Frustrations as Guild Officer..

I'm in another one of the small guilds that can't seem to add enough members.. It seems as if our number of guildies can't exceed 15/16, and for everyone one person that stays, 5 other people that I invite leave within 48 hours (without telling anyone for that matter!). If I try and PM these people politely, they ignore me!

I make my guild ads very clear, and I make sure that I talk to people before I invite them, but this doesn't seem to help that much at all.

Do any of you have suggestions to make people stay? I don't understand why they'll join and then leave the next day..

Just help them through the game, that is the best thing. Everybody wants to get help when they are in a hard mission or something.

I really do not have answer for you as to why people leave, but I have some hunches. Our gaming community has been around since 1997 and we have chapters in many different games. I find recruiting in GW to be different for the following reasons:

1) Since this is not a pay to play game like the others, there are more types of people playing it. These include lots of kiddies and adults who are use to playing single player games.

2) Anyone with a handful of gold can start a guild so there is an abundance of guilds with no direction out there.

3) Since everything is incident based there are no open areas for PvP, so players do not need the comfort of a guild to help provide protection.

4) Players have learned that you can complete the PvE side of the game and be successful at farming items with only a couple people so the need to belong to a guild for many is pointless to them.

5) Players interested in PvP/GvG are quick to want a guild that is already established as a PvP force. So start up guilds have a tougher time finding players to stick around for the time it takes to develop a good PvP core.

I certainly do that.. It's just that the leave before I can help them >.<

Oh well. Keep trying, I guess.

Do you have a site, forum, guild hall, and ts/vent server? Most people will get very discouraged if you do not have at least 2 out of those things.

I'm sure if you have questions on where the best place to get free hosting for sites/servers, you could simply ask that question and get a great reply.

Currently my guild is only recruiting through an application/trial basis... and we havent had many people leave. Although one merger interest failed (just two friends that werent our type).

My guild has forums, vent, and people on all the time. I guess part of the problem with my guild is that we have a Code of Conduct, and we have a very loooow guild ranking. We don't GvG, and it just doesn't matter to us.

I understand your frustrations.

Detrick has a great point in #1. So many people play the game, it can seem hard to find those devoted enough to stay in a guild. When people would have a "4 weeks" next to their name for log in time, we generally would boot them. We figured out who the main people are that we like and get along with, and weeded out the rest.

It can be difficult, but it is something you just have to stick to. We founded our guild back in the October WPE, and have made a point of finding people like us to recruit.

I say just don't give up. Perhaps you will keep someone interested in the game by recruiting them and helping them along.

I would love it if someone could tell me where I could get free hosting to start a nice website for our guild! I feel the next step for my guild is to get a nice site with a forum. Any suggestions?

I'm currently holding a cape-design contest, and I can imagine that having a forum would be immensely helpful to keeping everything organized.

I don't play on getting a guild hall anytime soon. Like you, MysticMirage, we don't GvG. So any help with getting a 'site running would be awesome.

Excellent post, Detrick. I totally agree.

http://www.guildportal.com
For website.
http://www.invisionfree.com
For forum.

(Things to have before starting a guild)
Ventrilo or Teamspeak is a must. A cape, and means of getting a Guild Hall soon, or even having one already.
A website or promise of one never hurts either.

What to do (may not work for everyone but worked for us)
Setup your voice chat like ventrilo or teamspeak and make sure everyone you recruit knows it's there and the address. You make closer friends when you get the voice chats going. That is a big part of keeping good people around.

Make everyone you recruit an officer and tell them that they have power to recruit their friends etc. Keep recruiting like crazy and making eveyone an officer. People like having the power to recruit so let them recruit and help you build up. Sure my members list bounced up and down, but as long as I kept everyone as officers and promoted anyone they recruited to officers it eventually grew because the ones that stayed with you will help you recruit. This is a weeding process that takes a couple weeks so you have to be patiant. At around 40 - 50 officers, I made an announcement. I announced that I had a guild hall but in order to start GVG's I had to limit officers. I demoted all but 10 people down to members list and kept 10 as my officers. Keeping the 10 people that really stuck with the guild the most and dropping the rest to members. I scheduled a gvg event and we lost a bunch, but eventually started climbing up the ladder. At this point I had about 15-20 really great dedicated players/friends. From that we grew to a slow steady 40+ member guild. Every new guild will go through growing pains but you really have to work hard to make it succeed.

Today we have 45+ good members, and a very successfull guild. We help our members through quests, missions, items, materials and PVP. We are not a hardcore guild bent on doing just PVP. However, we have a guild rank of 1,741 which isn't bad at all. We use Ventrilo voice chat system, and have a nice webpage.

Heroes Incorporated

Sounds like you have a well established guild.

Since posting this thread, I've had a bit more luck. I've been promoted leader, and although we're still sub-20 players, we have a good group.

I have to disagree with the idea to promote everyone to officer. I realize you said you demoted them later, but some people just don't know how to recruit. I think that officers should be carefully selected.. Too many just doesn't look right.

I like the idea of getting Ventrilo/TS; we're working on getting one or the other now. However, being that we don't do much PvP, I don't think it's a huge priority.

Nice website, btw.

Yes, I completly understand where you are coming from with regards getting a guild active..

the truth is.. people have probably left your guild for a bigger, better or more active guild!.. this is really the only reason, unless they have joined a friends guild or whatever.

nothing to do with websites and forums and all that.. our guild has had those since day one.. and I consider our site (tho amature) is unique and well looked after (devils-scorpions.co.uk)

we have even had a few guild mergers..

But it does come down to activity.. but I hear what your saying.. how can you get more active if members keep leaving.. or the members you invite dont seem to come on for weeks.

Well.. all I can say is that its a very long hard uphill struggle!.. requires patience, determination.. and a little bit of luck with the people you invite... you've got to look after every member.

Our guild has been formed since the day the game has been released.. and only now can I say that we are starting to have enough members online, and regularly.. to be able to consider proper organised Guild V Guild Battles.

One important thing that I stipulate to nearly every member is to USE TEAMSPEAK..even if you have no mic!.. this makes things more personal more human and also makes everything loads more fun.

Its a good idea to use the new update to your advantage also! you probably have loads of members who havnt been on for a while, no doubt they will come on for the new update.. when they do, make sure your available to play with them.

I have to admit.. for a game which has 'guild' in its title.. its probably the hardest game ever to make a 'guild' with.... there just isnt much to do in a guild with low amounts of members.. well, in fact.. the only thing a guild can really do together is Guild Vs Guild PVP.. which is not fun if you keep losing because you only have 4 members online at any given time. the rest can be done without a guild really. so you HAVE to provide other reasons to be in your guild.

Its taken since the games release to get our guild to the stage where it is.. the game and arenanet dont offer any kind of help at all.. its more like a job than fun

well, they'll probably add more to the guild features later on.

its a tough ball to play.. i bet the top guilds have plenty of people wanting to join.. and the guilds no one has ever heard of.. have trouble retaining people.

my guild has its moments too.. we had time where we invite people and they just keep leaving, now we're sorta close for recruiting cuz we dont know what to do with the influx of recruits.

at the end though, this game does focus mostly on PvP.. so people do want to join active guilds that can win Hall, and play lots of GvG (regardless if u win or not, maybe)

I duno, the best thing to do.. is find people that share your common goal, as in.. share your playing style. my guild wants to play tomb to farm fame, and win gvg to gain rank. so the majority of people in our guild are pvp players. (although we have lots of pve that just likes to stick around for advice and occasional help)

Help people before they join. Our guild leader did that with me and a friend of mine. He would see us online and offer to help us through hard missions. He was also trying to recruit us too. He was honorable by always being there when we needed him, so we both jumped over to his guild. He impressed us by being a mature young teenager.

Don't actively recruit Santiago. Aside from the core group of our guild (about 15) who came over from Mechwarrior Mercenaries on the Zone, we've since grown to over 50 people by accident. If we do a mission or two with people and they seem to be cool, they either ask to be invited or someone might just offer them a spot and see what happens. We're also goofy and that draws people Much to my surprise and delight, when I was helping some guildies through Elona, I was shocked to discover they had created the Vision Crystal Grand Prix... perhaps the funniest and easiest way to farm that mission while completing it. Honestly though, 15 people isn't a bad number for a guild if you all like the same thing. Big as my guild is, I'm the only one who does PvP alot.

Guilds in Guild Wars... lol
I have a RPG guild "The Free Rangers" and we have around 12-15 members each day. The last three players can be there or quit and replaced on a week to week basis. Why is every one always dropping? Because they figure they can get a better deal. Fine. I am playing to have fun not have the biggest guild. 12 members are not going to leave and that is a lot. Soon we will have 8 players in PvP and then people will want to join. I guess than may depend if we win in the PvP. But as long as we are having fun that's all that counts. I would also like to add there are some people you just don't want in your guild. You know what I am talking about.

Most guilds in GW are not worth even to mention about.
As to about recruiting and losing players - yes I agree totally, kiddies most of the players simply don't understand what means to stick with the guild, they are not that smart yet, what you want from 10-11 year old? And GW is full of those.

I had my guild, and I can say for sure, if you haven't started your guild with friends but only tried to fill up the guild core by recruiting "on the streets" your guild is doomed. Well there is always exceptions.

GW is free, so people don't devote much to it. Any kind of community/guild which is not supported by something important or valuable (money?, monthely fee) will disband eventually because players don't bear any responsibility. Plus GW gives everything for a fast advancement and many GW players have accounts in other MMORPGs for which they have to pay.

I had about 50 people in my guild, some of them were alright, but during last month, before SF release all of them dropped out of GW. Maybe very few still do visit GW sometimes when they regular MMORPGs servers are down or something. GW is not that type of game where people will be playing seriously. It's a free "try and put on the shelf, unless you really like it" game. So people play it accordingly.

I think I am gonna disband the guild and join "free rangers" for example. But after Desert of Flames released I don't think I'll have much time even for Sorrow's Furnace.

Good luck.