12:01 pm, September 30, 2013
122
A Different Guild Problem
I actually have the opposite problem of the OP in this thread. I've been the leader of the same guild since I started it back in July 2005 when GW1 first came out. Now we're in GW2 since GW1 is mostly dead at this point. Our problem is not that the leader and officers (about 8 of us in total) are inactive--we're on all the time, and we get along great because we've known each other for years. The problem is that nobody else is. Time and time again we recruit new members, and they inevitably stop logging in. The problem isn't that they don't want to represent the guild, it's that they stop playing altogether. Even the seemingly most interested people stop playing GW2 after a few weeks, having made little to no progress in the game. We never hear from them again and end up kicking them for being inactive.
Some people have said that we need to offer something to our new recruits to convince them to stay, and that our problem is that we have nothing to offer them. But what can we offer them? My guild's mission is to create a PvE-centric community that focuses on helping new players learn about the game by offering advice, answers, and help when they need it. We do whatever we can to help these folks and make sure they have whatever assistance they need. We have a very catchy and unique slogan that never fails to get us noticed. And we definitely don't want to just give up and join some larger guild, we've got a bunch of good, experienced, friendly players with great leadership skills and I see no reason why we should throw that away. We don't do PvP and we're not hardcore farmers or dungeoneers--we wouldn't be averse to doing a weekly dungeon run, but we don't have the numbers right now. How are we supposed to "offer" guild members any more than that? We simply don't have the numbers to organize events because it's hard for us to all log in at the same time (we're all adults with lives beyond GW2). It seems like we're experiencing a catch-22: we can't have fun group events with a lot of people because we don't have the numbers to make such events a reality, but in order to gain numbers we need to have fun events to entice people to stay in the game (let alone the guild).
Does anyone have any suggestions on what I might do to make it more likely we'll succeed this time around? So far, the only thing that we've come up with is getting together in a group of guild members to roam around lower-level (1-30) PvE zones, helping random people along the way and talking to them in local chat to see if they need help or advice. Other than that, if anyone has any ideas, I would be very happy to consider them.
Some people have said that we need to offer something to our new recruits to convince them to stay, and that our problem is that we have nothing to offer them. But what can we offer them? My guild's mission is to create a PvE-centric community that focuses on helping new players learn about the game by offering advice, answers, and help when they need it. We do whatever we can to help these folks and make sure they have whatever assistance they need. We have a very catchy and unique slogan that never fails to get us noticed. And we definitely don't want to just give up and join some larger guild, we've got a bunch of good, experienced, friendly players with great leadership skills and I see no reason why we should throw that away. We don't do PvP and we're not hardcore farmers or dungeoneers--we wouldn't be averse to doing a weekly dungeon run, but we don't have the numbers right now. How are we supposed to "offer" guild members any more than that? We simply don't have the numbers to organize events because it's hard for us to all log in at the same time (we're all adults with lives beyond GW2). It seems like we're experiencing a catch-22: we can't have fun group events with a lot of people because we don't have the numbers to make such events a reality, but in order to gain numbers we need to have fun events to entice people to stay in the game (let alone the guild).
Does anyone have any suggestions on what I might do to make it more likely we'll succeed this time around? So far, the only thing that we've come up with is getting together in a group of guild members to roam around lower-level (1-30) PvE zones, helping random people along the way and talking to them in local chat to see if they need help or advice. Other than that, if anyone has any ideas, I would be very happy to consider them.