As a GM of a relatively successful casual progression leveling guild I really think Anonymous' plan is part of the problem. Having a set raid group is only going to serve to (A) limit interaction by players that didnt get in to that group and (B) cripple your recruitment (raid-ready recruits dont want to come in to a guild and then wait for weeks/months to raid). You should scratch this plan immediately, in my opinion. While there is no one solution that works for all guilds, I think your current raid solution is going to really start hurting your guild soon with /gquits if it hasnt already.

What my guild does (and this might not work for everyone) is this: I post the Raid schedule for the following lockout week (Tue-Monday) every Sunday. Then people have until 5p server on Wed to sign up for raids. Our guildies are provided with explicit instructions to sign up for every raid they are available to attend. On Wed at 5p server I open excel and sort all the groups. I take care to make sure I can get every raid-ready player in to at least one raid an that our raid comp of each group is as good/balanced as possible. This takes about an hour to me to sort out, such is the responsibility of a GM/Officer. To further reduce boredom by members only able to attend one raid time we rotate which raid (BWD, BoT, ToFW) is which day every week. Again, no method is perfect (including this one) and I'm not saying this method would work for your guild, but its is working for ours and I would recommend it. Doing it this way provides another benefit- your guild gets used to raiding with a changing roster and they become more versatile and better at identifying strengths/weaknesses of your comp and adjusting accordingly. In the rare situation where we end up with 3 holy pallys it isnt an issue and we still mow over bosses. Our system has some minor issues too, but its something we are constantly working on and revising as we go and as we get feedback from our players. By in large its been a big hit.

Your reliance on becoming a "family" is a good idea, but hard to work out in practice. If you want to continue with that method I would suggest that you jumble the groups each week until you have enough to fill your 2 raiding groups. In the meantime you are likely only excluding and frustrating good players... players other guilds with a more comprehensive and balanced plan, like mine, will gobble up in time if you dont find a more balanced/fair system.

As the columnists have suggested, definitely ask for feedback from your members and also let them know you have identified the problem and that you are working on a fair solution and to be patient. The fact that you care enough to reach out for help means that you care about your guild and you will likely overcome this issue. Best of luck, Anonymous!

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