I'm at My Wit's End

Seriously. What do I need to do to revive my guild? At one point, I had 20+ members in a primarily PvE/social guild (We didn't have enough interested players to do much PvP, although we tried on several occasions, and I do plan to eventually do PvP). We played together often. But they all became inactive. Now I have 5 members, who are never on at the same time as each other. Where once it was easy to recruit new members, now I cannot.

How does anybody recruit anybody in this game? I want to know. It seems EVERYONE is either in a guild they're unwilling to leave, or they're not, but they're unwilling to join ANY guild. Furthermore, I find that few people will join a guild with only 5 members. But how do I get more than 5 members if nobody will join a guild with only 5 members?

What must I do to breathe life back into my guild? How do I recruit people? It's much harder than I remembered, and I don't know why.

So I ask all you guild leaders and officers; how do you do it? What's your secret? What technique do you use to actually get new members?

As you say it is easier to recruit if you already have a good member base. Most people don't want to join small guilds as chances are that people won't all be on at the same time. It is harder to find new members now as many people are settled (or as you note, fed up with bad guilds and resolved to stay guildless)...

You could look for another small guild to merge with if you are set on staying as leader, or you could decide it will be a lot easier to just find a guild that will take in you and your guildmates. There are probably plenty of them, and some of them might even offer you an officer spot, it not straight away than after you have settled in for a couple of weeks.

You might also try finding a small guild alliance, that would help prop up your numbers and chances of people available for your members to play with even if your guild is small. It would also give you a chance to grow your guild at the same time, but still have a "larger" alliance player base with which to do stuff with.

People want to be in guilds where there are people on at the same time they are, doing the same kinds of things that they want to do. What I have found is that once a guild gets to 40 members, it is pretty much self sustaining as it is able to attract enough new people in to offset any folks who become inactive. Even a highly active guild of 20 is going to run into trouble eventually as folks always burn out on the game.

The problem though is getting to that point where the guild is self sustaining. So many people seem to want to run their own guilds (I have no idea why - it is such a huge headache), and this results in many, many smaller guilds that slowly die off. Personally think smaller guilds should actively seek to merge with other small ones of simlar personality/play style/play time. This just ends up better for everyone all around in the long run. Usually though each side wants to keep its hall/tag/cape and nothing happens. Then shortly down the road all of the active members leave and the guild folds. I have seen this happen hundreds of times on various forums. No body wants to give up their leadership - but in the end they lose everything anyway.

It is definitely hard work. I am active here and on the VN boards both striving to be helpful and positive on the forums and also on the watch for people that are in need of a good guild home that fit WPG's community.

I do not join PUGs a lot for recruiting but part of that is the work that Billiard referred to that comes with guild leadership, it just takes time to run a guild even as a co-leader with good officers. But taking your knowedge of the game to the earlier areas and helping people do missions and quests may be a good way to find some members. The key there is to be helpful, teach them, show them, let them see there is some benefit to teaming with you. A lot of people have bad PUG experiences so when a good one comes along it hopefully gets notices. Remember they may be new to GW and still figuring things out.

I would think that if WPG were back in that mode of looking to grow from almost nothing that I'd first look to join or form an alliance of a like-minded guild(s) so as to expand the teaming options. With such an expanded base to work with, even if it is 20 players instead of 5, your guild becomes more attractive to those looking.

If you don't have a forum, get one, use it. See ours for an example of a free one and you can go to Forumer to start one for yourself. It helps that people can get a feel for what we're like without ever stepping into the guild hall, lets them do some window shopping if you will to see if they fit in.

While I agree generally that running and building a guild takes quite a bit of effort, there are some good reasons to do so. I've been in a couple of big guilds and quite frankly it can take a while to get to know folks in that kind of situation. In a smaller growing you tend to have a closer knit community.

Sometimes folks do it out of a bad guild experience and a desire to create the "right" guild.

If I ever start to lose that tightly-knit feeling in my guild, I will, at that point, slow down or completely stop recruiting. When I had about 20 members, everyone knew everyone else. I'm still trying to promote that, regularly encouraging people to use guild chat.

Anyway, my membership increased over 50% on Thursday (I spend most of Friday in the hospital with heart problems ) and things are looking up. I think I the most important thing now is to have my officers start aiding in recruiting efforts, as it's too much for the average man to handle effectively.

I myself have gone back to my old method of helping people out in PvE and gently suggesting that, if they are dissatisfied with their current guild, they join mine. This is slower than spamming local like many guilds do, but the people I recruit this way tend to stay in the guild. I'm looking forward to getting my website and forums up next month, and beginning guild events on weekends (FoW, UW, Sorrow's or Tombs weekend, TA weekend, crazy dance party weekend, whatever... I'm gonna take suggestions ).

I figure the key is to keep everyone interested and active where they'd normally burn out or lose interest...

Interviewing via questing > spamming. Every time.

Although one of my guilds had a recruiting contest and the top recruiter was made an officer. Out of those 60 or so new members I still chat with about 10 or so. I've also entered into an ex-guildie's new guild, then that guild merged with another guild in The Amazon Basin alliance. I am now happy. For one, I don't have to do any of the managerial crap that comes with being a leader or top officer. For another, AB has been in Guild Wars since alpha testing and has been a gaming community for over 5 years.

The members in AB are very friendly and it is a family-style alliance. There is no tolerance for foul words on any chat or voice chat. We also have 2 very competitive PvP guilds in the alliance. I'd say at any given time there is at least 20 people online in my guild and probably 100+ across the alliance.

Our forum is one of the best I've seen for an alliance. It doesn't try to mimic GW.com with skill listings, etc. It is focused on discussing builds, setting up meeting times, promoting the weekly events, etc.

For instance, we have Explorer's Monday. It started at the beginning of Prophecies and ran thru each mission, usually 2 per night. This is a great way for members to get to know each other and learn each other's playstyle. Explorer's Monday also does skill capping and map completing.

GvG Wednesday is when we just throw together a decent build and go for it. It originates in my guild and I'd have to say that this time around we're doing pretty well. By the way, we are not one of the PvP ladder guilds, but we are in the top 600 or so.

Well ask yourself why it's so important that you run your own guild. Why not just join another guild. If you group with a few people from some other guild, and they're nice, maybe it's worth considering joining them, instead of starting up yet another guild, that is probably not that much different from every other guild out there.

I am in the same boat as you are although we are more social.

I can understand where you're coming from; our guild is a bit small right now and a bunch of the people recruited from towns just end up leaving, being inactive, or otherwise being kicked (we're a mature guild, immaturity is not that great of a thing). I'm starting to try recruiting from quests/missions, but I'm still finding it difficult as lots of people are already in guilds.

I would think to start by getting a hall with the basics (storage, merchant, Balthazar at least), and maybe a forum or TS/Vent if you have enough people already to use it. Then again, I'm about in the same boat as you so what do I know...

Well, things have greatly improved. We now have 16 members, and we're still growing, I've got more time on my hands to do my website, I've picked a faction, and members are displaying interest in PvP. I think once my website and forums are up, recruiting won't be such a problem. Getting into a good alliance might be.

if you really are at a dead end then just give up and join a large guild.... trust me if you can't beat em join em... i was faced with that decision besides being guild leader isn't as fun as it seems... as you can see you are not having much fun now are you?

Congratulations on expanding the guild to 16+ members. Best of luck on getting a good Alliance.

I can't find a good guild to join; I'm more than willing to join one but the two I joined were horrible. The first guild I joined would always argue with each other and the second guild I joined were very quiet; no one talked even though most of the members were on at the same time. Now, I don't know what guild I should join because I don't wanna end up in one of those two situations again.

finding an alliance is easy...just go to the capital city of the faction ur on (Cavalon for luxon and House zu Heltzer) and show that u are looking for an alliance wit lets say a pve/pvp alliance wit 5 or more guilds in it...this way ur alliance is estab lished and u'll be able to find people to come play wit u guys no matter wut u are doing...one of my guilds ([HIST]) joined a pve alliance and it was always interesting when someone was asking wut everyone was doing and i would reply wit doing some r 9+ iway...i would always get about 15 pms wit y are u pvping or similar type things :P.

Um, no. I don't like the idea of wasting 500K+. I also don't want to wander from guild to guild hoping to find one that suits me. I've also found that when my membership is high, I have more fun with my guild than I could ever hope to without it. I will never give it up. So I've got my work cut out for me.

My membership just inexplicably plummeted again, with no explanation from people leaving. I don't think it's feasible to try any method of recruiting I've tried before. Inviting people from PUGs is too slow to be effective as a main method, and I loathe spamming.

I think I'm going to go on a recruiting hiatus until my website is up. Once I can direct people to an attractive, sleek, helpful and informative (professionally-designed... for free! ) website with forums (osfguild.com? I can't think of what domain name to go for yet), things will speed up, I think. I really can't think of a better recruiting tool. Just drop the URL at oppurtune times and ask people what they think.

Now if I can just pull my web-designing father away from his work for 5 seconds...

All PvE guilds die or experience a mass drop in members at some point, Ive only ever been in 1 guild were i felt like it was a proper community but that died as members turned to PvP or decided to branch out on their own.

My current guild only has 4 active members..the guild leader hasn't logged on in a month, I only stay because they are all fairly new players <2months play time and they are in desperate need of help..a lvl20 warrior using a non-max sword...

PuG recruitment doesn't work as you found out, try recruiting ppl from here.

I'm a self confessed guild hopper these days, cant find a guild that suits me need something that is lively yet not childish, active but not obsessed, knowledgeable but not "leet".

That's why I'm trying to recruit more people... to branch out into PvP. I see PvE guilds as a hopeless cause... the friends list is fine. I'm aiming for a social/PvP guild with members who also do PvE on their own time (we can help each other out, but there's no obligation).

You just need people with similar 'timetables' and interests in the game, we have only 12 members and are happy as we are.

ALBA officially has 6 members (I think it is) who have stayed but only myself and the guild leader play now. The others - still on the roster just in case - have been lost to WoW (although I do not see the lure, personally).

Since we have very little interest in farming faction (ever) or in PvP (altho we wouldn't rule it out), it makes it nearly impossible to recruit anyone who plans on staying. A shame, really, since we both like helping new players explore, play and all that. We play to have fun but most of our old gang -- not just guildies, but friends as well -- have fallen by the wayside.