There are several luxury services that completely rely upon your continued participation to make them possible.
  

  • This web site, it's calendar, and forums.  (donate here)
  • Ventrilo  (donate here)
  • In-game Guild Bank  (donate items and gold in-game)

  
  Some services are out of the scope of guild administration, and are completely reliant upon the personal relationships that you make or break through your own actions.
  

  • Instance run throughs
  • Power Leveling
  • Personal loans
  • etc...

  

Trivia

• >> Discordian Connection? --"The Law of Fives is never wrong."
  Some have referenced the "Law of Fives" as being quite "Quintessential".
  
  

  - The Law of Fives states simply that: All things happen in fives, or are divisible by or are multiples of five, or are somehow directly or indirectly appropriate to 5
  
  - The Law of Fives is never wrong. Malaclypse the Younger, Principia Discordia, Page 00016
  

  
  While Quintessential may appear to be practicing discordianism, the very idea of organized discordianism is something of an oxymoron.  Therefore, any mention of our discordian connection is viewed by us as completely absurd.
  
  

  
  

  
  
• >> Guild Name: Broken apart into it's core elements, the meaning becomes apparent:
  Our guild name was chosen to represent our commitment and focus.  Our primary focus is to promote effective group dynamics and enhance complimentary group skills.  This includes strategy, ingenuity, camaraderie, respect, and fun.  We believe that while decent groups of less than five players can be effective,  a group of five players can be quintessential.
  
  
  

  Quint  n 1: the cardinal number that is the sum of four and one.  Five.

  Essential adj. Constituting or being part of the essence of something; inherent.
  
  Quintessential  adj. Representing the perfect example of a class or quality.

   

   

• >> Who is Quintessential?
  Quintessential  is a close knit group of friends and family.  We are relatively casual players with fun  being a primary goal.  We enjoy the small guild feel, and therefore we do not actively advertise to recruit members.  However we do welcome those that are interested to group with us often, and see if we are to your liking.
  
  Founded on 05/05/05, Quintessential is one of the longest lasting and most stable guilds on the Dragonblight server.
  
  We are an Alliance  guild, on the Dragonblight  server.