Advice Needed: Guild Recruitment?

Sup Epicinsanity,

Looking at your situation I can understand where you're coming from and know that Uldaman resembles my realm Thunderhorn. First i'd like to say I can commiserate with you about a lack of recruits, not wanting to fill out applications, and all that jazz. What I'm curious about is when you leaned on your officers while you were away, obviously they didn't want to lead the guild or the raids either, are they still in guild or did they bail with the others? Is your current roster ONLY suffering from attendance or are you just not able to raid because of difficulty? How are you attempting to recruit players, are you only considering a player who will fill out an app as a plausible recruit?

As far as recruitment goes if you're having total attendance issues, you'll need to pug content, let people know who join you're recruiting, and show them the people you've got aren't invalids when it comes to the game.

If you can't complete raids because of your current roster not having the ability, you may want to re-evaluate what you want from the game, how casual you want your guild to be and adjust accordingly. You may want to consider changing your loot type, EPGP is a system that emphasizes dedication, but a normal mode only guild is always going to be a stepping stone for raiders looking to get into H mode raiding and thus (IMHO) shouldn't use an epgp system.

Like I said before, just try and pug content and impress people with your skill knowledge and demeanor in raids.

Thanks for your response!

I will start off answer your questions you asked above.

1.) Both officers are still in the guild. The three of us had the perfect balance of what was needed for our guild. We had the hardcore mentality player (Myself), the cheerleader/everyone's friend (Officer A) and the straight to the point, no sugar coating person (Officer B). All of us have and still do have a lot on our plate outside of the guild. Officer A ended a long relationship, and switched jobs. Officer B just finalized their divorce and started going back to school. Myself just got overwhealm with working threating to eliminate my job, forcing me out onto the streets. So I was spending my time job searching and working different hours which cut into my gaming time. Both officers are still semi-afk not really having much time to play wow. I am in contact with Officer B often, and usually talk guild stuff on a daily basis.

2.) Our current roster basically disappeared right after we got our Deathwing kill back in March. We got hit with raider burn out during Firelands, we raid 3 nights a week, and had a lot of issues finding consistent players. Players would join, and like you stated below, they would use our guild as a stepping stone in order to get into other guilds further advanced, or would use us for gear because we didn't have that raiding spec/class in our current raids. I wouldn't say the difficulty was there, more of just a dedication thing. Hard to replace two healers half way thru a tier.

3.) Our main recruitment is done on our server forums, which because our server isnt a fan of using them, doesn't really produce a lot of results. Mainly just trolling. I use the guild recruitment tool, and have been randomly spamming a macro in trade. Not often, but any time when I am not working on guild stuff, or trying to be productive. Even though I am not a fan of people not filling out an application, I usually talk about it up front. If they are respectful, and not all "l33t sp3ak" on me, I will usuaully basically do the application via whispers. I just open up a word document, and cut and paste the converstation from WOW into it, and post it on the officer forums.



Yeah, we used EPGP because it was a system that rewarded our dedicated raiders, and put the new raiders in a position where they couldn't just jump in and gain gear and bounce. Granted we were always too nice and would give them something if we were just going to shard it. The EPGP that we used was more of a hybred system that basically showed who had the highest EP in order to get the gear (based on Attendance, kills, and outside of raid activities/donations to the guild bank). Then the officers would have a loot council chat about it and decide from their.

I am considering switching to a SuicideKings method and using that for Mists. I had used it during most of Wrath and really enjoyed it. Just want a system that benefits people who show up and are involved, verses a /roll system that gives gear to who ever has the highest roll. Full on Loot Council isn't a system I like, its too easy to get corrupt and give things to people who don't deserve it, but are friends with the officers, etc.

We have never really had looting issues, besides when it came to the legendary staff, which resulted in us not actually completeing the questline for anyone in our guild.

Right now, since its basically 4 people that log in on a regular basis, the pugging option is hard. Our server doesn't really pug anything, and even trade chat is basically dead. Once MOP drops, I will be whoring myself out for heroics and dungeons, etc. since I tank.

A huge thank you for your comments, and I will definately take them in consideration. Feel free to respond, or tell me how annoying my wall of text is. Thanks again TheRealJamal.

May I show you my loot system, I'm GM and RL of our guild and have found this works extremely well in both giving loot to dedicated raiders over new members, keeping the ranks in your guild fair and even (not that you've expressed a concern or a problem with how you do it, just explaining why my loot/rank rules are they way they are), and something to track who's getting contested gear and who gets the next piece.

Our loot system


Are you waiting for these guys to come back into the game? do you have a plan if they dont/cant come back for mop? As far as I can tell you've done and are currently doing everything possible to find people who want to raid with you have you and your "core" considered switching guilds? that's what i can coherently say now as I'm falling asleep while typing/reading.