In the real world, in business, companies attempt to recruit players from competitors regularly. It's almost an axiom that if you don't, you're shooting yourself in the foot.

Is it right to do this in the raiding world?
Many guilds have a few players who are dragging the rest of the group along. Sometimes these people are nice, sometimes they're douchebags. Right now, it seems that the raid and guild that I lead is dragging along quite a bit of dead weight.

There are a lot of things that could be said that all boil down to one phrase: it doesn't seem fair. It doesn't seem fair that many of us learned the C'Thun encounter just after a few wipes, while some people still chain the beam onto others and don't know how to get the hell out of dark glare.

And those in the other raids? Those who wait on others who are too lazy or too inept to knuckle down and think and learn encounters to defeat them, do they feel the same frustration? Wouldn't uniting all of us on one server under a single guild to make a raid full of those who refuse to be dragged around... wouldn't that be the greater good? Or am I simply rationalizing an evil to justify my desires?

It doesn't seem alltogether impossible to defeat encounters or to crack the "strategy" by observation. Sure there's trial and error... the real challenge seems to be in getting everyone who's needed to execute the plan accordingly. As we progress from instance to instance, it's becoming more and more obvious that a larger and larger percentage of the raid has to be pulling their own weight. Perhaps I'm simply being too carebear.

Also, doesn't the fact that someone is willing to jump ship for a better raid demonstrate disloyal tendencies? Sometimes it's not the case though, people who are very loyal often jump raids as well.

I've been blabbing alot, simply because I'm too afraid to say what I really want to say.

Is it okay for me to take the best players of other raids even if I know that raid will most likely collapse because of it? Is it simply the natural pecking order? AQ has been marvelous for me, really: it's been the most effective tool in showing who's pulling their weight and who hasn't. In my mind and in my dreams, I envision dropping 15-20 people and inviting 30 others from various guilds on the server.

Any thoughts?



-A

It's tempting assuming you are in a position to do it (which might be the case if you are on Cthun) but any rapid change in guild composition is risky imo. The most important thing a guild got is not the skills of it's member but the camaraderie/friendship that hold it together. Without it, your uberly skill bunch of people are probably not gonna last long.

Creating such an environnement where raids are fun and where people are productive, like in RL, take time, strong leadership and probably a bit of luck. If you guild 15 new people now, even if you assume they have gear, you have no idea what you are getting most of the time. Do you want to create clique within your guild that will bitch in mass on bad loot calls, will they stop playing wow in 2 months because raiding without their friends suck, etc.

The story of the guilds on my server (lothar horde) is pretty much exactly what you describe. I was in a guild that was considered 2nd or so for a while in MC, getting ragnaros the same week as the top guild. We could recuit mostly anyone and did, we got uber players, players that are shooting for HWL and that also raid, etc. We became more hardcore. We were behind on the drakes in bwl, we starting pushing for more raid days, some people were constantly denied raiding because they were considered to suck, etc. I assume that guild would be on Chtun today, maybe we would have killed him, maybe not but we would probably be asking the same question you are right now, assuming we were unable to kill him because too many people "suck" in our raids.

Once we got chromagus down, the old leadership decided that our new hardcore rules weren't good for the guild, so after talking, our current raidleader disbanded, taking with him around 60-70% of the guild and basically making a ton of people simply quit the game. We decided to reform and are probably even less hardcore then we ever were before the split and are working on nef now. The story of the other guild is more interesting though. Being split in half, they could not raid. So they had to recruit. Even though they had all our "talent", they took forever to get up to speed. Eventually they got nef, etc, but they always felt that they still had the same problems they had before, that too many people sucked. They added the high turnout problems and the fact you guild people that are undergeared and can't function properly for a while. Note that the pre split guild would have probably killed Nef earlier then this post split incarnation (even without nazi rules).

Not long after aq was out, the top guild of our server decided with the leadership of our now 2nd guild "spawn" to hand pick the top 25 members of each guild and finally form the uber guild they wanted. They instantly were able to clear Nef the first day they formed and made rapid progress in aq. They got to chtun, long story short, inter guild drama (2 cliques) aq burnout and general attrition rate and low horde population made them unable to ever beat Chtun and now the guild is disbanding and trying to server transfer everywhere else.

I think this relate to what you are talking about. People that want the guild to progress and drag it along (I would assume I'm one of them) think about it. (If only we could kick x anx y and replace them with that guy, etc) but each time I have to remind myself that my guild will do it at it's own pace. It will happen eventually. I know that the expantion will be a boon for us because it will mean finally clearing aq40 easily and stepping foot in naxx and killing bosses. The game is getting too hard for guilds like us but like you see, each guild got it's difficulty threshold where stuff are going to be a problem.

My advice is to put in place better recruiting policy, try to snag some top players when you can without going into drastic action. Be patient in re-explaning things but also in the pace you are gonna kill mobs. You got to chtun, could be worse. In my experience, any drastic measure like you mention are a good way to destroy a guild.

I am an officer in the newly prominent Horde guild on our server. The Horde side population has lived through multiple guild collapses in a short period of time and each one of these collapses was prefaced with the usual "let's combine your best core with our best to make the uber guild." The problem with this mentality is that just because a particular group of people are great at something does not mean that they will get along. In any sort of succesful venture a group of people need a certain amount of chemistry, simply adding 1337 component A with 1337 component B does not always equal the best result. Realize that there is a great deal of value in the people who you have taught to get to a certain level, or who have stayed with a guild through dark times. They have EARNED their keep, rather than having a spot gift-wrapped for them. I think that if you choose to go the route of creating some uber conglomerate you'll eventually run into the problem of frustration at any sort of stagnation ("WTF, we're the best on the server why aren't we dominating everything) as well as a sense of cockiness prevalent throughout your member-base.

Yeah I'm not sure if its really possible to merge the best of 2 or several guilds into one and have things work out well. You need time to develop relationships and such. I've sometimes thought of this in regards to building my own end game guild. I know from the raiding forums and talking to others that there are plenty of people like me who are unhappy with the situation they're raiding or in my case had their raiding guild die to shit like the whole hardcore vs casual debate. I wish I could get those unhappy but good people to all gather in one place. It would be a great guild if it was developed from the start, as in new fresh characters. Give time for the group to get cohesiveness and camraderie. And if there are people who just didn't fit, they would leave long before you started raiding. At times I've even thought of posting on realm forums or guild forums. But really I have no idea if I'd be taken seriously or just laughed at, so I've left that for now. Still I understand the sentiment. I'd love to get 50-60ish people who were like the 10-15 best from my last raiding group. It would be a great guild, with commited and skilled players who are friendly and look out for others. But no, for other than the few top guilds most guilds seem to be the 5ish leader types, the 10-15 really good support guys, and 30+ people who just show up.

Do it. It works.

I play horde on Burning Blade US, and here's a little history:

2 months ago, pre-Naxx, there was 1 horde kill of the Twin Emps on horde side, by one guild (not mine). Said guild couldn't kill them again for 2 or 3 weeks. 2 Alliance guilds were farming C'Thun at this point; we were drastically lagging behind.

I got contacted by a member of another guild about a new uberguild. Word spread as we contacted the best (and most hardcore!) players from all four of the decent horde guilds.

80% of those contacted left their guilds on Tuesday X and formed our current guild.
We killed the Emps and C'Thun the same week.
We've cleared the spider wing, Noth and Raz in Naxx. We're currently working on Patchwerk, and will probably be on Thaddius next week.
There's one other guild on horde to kill anything in Naxx, and they've killed Raz and Anub. We're still the only horde guild who have killed C'Thun.

Alliance on our server have progressed further than us in Naxx, so I'm not toting us as a world class super guild. It's still better than being in some shitty guild stuck on Emps though.

We get along as well as any 60 progress-minded, more-hardcore-than-most individuals would.
We replace members that are mistakes as fast as possible, and try to keep the shitty players to an absolute minimum.

The downside is the horde hates us because we killed 3 guilds and crippled others, forcing most to amalgamate or reform. Anything we do is nitpicked until a negative aspect can be found, and amplified (Ha ha! You STILL haven't killed KT? Best of the best my ass!).
But personally, being an attention whore and the warm fuzzy feeling of power due to being labeled as xxguild_kilerrzxx makes up for it.

So take our example as proof, go forth and venture into the abyss that is ditching noobs. Make sure you get the absolute best and most dedicated, and mighty epics will once again fill your hungry bag slots.

I'd rather wait for Gurgthock to weigh in on this but from a personal point of view I find it to be a pretty dick move that speaks much of one's character to employ the method described in the post above mine. Then again, our guild's had it pretty good, so I can't say that I comprehend the situation. However, since you qualified this as an ethical decision and not a practical one, I will say that it is entirely selfish to want to do this -- in leading, you have essentially committed yourself to these individuals. You have invested in them. The crucial question here is whether or not these individuals have committed an equal investment with the rest of the guild -- you described early on in your post that some players are nice, and some or not, but I didn't get a clear sense of what your own guild's composition was. When you say dead weight, do you mean that this dead weight is composed entirely of selfish people who want you to do the learning for them, or are they simply people with little time on their hands to play, but are nonetheless decent people overall? Good playing skills can be learned, but good attitudes and good personalities can not. If you are willing to sacrifice a decent guild atmosphere for the sake of progression, you will regret it.

Fashioning yourself to be the "assholes of the server" who cut their own ranks because they felt people couldn't pull their weight and actively took other guild's good players is just asking for bad things to happen. My guild tag may say Elitist Jerks, but despite that name we've always prioritized maintaining a good relationship with other guilds on our server and maintaining an environment of mutual respect and cooperation with everyone we deal with. Had we been a smaller guild and actively sought to recruit good players from other guilds over the course of our history at the expense of those guilds then we definitely would not be in the position that we are today.

tl;dr Progression is nice, but to climb on the backs of others is unnaceptable.

Admittedly, given the board we're on, I know most won't agree with this - but getting to the Twin Emps alone is an accomplishment that most people won't see. Many good guilds had difficulty with that fight, and take a while to learn it, skilling up their players and learning how to do the fight. Calling people shitty because you're having difficulty with a fight is a bit low. You think EJ haven't had bosses whom they just suffer learning?

Abandoning everyone because you couldn't beat that fight to form an uberguild just doesn't seem right to me. Means you either had no regard for the majority of the guild you were originally in, or you were willing to ditch them all at a moments notice for the prospect of better loot. Neither is a great picture to be honest.

---

To the original question - we're in a vaguely similar situation. Original EU server, massive population imbalance. Three Horde guilds all within spitting distance of each other on content, in AQ40 atm. And then one horde guild having killed Razorgore, just last week. We're currently advertising for a rogue to recruit, and we don't have any applicants! Rogues!

Sure, some of our players aren't the best of the server. But I wouldn't ever contemplate jumping ship, or poaching other guilds players. Because that sort of stuff never works out well in the end. Shitty drama was something I enjoyed when I was a teenager. Now, it just turns a game into a job. I'd rather stick with the folks I have, all of whom I know I can get on with, and work on skilling up the raid force and improving as we go - and by not paying any attention to what any other guild on the server does. After all, it's hardly like it matters?

Naxxramus is going to be the end game for progression for the next 6 months. There's no point breaking up guilds now to get into it, when BC isn't going to be out until the end of November at the earliest. Have patience and work with people would be my advice.

It's not really fair to compare EJ, who's peculiar origin has largely precluded the need to recruit, with the vast majority of other guilds who do need to recruit from time to time. I don't mean to knock EJ's accomplishments, but it's a pretty goddamn huge advantage. Maintaining a good relationship with other guilds on the server is a lot easier when you are not competing for the same scarse resources.. good people. EJ deserves a lot of credit for it's retention rate, which has helped maintain their advantage, but I'd like to see your attitude prevail if 90% of your top-geared rogues decided to quit the game permanently.

Not everyone has the same outlook on what is fun in this game. The raiding population in this game is fairly miniscule compared to the majority, so your argument really only underlies your personal philosophy of what is important in this game. Everyone approaches it differently.

As for your anecdotes, I can only say that I have personally witnessed guilds who have formed under similar circumstances, and well, they pay for it in the end one way or another.

Slaughtering about any other raid on your side in order to cannibalize is ist imho one step to far. Of course most raids have to recruit in order to compensate for losses. I myself left my old raid because auf dilletantism concerning playstyle and leadership. And I joined a raid which had a better progression. But it is something entirely different if you do not only advertise your open slots but actively seek to destroy other raids. Sometimes chain reactions happen, as new members will motivate more members of their old raids to apply. We had to (and still have) some slot to fill but we do prefer to chose a more sensible approach.

Recruitment is always kind a hairy, but definitely not a matter where a brute force approach will be successfull on the long run.

Last thoughts on the subject: like in RL economy many guild fusions will fail due to differences in personalities, play style, guild climate etc. Conflicts in a newly fusioned guild often lead to total breakups due to the fact that such clashes will fraction the guild into tiny bits.

Vicious Cycles is on my server and has the "assholes of the server" rep. When the wonderfully thought out AQ event rolled around, it was a thing of beauty. Horde and alliance working together in common cause. The common cause being: "Don't bother doing the fucking turnins. Fuck VC. Fuck them in the ear." - Cynosis' wife.

Never again will we see the days of people with ebay gold willing to pay 5g for a stack of wool.

While progression is going great and epics are flowing in thats just dandy. What happens when a couple players take a vacation/get pissed at each other/quit game/insert source of problems here?

Guilds are best judged in times of adversity, not times of triumph.

You will have massive egos and not enough compliments to go around. What defines lets say the top 20% from these guilds being the top 20%? very little if you ask me. Primarily what you have is a bunch of people that want to play alot. If you just take the best geared or the ones that are always at the tops of the meters how does that make a good guild? Realize that a large reason why many guilds succeed is cause of chemistry. I have seen more than my fair share of guilds fall apart due to too many egos. You will have all kinds of people thinking they can be the leader and few that want to be followers. The other negetive is that you will be hated by the rest of the server cause you will either heavily setback or destroy multiple other guilds.

In the end even if it fails everyone will find guilds to get your progression and gear taken care of but it may not be an enjoyable time. I honestly dont understand why people would want to do this but this is a game and people will do what they want to do.

It's rather grim that you feel my guild is in debt to karma. We cut the undeserving, bad players out of the loop and reinforced players who pull their own weight with others of their kind.
Sure people are going to get pissy, they've lost out on relying on other, good players. Me and my guildmates are all better off (and happier) now. We've heard the numerous arguments against the success of our guild, such as ego clashing, and take heed accordingly.

Why is it harder for a guild like mine to go through these problems like any other guild?

Like I said Tenkawa, weigh out the morals of the situation vs what you want out of WoW.
You can't be told which in your particular case is right or wrong (cliche but true).

I've seen this also. Some people just aren't as good as they think they are.

I'd advise you to make sure you've done everything you can to help your current members improve before you consider ditching them. Set up some programs where they can measure their improvement, some intermediate goals for them to hit, and help them make them. If they're not improving, find out why - a lot of people have no idea where to start when it comes to optimizing their character and their performance, but are perfectly capable of actually doing it given some information and guidance.

Nobody sucks on purpose. All those people (I hope) actually want to be there and to improve. The only ones you don't need are the ones too stupid to admit that.

Well, none of you seem to have any personal ties to each other or the guild. If they jumped ship to you for epics and progression, they'll jump ship elsewhere just as fast.

Like the others have said, it seems to me like this is a bad idea. In my opinion, it's not a player's skill but his attitude that's significant. One can (with the right mindset) almost always improve, but if you're an asshole, you're sure staying that way. If you decide to reform, then do it with people that you trust, not those who have the reputation of being good. By wanting to join your guild, these players are already demonstrating that they are in it for the items, and not the community; you should want it the other way around.

just remember if people are willing to bolt on their guilds for something that has no proof of being better but just might be they could always bolt on you also. Typically there is little loyalty in something like this and if progression starts slowing or someone disagrees with a decision being made that person has little reason to stick around unless you guys are leaps and bounds beyond all other guilds which in WoW is a rarity. I still have always liked just recruiting people that are newer to the game and motivated to do end game. You get them early and odds are there will be alot more loyalty and following the leadership will not be an issue. Gearing up people should not be a difficult situation. If your current raiders are sucking start recruiting new guys in blues and greens and replace your crappy players it will send a message.

While I agree with you for the most part, there are some players who simply just suck at video games. They may have a great attitude and are very willing to learn, but not everybody has the same mental and physical reaction time and decision making skills. Some people are just naturally adept at gaming.

I try to underplay "skill" to an extent when reviewing applicants since I used to share your mindset. However, given what I've learned over the past few months, a willingness to learn doesn't necessarily guarantee that a player will become good.

I agree with you on the asshole thing, though.

I think you need to put this all in perspective. First and foremost this is a game. People play it to have fun. If it isn't fun they'll spend their free-time elsewhere. Time /played becomes a sunk cost for most people if they don't enjoy playing with the people they spend every night with. There are days when this game can feel like work (hi, I hate farming tubers), but you do the work because there should be other aspects of the game you enjoy. If every day feels like work, why do you continue to play? So you can be the prettiest rogue in Orgrimmar? That strikes me as being extremely hollow.

If your ultimate goal as a guild is only loot and progression what happens when your progression hits a wall? Is there going to be finger pointing and calls to clean house of the "sucky" players again? What loyalty (if any) is owed to a guild that was formed solely to progress when/if progression stalls?

What does it say of the moral character of the players who abandoned friends to join that guild? If they didn't abandon their friends, did you make exceptions forming your uberguild so you could get a few good players (and pick up a few "sucky" ones in the process)? What does it do to guild morale if you just cut a bunch of the good players' friends? Realistically most people have friends who are not the best players available, but they enjoy hanging out with the guys.

Skill can be taught/learned to some degree, attitude is generally an inherent quality of the player. If you aren't careful a guild built on the ashes of several lesser guilds could very well be a house of mercenaries. What happens if/when you hit a wall and someone progresses faster than you? Do your players start leaving? What happens if one or two of the "leet" players have to miss a week or two and you stumble that week as a result? Do your guildmembers start calling for blood?

If you want to draw comparisons to corporate life, I will tell you that corporate culture is generally what separates a successful firm from an unsuccessful firm. It is also usually the one thing (other than purchase price which is irrelevant in relation to a wow guild merger) that will make or break a merger. I may have a couple individual analysts that are incredibly good, but what keeps them working for me? Is it only their paycheck or have I succeeded in building a place they're happy to come to every day even if it means they make $5k less a year? In really-real corporate life I work to get underperformers up the curve so they are at least average. Successful firms do not instantly cut bait immediately when someone isn't working out. They work to identify the problems and try to find ways to fix it. It's generally more expensive to replace someone than it is to train and work with that person. That's not to say that we don't let people go, but usually it takes a while before we finally say "enough". I'll admit that motivating people to perform in wow is 10x harder because I can't hold a paycheck over their head (in fact, every person under me gets paid the same regardless of how well they perform in a zero-sum system) and many times you will have guilds with immature kids rounding out the raid roster. However, peer pressure can still be a tremendously effective tool.

My guild has only recently downed Nef and is working on AQ40, we are not an uberguild, so take my opinion for what you will. However, I think you would be much better served evaluating each person and eliminating them on an individual basis rather than trying to do a mass-merge or mass-cut of players. People should be given fair warning and told what the issues are. If you have class leaders they should act as a mentor and apply pressure to the underperformers. You should use tools like Swstats or Recap to numerically support your arguments. If you actually hold people accountable and work with them, it's probably more effective than just letting them go - especially when you look at guild morale and cohesion. If other people actually see you working with someone, you're blameless when they get replaced.

Edit: many of my points covered above in other posts. thanks for delaying my post mr conference call.

Tenkawa,

I know what you are going through, I've seen it before more than once. I think it is a fact of life that there will always be all-stars and slackers within any organization. Some people's skill, reaction time, experience levels will always be at or above that of others. That said, often times All-Star teams perform less well than the scrub teams, because they lack teamwork, and have too much an empasis on themselves. Often pointing finger's in other directions when things go wrong.

To me, what really matters is attitude and willingness to learn. If they have those things, they can always improve. The true deadweights, are those who wish to ride the coat tails of those around them, rather than put in the effort and learn for themselves. It is pretty easy to identify people like this, and they should either be motivated by some means or culled from the raid. That is not to say necessarily /gkicked. Certainly there is more to guilds than progression, and there are plent of times that they might can fill in when needed. But those cutting edge encounters that require 40 people to be on the same page are not the place for people to be looking for a free ride.

So my advice is this:

1. Identify those who are true slackers, and those who just lack skill.
2. Bench the slackers and work to help improve those who are lacking.
3. If they have a total ineptitude, they may need to go hone their skills elsewhere for a while.
4. Selectively recruit over time to fill your spots that may become vacant. (A little competition might convince the slacker to step it up)

Recruitment is definately a sticky wicket. I would selectively recruit those you thought would be a valuable asset to the raid, but I am not sure I would actively recruit from within another raid. If the members of a different raid are actively looking elsewhere tho, I would think they would be fair game. However, I would not advise a mass merger. That tends to work out badly, as you want to assimilate them into YOUR raid or else risk losing the culture of your current raid. Mass merges usually result in clicks and infighting, from what I have seen.

Personally, I jumped servers a few months back because the raid I had organized and co-lead for 9mos had turned into very much what you are describing. There was no way to solve it, as it was a multi-guild raid, and the attitudes of those bottom 15-20 finally drove me away. I lucked into finding a very good raid on the x-fer server with quite possibly the best raid leader I have ever met. She and she alone, holds my allegiance from a raid stand point. I would follow her into the most hopeless encounter, regardless of the raids ability, because I believe in her ability to motivate us through it.

I choose to look at the end game raids as a business, much like you, as they require so much time and comitment to really be half assed around with. Thats not to say they arent imensly fun and contain a lighthearted atmosphere, but it is a disrespect to the other 39 people you are with not to take the encounters seriously.

IMHO, if you get a group of 40 like minded, reasonably skilled people who are willing to listen and learn and combine them with a skilled raid leader and funcitonal guild structure, the only thing standing between you and the highest level content is gear/experience. Both of which come with time.

Loyalty to a guild is far overrated. If you are not happy in a guild leave. The difference between a good guild and a great guild is amazing.

While this quote is taken out of context, progression is our motto. We don't do this to get everyone geared up to the gills. We push and keep pusing until we come up against something we simply cannot beat without more gear. (which has never happened) However, a lot of people will think that the environment is full of a bunch of loot whores or what not. That is definately not the case. We have a very high % of professionals in the guild. We have been together for years and years. There is very little, if any, drama. Drama has no place in our guild.

I came from a so called family guild before CQ, and let me say that this guild is much closer than that guild ever was. I really do believe we are probably one of the most tightly knit guilds out there. We will have our fifth annual get together later this month. This also helps to strengthen ties when you can place a face to that person you talk to nightly on Ventrillo. We are definately a guild that goes way beyond the games we play.

Bottom line, if you aren't happy in a guild fix it. If that means leaving and forming a new one, do it. These games are so much better when you enjoy what you are doing, and enjoy the people you are doing it with. And if tempers and stress are high, that really isn't the case.