Screenshots of the forum posts, and a copy-paste of the content below for easier reading.

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I’ve put a lot of thought into raid leading, guild mastering, and mount distribution recently. We all know that we have an influx of strong players who have had good experience in progression raiding, beyond what many of us have ourselves. They therefore have the power to help make our raids in legion far more efficient and fun, thereby enjoyable and even exhilarating. How I see it, my basic job as a raid leader and guild master is to do all I can to ensure that good, fun progression happens, and that our guild keeps getting better and better. And once that stablizes, I can put my energies to making Syzygy a stage for all players with a drive to improve to flourish, whether they start out strong or weak.

Which leads me to mount distribution. We’re at the point where all of the old regulars have the mount, and we have the luxury of giving it to new players who have joined us and who I believe will become an integral part of our group for Legion (and beyond!).

(Incidentally, we also have the choice of selling this mount for guild gold, to help with repairs and consumables and whatever else for Legion raiding. After some consideration though, and discussion with people who were interested in knowing which we would choose, I decided to give these mounts to those who will join us in Legion as opposed to selling for gold. Gold comes and goes, but the mount is a much rarer opportunity.)

As most know, the whole reason I started distributing the mount myself was to use this opportunity to show my appreciation to each of our raiders. As a PUG raid leader, I am intensely aware that successful raids are impossible without every single raid member. Even if it’s a weak raid member doing their best to make no mistake to wipe us (which I will actually not be ok with for the main Legion raid group), or if it’s a strong raid member going above and beyond what’s expected and carrying us through rough situations (which I desperately want everyone in the main Legion raid group to be). And really, every raider who shows up so that the raid is even possible. I truly believe that every single person is deserving of this mount; every single person has contributed to our raids (though most of us need to work on contributing better and more!).

So, for 20+ weeks, I have been able to give this mount out, person by person, because without you we couldn’t have done it. And by now, all the regulars who still join should have this mount. In this I feel extremely grateful to all of you for sticking it through for so long, despite it being a PUG, and allowing us to thank each person individually, as best we can.

Now, for the new people who join, this is a similar situation. I have spent some time and effort understanding the raiding history, abilities, and personalities of those who join us, and I believe many will be integral to our success in the future. Just like we weren’t able to complete Mythic HFC without our regulars, so I believe we won’t be able to do nearly as well in Legion without these new people, especially starting off as a brand new guild. Therefore, in giving the mount to them, I may not be thanking them for helping us through in the past, but I will be showing our appreciation to them for their willingness to join us and my confidence that with them we can help make Legion raiding great (I almost added ‘again’, but that wouldn’t make sense huh).

And here comes my internal struggle. We have more people joining us than we have mounts to give out. There is certainly a spectrum of how helpful each person is right now and how helpful I envisage they will be in Legion. But for many people the range is so small I find it extremely difficult to say who deserves it more and who less. I also really haven’t had the luxury of doing progression raiding with anyone yet, and it’s difficult for me to gauge on farm content the differences in each person’s strength and resilience during progression. Furthermore, a lot of the differences between that I do see between each person are such a large myriad of factors that they are simply incomparable. I have been considering doing a roll for it, but if such is the case I do feel a bit robbed of my chance to show each person how much I appreciate them throwing their lot in with us, and how much I am coming to truly like each person I’ve had the chance to talk to.

My temporary fix is to try to give out more mounts, so I’ve been working to do more M Mann and Arch runs (which I’m gonna straight out say has been enormously stressful to me, to make sure we have enough strong toons to do this). I am also grateful for each person who joins to help me do this. I want everyone to know that in doing this, you are actively helping us become a stronger guild for Legion, for having a strong core group will be imperative. And for everyone who does this, you are lessening my stress some so that I can continue finding the energy to deal with building up this guild.

I would love more ideas and any thoughts though, in helping me figure out the best way to deal with this situation.

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I would also like to share some of my trials and my delights with mount distribution so far. I have come across all sorts of players in my PUGs, strong ones, weak ones, reliable ones, sporadic ones, high maintenance ones, stress-relieving ones. And most are a mix of any combination of those characteristics and more.

There were players that joined us from core membership in world top guilds (Ank, for example), who had the whole content on farm before my first cross realm mythic PUG started. He obviously didn’t need the mount from us, but he stayed with us through thick and thin until we were done with progression and had the content safely on farm. Having him has always been a huge delight to me, and has really set a standard in my mind of what an all round good raider is: strong play, great attitude, reliable, team-player, to just name a few points.

There were also players who, as soon as they queued to joined us, felt they deserve the mount more than others whose regular attendance makes the mount drop consistently possible. Most of these I do not invite.

There are players who, after they got the mount, either disappeared immediately, soon after, or eventually. Some left from legitimate burnout, and sometimes I was in that emotional journey with them and understand all the details of the situation. Others left because of I don’t know why. I treat situations like this as a lesson to myself, that I can better understand what sort of a person each individual is, and I can be better understand their strengths and weaknesses, if life ever puts them in our path again. Despite all the ideas of yolo, this one time we live is most likely still pretty long. And I’m not planning on letting this gamer community I’m building flash into life and then wink back out again.

There are also players who got the mount, and stuck around. Many people did this and Oh my god you can’t imagine how much I appreciate you. One example is Fax (or Whocares). He rolled the second mount before I started passing out mounts myself. But every main raid since then he has joined almost as soon as I start building (which is usually half an hour early), even though he know he’d get a spot as well joining last minute. Another example is Noci (Jacl/Annaka/Michaelia). He was the first person I personally gave the mount to, and since then he has made his toons available for each raid (all 3 that I now have), barring periods of time where he has previous commitments. In my memory, I don’t believe either of them has missed a single raid. Not a single one that I can think of. For half a year or longer, way past when they needed any gear, any loot, any ANYTHING. Made every single raid.

There are trials in being the person who decides on giving out the mount. There are people who are unhappy with my decisions sometimes. There are people who complain and make me worry they will leave and make life harder for us all because they don’t get the mount when they want it.

There are also delights in being the person who decides on giving out the mount. There are times when people show their character and that character is golden. Ank, Fax, Noci are just people I’ve named. There are many others as well, for whom my being able to give the mount to them makes me feel all this effort, all this stress, is more than worth it.