1. #1

    How to revive a nearly dead guild?

    I am GM of a level 25 guild that was formed 4 years ago. In its prime, we had about 90 - 100 accounts. It was common to have 20+ folks on many nights a week. We still have lots of 4 year members, but many of them rarely play more than a day or 2 a month these days. I have an "assistant GM" rank in my guild..... I had 2 "assistant GMs"....

    One of them no longer plays due to marital issues. She was who I wanted to pass the guild to when I eventually step down. The other one - a 4 year member - gquit the other day after I booted every toon that had not been played for at least 4 months..... one of the characters I booted was his friend in real life, and he got really pissed and quit. ( I gave warning that I was going to do this via MOTD )

    The obvious answer is that the guild needs lots of new members to create a fresh feeling. But I am finding it damn near impossible to find new recruits - probably because we are not a raiding guild.... and at this point, we couldn't be even if we wanted to be. On most days we have about 7 people who play for an hour or two. I noticed a huge drop off in play about 6 weeks after MoP hit. We are now down to about 45 accounts.

    I might even be willing to step down as GM if I thought it would be good for the guild, but nobody wants it.

    This is a real shame, because prior to MoP this was a vibrant, fun guild, that loved each other's company. Now it is a dead zone.

    I don't want to spam recruiting messages. So, I guess I am just out of luck at this point?

  2. #2
    Yeah, your guild is pretty much dead. This has to happen as the game winds down.

    I suggest you move the active players to another, still living guild, and change the Message of the Day for the old guild to say "hey, we all went over to <guild name>" so that anyone who comes back to the game can know where you all went.
    "There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
    "The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
    "Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"

  3. #3
    Yeah, you can move people over and retire the guild. You should probably hang onto the guild though in case you find yourself with the opportunity to start a new guild with a new group as you would be able to supply the old guild for that purpose.

    Just don't try to hold people to the guild in an effort to revive it. Let them know what's up.

  4. #4
    The best way to revive any guild is to wait for the launch of the next expansion. Sure, that's always a long ways off, but there is always a influx of new and or returning players when a new expansion launches. I can't really see much else you can do until then.
    'Words do not win wars. That is a tragedy.'

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by VeganHunter View Post
    I don't want to spam recruiting messages.
    In my experience, spamming recruitment messages whenever you can (during all times of day and in whatever zone you are) is effective for getting new people...
    and the way I see it, getting new people is the only way to revive your guild (if all the old members only play 2 times a month.)
    Last edited by mbrmbr; 2014-03-04 at 10:30 AM.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by VeganHunter View Post
    I am GM of a level 25 guild that was formed 4 years ago. In its prime, we had about 90 - 100 accounts. It was common to have 20+ folks on many nights a week. We still have lots of 4 year members, but many of them rarely play more than a day or 2 a month these days. I have an "assistant GM" rank in my guild..... I had 2 "assistant GMs"....

    One of them no longer plays due to marital issues. She was who I wanted to pass the guild to when I eventually step down. The other one - a 4 year member - gquit the other day after I booted every toon that had not been played for at least 4 months..... one of the characters I booted was his friend in real life, and he got really pissed and quit. ( I gave warning that I was going to do this via MOTD )

    The obvious answer is that the guild needs lots of new members to create a fresh feeling. But I am finding it damn near impossible to find new recruits - probably because we are not a raiding guild.... and at this point, we couldn't be even if we wanted to be. On most days we have about 7 people who play for an hour or two. I noticed a huge drop off in play about 6 weeks after MoP hit. We are now down to about 45 accounts.

    I might even be willing to step down as GM if I thought it would be good for the guild, but nobody wants it.

    This is a real shame, because prior to MoP this was a vibrant, fun guild, that loved each other's company. Now it is a dead zone.

    I don't want to spam recruiting messages. So, I guess I am just out of luck at this point?
    It all depends on what you want your guild to be.

    1. Should it be a place to do whatever comes up in peoples minds?
    yes: then just use that frikking annoying addon to get people into your guild, no one serious would care about joining your guild. Which is good because you are not serious anyway. You can also give invite rights to everyone in your guild so they can invite friends. Personally when you proudly stated that you had 100 accounts, you seemed you fall into this catagory, hence I stated with this one first. A place where you have 100 accounts is not a place where you have true friendships with EVERYONE. It most certainly is not a tight knit team of friends. Just a very social casual laid back thing, which is perfectly fine.
    no: follow step 2

    2. Should it be a place where people make effort to raid?
    yes: then you should take effort to invite people BEFORE the expansion. You make a bold plan on how you will go about getting the guild to raid. You need to make sure you have fair loot rules that attracts new blood that won't feel left out when the first loot starts dropping. As you will basically have a new guild, any old stuff (DKP?) from current members should be wiped clean in order to do this. You need to look at recruitmentforums - talk to random people who you think "could" potentially be a decent member in your guild.
    no: then I haven't a clue what kind of guild you want

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