How do we keep going?

[crisus]

Ok guys long time reader first time poster so be gentle when ya pop my cherry.

Little back story - I am a GM of a 25 man guild currently raiding CC and with Yoggy our only kill left in Ulduar ( 3%) last raid, going down this week hopefully.

We are only casual, raiding 3 nights on NZ timezones ( GMT + 12 )for a total of 9 hrs a week raiding if that. we have a stable core of about 15-20 players who show up every raid then we have a few more casual raiders.

Our leadership has been stable up until the last few weeks where we have lost our Co - GM , and 3 other officers due to real life ect and lack of interest in the game in general.

Our core group is unbelievable, being solid raiders who know their jobs and put in 100% + effort every raid, currently we are being let down by a few members around 4-6 who just show no effort unless it suits them. generally we dont have a issue filling our raids with the last few months attendance being solid with 30+ signups per raid night, but since we started working on yoggy it seems that those who arent 100 commited are letting down those of us who are and it makes some raid nights go ahead.

Im afraid if this keeps up we wont be able to continue filling raids as our reliable members will start looking else where for consistent raids.

obviously real life > WOW and we understand when members have prior engagements, work, family ect but it seems to be happening more an more often with our signups going from 1-2 canceled per night to pushing 8-9 some nights.

The guild has been together for 3 years with some of us been playing together since the first day of release and i dont want to see something we have put alot of work into fall apart.

So what im asking for is some advice on how to bring it back. How do we keep the guild going an get back on the right track?

the officers work really hard to keep the guild in order, lead raids ect. and we have tried and spoken about alot of things lately to try and get back on track.

what we have tried.

Restructure of guild - we had 300+ toons in guild over 80 accounts until start of Wotlk.
We got rid of all alts, creating a alts guild with a sync'ed guild chat for organising of 5 mans ect. Restructuring the guild into 2 different raider ranks. Core raider - 80% attendance +, core raiders receive a greater benefit from guild bank when it comes to materials, repair fund and get first priority on raid nights. General Raider - < 80% attendance, stil lhas access to repair funds, gbank matts ect but at a lower percentage then Core. also is last chosen for raid nights.

Recruitment - we have a post running continuously the last few weeks since we started losing a few people and had our attendance slip. Our server is a dead end one for horde where the 2nd and 3rd most progressed horde guilds disbanded and the 4th most progressed transferred off the server. leaving us, a casual guild 3rd for horde progression behind the one and only hardcore guild left and one who just got yoggy this week ( another casual guild) our recruitment post has been front page on server and oceanic forums for last 3 weeks with very minimal interest from serious raiders.

Officer replacement - we lost 3 officers and our co-GM within the last 3 weeks, these have been replaced with respected and reliable members who have been with us for ages and deserve the promo.

Bringing with them an enthusiasm and also new ideas, heads to bounce things off.

Raids - we raid on a NZ timezone which isnt best for recruitment overall, especially on our server but our raid times arent that bad, they are a bit earlier then most but having a large NZ contingent this isnt a major issue.

we have spoken about changing raid days/ times but i think this will upset our core rather then get more interest from applications or attendance.

now that CC is available we have been throwing it in there as an incentive to turn up to our Ulduar days by setting it on our last raid day of the week, we have had some issues with filling it out prior to CC but generally dont have issues filling our mid week raids ( we raid wed/thur nights and sun arvo) chucking it onto the sunday has solved our sunday raid attendance issues but now our wed/thur raids are suffering, thus not allowing us to get in and get a kill on yogg ( so far only 6 hrs on him, phase 3 best is 3% on enrage 25 alive) The last 3 weeks we have had to cancel 4 of our 9 raids and do 10 mans due to not having that extra 4-5 ppl online. cancelling raids is becoming a major issue as some of our longer term members are starting to get very frustrated at the others who are letting them down and it just snowballs from their. i see us losing more people in the coming weeks if we cant get the attendance back up there and get our Yogg kill, which some raiders have worked bloody hard for.


Outside of raid events - we have tried getting the guild together by doing old school raids, PVP nights, heroic nights ect ect with a maximum of 18 turning up most nights.


So yeh again what do we do from here? myself and our other officers are out of ideas to be honest, and im getting to the point where i have been asking myself is it still worth it, i still enjoy the game, raiding and playing with my friends but the let downs and frustration are starting to take its toll.

Do we disband? Cut back to a 10 man guild? Transfer to another sever and start fresh?

IMO any of the above will pretty much ensure we lose some members, and i dont want to lose the wrong members, the unreliables i dont care about but the core group is like family.

So what do ya think?

Thanks in Advance Crisus GM and MT for <Enigma>

[Fayre]

You're a guild with a unique selling point - your raiding times. I would focus on the recruitment side - you have your raiding core, you need to widen it. Where exactly are you recruiting and what does your recruitment post currently say? I can't help but feel that your niche might actually be a big draw cross-server.

[crisus]

Enigma> is a oceanic raiding guild situated on the Aman'Thul server.

About US

Enigma was a late bloomer in TBC but the core group has been together now for over 4 years, having completed MH and 7/9 BT pre 3.0 after a late start to 25 man raiding. we have cleared Naxx 25 / Malygos 25 and OS 3 drakes clear.

Currently we are 12/14 Ulduar 25 13/14 Ulduar 10

We have a professional raider core and are looking to not only recruit talented and skilled players for current Ulduar content but also with a veiw to future progression.
Enigma is a structured guild, have great leadership, solid raider core and a mature playing age group, mostly ranging between 18-45 yrs old.

What we are looking for

Currently we have recruitment open on a few classes for current T8 content which are -

HIGHEST PRIORITY
1 Mage
1 Warlock
1 Elemental Shaman

Will look at any ranged classes to fill the above spots but would prefer the classes listed, Closed completely on melee unfortunately


These are core raiding positions and must be filled by skilled and geared players, minimum of Naxx 10/ 25 craftable / badge gear willing to put in the effort and performance to push for progressioncontent not farm content


Raid schedule is currently -

Wed - 6.30-9 / 9.30pm AEST
Thur - 6.30-9 / 9.30pm AEST
Sun - 3.00 -6 / 6.30pm AEST


optionally raiding 10 man on offnights with at least one group being scheduled.

Apply today at Enigma of Aman'Thul (http://www.Enigmaat.guildomatic.com)

OR

you can make a toon on Aman'thul and chat to one of our officers. Crisus, Cowazon or Mekare.


ALL we require is

* Sound knowledge of your class and skill to utilise it in a raid atmosphere
* Mature personality and age ( 18+ preferred)
* High attendance, we do understand real life > WOW but we do require you make 75% of our raids to be considered
*NO drama NO QQ we do NOT tolerate immature behaviour or anything that hurts our reputation on the server.
* Be able to use Ventrillo ( a must) and communicate bot on vent and our forums.
* Be able to use a website based raid signup and show up 100% to raids you are available for. NO signing up and not showing.


this is our recruitment post. as you can see we do cater and encourage NZ timezone players, its just Aman'thul is dead horde side, we have no skilled players left on the server that are unguilded, and AT is the worst server for ppl to transfer to, our last off server recruit was in May and our last Accepted applicant who was not a friend or family member of current guildy was a while ago as well

[Fayre]

I'd perhaps swap it round - you're focussed on telling the applicant about you - how about making it about them? i.e. they're a raider who wants to raid on this specific time zone, and they're a class you want with the gear you want. Then talk about your history later. Make the title of the post not just say "Enigma needs DPS" (or whatever it is) but something like "Oceanic Raiders needed for Yogg-Saron" or some such. That way you'll attract people specifically looking for oceanic times. Think about it from the perspective of an applicant.

If it really looks like a dead end in terms of the server and that is what's holding applicants back, the last resort is to transfer to a more lively place. But that's a big move for everyone and might come with its own drawbacks.

Just my thoughts anyway, but hope they help :)

[Penlowe]

To a certain extent, everything you are going through is normal, but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with.

Any guild that has less that the strictest of rules (i.e. hardcore) is going to wind up with that percentage of players whose effort is less than stellar, it's simply the nature of the unique animal that is a moderate raiding guild.
I agree that recruiting is the best solution to that particular issue, but also look around and determine if you are just in standard 'summer doldrums' (at least that's what we call it north of the equator). Summer doldrums are often dealt with best by holding alt nights, or taking 'vacation nights' (calling the raid but for the reasons of parties, vacations, etc. the 'go outside & do something fun' called raid). It's significantly less stressful to post "hey! it's August Bank Holiday! calling the raid for barbeque and family time. See you 9/ 2 back to regular schedule!" than "oh crap, we are down 3 people again.... need fill ins for 8/ 31".

[Mr.Winkle]

If your struggling to get time on Yogg-Saron but are so close to killing him, why not just use the raid extension option now available to finally put him to bed.

Being 13/14 Uld 25 and working on hardmodes is far more attractive than 12/14. Also it'll be a massive boost to moral.