Where should I start?

[Tylovan]

....so I'm at the end of my rope here. I'm trying to help find solutions to my guild's problems, but at every turn the solution I give opens up more problems...

But I suppose I should explain first. Mind you this might be a bit rant-y but bear with me please.

So I was made a Raid Leader...oh, maybe a month ago or so? maybe a little less. I work retail, my grasp of time is limited to if I work during a given day or not. can't help it. anyway...

We'd just had a GM switch due to our old GM having real-life problems, and before he left he asked me about the position, and I told him what I'd always told him and the other officers: I'd try. Being the kind of person I am as well as not being a huge veteran of raiding and WoW in general, I couldn't be a hundred percent sure and say yes I'd do just fine.

So the old GM left, new one came in. Personally I liked the decision the old GM made as to who would lead. She's a wonderful person and a great raider and a good people person I think, so I figure she'll be able to handle Guild drama as it invariably pops up.

However she's also a mom, as there are many on WoW and more than a few in our guild, bless them for expanding our might and awesomeness. So life does get in the way and we all understand. However this leaves me and the other raid leaders with a rather tricky task: getting the guild back into clockwork raiding.

Clockwork raiding of course is my way of saying raiding a particular thing these days out of the week. Which, that wouldn't be a big thing, except...with all that's happened, I'm left with alot of problems and alot of questions that I have relatively few solutions to. Some of which I've already asked on these forums and I'm thankful to you guys for giving your answers.

However I still have things like:

My guild, like many other guilds I would imagine, is....distracted by the shiny. geared or not, everyone wants to raid Onyxia for example. Everyone wants to do the new VoA boss.

Like anyone, alot of our guild-members can and do get worried about their personal progression. They work really hard to catch up to eachother and to the guild's leaders in terms of gear, each of them personally going and finding pugs or whatever else they can to keep going on the old 80 shuffle. Normally I wouldn't mind it, but this tends to give them a...I suppose you could say self-centered view that if it doesn't benefit THEM, what good does it do to raid it? Furthermore aside from helping them to forget that the level they're personally ready to raid doesn't mean that level is what the guild is ready to raid, it also helps to wonderfully conflict people when we start a raid and half the people on at the time are saved to a pug or something else. goodie. Really not sure how to deal with this one.

One of my big things right now is attendance. It is, of course, simple to say 'just get raiders who can show up and bench the ones who don't', but I'm not a hundred and ten percent sure that's going to solve the problem. See, I have alot of people who they show up one night, and then for whatever reason if we haven't finished the thing, the next night..SHAZAM! they don't show. One would think they'd wanna finish what they'd started, but noone ever even gives any kind of explanation as to why they don't show. Which tells me they either simply didn't wanna log, or they didn't think not showing up was important enough to merit an explanation. Again, not sure what to do on this one.

(another aspect of the above is the fact that it seems like ideal raiding times are, oh....let's say somewhere between midnight and three in the morning for myself and probably most of the RLs and Officers. That one I'm kinda concerned about. How am I supposed to lead if I'm sleeping on my keyboard?)

Otherwise, I just....I dunno. we're trying to go from not raiding, to raiding SOMETHING on a regular basis and hopefully with a regular group of people, and there's just so much to address I'm not lost on where to start.

I apologize for the long post. (said it was gonna be ranty.) any help or suggestions that could be given would be highly appreciated!

[Maèl]

Ok I can tell you what happend when raid attendence due to RL wasn't stellar at my old guild.

We had a hard core of raiders. Perhaps 10 or so. They really got mad when a raid didn't happen because people have lives and with 25 people the likelyhood for a no-show due to last second problems is rather high.

So what they did was recruit. Recruit anything that could be used. So there was massive benching. They benched people who didn't perform due to RL problems. They benched people who could use the distraction and the company. Then the exodus began.
Around that time I found that I could restart raiding. I would have gotten a raid slot by simply registring. But I didn't like the direction everything had taken, I didn't like the stories I heard and I wasn't particularly thrilled with the new recruits. So I left.

What you can do without doing what I described is by sitting down with your guild and talk to them one by one. Don't call for a meeting in TeamSpeak because most of the time nobody wants to be the first to speak up.

Leadership isn't easy.

[Shortypop]

Running a guild with people who have RL, family, sudden late nights at work is incredibly difficult. We regularly raid with 22-24 people due to late signoffs, some things that can work:
- having a healthy pool of people (who are happy to sit out if suddenly everyone signs)
- Sign ups in advance, with the understanding that if work or something crops up it's OK, but to try and post on guild forums where possible
- If you're going to call a night off, call it within a reasonable time (have a deadline 15minutes after raid invites) - personally I'm happy not to raid but making me sit round for 45minutes while a decision is made is a goood way to get me irritated.
- If you're raiding 25man you can always go 10man on nights with low signups to give the "serious" raiders their fix.
- How many nights do you plan to raid, limiting the nights can be a good way of focusing people to try not get caught at work late a few days a week but giving them freedom to work late on nights they know they wont be raiding.
- Re pugging raids, make a list of raids which are your guilds aim, anything else is free to pug (so naxx 25 and uldy 10 = guild; uldy 25 = pug -- for those who want to; or uldy25,ony25,colliseum25 = guild, easier and 10mans = pug), you'll lose some people who don't like new rules but it's easier to have a few concrete rules so that people know where they stand.

**hug**

[Bashal]

My guild, like many other guilds I would imagine, is....distracted by the shiny.

We all get distracted by the shiny from time to time, but:

...I suppose you could say self-centered view that if it doesn't benefit THEM, what good does it do to raid it?

You can point out that you don't raid solo. If you can't get at least 10 properly geared people in the guild, raids won't progress at all. So that's how it benefits them. And it's faster to gear what you have than looking to recruit someone already geared. It behooves them to help their guildies gear up. They don't have to be at their beck and call, but they should help, because in the end it helps themselves. It helps them get to the shiny more easily.

One of my big things right now is attendance.

As was mentioned, speak directly to each individual who has lousy attendance. Tell them that it's rude not to let people know if they can't make it. Remind them that there are real people who were depending on them to show up and were disappointed that they did not show without so much as a heads-up in advance or an apology after the fact. Accept whatever explanation they give about past behavior if it doesn't sound like BS, then repeat that they need to be a little more proactive about keeping people informed.

If they don't get it, bench them; you don't really have any other option.

another aspect of the above is the fact that it seems like ideal raiding times are, oh....let's say somewhere between midnight and three in the morning for myself and probably most of the RLs and Officers.

You really have no choice but to schedule raids at times where the most people are available. If you really want to make this work, you can nap before raid time so you can stay up, then go back to bed after.

In the end, if all of these options seem unappealing, or somehow don't work, please remember:

This is a game, you aren't being paid to do any of this, and you don't have to put up with these problems if you really don't want to.

Everybody has their limits; everybody needs to feel they had some fun. If you can't get that where you are after trying to sort things out, then for your own sake you really need to consider if the guild is right for you.

[Bashal]

One last thing:

half the people on at the time are saved to a pug

Pugging content that your guild is trying to raid is a big no-no. They can pug content you don't raid. For example: if you only raid 10's, then pugging 25's is acceptable; if you don't raid Onyxia at all, pugging Ony is acceptable. Make it clear that if they are available at the times the guild raids content, they can't pug it and lock themselves out of guilded runs. That's the whole point of having a guild if you raid at all: raiding with guildies.

[Bashal]

Sorry, all of these posts combined are getting wall-of-texty.

A guild is a community. A community should care about the other members in the guild. A bit of a sense of family. Loyalty. Pride.

Your guild, unfortunately, seems to lack the minimal level of cohesiveness and community needed to stay organized enough to raid. You can try to change that, but if the people in the guild by-and-large don't want to change, you are stuck.

You can recruit, but the attitude of the people already in the guild will affect your recruits; I've seen it happen.

You can cull the undesirables from your guild, but if that culling requires too many people being removed, you don't really have a guild anymore.

I just want to stress that if fixing things seems to be too monumental a task, sometimes the best fix is to simply move out of the way of the train before it crashes.

[Splug]

Make it very clear which raids the guild will be running every week. Indicate the penalty for being saved to one of these raids without a prior agreement with leadership is a sign of disloyalty and grounds for guild removal. We've failed tryouts before their first raid because they didn't grasp that. Obviously, if that zone is already clear for the week and they missed the guild run, they're free to do it later in the week anyway!

We added a subforum for missing raid notification. At first no one used it, but after a couple months it became second nature. Everyone gives ample notice when they can't make a raid or expect to be late, and occasionally we get "might be late, not sure" posts. It's accessable from any PC, you don't have to log into the game, and solves the guessing game of whether or not to call a raid. The plan B is that everyone in the guild has someone else's cell number, and that way it's possible to relay a message whether you can find a PC or not. Again, this isn't something that gets picked up overnight - just make the resource available and stress it, then start taking action against people who make un-announced absences regularly. Obviously, show some mercy if there's ample justification (IE: hospitalized, etc). Even just a slow process like weeding people out who don't post eventually gets the job done.

None of what you're looking to fix will happen overnight. You don't just add a policy and magically change people - you have to provide the tools and allow them to acclimate to using them. It's a gradual process that will take months, and trying to force things too hard just results in a week of improvement followed by regression. When the general atmosphere changes and following the procedures has become second nature, that's when you'll see results.

-Splug

[Bashal]

None of what you're looking to fix will happen overnight. You don't just add a policy and magically change people - you have to provide the tools and allow them to acclimate to using them. It's a gradual process that will take months, and trying to force things too hard just results in a week of improvement followed by regression. When the general atmosphere changes and following the procedures has become second nature, that's when you'll see results.

All true words.

[Tylovan]

Thanks alot for the advice, everyone. Definitely gonna take it into account. However what kinda worries me is that I'll do more harm than good. We've already agreed that finding new people is something we need (we've been in dire need of healers for months now, even before the GM switch. Plus Pally heals don't work on me unless the healer is top-notch. Many fustrating 5-man ToC runs have proved this to me in a painful, repair-bill oriented way.)

But I'm not sure if we're organized enough right now to slap up raids and be able to get enough people unless we just recruit that many or more.

I dunno....guess it's just that I know we need to start at step one, but I'm lost as to where step one is. What should I be working on first? getting some people in to set a better example? or trying to tighten us up and get us running properly again so the new people don't fall into apathy as well?

[Bashal]

...I'm lost as to where step one is.

When there is more than one thing going wrong, it definitely can be difficult to figure out where to start.

My suggestion would be to focus first on your raid times, get availability info from people you are unsure of and if necessary, change your raid schedule so more people are able to readily attend. I'd shoot for 2 nights a week for any particular piece of content.

Once that is out of the way, I'd start addressing issues of pugging, general attendance, communicating when someone will be late, gemming and chanting gear properly, bringing their own food/flasks/ammo/reagents, etc., etc.

The immediate fix for your healer shortage would be to see if you can convince 1-2 people to (temporarily) switch to heals until you can get more into the guild. If they don't habitually collect offsets for healing then you'd need to help them get that offset, of course.

Once you have raids running more smoothly, I'd then look to see if you can recruit. Your recruits will be more likely to stay if they join a guild that already has some of the kinks worked out.

[Bashal]

Oh and by the way:

...what kinda worries me is that I'll do more harm than good.

I honestly don't see how any effort on your part could actually make things worse than they already are. Worst-case scenario is you can't effectively raid... which is where you are at already.

If it doesn't work out, at least you can say you tried.

[Splug]

In my experience, if you honestly believe it's in everyone's best interests to change the status quo, there are usually enough people who agree with you that the change will be received well. If not, then perhaps your goals do not allign well with the goals of the general populace, which is a different problem entirely. At some level, if you are in charge of the guild, it is both your right and duty to aim it toward your objectives. Make those objectives clear, and you will attract a like-minded audience. When everyone has the same intentions, not acting against an aberration is perhaps the most harmful action; almost anything else is superior.

-Splug

[Rilvenar]

Tylovan
"Where is step one?"
Here.
This is where you decide where your guild is heading.
1. Decide on Goals
2. Develop Plan
3. Try, Fail, & Adjust