guild leader frustrations

I have been the leader of my guild We Eat Pokemon [WEP] since about sep 06. Its been fun and all, and ive had some good times along the way, but i just seem to be rediculously small right now in terms of members. I have never gotten far past 20 members, and have mamny people leave. I would like to satrt doing gvg and things like that to promote activity, but i cant even manage to get a good set of members for that. I understand that i cant expect to have a huge gaming community by now, but [LaZy] started in july 06 and has over 900 members. I gotta be doin somethin wrong here. Any advice guys?

guilds like LaZy believe in quantity over quality.

1) spam spam spam your guild
2) spam spam spam friends of people in your guild. that way, if you have a good member, their friends are normally like them, and sometimes they will want to join their friends in your guild. better then #1 because you can normally trust the people, and they don't leave quite as much as random people (i hate those who just enjoy asking to join a guild, join one, spam the guild chat saying 'haha! waste of 100g!' then leave and do it to another guild.)

as president of the bolshevik party i dont recomend recruiting 800 members. get a few loyal comrades, which at least two have good monk chracters. to instigate a feeling of loyalty and allegeance have some sort of induction ceremony where to get in they have to duel an officer or you. i personally have recruits kneel, a dub them knighting style. its important more than cuantity of members have members who feel part of the guild and i guarantee there not likely to leave the next day.

I recommend deciding what type of guild your running, is it PvE, AB, HA, GvG, or TA based. Get a core of about 4 people who you know and trust. Then each take part in recruiting, Having a Website with forums and a TS/Vent Helps attract better members. Lastly you must set requirments if any at all to weed out those guildhoppers or less desirable players. Lastly is to stay active and have fun playing the game with each other.

Good luck and happy gaming.

First get a good set of officers to help you out with stuff. No leader in history did anything alone, there we're always lower ranks helping him out.

Once you have those select few (for me 10 officers or so) begin recruitment, and be HONEST. Nobody wants to here a lying person saying their guild GvG's daily when in fact their PvE and they do it maybe once a month.

Next, get a decent alliance. From there it sprouts alot, more members because of better alliance, and depending on how good the alliance is, you may wish to leave it to get into a bigger one once your guild has grown.

The key is activity, honesty, loyal officers/members, and organization. I'd also suggest making a forum for the members to use, depending how active it is.

For PvP the same story goes, get around 10 or so people you trust and believe they can play well, and make teams. In time the group will learn how one another play and in turn get better.

PvP guilds are usually no more than 30 people, as core GvG teams are 8 with a few backups.

Thanks alot for all the advice guys. I do want to make a gvg guild in the long run, and i want to make a website, but in mnot willing to pay for it just yet. So free hosting will have to do for now. How long has it taken you guys to get a decent sized active guild together?

I have a good filter.
Demand hard work. Make them work theyr asses off, come to arenas HA and stuff. U may loose a few members or they may start to dislike you, but the ones that do work hard will never let u down. And so u have yourself a guild core to start developing nicely. Oh, and promote only the ones that do work hard. Having lazy useless members as officers will only make everyone wanting to b officer.

I can make u a fully running forum for ingame gold.
For 20k ill make the forum and admin it (if u like) make the changes u need, anything.

Check my guild forum and see if u like it.
http://ninetailedfox.jconserv.net

my msn :
[email protected]

My ign:
O Master Takeo O

No thanks. Iknow how to do that kind of stuff, I just need some free hosting space. Ive started working on that, but if anyone knows a good spot, let me know.

900 members eh ? That's a giant PUG / Gaming Hub with just a cape in common. Wouldn't you rather have folks you can trust and enjoy gaming with over lots of members whom some of which you wouldn't even want to game with or couldn't tolerate ?

Start with a small leadership core you can trust and from there it will grow on it's own with the right folks. My own guild bounces back and forth between 20 plus members but our goal is only 40 to 50 members tops. Smaller guilds are just more fun and people actually know one another and share more in common then just a cape. I started with just myself .... it can be done but will take time. The players you'll get by simply inviting everyone who says YES to a guild invite are not quality players and by quality I DO NOT mean skill at the game. It's a GAME ...... find good folks and go enjoy it.

People will get bored and leave games it's a fact. Recruiting doesn't stop, never stops, if you want to continue to run a successful guild. New players are the life blood of games and guilds so it's something you'll always be working on.

Oh and getting to this point has taken six months for myself . A good forum will work for starters over a web site. Communication is key so I'd start there. It's a place to exchange ideas and chat aside from in-game and with a zillion different schedules, work, school, ect. people need a place they can go to in-order to get the information you want to relay.... now getting some to actually do that and go there is yet another fustration

Quantity is never an indication of a good guild. You're basically just one big PUG. A new member joins and they're swamped with hundreds of people they don't even know? How is that going to be enjoyable?

SMS hoverred around the 70-80 member mark for several months but it never felt like that when you login and look at the memberlist thinking "who is that again?". Then you look at your alliance chat... who are all these people? Hundreds of possible names can use that fifth chat tab, it becomes local chat with a tag slapped onto everyone's name. Players selling items, players looking for groups, asking questions... who you don't even know. Ugh, I have local chat turned off for a reason.

I'm much happier logging on to see names I recognize, conversations I can take part in with people that I have gotten to know over time. I had to kick hundreds of people to get that enjoyment back.

Now, unless you enjoy the thought of local chat wherever you go, I would recommend staying small with a strong core. Develop slowly, if members leave because there aren't enough people they were probably never worth the invite in the first place. Especially if you're going to GvG; you need to become familiar with each other's playstyles if you want to form a strong team.

I would echo the person who suggested to clearly define the purpose of your guild. Having a definitive purpose is more likely to increase your chances of being able to recruit people who are well-suited to your guild. Also make sure to have an idea of what sort of people you want to recruit, and what sort of a recruiting process you want to have.

When you're building a guild, you're not just adding guild tags and capes to people, you're building them into a community. As present leader in the rotating leadership of my guild, I see myself as more of a social facilitator as anything else. I spend as much time talking with my guild members as I do actually playing the game. When new people join my guild, I try to organize groups where they can get to know other people in the guild. Encourage them to talk about themselves. You learn a lot of really neat things about people, and your guild members will know you care about them as a person, not just for how well they play the game. When your guild becomes a community of people who know and care about each other, it becomes a really good place that people want to be, and they won't leave.

Well, that's just my 2g.

I'm the guild leader for the Roses of the Moonlight Sigil, a social/PvE mostly/PvP aspirant guild of 67 people at the moment. I cannot agree with the need to keep your guild small to have a friendly environment where you can feel comfortable joking around and interacting with people, sans local-chat-type spamminess/stupidity. Maybe I'm biased because I'm the leader, but I think RoMS members have a blast with each other, and most people know each other, despite our almost-largish-size.

I think the key to success here has been that I don't make it easy to join... in my case, I ask a TON of questions of people who are interested in joining.
While this sounds counterproductive, it helps to ensure that the people who do get into the guild are the ones who really like the sound of the guild, and not those who are just looking for people to leech off of or just looking to be part of a guild, any guild. Granted, since we're reasonably large and active, I can get away with a bit more than I used to when we were 20 members, but the same principle applied then. Let people know what the vision for your guild is, and ask them enough questions that you're reasonably sure that they are people who share that vision. Further, do not be afraid to let members go who eventually turn out to not fit your guild as well as you expected (I think I've been good about this, although I have let some linger too long in the past..). What's important is that the makeup of your guild reflects your vision for it as much as possible... if you start recruiting people who don't fit for whatever reason (desire to increase the member count and pity being two doozies I can think of), your members will notice and resent it. Bottom line, if someone's wrong for your guild, they're wrong for your guild. The members who desire the same thing from your guild as you do will appreciate you all the more for keeping that in mind.

One helpful thing for any guild leader, I think, is having lots of contacts. A good alliance is great if you can get it, but that's not always possible. Your local channel should rarely be off.... while you will get spammed, you may also catch a few interesting people. Interact in what's going on. I've met half my friends list this way. When my guild or alliance doesn't have enough players for an activity, I whisper them, and see if they're interested. Frequently they are, and we get a better party for it. Several of these people have gone on to join RoMS, which is great icing, but that's not the point. The point is that by socializing, you meet more friends, and more friends means more people who you can contact in a pinch. Be sure to return the favor. Being able to fill a group of 8 or 12 (or 16, if you want to get both sides of Vizunah or Unwaking) is a great thing for a guild leader to be able to do, even if they aren't all of your guild.

Re: Officers: Officers are great to have, particularly officers that actually do this, however as leader, you still fill every role that you've given out. Even if you have a 'social' officer that keeps things moving, it's still your job too. Same goes for events, or whatever else. Granted, you won't have to work at it as hard and can take more breaks, but a leader active in all aspects of the guild is a universal morale-booster.

As for how long it took... RoMS started recruiting in April 2006 (after about 8 months of existence as a 2-person guild). It was a slow process at first as I learned how to recruit effectively, and how to be a guild leader. Joining a good alliance helped alot with our activity levels when we were small. GWGuru helped immensely, as did district hopping (sending out 1 ad per district. I hate spammers.)

I don't really know much about PvP-specific circles, but here's what I think sounds like a good idea for you: Advertise your guild on forums and in-game (DON'T SPAM), that you're looking for experienced players (or not so experienced, your call) that want to GvG and don't mind practicing towards that goal. Be honest with everyone, and don't be afraid to let people go who you don't think are improving your guild. Be sure that everyone understands what you expect of them, and do not try to bribe anyone to join with favors, items, gold, etc.

And with that.... I'm going to stop my random ramblings and get something to eat. I hope this was useful to you and possibly some others and not just a waste of data space

Rain
(PS, Hi Arzu!)

I have lead 3 guilds in 2+yrs of play on GW, and the toughest part of the whole thing is keeping the community balanced. I always planned for my guild hall to have the hustle and bustle of a small city (Came really close when the alliance thing came out, but, meh), yet it never quite happened. I had my first guild max at 50 members, yet half was active after the first 6 months.

I had uproars when the guild battles were being done with 5 man teams( 1 officer and all henchies), yet nothing ever threw a monkey wrench in my plan like social upheaval. People not getting along with each other is the worst thing a guild leader can have thrown at him/her. This can cause a rift in your guild that will never heal if you don't approach it right, so recruiting the right type of people is essential to your guild's survival.

As Racthoh said earlier, "Quality over quantity", is the key to a happy and productive guild. People who leave never intended to give the guild a chance. Be active, and that means active with your guildies as well as recruiting. I have a social officer, and she is awesomeness personified, but she has a life. I took her natural flair for meeting people for granted for awhile, and the guild stayed active until she slowed up. Life change stuff. So, now I'm alone with about 10 activish members and 20 total after 2yrs of being at/around 45-50. Rebuilding is a pain. Yet, my core officers are still with me, 6 people who have been around me for minimum of 2 yrs in 2 of the 3 guilds I have lead. That is what keeps me going. My friends in the guild. With them, rebuilding isn't as bad as starting alone again.

So, that is the key. Good community, solid leadership, and loyalty to your overall goal. To have fun.

I absolutely agree. LaZy is more of a cult, where everyone "Hails" the leader every time he signs on. Probably because of all the people in the guild, the leader is perhaps the only one you know by name. Not only that, but the leader leads all 10 guilds in the alliance. There are so many members and officers, he doesn't know who he can trust, so he doesn't trust anyone as a leader. I wouldn't set your guilds goal to be like LaZy.

I personally like guilds where I can come to recognize names, and at least feel like integrating in the guild is manageable. And don't think it won't be painful. Even LaZy has members leaving every day, which is why you see them recruiting all over, solely to maintain their quantity.

Get some friends to play GW, get them in your guild, and the combined efforts of all of you wanting the guild to be something will be sufficient for it to grow.

Ok, op again here. I have now made a guild website, with forums and all, check it out here.

wep.heliohost.org

Now, my guild goal has been set. Ive decided to make my guild into a small gvg guild. Just a casual guild with gg every once in a while but still letting people have fun doing what they like to do in the game. Now thats all fine and dandy and all, and my recruiting has been okay, but im haveing rtwo problems

1.) Due to some half assed gvg attempts a while back my guild rank is now absolute shit. Like aaaabsolute crap.(i think we just hit 10k today. srsly.)
2.) with that rank im having a hard time getting people to fill up the slots for my guilds build, which is keeping me from fixing said rank.

So yeah. Im gonna try to take advantage of this weekends event and fix it all.

I really appreciate all the help you guys have given me. This just can get to be a reallll big pain in the ass.

EDIT:And the friedn thing TOTTALY hasnt worked for me. i got a friend to buy gw and even bought it for another friend. Niether of em play. More frustration, lol. The funny thing i s that its cause of them that i have gw. they were all like LETS GET IT. and i scrapped together cash and boght prophecies, and no one else did D:

When my guild started getting into GvG, I searched until I found another guild that was also looking to get into GvG, and we do unrated matches together to practice. No effect on rating as we get better.

Rain

Yeah, that would be nice. Thing is, a few months back, i RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOed up and just did random gvg and lost. Now i need to fix that. Lol. I would like someone to do some unrated with. Anyone up for it?

What the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO is up with this censor?

I breezed over all the post, but a big factors is the type of members you are recruiting. Do your officers want a big guild? Are they doing what it takes to get your guild name out there and find quality members. If nobody knows who you are, then nobody will find you. Same goes for if every knows who you are then everybody will find you.

Still what I was saying is that once your officers and core members set into their 'grain' or habits of guild and game play you don't stand much chance of changing that (just short of kicking them all and starting over).