Issues with a pre-existing guild

[Karisita]

I can't think of any way to title this thing and cover what I need to know. So while I know the topic is vague at best, I hope there's a few people who actually read this and can give some advice.

Problem 1: Guild Leader - Our guild started as a few people who weren't happy in our old guild, and we slowly built some people. But now we've gotten to the point where a few completely unavoidable extended absences have completely destroyed our guild, we've got three or four dozen alts that are never online so it's in no danger of being closed, but we only have 5 or so active members, and even they have been acting strangely lately. In order to drum up some activity we started raiding 10 man naxx and OS weekly with another guild for some action, just something to keep people in the game, and to keep us in and accessable too. But our fearless leader, our GM, has no faith in us at times, she wants to give up and disband, then have the majority of us join the guild we've been raiding with. Don't get me wrong, they're great people, but I feel like if we keep plugging away a little longer, we'll get what we need, we'll break into having a raid team, and that'll get us more members. Other times when I start to feel like maybe she's right, it's been like 2 months since we got new members, and we couldn't even keep those, maybe it is time to quit... it's those moments that she gets irritated that I think we might not make it.

So I guess what I'm asking for with issue #1, is how do I deal with a GM that wants to quit, while I'm the second in command that wants to keep going. (usually)

And before you start, I've already tried telling her to just pass the guild off to me and go ahead and join the other guild, she doesn't want to do that. Ultimately she wants to either lead our guild, or lead us to a different guild, she doesn't want to keep working but she doesn't want to look like she was the failure either. I've also tried agreeing with her, which irritated her, I've tried disagreeing, and then it's just that I'm obsessed with wow and can't give up a guild to make her happy.

Issue 2: Guild Recruitment.

We tried spamming trade/general chat... we tried spamming guild recruitment, and when we try to recruit via word of mouth, we get the same answers every time "I'm talking to ______ and he's going to come, just give him a little time to leave _____ and he'll join" six months later "where's ______?" "Oh He's still working on leaving _____." "Oh."

We do occasionally get a few people interested, but then they leave because of untimely sicknesses in our MT (me) or our GM decides to go offline for a while because she's burned out, or because we had some trouble getting a raid together because people are availiable at different times from one another...

How do we get people.. and get people to stay... when we get the runaround from reliable people, and the revolving door with everyone else?

Issue 3: Officers.

We in the counsel have at times had trouble being online, and we try to make sure at least one of us is online on a regular basis at all times. The problem is when we can't, when all things conspire against us and we all three have to be offline for a few days, we let our ranked officers know, and we lean on them to get the guild by until we get back.

So far we have across the board been let down every time we've relied on our officers. They keep to themselves and engross themselves with their own business, not even responding when people ask them questions, so people leave. Our officers are good people, great conversationalists, and they keep people going, they're good at recruiting people, and generally speaking, they wind up talking enough and are upbeat enough that they keep people coming back to the guild rather than playing the revolving door game, and I get the feeling if I strip them of officer status they'll leave, as one already has, but then I can't abide an officer who takes frozen orbs out of the GB without letting anyone know why, even a month later when we finally realize it's gone and look at the log and see who took it. Who invites members that have been in the guild before and was on a WELL known ban list, and in general undercuts and undermines everything we in the counsel say and do. This other we just can't lean on, and the fact is without him, we have noone to lean on anyway, as we've just lost the rest of our officers, one to the above incident, one to being an MMA fighter who broke his occular bone, one that only just came back but his online time is unreliable at best, it leaves us with little options if things happen.

So TS, what's your advice for these problems?

[loquatious]

You are screwed, I'd call up a guild meeting and see what folks want to do because your current guild is totally doomed.

Option 1 join the allied guild,
option 2 the guild leader steps down and you try to build a raiding guild within 2 months,
option 3 any interested members quit and join a new guild you are setting up.

[Karisita]

First... I want to appologize for this being in the wrong place.. I thought the section was "GUILD leadership and management"

Second, that's what I was kind of hoping to avoid, since I happen to live and sleep with the GM...

[BlazeDale]

Summers are hard for WoW guilds. There is no doubt about that. Thing might improve for you all once winter hits again. All you might need to do is ride it out and all those alts you speak of may return. I'm experiencing much of the same right now in my guild.

The main goal you should have right now is retention of your members. Schedule raids and MAKE them happen. Pug people and don't be afraid to be a little picky with the people you pug. This will ultimately insure the success of your raids. And always be on an eye out for people that you pug that are good. Add them to friend and invite them again. Put the thought in their minds that this is a guild that constantly raids and tell them they have a spot if they want it.

If you want to improve your numbers running with another guild isn't a good idea. Especially if they are a stronger guilds. Back when my guild was transitioning from running 10 to 25 mans we had run with 3 different guilds to do this. Each of those guilds ended up dissolving and some of their members joined us and some went else where. So ask yourself, if you run with another guild are you going to end up the same way?

The main thing that makes a guild successful is activity. Allot of people will only take about 2 weeks of no raiding until they move on.

[Meldwyn]

Karisita,

My suggestions to you...

First, guilds come and go in WoW. I have only been playing for 7 months and I have seen this time and time again. People switch guilds all the time too, for various reasons (raid times, conflict with gm, ego, not progressing at their pace, etc...). Don't take it personally, don't take it seriously. Its a game and should be treated as such.

Second, running a successful guild (raiding especially) is very hard work. Let me say that again.. HARD WORK! If your gm (someone close to you apparently) is struggling to provide the time commitment needed to make it a success, don't push it. Just move to another guild. Sheesh, what are you giving up? You will be amazed at how much less stress and pressure there is when you are a member, as opposed to an officer or gm of a guild. Just go enjoy the game with someone else setting up raid times, organizing the bank, recruiting, helping, etc...

I just recently told a very close friend to leave his guild so he can stop trying to make it work and join one where he can just relax and do what he wants... that night he passed the torch to me (one of my alts - keeping it as a placeholder and will eventually disband it or just keep it for me to avoid quild requests on that character) and joined a large guild - not two minutes later he was signed up for their 25Naxx run that started 30 mins later. No regrets on his part at all.

Ultimately, you will have to decide whether having your own guild is worth it. For me, on my main, I would never want to be the gm of a guild.

Hope you get it worked out to your mutual satisfaction soon!

Good luck!

[Valjean]

A few thoughts.

1) If the GM wants to quit, let the GM quit. No reason to let her burn out or get more frustrated.

2) Summer is rough for recruiting. Spam trade, realm forums, and try to find good players in pugs. Ask guildies if they have friends who'd like to join.

3) If officers aren't doing work boot them. Feel free to give them a chance, but if they still whine about it, then they really aren't in it for the guild, are they? No one player, or officers will make or break a strong guild.

If this is all too much work, join another guild. It's a game. You should have fun playing it, instead of stressing over managing it. People come and go all the time, and guilds fall apart constantly. The only constant through it all is you, and how much fun you have.

[Karisita]

The problem with the GM is that as long as the rest of us don't quit, the GM won't quit, and she won't hand over the reins to anyone that actually wants the job. So letting her quit isn't an option if we want the guild to stay alive, and we don't want all of our hard work and purchases go to waste when the bank gets destroyed.

Summer may be rough but we've been recruiting for a year now, and we get a few people here and there, but few of them ever stay. We run heroics, we talk socially, we try to do raids (but we can't without the numbers, ergo, people staying.) but somehow people still always loose interest.

Right now we have maybe 4 or 5 active players, so one person is 20% of the guild. if not 25%. And he's the socialite.. the rest of us do what we're doing, and sometimes forget about G chat. He on the other hand will be sitting there PMing 5 people in Ulduar and STILL not loose any dps. (which irritates me to no end.)

[Valjean]

From my point of view, it seems like you're describing a doomed relationship.

A) GM stays happy, everyone stays happy, happy days.
B) GM stays unhappy, everyone stays unhappy, people will quit.
C) GM stays unhappy, everyone stays happy, people will quit.

Obviously you want #1, but it doesn't seem like that will happen, based on what you'v said. The GM is stressed and frustrated, and it doesn't seem like that will change anytime soon. Someone needs to give in, otherwise there's going to be big drama, to the point where relationships get affected. Either recognize it's time to call it quits, or spend a lot of time and energy rebuilding and reorganizing.

If your guild only have 4-5 players, that's pretty much a clique. I think you'd be fine joining another guild and staying together. Even if you're just peons, all that matters is you guys are having fun together, right?

A guild isn't some building, or even some legacy that needs to be maintained. It's just a group of like-minded people. Even if the guild tag's gone, as long as the people are still there, nothing's really changed.

The only way I could see this being a serious problem is if the 4-5 active players enjoy being officers, or being in such a closed environment. You guys will need to decide for yourselves if that's worth the potential loss in raiding.