Hello. Been a long time reader of this forum, but have never posted here before. My question here has to deal with finding/forming the right raiding group for a person. I was on a server where I became part of a casual raiding group/alliance and eventually became leader of it. We got past Onyxia and up to Ragnaros, but didn't get Rag down before things blew up, mostly due to petty politics and conflicts on how things should be run (and who should run it) between more hardcore players (myself and others) and more casuals. What ended up happening was myself and a few close friends from the group ended up moving to another server, where we are levelling up and working on forming an actual committed raiding guild.
What we wanted is a professional raiding guild. Not necessarily one that raids 7 nights a week (3-5 would be good) but one that has the members all contribute and act maturely and responsibily. One with clear guidelines on how people act and discipline for when they are broken. One that cares about progression over loot. I'm also a subscriber to the thought that specs shouldn't be forced, so in that way I follow the EJ line of thought. I'm also not a big fan of guild alliances with my previous experiences with them, as I find them to be more cliquish than regular guilds as well as very difficult to enforce anything.
While I have seen plenty of posts here about how to run and manage a raiding guild I've not seen anything on how to actually form one. What I'd like to know is how feasible is it to actually make a group like that from only a base of 5-10 people? We're levelling up here and doing some pugs to hopefully find some good people, but so far it seems the pickings on our server are slim. Should we try to recruit to our guild as an endgame group when we are only lvl 40? Or just keep pushing to 60 and when we get there do some forum recruiting. I've never been a fan of the mindless spam guild recruitment messages that clutter general. As well I feel recruting for an "endgame" raiding guild at lvl 40 might be considered laughable. But we've been upfront with the few people we have approached about making it a raiding guild, and that has turned away more people than it has brought in.
I always have preferred to recruit to guilds on an individual basis, but due to not having met so many people and most good ones being guilded already, we have very little native recruits from our new server. And if we wait til 60 to recruit it seems the problem is that most people are 60 are in an established guild of some sort and won't be willing to leave it. And if they are unguilded there is generally a good reason for it. Then you also get into the matter of which server you're on. Some servers seem to have more capable people to draw from then others. Some old ones or abandoned ones are pretty much dead since the good players moved on. We are on Runetotem which seems to be a pretty decent server, although fairly new. End game progress seems to have 3-4 alliance guilds past Rag, but not much BWL progress so far. But by no means is it a super active server. We would have chosen a newer server, but for some reason one of our people wasn't able to stay logged in to the new servers, which forced our choice to one of the servers that came out early in the year.
So I guess the question in the end is how viable is it to try to form a raiding guild from such a small base? And if so how to actually form and build the guild? I like the idea of doing the work myself and going from MC through to later stuff rather than latching on to an already formed raiding guild's success. Of course that also means being a year behind the good raiding guilds out there, but I guess that is the price to be paid. Although I suppose if paid transfers come open soon that might give another option, however I am enjoying playing my new class more than the last one I played. :) Still all I've ever really wanted to do in this game is to raid. PVP doesn't terribly interest me other than as a diversion with friends. I want to get to the real endgame content (BWL and beyond) and to see it all in my time in this game. So if anyone has any thoughts on forming a raiding guild or finding a good raiding guild (more the former than the later, I'd really only consider joining a formed guild if all my other options were gone) I'd love to hear it.
PS: Thanks to the guy from Carnival (Mosh I think) who pointed me to these forums and tried to help out my guild problems. Your ideas were good, I just wasn't able to make them work.
Posts like Gurg's are what make these forums readable.
Kasi, the ideal raid core has x number of raiders that are there every time, but that is highly idealized. My experience has been that realistically, turnover happens. People's playtimes change, etc. I don't think you have any control over what sort of raiders you get, in terms of their potential for having RL issues that alter their playtime. I think the best course is to collect raiders until you hit an ideal point of turnover where you have a decent raiding group and enough influx of people returning / new apps that you can match your attrition.
That being said, my guild has, I think, had exceptionally high attrition for a variety of factors so others may have had different experiences. I know that there are some guilds out there with 50-man rosters total; thus, the ideal does happen, but as a general rule if you build a raiding guild around 40-50 raiders you take a substantial hit when even one of those raiders has to reduce their playtime. Better to spread your resources, in my opinion.
As far as being behind in content goes, I wouldn't stress too much about that - I'd think that progressing with new content always in your sights would be more fun than sitting and farming Nef for months while you wait for new raid zones. Additionally, as you outpaced the release of new content in your progression you'd draw ever closer to the cutting edge and older guilds.
Apple, I got the impression he'd seen Digo's post ("While I have seen plenty of posts here about how to run and manage a raiding guild I've not seen anything on how to actually form one.") - maybe not though!
Arak, yes I have read that post before, especially when I took over leadership in my previous group. Whether I was the right choice for our alliance leader before I don't know. I'm probably not the most charasmatic guy out there, although I fit the other things well and know how to play this game. (from Prob's post) But yes, building the raiding group is something I am stuck on. I felt a point Kaubel made there was very key.
Include people you know or have played with extensively. Rule with an iron fist for a few months, taking care that no idiots slip through the first few runs of new invites. Then, pretty much let the guild run itself. Keep playstyle expectations to a minimum as well. If you want to raid, form your guild with that in mind. Trying to convert a casual guild into a raiding one won't work.
Our little group is just going to have to do pugs extensively, maybe PVP some and establish our reputation on this server. And from there hopefully recruit the right people. And yeah I know, trying to make a casual raiding group sucks when it gets to the point where you actually have to work to accomplish anything (eg: Rag and beyond). I'm hoping we can get a few good people and get to the point where we can do ZG. If we can do ZG and clear the place with success that will give us some momentum to recruiting people to get to 40 man raiding.
Our little group is just going to have to do pugs extensively, maybe PVP some and establish our reputation on this server. And from there hopefully recruit the right people. And yeah I know, trying to make a casual raiding group sucks when it gets to the point where you actually have to work to accomplish anything (eg: Rag and beyond). I'm hoping we can get a few good people and get to the point where we can do ZG. If we can do ZG and clear the place with success that will give us some momentum to recruiting people to get to 40 man raiding.
There are people who raid with nothing but PUGs because that's all they care to do and there are people who raid with PUGs because that's their only option. Both can be considered casual to an extent, but I'd much rather recruit with the latter group in mind.
In other words, it shouldn't be too difficult to build a solid raiding guild using people who don't live and breath WoW if you get enough people, and you don't plan to be one-shotting AQ40 within the first month of forming.
Originally Posted by Lyta
I've been trying to concentrate on studying for my Proof Methods test tomorrow, and all I can think of is your hotness, radiating out from the pixels on my monitor, seared straight into my neurons.
Kasi, my guild is actually in a sort of similar situation to yours. We formed from a raiding alliance and then those of us in the alliance split off to form our own guild. Although we don't really have the same situation of starting from a guild of 5-10 people, there has been MANY a time in the past couple of months when I've wanted to give it all up in desperation and do the same thing.
That being said, recruiting for a guild, in my experience, is a lot like looking for a job--it's all about NETWORKING. While you're leveling up, make friends. Talk with a lot of people, taking care to be friendly, helpful and courteous. This will start forming the basis for the reputation of your guild. If you grind your way to 60 and then spam Org general with "LFM 4 RAIDING GUILD" you're unlikely to attract much attention from the player base you want, namely the non-asshat players. Each happy member of your guild is a HUGE asset as they can recommend your guild to others.
At the same time, I would also recruit already--maybe not super actively, but following the spirit of the WoW tip--"If you're polite in a group with others, you will get invited back." Have a good experience in a run with someone (preferably unguilded--I don't know about you, but to me stealing members from another guild seems a bit unsavory)? Invite them. See how they act in guildchat. See if they make a contribution to your guild. See if they are active enough to actually make a viable raider. See if they aren't a total moron at their class (it's hard to tell at level 30, perhaps, what someone's skill level is, but more important than skill level, I think, is the ability and the desire to learn, which is also easier to gauge. :)). If they aren't what you're looking for, talk to them about it nicely and ask them to find a new guild.
The thing is that people who may be completely disinterested in raiding as they're leveling up but who are really active, will probably become interested once they hit 60. (I'm a prime example of this--but then again, I still don't raid for the loot, but to hang out with people I like). So keep in mind their activeness more than their interest in raiding. If they're really active, the raiding interest will almost certainly come.
A problem you may come across is dealing with impatient people and drama whores, but given that the other guilds on your server aren't terribly advanced either, you probably won't lose too many members to the former... and you'll want to get rid of the latter regardless.
Although it will be a slow business building yourself up to 40 reliable raid members, given that you're leveling from 0, you have time, and you shouldn't have TOO much trouble keeping yourself occupied while gearing up and trying to get more members. I think once you've got your 40 members and you're downing Rag, you'll find that a point comes where you can afford to be picky about new applicants. The most important thing in building a guild is PATIENCE, so stock up on that, and make sure that your members/class leaders/officers have it as well, because having to soothe their egos all the time can get more exhausting than the actual process of finding more members. :D
Might seem like an odd thing to do but have you tried doing pug instances with far fewer people than what is expected or with groups that lack "vital" components.
In my oppinion you wont ever get to see who is a good player if you go with a perfect class balance of 5 people to Scarlet Monastery at lvl 40. But if you go there with 2 or 3 people or without a proper healer or tank you are going to start to see who can play their class.
I think it's possible on a newer server to build into a raiding guild from a tight-knit group of 10-15. The old guild I helped found did it, and so did the guild we've since merged into. The key is getting to critical mass and actually being able to run content efficiently.
Good players will be attracted to good players. If you have a solid group of guys and gals playing in your guild, people you group with will notice. I haven't been doing a lot of the pre-MC instances lately (when I run them on my alt, it's usually all-guild), but I would think that it would make for a more challenging test of a player's ability/temperament than what it used to be. At lower levels, try to run instances where your group is slightly underleveled relative to the content. I wouldn't think PUGs would be a cesspool on a younger server since many guilds are probably equally small and people will level at different paces.
Battlegrounds are another good place to get to know people. We had a couple really good pick-ups that our guys met during the honor grind. Some people PVP to get to high warlord, others PVP just for fun. I'd look for the latter, especially if they seem to work well in a team (they heal, intercept/snare guys that attack you, etc.)
I don't think it's immoral to recruit someone in another guild. One of the mergers that had us staffed up to handle the first couple MC runs was the result of a merger with a couple guys we ran UBRS with. They were skilled, geared, and were a lot of fun to play with, so we started talking to them some more. If you do a lot of due diligence, mergers can be another way to get a lot of people in the door quickly (they can also be high risk if handled poorly).
I disagree with people who say you only need 40 to raid. Maybe initially that might be the case, but longer term, you really need at least 7-8 solid players of each class to be a true "raiding guild". You need replacements for when real life intervenes (I got Packer tickets, Chuck has a wedding this weekend) and for when people burn-out/quit. This is especially true when you start running BWL and MC. Even in optimal conditions, turnover happens. Keeping egos in check and making sure everyone feels that they are being dealt with fairly is easily as hard as getting people in the door. If you keep it to only 5-6 of each class, there will be days when you aren't able to raid because you're shorthanded. That can be very frustrating if it happens repeatedly and will lead to turnover - especially with hardcore players who are usually the backbone of most raid groups ("Why don't they value the scheduled raid time as much as me? This guild is going nowhere.")
06/22/06, 6:38 PM
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