creating "stickyness" in a guild ?

[dogwatch]

Question for some GM's or people who have expeirence running or leading guilds.

I'm trying to help get my wifes guild really started. In a short while we have brought in a fair number of level 70 characters (this is a raiding guild) Typical night any given time we maybe have 20 people online. We have good healing and dps. Our main tank is skilled but we need more people to fill in the gaps for heroics and other raid runs. We continue to recruit people every day.

I'm trying to come up with some strategies for keeping and retaining people. I'm designing a web site and forums so we look more organized. We do use the group calendar and have vent channel.

Trying to think of ways to #1 improve the overall skill and gear of our members. #2. Make things fun and interesting so people will stay with the guild.

We've been running loads of heroics. They have done a full Kara clear. Looking into 25 man raids but we have maybe about 18 people who are geared enough and ready for that. Planning ZA runs but again it comes down to not having enough really experienced players to clear ZA. We have pugged out the remaing slots in raids but that hasn't gone so well when we pugged them.

I caution aganist making attempts on ZA and Gruuls too earrly because if we go there and just wipe because of gearing people are going to frustrated. I am emphasizing quick heroic badge runs for all members, h-Bot and also HH heroics seem to go the questest. 1 Kara run per week. If we can recruit more tanks that will probably help our stickyness because there will be fewer people running out on their own Kara pugs.

Any advice you can share? I think this guild has a good chance at actually getting somewhere but the key will be to having people getting gear and progressing in the game. Since badge gear is the easiest to get I would say that doing a sload of heroic runs will probably help people get there the quickest.

[Kiralyn]

It really depends on your goals. Are you trying to form up something quick to get into some 25-man content before Wrath releases? Or are you trying to build something to last into the xpac and become a new raiding guild in the future?

In the first case, progression is your only avenue of retaining people. Grab a lot of players and get moving. Heroics, weekly kara and za; short, fast progression milestones will hold people in. Move into Gruul's quickly. If you hold off, a lot of people will move on. Get in and at least test the waters, find out what kind of attendance you can expect on a 25-man night, and where you're weaknesses are, and fix those points. You'll retain more people by pushing forward then you will by playing it safe and waiting until your ready. And yes, at the xpac, or when you hit a hard point in progression, you'll falter and possibly die, unless you start looking at holding the guild together down the line.

If you do want to move into the xpac ready to become a raiding guild, you need to offer something that people will actually hold on to. Promises of future progression won't do it, and it doesn't sound like you'll be in contention for server firsts at this point. The one thing you can offer that will hold more people in your guild than anything else is community. Build out from your core of people that started the guild. Reach out to your new members and welcome them. Keep the guild friendly and raiding serious, and you'll start retaining people because they now have friends in the guild. None of the above points about progression are out of place here, save one. If you have a divisive person in your raid that is causing problems, it may be better to get rid of them, no matter how much of an asset they are. Try and solve issues in the guild first, but make sure people know that the guild won't stand for the assholes of the internet.

Coming into the game at this stage is hard. A lot of people are holding out for the xpac, and most of those that aren't are already involved in raiding at some level, so recruitment is a challenge. But for the long haul, friends and community will always trump progression.

[Debuff]

once you start trying to get together people for a gruul or mag if you don't have enough to fill out the 25 slots you could always convert it to another badge run but you could make a contest out of it. Have people split up into teams and race to see who can finish a h-bot (or whatever) the fastest.

[oosel]

or try co-op'ing with other guilds......darkspear eu ours has loads of guilds already so getting more people is a real pain so in the end we just do the 25 mans with 2 other guilds that are in the same boat as us we can easily get 2 kara runs but always find problems in getting 25 of our own together for gruul's etc

[Werdna]

Your first concern was to skill up and gear up the guild.

Two approachs to the skill up, in regards to recruitment.

This one might appeal to their egos:

1) "Looking for knowledgeable leaders for a rising guild. <Insert name of guild> is a guild built around the principles of intelligent raid leaders equals success. We have the numbers and are looking for those who have the skill to properly guide raid progression. Currently farming Kara, and 3/5 of ZA.

2) Go for the straight numbers, take any and all and just slog through the advancement.

You may be lucky and snag a few people with the first recruitment message, who left well progressed guilds from boredom etc, and want to hook up and get back into a leadership role, or,want to move onto another guild from their current one, where they will have leadership roles

Badges from Heroics and Kara farming is the right way for faster gear ups. Also, pvp BG's will be bringing in the S2 gear shortly...so maybe some guild pvp BG nights, with premades will keep the interest up with some nice gear rewards as well.

[Coud]

concerning #1

gear is "easy". badge gear right now fills a lot of holes. for casters, there are also tailoring BOEs that can be had. badge leather / mail gear is also largely useful to hunters... heck their best weapon up till end of T6 is on the badge vendor. i don't have a 70 melee class so I can't speak for them.

in terms of skill... I guess it depends on what you mean by it. fast reaction? good raid environment awareness? personally as one of two caster leaders in my raid alliance I never personally trained any of crew. I have taken a few casters out to Dr Boom to help them with spell rotations and such and I guess that's something you can do. the other option and one that I'm personally participating in atm is just throwing whoever you want to help improve into the deep end of the swimming pool ( so to speak ).

apology if that doesn't make sense =p what we're doing with 3 of our healers atm is taking them into ZA and asking them to heal but with guidance. they've never been there b4 so we take them, explain the fight, what will happen and go kill boss X. ZA is challenging in that the whole raid has to gel and even tho we're wearing t5/t6 gear all 10 people has to do their "job" or it's a wipe, as a healer you have to make snap decision, maintain hots on tank as well as keeping the raid alive... in short a fair amount of work in a very small window of time. we've spent about 2 weeks wiping on boss 3 ( lynx ) but we ( my raid lead and our healer lead mainly ) can def see improvements from them, their reaction is faster now and they are doing better in our 25man raids. (WWS reports wise)

concerning #2

retention is hard... esp if you're on a well progressed server. I guess you really need to work out who you have in guild. those who are here for loot, those who are here for content... and those who just don't care and want to have a good time with their friends.

loot... there's not much hope in keeping them unless you are forever downing bosses and defering loot to them... there's a few still left in our raid alliance... but they are normally subs or we take them only for farming runs.

those who raid for content are easier... you could go waltz into gruul, wipe a couple of times and they would generally be like "this was cool". they'll more then likely improve themself without you saying a word. as long as you don't farm kara for the next 6 months they will stay.

those who just don't care... well i guess that's the easiest of the 3... bring them along, tell them what to do and they'll be like "yep no worries". at some point in time you'll need to help them pick gear etc but they are generally open and responsive to comments.

please note all 3 "sterotypes" are what I've seen in my raid alliance and in no way do I intentially or unintentially imply any member on the warlock den fiits any one of these types.

long post sorry =p I hope this helps

Coud