TankSpot - Guild General

General How did you recruit members at the start?

Freemun — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:44:47 GMT

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some strategies regarding recruitment.

Me and a friend are starting a raiding guild - the only problem is that we're on a new server and don't really know anyone here to call in any favors.

We're running heroics right now and generally making a good impression on people who roll with us (tank and healer), plus we've got a site and ventrilo readily available for when we start raiding. We've both been involved with running end game guilds and generally have a good idea how to operate.

We're looking for a better recruitment strategy than "Spam chat channels."

Thanks for any help.

Guild Relations What to do about haters?

Fealthas — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:20:16 GMT

So some of the core of my guild came from another guild on my server and it seems that that guild is all cool about it now with one exception.... There is one mage in there who still seems to be a complete douche to everyone who has the tag on their name. He recently made this post on the realm progression thread that I run: "you know the purpose of this thread is to actually update it so lets hop to it and update the google page." He posted that 40 minutes after the post that one of his guildmembers posted about a new kill of them. Should I take this as an attack on me/my guild? What should I do about this? He's really getting on my nerves with how he's treating my guildies.

A note, he's a veteran in that guild and from talking with people who used to be in that guild, was a very cool guy until he got dumped 4 months ago and turned all mean

Guild Relations Issues with raid schedule (or lack thereof)

Thalum — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:11:22 GMT

I've been in a fairly starter guild in terms of progression for the last 6 months or so. I only dinged 80 about 2 months ago, but I went all out and tried to gear myself up as quickly as possible (at one point, I was 10th best geared in the guild, outgearing toons that had been 80 for months). We moved away from doing HCs and started doing 10 man progression, starting with naxx. The raids were typically never organised days or weeks in advance, but with a pool of approximately 40 or so 80s, competition for places was pretty strong. Given that I was relatively decently geared and one of only a handful of healers, I thought that I would get to go, especially if I signed up for them. What happened, however, was that the scheduled raid would last from 7pm - 12am, and at that point, whatever we hadn't cleared would be done the next night. Because it hadn't been put up on the guild calender though, I hadn't cleared my own schedule for it, and would therefore miss the raid. I missed about 2 wings of Naxx because of this, and was only involved in clearing some of the plague quarter and Kel.

I kept relatively quiet about this until last Saturday, when I logged on to check my AH mail, and lo and behold, 10 of my guildies were working on clearing Uld, and had been for the past few nights, without it going up on the gcalandar. In my semi-enibriated state, I caused quite a fuss on gchat, saying that it was unfair I was missing a raid because it hadn't been put on the raid calandar. I logged off unclear as to whether the original 10 would carry on clearing on Sunday (when I couldn't attend), or whether they would continue on Monday. As it was, I logged in last night, tried to apologise for my outburst to those concerned, and while most understood where I was coming from, I couldn't help the feeling that there was a bit of hostility involved. Added to the fact that when I logged on, apparently the guild had been waiting for me to come on so they could start, and then I said I could only give about 2 hours to raiding, put some people's backs up even more.

Am I being unreasonable that even though I might not be able to attend each and every raid every single organised event, if we're doing progression nights, then they should be scheduled, and all eligible 80s have a shot (depending on gear) to attend? If I don't even know about it, then how can I go?

Of course, getting drunk and calling out guildies is not a wise thing to do... Thing is, I love my guild I'm in. We have a great time, but it seems we're having difficulty doing the transistion to a heroic guild to a progression guild. My antics on Saturday night makes me feel like I'm rocking the boat somewhat, which I don't want to do.

Guild Relations An Officer's Guide To the Trial Period

Ariedan — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:22:53 GMT

An Officer's Guide To the Trial Period

I've touched the subjects of both applying and trial periods for people looking for new guilds, and there are plenty of outside guides written on how to recruit in general. Rarely do people mention how to evaluate a trial and to make him/her feel comfortable in your guild, though, and that's something I feel is just as important as recruiting and applying efficiently.

Every Sword Has Two Edges

The biggest thing that bothers me with a lot of raiding guilds is their self-righteous attitude when recruiting. They act like applying to their guild is an honor, and being accepted is an even bigger honor. "You're applying to us, not we to you!," they'll say, and then add, "And we don't owe you anything." While it's very true that the recruit is applying to your guild, and you're busy judging to see whether or not he will pass the trial, he's assessing the guild just as meticulously. He's watching how you handle loot, issue raid invites, discipline people for mistakes, and how well he fits in. He wants to know this guild is for him just as much as you want to know if he's for your guild. Officers never seem to remember that it's just as important to make sure he's happy. Treat him with respect, answer his questions, and don't make him feel like he's wasting your time when he asks you questions, simply because he's a recruit. Remember, without recruits, your guild would never be successful.

In the end, treating new members with respect and making them feel important right from the beginning is also good for your guild's growth. A lot of the members of my guild are with us today because how at home they felt initially, and it definitely helps contribute to the overall feel of our guild.

Make Him Feel Welcome

Joining a new guild is scary, especially if you transferred servers. You don't know a single person, you don't know how things are done, and you don't understand all the nicknames/inside jokes that are unique to every guild. What's worse is when you join a new guild it feels like people are ignoring you, as if you cease to be a person until your trial period is done. Believe me, I've been there, and it's an unpleasant feeling.

Instead of doing all the work yourself, take initiative and encourage people to make him feel at home. When he first joins the guild, be sure to welcome him in guild chat; people are sure to follow suit. If half the guild is chatting in vent, invite him to join. He might feel like he's intruding or annoying if he joined on his own volition. He also might be a little shy and not talk at first, but if it looks like the guild is making an effort to get to know him, then he'll warm up pretty quickly.

Run Activities Outside Raids

Heroics, 10-mans, alts, old world content, PvP, achievements... there are so many things you can do. When you're organizing these things, be sure to ask him if he wants to join, and make sure to get everyone on vent. It's good to see how he interacts with other members outside of raids because:

He'll be less nervous and under pressure than he'll most likely be in raids, so he'll probably actually play better. Do you play your best when you know everyone is waiting for your mistakes and watching your every move? I know I don't.
He'll warm up a bit because he'll feel like he's being included.
You probably don't get to see how he fits in with other raiders during raids because that's generally a time of focus. Running off night activities gives you a chance to really assess if he meshes with your other members.

Assess

Does he show up on time, late, or early? Is he at the summoning stone, or is he always begging to be summoned? Is he fully repaired or is he the guy crying for an early repair mammoth? Does he take afk's during trash? Does he need to be told to buff (if applicable), or does he take initiative and does it without being told? Does he come prepared with consumables, and does he need to be told to use them? All these little things really make a difference when I'm assessing a new member. We're too busy handling other things to babysit people. If he needs to be told to do these things, privately approach him after the raid and explain it's required.

How does he play? Does he die to everything? Do you suspect he's a tunnel vision player? Is his dps/healing/tanking comparable to the others of his same class, and if not, is it a gear difference? If you know little about his class/spec/role, be sure to make sure you've assigned another officer or someone who understands the role to watch him. Be sure to look at recount during the raids if you have any questions about what abilities he's prioritizing to see if his rotation is what it should be. If your guild uses WWS/WMO/WoL, be sure to look at his play in depth after the raids.

How does he take instructions? Does he understand the first time, or do you have to repeat yourself? Is he a quick learner for bosses he's never done before? Does he need to be told when he makes a mistake, or does he learn from it the first time? To me, this is one of the most important things in a new raider. Gear can be obtained, and if it's a matter of numbers, you can teach him to press buttons better; but you can't teach someone to learn faster.

Communicate

Make a list of questions and concerns for him. It's very important that you explain your concerns and give him constructive feedback. He probably wants feedback of some sort, but it's also a good test to see how he responds to your criticism. Watch him the next raid to see if he's made any improvement, and if he hasn't, make note of it.

Above all, though, communication is the most important part of the trial period, for both sides. If the officers don't communicate with the applicant, then he'll never know what he's doing wrong. In a perfect world, people fix their own mistakes. The reality is, though, that things don't get better on their own. There have been plenty of times where the officers in my guild and I groaned and put off talking to an applicant, instead hoping he would magically improve over time. If you don't tell people when they need to improve, then you're really being unfair when you take disciplinary action (or worse, telling the applicant he didn't pass his trial) for not playing well. From his perspective, he may think he's playing fine because no one's given him any sort of feedback, and then out of nowhere, he's being told he's not meeting your expectations. What expectations? If you didn't lay any out, how does he know to meet them? Communicate, people.

Give Him Time!

I'll admit, some of the best raiders and funnest personalities within my guild were people we almost judged too early. It's called a trial period for a reason, so don't make your final judgment within two days or even a week. Some people really just take a while to feel comfortable and open up, and some people also don't play their best when they know they're being judged.

This guide was originally published on my personal blog. I'm posting it on Tankspot so more people can have the opportunity to get something constructive out of it.

Guild Relations Best setup for 10man Raiding

Justice77 — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:35:20 GMT

Hello, I would like some opinions as to what the best general class set up for 10man Raid(ICC) would be. Thx edit; Forming a 10man guild of 6 close friends (disgruntled from thier large guilds) and on the look out for a few more ppl :)

General Guild loyalties

woodyman — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:04:11 GMT

Basically my guild are about to take on Toc 10
and im pushing 2.5k dps in 5 mans with them

And i have been told that they are likely to PUG some higher dps rather than take me.

I understand they wanna have a smooth full run but personally id rather struggle a little with a guildy an help them gear....

Just wondered what other peoples views are

Guild Relations LF Your Opinion on Guild Relationships

Fealthas — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:26:55 GMT

I was wondering what people think about having officers or GM and others involved in an IRL relationship? I ask because my previous GM was dating another Officer and this seemed to make things very unbalanced with having only a few officers. Lets see what you all have to say :)

Guild Relations Guild help comes with a price.

Risky — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:52:16 GMT

A short, funny story that occurred last night:

We concluded a long raid week (our first heroic Anub25!) last night with finishing up some unused raid IDs. A shadowpriest raider in our guild had wanted to conclude his night with a shot at Illustration of the Dragon Soul from OS25, but we only had about 11 members online and the spriest had to go to bed soon.

His brother offered to play his guy for him, and so we ended up going into OS25 with 10 people. Me tanking, 1 healer, 1 offtank, 7 dps. It was ridiculously late and it took a while to clear trash with 10 people for a 25 instance, but it wasn't too difficult. Neither was Sarth.

Sure enough, Illustration drops. This Spriest has been trying to upgrade his trinkets for 4 months, and he's fast asleep in bed. We're stoked for him, because we all know how good illustration is, and how hard it can be to get trinkets to drop for some players/guilds.

So we decide the best way to alert him to his new trinket. I'd go through the progression of our decisions from there, but I'll save your time by bringing you straight to the conclusion:

He's naked cept for the trinket, with approx. 500 leather balls filling his bags, no hearthstone, all his gear banked, and he's logged on an island only accessable via mount+water walking. He also has a new stupid haircut.

The moral of the story: be kind to your guildmates, make friends, and be the best you can be for the sake of the whole team. Your dedication is never overlooked by your guildies, and you may well have someone or a group of people go out of their way to help you (and perhaps get you lost in the middle of an ocean.)

Guild Relations Druid Healer/tank LF raiding guild

Moodevils — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:42:15 GMT

The World of Warcraft Armory

This is my char on the WOW armory. The Guild I was in before has been disbanned. It was one of the best 25 raiding guilds on our server. I am looking to move on and join a new raiding guild and contiue raiding. I was a full time healer in the guild and my offspec is tank with gear. I have downed 25 uld on my lock and on my druid im still missing yogg. I have down 25 and 10 man TOC every week over the last few months. I have down Ony 25 and 10 the same times. I have worked on 10 and 25 TOGC, didn't get far in that LOL. I am willing to transfer servers and maybe even sides for the right guild. My normal raid time is 8pst to when im done raiding. If there is a guild out there that raids around this time and needs a healer Druid...or even a tank PM here on Tankspot. or has any questions.

Thx
Moodevils

Guild Relations Considering a guild server transfer

Stidget — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:00:54 GMT

My current server is one of the lowest ranked launch servers in terms of progression and in the bottom third overall.

We're a self-described "progression" guild but within two weeks of forming we still don't have enough members showing up on time to make a full guild 25-man. I'd say that it takes roughly two hours of advertising in trade chat to get one recruit who may or may not show up to most raids on time and prepared. Out of those recruits, probably only 1/3 is an acceptable raider and 1/6 could be considered very skilled.

Most of our membership is made up of people who either took a break midway through Ulduar or are just coming back through Burning Crusade. We have about 8 very skilled players and I make a point of weeding out people who can't or won't perform well. There has also been a fair amount of drama in the past week and our raid leader had to step down due to him getting a nighttime job.

The population on our server is very high, but the progression population is relatively tiny. I and several other guild members are strongly considering transferring to Mal'Ganis Horde and reforming there, as there are more than 20 guilds as progressed or more progressed than our top guild.

Has anyone else here made a similar jump? Do you have any suggestions?