Officers' Quarters: Formal invitations
by Scott Andrews 
Oct 24th 2011 at 3:00PM
To the esteemed druid Shapez:For casual raiding guilds, attendance can often be a huge struggle. The handful of players who seem to show up (or not) on a whim are the bane of their officers' existence. The example above is of course exaggeration, but you do begin to feel that you should send your players written invitations on fancy stationery. This week's email is from a guild leader who seems to be running an entire guild of such people, and he's looking for answers.
The Guild of Heroes formally requests the honor of your presence to attend our martial gathering, to be commenced on the evening of October twenty-fourth, in the year of our lord two thousand eleven, for the purposes of assailing that fiendish realm the Firelands, forthwith to slaughter its inhabitants most precipitously and attire ourselves in the abundance of their worldly treasures. The horn heralding our advance shall be sounded precisely at seven o'clock.
Your humble servant and friend in all things,
Orcman
I have been the leader of a small, casual, friends-and-family guild for over three years. We have seen good times and bad together, including a LK kill before the end of Wrath. Cataclysm, however, just isn't working out. At any given time our roster is experiencing a great deal of churn, and despite the fact that several of our core members are rock solid, I just can't put a raid together any more. We customize the schedule, confirm it, re-confirm it and still have people not show up. Recruiting is a bit tough due to the atmosphere of the guild. If you're not casual enough to enjoy raiding with three generations of the same family, you probably won't stay, and that's okay. We usually wind up picking up entire clans, for at least a little while, but these affiliations just don't seem to be strong enough to keep the guild running.
I've read your book, and we've adapted a lot of our practices around your advice. Unfortunately, it hasn't been enough. A week ago we lacked enough players to field our regularly scheduled progression raid, even though I had confirmed we were raiding only the day prior. I was angry enough to hang it all up right then and there. I decided I'd give it a week, try harder on the organization and make sure to express how important it was that everyone be on time, etc. Same result this week.
I suspect that because my guild members know that I'll never actually remove them from participating -- because, after all they're all someone's family -- they just don't have any reason to uphold their agreements.
The saddest part is that when we're on, we're successful. We're level 25, progressing through the raid content on schedule, etc. It feels like a lot to throw away.Hi, Bob. I'm pretty sure I can offer you two of those three. As for absolution, I don't play a priest, so I'm not really in that line of work.
On a final note it should be said that the guild will do nothing if I'm not there. Even when I schedule in advance my absence, nominate another raid leader in my place, and inform everyone of the differences, the guild does nothing when I'm not leading it. I cannot so much as take a weekend away without harming my guildmates, and am absolutely sure that my exiting or even taking a break will lead to the collapse of the guild. Many will wind up stranded, having never had to earn their spot in a guild before. I have serious issues about causing so much grief to earn a little personal comfort, but still I feel powerless to change any of it.
I come seeking absolution, direction, hope - anything.
Thanks,
Bob
It sounds like you have two main issues: attendance and dependence. By dependence, I mean that your guild depends on you and solely you to get anything done. That's not an acceptable situation for any guild leader. But it's tied to the attendance issue. People don't show up, and they particularly don't show up when you're not around.
So it stands to reason that by solving the attendance issue you could solve both issues.
Raiding takes commitment
A raid is like any other team: You can't play if people don't show up. Your players are taking advantage of your generosity -- and their status as family and friends -- to raid when and only when they want to.
If they have a legitimate excuse that prevents them from making it when they've said they would, that's one thing. Otherwise, it's just sheer selfishness, and you're only indulging that by letting them come and go as they please. You have to put your foot down and impress on them that raiding can't be a free-for-all.
First, I recommend implementing a calendar sign-up system. For each raid, put it up on an online calendar, either using the game's own, a shared Google calendar, or add one to your guild's website (which is a sneaky way to get people to read the forums, too). Ask people who intend to raid that night to sign up for it. If you don't have enough sign-ups by the day before, cancel the run.
When someone signs up and doesn't show up, don't let it slide. Ask them about it the next time you see them online. If they have a valid excuse, ask them to notify you or another raider next time that they won't be able to make it. If they don't, well, emphasize that nine or 24 other people were depending on them.
After a few such conversations, hopefully it will sink in that what you're looking for is just a little bit of communication and accountability when it comes to raid attendance.
Prioritize the reliable
Taking it a step farther, you could set up a raider rank within the guild and explain that only those who commit to a certain attendance percentage (say, 80% or so) can possess that rank. Give the players who make and maintain that commitment priority for raid slots over those who haven't.
That way, those who are in and out with raiding can still fill in when they can and when you have room for them, but they can't take slots away from your committed players. You'll have to track attendance, but that's easily done with a simple spreadsheet.
Be sure to impress on them that just because you won't be there doesn't mean it's a night off! All it will take is one successful raid night without you to show them that yes, they can play WoW when you're not online.
Other measures
If that fails, all is not lost. What else can you do? The obvious thing is to recruit. Go out and find the people who want to be there on scheduled nights. Recruiting is another issue altogether, but that's one definitive way to solve attendance (and even attitude) problems.
Another method is to tie loot to attendance. You could do this either through a system like DKP (with point decay) where attendance is naturally rewarded, or you could give a bonus to rolling to your raider-ranked players. In the business world, they call that incentivizing, and it works just as well for raids.
Having a few officers around that put in the same or similar effort that you do could also help to break the perception that you're the only one who can lead. Even in the smallest guild, it helps to have more than one person with leadership responsibilities. The trick is convincing people that you need help. Start by asking for assistance with one or two particular duties and work your way up from there. When the time feels right, offer to promote the people helping you to an officer rank.
A new direction
As an alternative, you could take things in another directly entirely using patch 4.3's Raid Finder. By using that system, you could bring whomever wants to show up on a given night, queue as a group for the raid, and run with some other players. Heck, you might even wind up finding some people to recruit this way.
The best part is, the Finder doesn't lock you to a raid, so everyone in your guild can raid as often or as little as they want to. The system will even let you designate yourself as a raid leader, if you want to deal with the hassle. You'll have a better chance of recruiting as the raid leader than you would otherwise, but admittedly leading a PUG through raid content doesn't sound all that appealing. Still, it's one way to go.
If all that fails, and you can't take the pressure any more, then step down or just take a break from the game. Sure, there may be some dire consequences if you do, but that's not a reason to torture yourself. Your guildmates have been mooching off your effort, in one form or another, for years now. At some point they'll have to learn to fend for themselves.
/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 1)
LynMars Oct 24th 2011 3:22PM
Much as it's hard to do, you don't have to feel guilty if the guild 'falls apart' or just stops raiding if you step down or quit. A guild is GROUP that requires GROUP EFFORT to meet goals. If they don't want to make the time, then they simply don't, and forcing the issue is just going to cause stress and heartache. If you take all the steps suggested above and things still don't change, it's not your fault, it's something they've decided to do despite claims otherwise.
As the officer of a small, casual, RP guild, I've felt this a lot. There are a lot of alts making up the roster; we haven't nearly enough to field raids, and even getting 5mans together can be difficult. Sometimes our guild leader goes on about how he doesn't know how to play the game, doesn't want to learn, yet is bored and has no characters to effectively social RP. Talk about a downer when trying to get the guild to do things! In the end, I can't force the issue. I keep some characters there for RP stuff, and raid elsewhere (with some of the same characters, since there's a guild partnership going), and try to stop stressing over how others want to play the game differently, but are in the same guild we've been trying to build up.
(I'm actually really close to leaving all but 1 or 2 RP alts in there and going full time to the raid/RP/casual fun guild, but we'll see).
Carlos Oct 24th 2011 3:25PM
Bottom line is ... when people want something, they do it. IF these folks wanted to
raid, there would be no attendance problems. IF these folks thought they were having
a good time raiding, there would be no attendance problems. Either of two things are
happening with this guild : 1) Cata is just sooo bad people just don't want to play it. or
2) Cata is fine, but this guild is just burned out. I am tending to think is a bit of both
with more weight on number 2. To fix number 2 you need new blood... period. You
need people who are excited and motivated about playing the game. People who want
to play WILL be on time. People who want to play WILL find a way to play even without
the Guild Leader's presence. As far as the effects from number 1 above, well Cata
is coming to an end... lets hope is sooner rather than later.
danget Oct 25th 2011 9:13AM
^^ You are so right! You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. On the other side, if you build it they will come!!
justme Oct 24th 2011 4:29PM
re: raiding in your absence.
Try doing a few runs where you are present, but another RL is leading. It will give them practice and confidence, plus allow people to see that raids can be effective without you there.
(Although I'm guessing this is a circular problem. When X isn't there we don't get enough people, so it's not worth the trouble to log in and wait for the raid to be canceled.)
photofire1969 Oct 24th 2011 5:11PM
Another solution that has worked for me, is to take yourself and whoever else is a steady reliable raider and find another guild in the same boat. Join together and RAID.
I am the GM of my guild, but I run with another guild who had problems filling roster spots. I hate guild mergers as they can cause way more problems than they fix, but if you can get two raid groups to be able to form a consistant weekly raiding ecperiance, then so be it.
My guild is a friends and family guild, we have tried raiding in the past and have had fun. Since Cata, there hasn't even been any motivation to raid as a guild. So an oporitunity presented itself and I took it. My guild does it's thing and if there is any interest later to raid, I have the knowledge and experiance to help them get things going.
Arrohon Oct 24th 2011 5:43PM
I started to read this and had to wonder if this is my guild. A bit farther in I can tell it isn't, but we're having a similar issue. Definitely gonna be sending links out tonight.
LordZellington Oct 24th 2011 6:48PM
That invite in the picture, i'm from there, Northampton. What a coincidence.
Den Oct 24th 2011 7:31PM
Some good advice here. I dealt with the same thing with RBGs, and as much as people may be scared to hear this, FAILURE IS AN OPTION. Don't do things just for others, even as an officer. It's a job, but at some point you'll really feel it, and may even gquit, leave the game, etc, and that can be more damaging than allowing an aspect of the guild to fail.
To note how some of the advice here turned out for us:
Those who took advantage of the guild "needing" them found out eventually that they were replaced. Most of these people didn't add much, if anything, to the guild, and those we got in their place are still with us (some even came with us to another game for a bit!). A few others saw this and started to sign up, so that helped.
Allowing someone else to lead while I was there was beneficial. Not everyone agreed with the new direction that person took, but they still followed the leader. Those who didn't actually didn't leave the guild, and some even started to become more proactive about helping lead events!
Dropping the ball- some folks just needed a break. I know I did! No one picked up the pieces for awhile, but no one quit over it either. It turned out most folks didn't really want to do them at the time, and the few that did had other connections (but didn't need to leave the guild to do it).
Finally, taking things in a new direction. When someone did pick things up, there were still those of us not interested in doing the same thing. Instead, we did more world pvp stuff, and that had good attendance for a bit.
Failure isn't the end of the world. Give people the option to help out, pick up some slack, or even try something different!
lolikitty Oct 24th 2011 7:35PM
I wish all my raid invites were written by Orcman.
goldeneye Oct 25th 2011 5:29AM
I was thinking the very same thing :)
Karma Oct 24th 2011 10:04PM
Have to say, I know exactly how you feel, I've been in a very similar boat myself.
The solution thats sort of worked for us was for me to get a little more hardcore, if/when people didn't show up, ask them very publicly about where they were, and if they'd like to say anything to the players they let down. If they seem to be not taking it seriously, drop them from the raid team for the time being at least. This will undoubtedly cause all kinds of aggro, but it is worth remembering [and pointing out] that the other members of the family who are complaining are often the ones who got let down anyway.
One last thing, "I cannot so much as take a weekend away without harming my guildmates, and am absolutely sure that my exiting or even taking a break will lead to the collapse of the guild."
If you take a weekend off, and they can't be bothered to try a raid, then its not you harming them, its them being lazy gits. The advice above about having a raid leader run a raid while you take a step back is valuable, and worth some breathing space for you.
Don't be afraid to recruit, and replace no-showers. Odds are the rest of the guild are wanting you to do that anyway. Good luck :)
rayden54 Oct 25th 2011 9:51PM
To me, this reads as if the guild reader wants to raid, and nobody else really does. If the members really wanted to raid, then they would show up for raids. It sounds to me like you've got a social guild, and that the best solution is to drop the organized raids altogether. If you've got enough people on who want to raid, then go ahead. If not, then you can PuG the extras.
You can recruit all the people you want, and you can have progression raiding, but remember they won't be YOUR people.
It also seems like the leader has an exaggerated sense of his own importance. If you're guild really is a place for friends and family, it's not going to "fall apart" without him. They might not "do" anything (as in organized events) but they'd still have a place to socialize.