I'm sure most of you remember my thread a while back about motivating a non-hardcore guild into raiding harder. Since that time we've downed two more bosses in Karazhan, whoopidy doo.

You'll find this same post on the Nihilum forums but I'm getting a little anxious and don't know what to do so I'll repeat it here and hope that I'm not saturating the internets with it.

I'm currently an officer of a guild that has never been known for progression or... anything really. I had joined the guild a while back when it was entering into ZG and I quickly shot up to an officer/raid leader position because of my attitude towards knowing the content inside and out. The problem is that my guild is wholly uninspired. We have officers who are terrible raiders and their lack of motivation seeps through to the rest of the guild. Our raiding core consits of a few very capable players and a whole lot of lackluster characters who show up to raids but then underperform and lower the morale of the whole guild.

I've been pushing them to try harder, take a different look at the game, to take a wipe as a learning experience and attempt to improve performance after each death. Instead they repeat mistakes and only ever respond with an innocent "whoopsie" sort of attitude. Which would be tolerable if it didn't happen four times in a row. I find myself often being one of very few people (or sometimes the only person) promoting that we try again after the third or fourth wipe, while everyone else wants to just clear up to the chess event and get their "free loots" and be over with it.

I promote ideas like entering into Gruul's Lair and the response is mostly negative. I don't know what I can do to improve this. Leaving the guild has always been in the back of my mind, it seems obvious doesn't it. The problem with that is, I guess, my personality. I'm uncomfortable not being the driving force - I need to be in the position that I'm in with this guild (as the primary raid leader), I know that if I apply to join a guild that's further progressed I'll end up barking orders and ideas over vent and overstep my boundaries. It'd be hard for me to work up the ladder as well because of my lack of experience - all I know about the game outside of Karazhan is what I read here and on the Nihilum blogs.

I'm wondering what I should do? I've toyed with the idea of asking our best players to come with me and start a new and more serious guild, but recruitment is already hard enough as it is. Should I continue trying to motivate my current guild to do better? Should I wait it out for all of the game's content to get nerfed so crappy guilds like mine can finally experience it? What should I do?

For an example of how much work I put into my guild you can browse our forums www.guild-elite.com for a bit and just look at my input versus anyone else's.

There's a similar thread to this over in the Benefactor's Section about the different types of raiders. My experience has always been that you can't turn a super casual person into a hardcore raider, nor the other way around (your case, it seems). If you're the only motivated officer I'm not sure what you can do, but some very careful recruitment may help solve some of the problem. Otherwise it's probably time to find another guild and just mute your mic for a few weeks so you don't overstep .

Sounds like

1) You need to recruit more members that want to progress as you do, and bring them to raids instead of those that are of the "whoopsie" kind.

2) Change Guild to one that is more like minded.

3) Stop inviting people to raids if they don't prepare accordingly to your guild's standard. Cancel a raid if not enough motivated people meet the requirements your guild's leadership as establish.

You can push people to get better only if they are willign to make the efforts to become better. If they don't want to, you don't have much choice but to raid with different people, wether its changing guild, changing your guild's raider base via a merger or recruitment, or stop letting people slack in your raids just because you couldn't raid without them, is your choice.

Sounds like the kind of guys your running with aren't the ones that respond well to negative criticism, instead, maybe work on the positive aspects of the guild.

Maybe go back and dominate some easy content to get spirits up, AQ20 is fun and has really no learning curve, of course with no prospects of loots this might be hard to push.

Kara can be really frustrating when guys aren't acclimated to execution fights, it's also where blizzard intended us to get more used to them (raiders with little experience pre-expansion).

If your problem is Aran, skipping up to chess is fine, even go try the Prince. Anything to get the guys excited about raiding, and getting the attitude that winning is fun, not just being in a group together.

Try to ask outright what people's goals are. That's always the single most important thing about which a guild needs to remain connected. If they honestly don't want the same thing out of playing or even out of raiding that you do, then you'll probably feel a lot better about leaving, if that's what you decide. You don't want to feel like you're abandoning people just because they're not progressing as quickly as you'd like, but if they're not particularly interested in progressing in the first place, that's a different story.

Also, are you sure you need to be a guild/raid leader? If you're often frustrated by the comparative effort of those around you, that's simply part of the job. Even in great guilds, you can sometimes look around and say, "why do I feel like I'm doing the work of 25 people?" It's possible you'd be happier just as a cog in a strong raiding machine, where you worry about playing well, as do those around you (without you feeling like you need to pester them to do so), and somebody else is worrying about the annoying stuff?

Recruiting "better" players would be a fantastic option if it wern't as difficult as learning an untuned Vashj. :P

I have another thread on this forum (On the secon page now I think) that's all about the difficulties of recruiting on my server. So yeah, I've tried that option. I think a part of it though is the bad reputation of my guild - we've come to be known as an extremely slow progressing casual guild. I want to turn that attitude around but it's kind of a conundrum.

Going back to do old content isnt viable because nobody wants to do it. I've suggested going back to Naxx and AQ and what not so we can learn some teamwork skills without having gear as a scapegoat for failure. Nobody else wants to do it.

EDIT: I also suggested that our raiders swap over to the PTR so we can test our skills in 25 man content with tier 5 gear so once again gear wouldn't be an issue. That also had a very poor response.

So you have a guild full of casuals:
- not interested in progression
- not interested in wiping
- not interested in old content
- with no recruiting

I'm trying to find a positive here, but I'm not really having a lot of luck. I believe a guild full of somewhat casual players that have at least some interest in progression can be tweaked and massaged over a long period of time to be excellent players and a progression guild. Your situation sounds a bit more like herding cats.

If the only thing stopping you from leaving is worrying about being overbearing as a recruit in a raiding guild, that's a lot easier problem to solve than turning a bunch of disinterested casuals into a group of raiders you can lead.

Do the people who aren't that good realize that they aren't? One of the things I've found is some people don't really understand the mechanics of a fight, what is needed, and how their active participation is actually important (because in easier fights someone more competent can usually cover their lack of performance).

One way to open peoples' eyes to this is to remove the crutches (ie the people who enable them to not be peak performers). Make a raid which has good class balance but stacked mostly with the people who mess up. Talk beforehand to the people you know to be good and that you have to take (ie probably the main tank will have to go if you have a small guild), and let them know what's going on -- warn them that this will hopefully be a "tough love" learning experience.

Ideally have this raid go in without you, and see what happens. Make some excuse like you have friends coming over in an hour or something like that so you can do the organization but can't actually go.

Sometimes people will unexpectedly speak up. Some people are comfortable following, but given the absence of a leader will actually start to think for themselves.

Or it might (likely) happen that they end up wiping a lot. But at least now they realize there actually is a problem, hopefully. It's only when there isn't anyone there compensating for them do they realize how much of a burden they actually are.

Of course not all players will fit into the above categories, and if their mindset is that they really don't want to beat new encounters, there is no way to bridge that gap between you and those people.

But sometimes taking a short step back can actually end up being better in the long run.

It's not going to work.

It sounds like his guys are just more likely to end the raid than chain wipe to undergo this experiment. But, I'll admit, your idea would work great in a guild with alot of 'passenger players' and a few 'driver players' if the 'passengers' at least had interest to do better and progress - doesn't sound like his really do, though.

If the guild hasn't shown the desire by now, I really doubt they ever will. You want something different than they do, and it sounds like you're not having any fun as it is. Gquit and start applying to some guilds who more closely fit your raid expectations. KJ is a fairly large server, if I'm not mistaken, so there has to be at least one guild that you'll have more fun with.

I know this gets linked entirely too much around here, but Sebudai's motivational quote on UBRS seems appropriate.

http://www.wowinsider.com/media/2006...speakerwg2.jpg

If people in your guild truly don't want to progress and learn raid encounters, then it's probably best for you to find a guild that does. Raiding is just like a team sport, if you have a team that doesn't care about winning then they'll never win.

That's possible. But even something like wiping twice on Moroes and then calling a raid can get people to start thinking. And then the next night when the same thing happens, maybe more will start thinking.

If he really wants to try and make the guild work, he has to try something. Going with the status quo isn't going anywhere. He says he's not willing to just quit yet.

I'm quite willing to believe that the only answer is to /gquit and start a new guild or join another guild. But, if he wants to continue to try and make his current guild work, it needs some tough love. Some people honestly have no idea how much of a crutch they are and if you can open their eyes to that, you can start to make some progress with that person.

This man speaks from experience. =|

you would be surprised at how they would react if you where to speak up. if it is new content for the guild and you have a suggestion that might help say it. or if your group wipes and you know what happened or who caused it, speak up. you just have to be careful when you say it.

just don't go in acting like you own the place and you should be fine.




most guilds have an experience part of there apps. so if you say you are willing to learn then you will be ok.

@the OP: Sadly in these situations there isn't much you can do other than just gquit and start app'ing elsewhere. It's hard to make people something they aren't and if possible a long and painful process. I went through it way back in MC days with a wonderful group of guys who just didn't care and ended up leaving because of it, being an officer and RL myself.

I've been running into a somewhat similar problem lately. Guild was having tough times after downing Gruul in getting people to want to try Magtheridon with a less than optimal group. We were having issues with not enough people logging on to do even Gruul which was easily on farm status.
Doing Magtheridon we would have gone in with 3 warlocks, something I believed (on advice from many posters here) to be doable, or at the very least to get some experiance in the zone before dying to infernal overflow. So instead of recruiting 5-10 people to make sure we had plenty of people (we already had ~40 in guild, so obvious we had a lack of log-ins for raid nights), we merged with another guild who was having similar issues.

So now we are a guild with 70+ members and no clue what to do with them. Guild leadership is unwilling to cut people, even talking about recruiting more!
We have killed Magtheridon since and are playing with Hydross but now instead of 25 raiding and 5-10 sitting a night, we are raiding with 25 and have 30+ sitting a night, or wasting time in Karazhan and being forced to sit out of what everyone really wants to do, new raid content.

To me, as one of the top dps raiders, and a player with near 95%+ lifetime attendance this is just asinine, to be asked to sit out of new content and run karazhan where I need, maybe one-2 items, so some schmuck with half my gear or dps can come into SSC or Mag and play with things.

/rant off; Like I said, sometimes you cant do anything but start looking around for somewhere that better suits you; depending on what you play this isn't always easy however. Not many guilds who want another Dps warrior and hunter, even the servers top.

Edit: I hear you when your talking about speaking up in vent when you shouldn't. I've had RL'rs say just asinine things over vent and I want to smack them.
"ok guys when Mark of Hydross hits 250% we are gonna move him across the line..."

If your mentality about raiding isn't matching up with the majority of your guild's you are in a situation where you can't win. If you feel heavily obligated to remain with your guild, then it probably means more to you than progression does and you might consider reviewing your approach to the game. If not, start shopping.

This is not a bad idea at all if you're up to the task of getting leadership sorted properly. Let's be honest here, the top guild on a lot of servers is the result of a couple of dead guilds cutting out the fat and forming a 'superguild.' You're right that it can backfire, but if I were in your shoes I'd either try that or app somewhere else, rather than stay where I was with zero progression or interest in progression (actually, I'm speaking from very recent experience).

If you can play a lot, I really doubt you'd have a problem finding a guild anywhere between Maulgar and Vashj that would give you a shot.

Certain situations are salvageable. If a decent amount of your guild is interested in progression, maybe take those players and try to form an alliance with another guild to work on 25 mans. However, if it's just you and one or two other guildies that have any interest in seeing beyond the chess event, you're probably better off to hit the recruitment pages.

If your server won't support a new guild, you could take those "top ten" raiders and go to a new server to start a guild there, or to join another guild. Tibor's comment above hints at what happened recently to Praetorian, and why I speak from first hand experience. About ten raiders (myself included) decided that we wanted to be in a more progression-oriented guild, and have applied to a guild on Zul'jin. Even if we aren't accepted there, Zul'jin is big enough that there are other places to go. Our old server was too small for us to start a new guild, so the choice was to start a guild on a new server or to apply to an existing guild. We chose the latter. You might look into taking this route as well.

The plan has merit and has been done before many times, though if the idea seems too farfetched to you or just isn't what you want to do, you could start app'ing around and keep it as your backup plan.

Honestly it hurts to say but if you are not enjoying yourself or experiancing what you want in the game, there shouldn't be much keeping you there, everything you say points to casual gamers where you come across as much more hardcore.

I found myself in a similar situation to yours, and like you I'm not particulatly fond of sitting back when I feel I have something to add. I switched guilds, applied to the second most progressed guild on the server and am trialling. I speak up in vent when there's a leadership shortage, and restrain some of my more impulsive tendancies.

You'll probably find a couple of things if you cut ties and go to a more hardcore guild. First of all, if you have something to contribute it will be listened to. And more importantly, you won't have to speak up since in a 'better' guild they probably know what they're doing without you.

In my experience, people who aren't willing to wipe in order to learn will never change. I've been in two guilds that were essentially torn apart by the divide between people who were content to farm what was easy, and people who wanted to work and push on to new things.

In my first guild, we had a few serious raiders come show us the ropes in BWL, helping us to clear to Firemaw on the week of our first Razorgore kill. Each following week saw lower and lower raid turnout and quality of play until we were wiping on Lucifron. Whenever BWL was mentioned, phat loot was the topic. When the casual players in the guild saw the effort it would take to progress at that level of play, and that the bosses still didn't drop what they wanted each week, they burnt out like a bunch of overvolted lightbulbs.

With my next guild I was happier as we made lots of progress, but after killing the Emps the first or second time, I don't think we ever fielded a raid full enough to clear the post-Huhu trash again. It was the beginning of trash pulls that kill people every time, and bosses that were unforgiving to the unattentive. I think what happened was that we had a lot of people in different timezones with different levels of motivation, and a good number of people who were staying up to ridiculous hours of the morning and had to be dedicated to stick around in the first place. Eventually the core got tired of farming content and splintered so far that practically noone remained on the server.

In the end, both of these guilds were full of friends who had fun playing together in some capacity. They just weren't all on the same page. You're clearly reading a different book than your guildmates, and it's probably time to step out.