Officers' Quarters: The perils of guild mergers
by Scott Andrews 
Apr 4th 2011 at 3:00PM
With many guilds struggling to keep viable rosters, officers are left with few solutions. The first is of course recruiting players. However, finding those quality members can be a long, difficult road, fraught with setbacks and frustration. For some guilds, a better option can be forming an alliance or outright merging with another like-minded community. This week, one officer wants to know how to manage it -- and how to keep a few negative nancies from spoiling the endeavor.
Another similar guild on the server is about to merge into our guild. [. . .]Short background: both guilds have two 10 man teams: A progression and casual/alt team. We're going to keep the same teams intact for the most part (with minor shuffling for integration) [. . .]. Moreover, the alt/casual C Team will have a bigger pool to draw from for the easy/entry level stuff.
Officer structure will largely stay the same – we have a GM, raid leader & heal officer (me) / they have mostly the same but with an extra pair of officers.
So, aside from those details we grouped the officers from both sides into Vent last night and had a chat about the above and general future.
Personally, I'm excited. I think new blood will refresh the guild and the personalities are already so similar that I don't foresee any problems.
That was until we hit our guild forums.
Already we have a small crowd of doomsayers, naysayers and general prognosticators of oblivion.Anonymous, your guilds are already on the right track to succeeding in this venture because you have a solid plan in place for managing personnel and the officers are communicating with each other to make it work.
I'm putting a cap on it now since it's mostly generalizations: "I've never seen it done before" / "These things rarely work out well."
There's nothing specific about the merger that hints of failure however I'm optimistic whereas I have pessimists in the ranks.
So, to the questions:
1. What pitfalls should we avoid?
2. What tips do you have to make this a smooth merger?
3. How should officers deal with the gloomy peanut gallery?
Anonymous
It's true that mergers are risky and rife with the potential for drama. To an extent, your guild members are right to question it. After all, both of you seem to be doing okay on your own, at least from a raiding standpoint on your own. Why mix the two drinks when both taste just fine?
As officers, however, you have a better sense of where your guilds are headed. Judging by the general trend lately, it can be wise to merge now instead of waiting for attendance problems to surface and possibly lose members as a result. You're almost guaranteed to lose a few people who are unhappy with the merger, so you're looking at losing people either way.
Together, though, you should be able to cope with those losses much better than you could alone. After the merger, you'll have the flexibility to reduce your two progression teams down to one, if necessary, or to fill in slots with better players from the casual team. Neither situation is ideal, but it's preferable to canceling raids altogether.
Three questions
To answer your first two questions, I'll refer you to the two-part column I wrote about guild alliances way back in 2007. The same principles apply today, and the same concepts apply to mergers.
As for the forum naysayers, I wouldn't worry about them too much right now. Let them air their grievances, since shutting them down will only cause more rancor. Instead, acknowledge their concerns. Let them know that you hear them and will continue to listen to reasonable arguments. Ironically, doing so usually shuts people up -- mostly because they just want to be recognized as voting "against" (even if they don't really get a vote). Anything that falls under the category of unreasonable you can feel free to smother.
As long as they're just talking, that means they're willing to see where this leads. It's only if people start gquitting in droves that you have a problem. But if you follow the advice in the columns I linked above, you shouldn't have to worry about that!
Like I said, it's practically inevitable that you will lose someone from your own roster when you merge. Somewhere, somehow, somebody is going to get rubbed the wrong way by the whole thing. Your job as officers is to keep your ears to the ground, encourage patience and tolerance, and minimize damage through the adjustment period.
A viable solution
I would encourage guilds to consider mergers these days, especially if the alternative is to watch your guild suffer a slow, painful demise. If you're worried about losing perks, achievements, bank slots, etc., you could absorb one guild into the other. Just keep in mind that such a move will sting a bit for the players who "lost" their own guild. The officers will need to go out of their way to make sure the migrating members aren't made to feel inferior to those in the original guild.
As a way to cushion the blow, you may want to keep the empty guild intact by leaving an alt there as guild leader. Then at least your members know they can repopulate their former guild should events post-merger go awry.
Don't think about an alliance or merger as a quick fix. You'll still have to work hard to make them work, perhaps just as hard as you'd have to work to recruit. It's just different work. It's managing expectations, compromising on policies, learning to work with new officers, and handling any resulting drama.
Many mergers fail because their officers don't want to do this hard work. If you're looking for a quick fix, you're on the wrong track. Such things don't really exist in the social reality of MMOs. An alliance or a merger can be a great fix for attendance issues, but it is by no means easy to make such arrangements successful.
/salute
Recently, Officers' Quarters has examined how strong new leadership can create a guild turnaround, the pitfalls of promising more than you can deliver, and lessons learned from Scott's own guild demise. Send your own guild-related questions and suggestions to scott@wowinsider.com.
Filed under: Officers' Quarters (Guild Leadership)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Baba Apr 4th 2011 3:12PM
Our guild has experience with this, to a certain extent. As we're one of the more successful guilds on our faction, what we do is offer GM's the opportunity to 'merge' with our guild, but not in a blanket migration format, as you sometimes get issues with drama. Instead, the guild being absorbed by us tells their guild that members can apply to us, for either raid or social positions. Raiders that are up to par are free to form their own raid team within our ranks, using their friends that have come over with them. Social restrictions are much laxer in terms of gear, since they're given a specific rank that says to raiders "this person may not be able to perform to the standard you might expect". This way friends can stay together, new arrivals are given the means to integrate with our guild over time without being forced into teams with us, and we barely notice the change, except for new names in /gchat.
dengarsw Apr 4th 2011 4:53PM
Good to know other guilds are doing this! Our guild's structure was designed to handle this sort of thing (earthbound.guildportal.com, see the socialization section), and at around 5 months old, we had 4 acquisitions and 1 merger. The acquisitions tended to work out better since, as Mr. Andrews mentioned, guilds tend to fall apart when officers don't want to do the work any more. We actually recently had a cross-game acquisition due to a similar thing; the GM was kinda burnt out. Perhaps later things will change, but for now, we've taken folks in to keep friends together.
Generally speaking, officers burn out and just wanna be members. Few care that a merger means having to work with 2 (or more!) previously established groups with their own cliques and practices, and needing to prove yourself to new folks. Unless both groups have explicitly outlined structures that are similar (or one is excited about adopting another group's policies and practices), often times a merger wakes both groups up to major differences between the groups.
The acquisitions, however, work out well since those who cared the most about the guild kept folks together. We actually acquired a raiding guild when the officers suddenly dropped a bomb on their guildies and gquit on the spot, despite talks of a merger. One non-officer knew about it and rallied his guildies to join us. He gained officership fairly quickly and encouraged others to become full members, which greatly benefited both guilds by giving both groups an additional pool of players and eventually lead to another officer, making everyone's life a bit easier.
caleb.harper82 Apr 4th 2011 3:22PM
The main pitfall is the 1 or 2 utterly fail people you'll pick up who will cause drama when they don't perform and get sat out.
We recently merged and its gone fairly well. In about 6 weeks we've gone from 0/12 struggling with Mag to 7/12 downing AC our first night on them.
Have a plan in place for the garbage. If your guildies see you carrying the fail just to please the new members, it will cause problems
But ALSO be prepared for some new people to out-do your buddies and this is rub them the wrong way.
Herman Apr 4th 2011 3:27PM
well, it sucks building up rep again. especially if you don't do that many dailies or heroics anymore. i switched guilds and I just hit revered again, exalted is going to be another couple months.
Corath Apr 4th 2011 3:29PM
My guild is a product of a merger of three (eventually four) guilds, back from the end of Vanilla and early BC. The leadership of each guild discussed features with each other, and at the time the decision was made to make a brand new guild to create a new identity for everyone. I can see this as being one of the biggest challenges now, as one of the guilds will likely stay around in name as people will want to keep the perks.
In the future, I can see a guild going through the announced paid guild name change service, which I think might help out in a merger situation. Our guild has gone through ups and downs, like all do, but we're still around over five years later!
BMEgal2 Apr 4th 2011 3:53PM
I've only been part of a guild merger once, and it was a horrible experience. Our small, casual guild was absorbed into a larger guild that did everything--progression, casual raiding, PvP arenas, and alt leveling. We thought it was a good chance to get more of our people into raids to at least experience content (we were cancelling raids regularly for lack of people), and the bigger guild didn't have enough tanks/healers for a 25-man raid, and our main raiders filled in their roster nicely.
Two weeks after the merger, the GM, MT, and main healer all decided to transfer servers together. They told nobody ahead of time, they never discussed it...we just logged on to find a KTHXBAI message in the guild MOTD. Needless to say, the guild collapsed, and many people quit the game altogether out of the frustration that arose.
If I have anything to advise with a guild merger, it's communicate. A LOT. If somebody, especially the leadership, isn't planning on sticking around or helping with the merger, let your fellow officers know so they can adjust things, instead of being forced to pick up the pieces in your wake.
Corath Apr 4th 2011 4:05PM
I agree with this, in the fact that communication is extremely important. If people have the wrong idea of what the merger will entail, or if people assume things, it's a recipe for disaster. Make sure that there are no questions at all before the merger is completed.
Gimmlette Apr 4th 2011 4:05PM
I've been through the bad side of a merger. It started off well. Both GM's talked for over 2 months about merging before it was revealed to the officers. Then, we officers talked for another month before it was brought to the membership. By then, people were used to seeing the other members of that guild in our runs. We laid everything out, asked for any and all questions, answered even the negative ones, talked about the goals. It all looked so rosy.
The GM of my guild was to be the ultimate GM. We had bumps starting out, as we tried to run content for Kara keys. There were "he said, she saids" that we officers had to deal with. When things didn't go a player's way, they were quick to blame "the merger" for problems. We thought we handled things well.
Then the GM had to take an indefinite leave from the game. He didn't tell anyone other than one officer and swore her to secrecy. When he wasn't back within 10 days, she had to tell the rest of us he'd left. He also didn't transfer his power over the bank and ranks to anyone. The other guild felt betrayed; I don't blame them. In 3 months, all we'd spent the summer working towards was gone. Even I left to form my own guild.
I wish there was a way you could "share" the GM position. At the time, none of us knew about petitioning a GM to take over the guild when the original GM didn't come back. Would it have saved us? Probably not. I think we probably would have fractured anyway as there were chinks in the facade. Had there been a way to share the GM position, when the one guy had to leave, we still would have had someone to take care of the bank and promotions and the other things a guild leader does. Maybe we wouldn't have fractured so violently with name-calling and poaching and drama.
I'm not against mergers. I think, in some cases, it keeps raiders raiding and preserves a sense of community. We thought we'd done everything right and it still wound up blowing up on us, although that was less about the merger and more about the guild leader.
zoom Apr 4th 2011 4:14PM
The keys to a successful merger:
1. In your mind be able to articulate why a merger is in the best interests of your guild. if you can't, stop right here.
2. Perform as much due diligence that you can up front before approaching a partner/target. Wowprogress, wowarmory, third party contacts, etc. are your friends. You should be able to determine their size, focus, typical type of member, usual activities, server rep, etc. through your own efforts.
3. Approach the partner in a discreet manner and be clear why you're doing so. Perform as much due diligence in the form of an info. exchange with your counterpart gm before coming to any agreement. How many mains do they have? Has there been any material guild drama recently? How long have they been around? What kind of guild would they like to be? What's their organizational structure? Do they have vent? Website? Are they actively recruiting? What roles/classes/specs? Typical attendance rates for events? How many member are typically on-line at X time of day?
4. After all of the requisite info has been obtained, if both parties are still at the table, flesh out the main details. Will a new entity be created or will one guild merge into the other (among the issues here, guild level, bank tabs, etc)? If a new entity, what will be the name? Who will be gm? What will the rest of the leadership structure be in the new guild (How many officers? What other types of leadership positions? The rights of each (e.g., who can extend invites or do gkicks?))? What will be the stated focus of the guild? What will be the event schedule (e.g., raid days and times)? Bank withdrawal rights? Figure out the main elements now before the marriage takes place.
5. Keep 1-4 to yourself and just to your officers (if they're typically involved in major guild decisions). There's no reason to spook other members when a merger may not ultimately happen. Ask your counterpart to also keep the dialogue confidential. Needless to say, if either side loses a bunch of members because they hear half-truths through the rumor vine, your merger is doomed and your hard work was for naught.
6. If you are able to reach an agreement in principal, next conduct two vent meetings in which you and your counterpart gm give the members of your guild and separately the members of the other guild the opportunity to ask questions. Surprise mergers don't go over well.
7. Consider whether a guild vote should be taken. If you take one, what percentage is required? Majority? Super-majority? If you take one, be willing to live with the results. Instead of a vote, consider canvassing your "core" members to take their temperature. If you have their support, a vote probably isn't necessary.
8. After the merger work hard at integration. Establish the new identity. Have member mixers, etc.
9. Dominate your server and take no prisoners.
Good luck.
Xandee Apr 4th 2011 4:18PM
My guild recently adopted/merged with another guild. This is the second time I've done this as a GM, the last time was in BC. So far this merger has been successful. I think there are a few things that are very important to a successful merger.
1) The culture of the two guilds needs to be very similar. They want to raid/progress. You want to raid/progress. If I had a dime for every player who WANTED to be a raider until they learned it was more of a commitment than they were willing to make...I could retire.
2) Make a representative of the merging guild an officer in your guild. Having a voice in the new guild is important. Having a liaison between the existing officer core and the new rank and file is key. W/out a clear means for communication with a comfortable and familiar face it could be far more difficult to get over the bumps in the road.
3) Make the members of the merging guild on a more level playing field with existing guild members. Don't make people who had stature in the merging guild start as a recruit. Starting them as a recruit/trial is an insult imo.
Polarity has 3 ranks. Recruit. Member. Raider. Oh and those evil officers of course. Those that joined us were elevated to a "member" rank. Yeah. It ruffled a few existing member feathers but, hey. As I said to my rank/file; we can sit in SW and dance naked all night or we can find some solid players and hopefully new friends and kill some shiza.
4) Watch the use of your guild/our guild. Them/us. It's a blended family.
5) Communicate. Communicate. Communicate.
I'm sure this isn't rocket science. I feel fortunate that I've been successful in adopting guilds/new members into my guild. Sometimes some new faces and personalities can be the jump start a guild needs to get out of the slump you’re in.
Good luck!
Xandee
emberdione Apr 4th 2011 4:27PM
Communicate. Excessively. Talk to all your members, answer and ask as many questions as possible, have an officer be contact for any comments, concerns, complaints.
If people know that someone is listening, they are more likely to not get upset.
I have been a part of two guild mergers. The first, was horrid. Our smaller guild was absorbed by a larger one. None of our officers were made officers in the new guild, only the guild leader. We were all given the lowest rank to raid, despite months of experience and gear (they decided who got to go on raids by rank), and after donating a majority of the "stuff" from our gbank, were locked out of withdrawing any of it for the "two month waiting period" they required. In short, we got screwed because our GM didn't feel like doing the work anymore. To add insult to injury the GM turned the old guild into his personal bank guild, and the new guild had a stupid name (as compared to our not terribly original but at least rp worthy name). The entire thing was bad, because the day after our merger, our old GM, the only person within the officer circle in the new guild, pretty much quit talking to all of us, trying to get in with the new officer clique.
Now, the second time this came up in a guild I was in, I stressed the fair treatment, the need to be on equal footing, and the requirements to communication. The guild I was in was once again the smaller guild. So what ended up being decided on a thread on their forums was that we would do several things.
1. Each guild had to assist in buying tabs for the new guild bank. The total cost of 6 tabs would be split between the two guilds current funds.
2. A new guild would be formed, with a new name, and new ranks. All raiders would be placed on the same raiding rank, unless they requested otherwise.
3. All officers would be given the chance to convert to the new officer status. Any officers that wanted to step down at this time could. (It worked out perfectly too, several officers leapt at the chance to step down and so we had a 50-50 split of each side.)
4. There would be the GM rank and then a secondary "Co-GM" rank created for the GM of our group. All guild policy changes had to be approved by BOTH GMs. After 3-6 months they would revisit the split and decide if they wanted to continue or appoint a single leader. (It took about 6 months or so before one wanted to step down, at which time he just became an officer.)
5. DKP was wiped and a new, simpler, system was set up.
6. Our 10 man raid team was allowed to retain it's identity, on the agreement we would not poach from their 10 man raid team. The merger allowed us to raid 25m as well, which was the entire reason. "Stationary" members of the 10ms (tanks, heals, people who made *every* raid) would get first dibs on 25m slots, after that we had a system of raid credits.
Anyway, this second merger went fairly well. The two guilds were of like temperament and personality, with like goals, and the two GMs dealt very well with one another. They were very open, addressing in written statements on the forums any questions and concerns brought up by the guild. The requirement of starting with a new name and new tabard really solidified the feeling of being a new single unit. As painful as it will be to leave a lvl 25 guild to do this, I think it would be the best solution. It makes everyone feel like a part of something. Also it gives great possibilities to guild bonding events like going out and re-earning the guild achievements together.
Raizek Apr 4th 2011 4:30PM
I've not experienced any WoW guild mergers (my WoW guild celebrated its fifth year a little over a month ago) but I did in EverQuest back in the day and it was not a pleasant experience.
Certainly it was largely a case of a couple of officers wanting a merger for their interests, that is to take a casual social guild in a raiding direction. After everything had shaken out, only those two officers and the other guild was left in the new guild. Everybody else in our original guild re-formed the original guild. I'm sure it would work better if the guilds merger have the same agenda and, preferably, the same type of people and attitudes.
GregHull Apr 4th 2011 4:40PM
Guild mergers & alliances have always been a good idea, theoretically. And they have been many successes. However, as the guild members said, they tend not to be successful. But a chance for success is better than a certain guild failure.
Guild percs and reputation will obviously make mergers considerably more difficult than they were before Cata. Getting back to exalted takes about 900 dailies quests. You don't need to "merge" (destroy one guild) in order to raid together or share a chat channel. Surely you would want to run some combined raids for a few weeks before asking all the dieing guild members to lose their rep; the old guild can be preserved but their rep is gone when they join a new guild.
As WoW shrinks this will be an increasing occurrence. It seems like a reasonable bet; just recognize it will take some effort and perhaps some luck to pull it off.
GL!
Necromann Apr 4th 2011 5:19PM
My guild absorbed a quite small guild pretty early into cataclysm. We are allied with another small guild and will probably absorb them as well.
On another note, thank you for this Collumn. I have justrecently become a minor officer in my guild. This column has helped me and my guild alot even before I was an officer.
Chris Williams Apr 4th 2011 5:22PM
I was part of a failed guild merger. We started off as a small friends and family guild that served as a sort of feeder into one of the top guilds on our server. Several of our top people had been recruited and as more people topped out and wanted to go hardcore they would join that guild, leveling up new alts in our original guild. Eventually enough of our people had made the switch to the raiding guild that fully half the main raid was made up of us. Whenever spots were opened up in the raid for the night due to absences, casuals from the leveling guild were invited. Eventually the guilds agreed to merge. It was an epic fail.
I think it can be traced to a few reasons. 1) the raid leader of the raid guild retained his position. He had a drill Sargent mentality that turned a lot of casuals off. He was addicted to the gear treadmill. Getting lots of gear upgrades helped convince others to pit up with him. He would require you to have certain addons installed and to watch specific YouTube videos. He would have us down the bosses exactly as they did in the video. With no exceptions allowed. If we wiped it's because we didn't execute like the video. This turned off a lot of people that wanted to approach the fight with different tactics. It also turned off the people into lore and achievements since every raid was just a mechanical execution of someone else's strat. For the raid leader; it was all about downing bosses, getting the gear, and getting on to the next thing. All that mattered was to be the first guild that was 12/12 in hard mode or whatever.
2) the raid guild members couldn't stand the casuals. They were openly hostile to people grinding ach's and if one popped in guildchat they would sneer and make fun of the person. They would complain that 17 people were logged in but no one wanted to raid. They also wouldn't revisit old content. If you missed out that was your problem.
3) the people that had "crossed over" had divided loyalties. Even though you had spent months or years gettingto know someone, there was a sense of superiority for those that had joined up with the raiders.'sort of likethey were inthe major leagues and they had the talent and the rest were bush league. When conflicts arose a lot of feelings were hurt and friendships ruined because of hubris and backstabbing
robitrock Apr 4th 2011 6:38PM
Mixing a casual raiding guild with a hardcore server first type guild might not be a good mix.
Not saying it will never work, but if you have 2 guilds that have the same goals you will likely have a higher success chance.
Naryn Apr 4th 2011 6:14PM
One of my suggestions would be to instead of as you said keeping the raids separate, you should actually try to merge and mix the raid groups, this would give the guild more unity, whereas if you keep the same teams it will be very much, 2 guilds crammed into one, instead of the one guild you want.
Another suggestion is to make it very clear that the power GM's from each respective guild has, when my old guild merged, it was because my old GM wanted to take a back seat and so it was obvious but if you have 2 leaders both trying for the top spot, things could get...messy
robitrock Apr 4th 2011 6:23PM
One thIng the guild I'm in now did when they absorbed my old guild was, the GM of the new guild put a one month probation on everyone.
Might be a different situation as we were a alliance prior to the callapse, but it did help weed out the loyal from the whiners.
Did we lose people? Yes, but the core guild stuck together through the merger and those are the real guildy's you want anyway IMO
Adrianne Apr 4th 2011 6:36PM
You are always going to have the whiners and naysayers no matter what. People resist change, even if it is for the better.
Molly Apr 4th 2011 6:40PM
I was part of a guild merger that went badly, and I think Anonymous really needs to pay attention to and address those who are concerned. Even after extensive talks with the other guild and a trial period where we linked up our guild chats, everyone transfered over into a new combined guild. Officers corps merged and both GMs were co-GMs. There was some drama with one or two people, but things seemed OK.
Then the other GM disappeared for 2 weeks. When she came back, she announced that the other guild was going back to their old guild. Several members of the other guild ranted about the way things had been run in Gchat before leaving. It was bad. Worse, they had never told us anything was wrong. We were completely floored.
TL;DR - Let your members voice their concerns now. Do your best to address these concerns. Smaller drama now is better than bigger, guild-shattering drama later.