Right now as a guild, we're doing very well in Karazhan. We've got everything on farm, and just started a second group tonight. It's all very easy, to the point where we are really just switching things up to try something new (I tanked this clear excluding nightbane). Gear is no longer an upgrade for the primary 15 members or so.


But, we simply don't have the members for a 25 man. Right now, as GM, I really want to see If I can acquire some members from a smaller guild. Does anyone have any real experience as such? We were supposed to organize a merge with another guild but it never happened. Right now I'm going to start talking to some of the lead members of the smaller guilds that won't really go anywhere, but have stepped foot in Kara. A lot of the times they have good members but are just too bound by their guild.

I'm not really sure what to offer on the subject, but was hoping some of the more experienced members here had something to say. On the scale of competance, I would definatley put us as an 8 on a scale of 1-10. We're moderately hardcore, we clear Kara two nights, expect people to bring proper consumables, but can't really judge it until we start doing real, difficult things. Pre TBC, we were also number limited (reformed, so lost even more members), so by the time we got enough people for 40 mans, PvP patch came out and BWL attempts didn't look as appealing. I know it wasn't simply because we were a bad guild, because we got through the stuff that was tough for normal 20 man guilds like cake. Had AQ20/ZG/MC/Ony on farm, and got Ossirian down after two nights.

As well, our server pop is really low, we have two guilds who are even capable of stepping foot in SSC, maybe 4 Gruul kills total.

Try to make alliance with some other guild that also clears kara for gruul, like you get 13 people and they 12. When you down them, offer the merge, they will most likely agree, as little guilds usually become bigger or die in karazhan.

Merging is a hard thing to do since many ppl are loyal to were they came from. Guild name, how do you weigh their DKP system with yours etc.

Either It's a buy-up. You take them into your guild on your terms.

Or You create a new guild and start all over. Reset all DKP standings and everything. Usually people with alot of DKP has good gear and therefore will advance rather quickly in a new DKP system. You share officers with the merging guild on a we bring 1.3x members and you bring x hence we get 1.3x officer spots. But it is very important that neither guild feels overrun or like they are going to be a wrongfully underdog. Will only create unnessecary tension.

Well, our guild was put in a similiar situation to yours, enough to run two Karazhan groups, but not enough to do Gruul / Magtheridon unless everyone logged on.

What you need to do is evalute is what your guild needs in regards to class balance and what the attendence of your currrent people is. If you have 15 people that will show up snow, rain, or shine you want to balance your guild around those 15 people, not the 15 hardcore people AND the 10 casual. I mean if you have 3 casual paladins and 1 hardcore, it may seem like you have enough paladins, but in reality, you defintely could use a paladin.

The guild you should be looking for should be very simliar to yours, but if you want the guild to stay in your power, and not some co-GM system, I suggest that you have something small that may put you above the other guild so that you and the other guild don't butt heads. May it be progress, organization, anything that will keep you in power.

I am our current GM, and we had about 20 hardcore raiders, we talked to another guild and they said they had ~10 very active raiders. We made their GM an officer and took all 10 of their raiders, we were then able to progress decently, have enough clout to recruit more people that will more competent then some of the 10 raiders they provided and also gathered some x-server transfers.

We're an Australian guild on a server which is not an Oceanic server, nor is it one of the servers typically associated with Australians (eg. Blackrock). Given our raids during the week start around midnight - 1am server time I think that probably puts us roughly in the same low pop boat. Obviously, recruiting people who can reliably raid with us is difficult.


The way we've handled a shortage of players is through extensive networking plus being prepared to bring non-guildies to raids and attribute them reasonable looting rights. I personally run a lot of PUGs, even for instances I don't need / am already exalted with. I always try to get the PUGs to join my guild's vent, or else let me join theirs. It's generally not hard to get talking, find out what their guild's progress is like and how much raiding they do. It doesn't take long to identify good players, and there's plenty around who are in a guild which is at a (temporary) standstill, or perhaps would just like to be raiding more.

From there I add decent people to a paper list with notes (WTB bigger in game friends list).

We're now in the situation, after a few months, where there's a reasonable number of people who we're familar with and feel comfortable inviting to raids. If we're caught short for a particular 10/25 man raid we're usually able to pick up the classes we need from outside the guild. The networking has also led to an influx of quality recruits as old guilds break up or people move on.


This is probably more of a medium term solution, but it has worked for us. Prior to TBC when raid burnout was high we were running Naxx and AQ40 a couple nights a week with around 20-25 guildies and the rest made up from outside our guild. We weren't killing anything earthshattering (Noth, Raz, Maexxna, Huhu) but we were able to mostly one shot bosses and everyone had a good time.

Try telling people you're doing Gruul's Lair for the first time a week (or two) from now, and you'll have 5-6 spots for anyone's who is interested in coming. You'll probably get some interest from guilds, some interest from individual players, and some interest from small groups of players within guilds, who must be a *little* frustrated with their current guild's progress, or they wouldn't come raid with you, right? Set reasonable standards for gear (e.g. no level 70 greens, few Karazhan purples preferred, 2 unstable flasks required). Set up a reasonable loot policy that gives everyone present a chance at at an item. Plan for enough time for everything to happen a bit slower than usual - it takes time to coordinate these things, more time than normal raids take. Make sure your members understand that too. You'll have to suffer through filtering out a bunch of subpar players (who don't get invited back next week), but it *will* help you attract some quality people who realize that you guys are good raiders, fun to play with, and you're here to stay on the 25-man raiding scene. After the raid (successful or not), be sure to post on the official/community forums saying what a blast it was, highlighting any successes, etc.


That's what I'd do, anyway. And in fact, it's something that's worked really well for us - Gruul down (first time we killed him with ~7 nonguildies, this past week we killed him with 22 guildies), Magtheridon at 24% (had 24 people total, with 1 nonguildie on the run), and our first SSC raid this Tuesday (which is probably a bit belated, since everyone in the guild has had their attunement completed for several weeks now - if any of you guys read this, my bad). If you're on a small server like we are (or - like the AU guy says - you have access to a small raiding population), you need to go that extra mile to do social networking. Go out of your way to get people not in your guild working with your guild. Otherwise, it's a bit like being a guy who only leaves his apartment to go over to his friend's house...and wonders why he never meets anyone new.

Increase your exposure to the other guilds on your server. Particularly the other guilds who are below you in progression. Guilds that are stymied in Karazhan, guilds that are struggling like you to make the transition to 25-man raiding...and get some of them on your raids. Show people who are struggling that, one way or another, *your* guild is going to do 25-man raids, and you'll get more interest.

I sat out when the rest of one of my guilds merged (disaster, as predicted), and I've been on board for a few guilds getting merged into mine (seems to be going fine).

I think important details are:

A) Sounds like you're suspeciously close to sniping ("Hey, get in the van, we have epics.") Good, bad, indifferent, avoiding sniping with a 20 foot pole gives you a bullet proof vest as regards reputation, and sniping... well, can cause problems. Personal judgment aside, I think the risk-benefit analysis of sniping lends itself towards not doing it. Approaching raid/guild leaders about taking the whole kit and kaboodle, or nothing is the way to be. Worst thing you can do, I would think, would be if the raid leader decides s/he, personally, has had enough, and wonders if you'll take just him/her. The drama just writes itself.

B) The "merge as equals" thing often gets a lot of radio play, for whatever reason. My personal experience with this is that usually, two guilds are not equals, and pretending otherwise simply creates problems. This includes arbitrary "include X officers" agreements. You'll end up with an officer pool that either is hamstrung by the idea that they need everyone's approval (which often ends up being the case, because of stepped on toes), or ten chefs in the kitchen. Someone must be the chef, and everyone else is a cook.

Not everyone will share the same vision all the time. Do we call the raid, or push on for another hour?

Any time we've taken on a group of players, we've taken on 0 officers. I'm not crazy enough to believe that's repeatable, but it certainly has avoided the "Hey, let's advocate the interests of my clique!" hints in ochat. If you do take on officers, make sure it's because they're going to be officers... the quote is something along the lines of, "Power is not a position of privilage, but one of service."... except spelled correctly.

C) As you observe, there are a lot of people who feel that a guild tag is a marriage they can never escape (and considering how people seem to react to people /gquiting that may not be untrue). Our story was we started as 13 raiders, wanted to pick up a bunch, and the obvious answer was merge with another "we are one karazhan" guild (or two "we are almost one karazhan") guilds, and work towards Gruul. Everyone was convinced they would be top dog, so no one would hear of it. Here we are, a few months later, the recruits came, and I've had no fewer then three offers of guild mergers... now that we're full.

If you're full clearing (which, for all intents and purposes, is just PMal, let alone Nightbane, good on you), and there are other guilds that are wiping to Curator or earlier, it really should be a question of time before the apps start showing up.

I think that's really where it is at. Give people test drives. Get everyone in guild on board with the idea that next week(s), you're not going to do so hot in Karazhan, and split your gear/expertise/skill with some other guild. Whether this sets them up for success in recruiting (wtf, I know, but it happens) or convinces them of the merits of an alliance/merge are up to the cards. But if the former happens... odds are pretty good that the seed will be planted, and when they have trouble on Aran/PM/Nightbane, they will go, "Gosh, remember those guys? Wonder if they're still looking for people like when we ran together..."

Our last week of one Karazhan (this is all pre-nerf/buff, but it may still hold true), we were farming PM. I said to everyone on the first week of two Karazhans, "Guys, don't be discouraged if we don't do so well this week. I would be thrilled if we only got two Curator kills - that's my brass rung." Of course, everyone made a fool of me by killing PM anyway.

Our original MC runs back in the day were consisted of 3 different guilds. Eventually we all recruited enough people for all 3 to do MC on their own. Temporary merged raids can work well

One problem you need to be aware of is that the 25 mans are quite a step up from Kara, even after the nerfs. Since your guild has Kara on farm that will not be a problem, but if you merge with an "OMG Curator is so hard" guild then your veteran members might get disgruntled that they have to babysit the newcomers until they are up to speed. Which then might make them jump ship, getting you back to square one.

Your best, and safest bet is to do guild alliances. It is far less complicated than mergers. Mergers have a high chance of failing, because you're not just combining players. You're combining cultures.

Even if a merger *seems* to be having some success, attrition will usually be high in the weeks after. And more often than not you'll wind up in the same seat you're in now.

Whereas with an alliance, you've got 2 completely different guilds who are united in their goals. Starting a DKP for the allied guilds is a snap, and is easier since both of you enter on the terms that you can't progress without each other, and you're also starting from scratch. Nominate raid leaders from your strongest and most experienced members between you and share the load. GMs often aren't the best choices or raid leaders in those situations, but they are certainly best at coaching from the sidelines to ensure everything is fair from an objective standpoint.

I did alot of raiding pre-tbc through alliances, because the guilds involved wouldn't even hear of a merger. I can't say I blame them. I've been in guilds that have tried to merge and it's never been successful.

I strongly recommend allying with like minded small raiding guilds. Yeah, you won't get the glory of "my guild killed this" but you'll still have much more to show for it than you would otherwise. Plus, it's really a good shake if your supreme goal is to experience endgame content with your friends.

My guild basically M&Aed its way through WoW 1.0. Here's a few things you'll want to keep in mind:

• Make a mission statement for the guild and stick to it, which can be as simple as "Serious raiding, 3 nights a week for 4 hours a night. Be on time, prepared and reliable. 66% of raid attendance required." I would also suggest having everyone sign that they've read & agree to this.
  
• Make sure your guild cultures are going to fit. A bunch of teens and a group of late 20 somethings with kids may work, but just because you're similarly progressed in raid content doesn't mean that adolescent teenage male culture is going to work for everyone.
  
• Never wholesale invite another guild. You're merging raiding cores with raiding cores, so set up a point person (one from each guild) to vet invites.
  
• Determine a transparent system of who's getting those invites. e.g. 50% or better historical raid attendance.
  
• Figure out your loot distribution system in advance. If you're resetting dkp, going to loot council, suicide kings, or whatever just make sure people know that beforehand.
  
• Raid together for a few wipe night runs to see if you all work together well. Raid leaders have different styles; one guild's screaming lunatic might be another's business-as-usual.
  
• Be prepared for the possibility of a demerger. It may just not work. Identify the influential members of the guilds and make sure you're paying attention to what the members think.
  
• Go out of your way to include the newly aquired members into social activities. You need to integrate your members socially asap.

Merging two guilds without having a raid alliance first is like marrying a girl you've never dated.

In 60 WoW I lead a guild that recruited its way up from 9 friends to a 40-man raiding guild over the course of a couple months. We never had any luck with mergers, little luck with formal raiding alliances, much better luck with just maintaining a friends list of competent people and pugging raids.


One thing I learned from being on both ends of the merger-and-acquisition thing at one point or another: No guild leader wants to merge his guild with yours. He wants your members to join his guild, or he doesn't want to do it at all. He's also going to be suspicious of any proposed raiding alliance, because (1) raiding alliances have a lot of potential for drama, and (2) raiding alliances have a lot of potential for mergers. (Remember, the leader of the other guild doesn't want a merger unless it's on his terms, and you've just approached him on your terms.)

Furthermore, everyone who's lead a guild for more than a month knows exactly how the guild merger thing goes. If you introduce yourself to another GL - "Hi, I'm the guild leader of <YourGuildHere>, do you have a minute?" - he already knows what you want to talk to him about, and he's already figuring out what he's going to say to turn you down.


If you want to recruit a large number of raiders at once for the sake of doing content you don't have the people for yet, the best approach in my opinion would be to pug it. I'm not suggesting you should just go to Shatt and start yelling "LF10M Gruul's Lair." Talk to people in other kara guilds in advance. If you don't know good people in other kara guilds, some of your members do. Don't bring it up as anything permanent, or approach guild leaders unless you know them personally. Just talk to raiders and say, "hey, we're trying to get a pug together to kill Maulgar. If you're up for it, we're doing it on X night." If you don't get good response, keep trying. You'll likely end up starting late and yelling in Shatt to fill the last 4-5 spots anyway, but if you get a halfway viable raid to zone into the instance you've already cleared a massive hurdle. You've demonstrated your ability and willingness to herd 25 random people into an instance, and you're likely the only way most of the people in your raid are going to do Maulgar any time soon. Some of those people will come back the next week. Some of those people will bring friends. If things go well, you'll eventually have a steady group of raiders, some of whom will want to join your guild, others of whom will be at least raiding with you long enough to keep you in 25-man content (which will make recruiting much easier).

The beauty of doing this with Maulgar is that that fight is really won by about 10 people. You can have your DPS spots filled by just random warm bodies, as long as you make sure the critical roles - the tanks, the pullers, most of the healers - are your guildies or other people you trust not to suck.

I had that arranged, but unfortunatley key members of the guild weren't there (primarily me), and it didn't really end up working out. As well, the guild it was arranged with absorbed a bunch of members from the former #1 server team, so their need for us quickly diminished (who would most likely be working on Vashj right now if they didnt Xfer).

/wave Turik

Your best bet would be to do cooperative raiding with any guild you can find, determine what classes you need and attempt to fulfill those needs from recruitment, but due to the low player pool I experienced on Balnazzar, it's pretty hard to get any form of recruiting done that isn't cross realm. You can also try to find allies, bring pugs that are friends of the guild, and just try to convince them to your cause.

Hey.

Yeah, definatley not easy on the server, but with the number of lower-key guilds in kara right now, I think it can be done. It's just tough to see guilds like Novus and Everlast ahead of us when we know we are better. It's annoying to know that we went through Kara like butter, two shotted Nightbane, and are now stuck scratching our ass, while the zerg guilds who recruit level 1-70, are getting ahead of us. Do they deserve it? I guess. Do we? Absolutely.

Its hard to pin point what makes a success and how a failure comes to be, but in my experience lots of things play a part.

Leadership
Part of the challenge is making sure the leadership on both sides are committed to making things work, and willing to make and enforce the necessary compromises. One hard part here in my experience is finding out who the key players are in the other guild, as the more influential people aren't always the guild officers. The key players have to genuinely want a merger or alliance, and stand by it when things get a bit rough. Things tend to fail impressively and quickly once the leaders and key people stop taking part in the process (worst case I ever experienced was two guilds merging into one then the leaders from both guilds just going MIA shortly after leaving the new guild with no sense of direction, collapse soon followed).

I don't think I've ever seen a merger work with leaders who were stubborn and undermined the process. If possible get rid of them, if not its better just to cancel any alliance or merger process and find another candidate.

Expectations
Another key factor seems are the expectations members and leaders have. People have a tendency to think that everything will be perfect overnight. Everyone will magically show up fully prepared for raids, and wipes will become a part of history never to be seen again. Then the first raid happens and goes badly and moral plummets. Its important that everyone understands that the first few weeks will not go smoothly, new people have to learn how to play together, learn eachothers strengths and weaknesses, frequently each guild has used slightly different tactics so some re-learning might be necessary, etc.

The leaders have to set some reasonable expectations, and long term goals and then work their asses off to make them happen.

Culture
Every group of people develops their own history and culture, this can result in some culture shock when you combine them together. Some work should be done in advance to see if they are combinable, trying to combine a family friendly guild with a mainly college student with anything goes guild chat probably wont work to well.

For an alliance I like to setup a new site that hosts the forums, dkp, and any other common tools, this gives both groups a more neutral place to get to know each other, we also set up a custom chat channel in the game itself to encourage people to get integrate outside raids. At one point this resulted in the alliance site becoming the central place of members focus leaving the two original guild sites pretty much barren of interest (which is good if you want to merge, and bad if your idea is to ditch the alliance as soon as you have recruited enough to go it alone).

Mergers are more difficult, but its important to get everyone to know a little bit about everyone else as quickly as possible, or there is a risk of having two sub cultures within the guild that are at a state of war. Usually I've seen this done by starting a "Post something about yourself" threat and organization of some more relaxed events more focused on communicating more than progress (we recently did a retro raid that functioned well for this, Molten Core with drinking games on voice chat makes for fun if done right).