World of Warcraft Skills

I'm not talking about your ability to gank noobs, I'm talking about the very real application of in-game skills that could possibly be useful real life skills.  I played World of Warcraft for six years and experienced many different styles of play and can definitely see their applicability to real life.  Here's a list of useful skills that I felt I acquired (people seriously use some of these on job applications and resumes--while I don't think I ever would, someone out there might).

1.) Time Management:  If you ever were involved in any kind of scheduled raiding then you could claim this one.  Most guilds have specific times/dates that they raid and members are expected to show up--usually on time and prepared.  Yeah, it's a game, but you still have to be there.  Even if you weren't much of a raider you might have done arenas or other PvP on a schedule.  Casual players might not think that they have to manage their time, but they usually do.  You have to complete dailies or other tasks to reach a certain goal.

2.) Effectively Managing your Employees (AKA guildmates):  As a former guild leader I can attest to the real-life struggles involved in leadership. It's your job to make sure that the requisite number of people show up for your weekly raids.  If they don't, it's your job to fix it.  You're responsible for making on-the-fly decisions about PuGging someone or working to recruit more members.  No one wants to cancel raids--that's usually the first sign of a failing guild.

Another skill that goes along with that is running effective raids and making tough decisions about who gets to raid.  I ran a semi-casual guild that had some success with 10-man raiding.  We weren't going to be setting any world or server firsts, but we were generally able to accomplish what we set out to.  One of the worst experiences I had leading a raid was having to cut someone loose who just wasn't good enough to be on the raiding team.  I felt it was the equivalent of having to fire someone.  It was painful and felt really horrible, but it was necessary.  We were able to replace this person with someone who was more skilled and were able to get past a roadblock being caused by their low-performance (one of the suckier parts of being successful in WoW raiding is that not everyone has the skills to do it).

3.) Coaching:  This goes along with #2.  Generally I would try to coach players who were struggling.  I would find guides or videos for those players in the hope that they would improve and I could avoid more painful "cutting" situations.  I think many guild/raid leaders become skilled at doing this.  Another part of coaching is preparing your raid/guild for boss fights--you have to look up the strategies and make sure everyone understands what is required.

More ideas tomorrow :D