Officers' Quarters: Guild transfer anxiety
by Scott Andrews 
Mar 20th 2012 at 12:00PM
One of the biggest decisions a guild can make these days is whether to stay on a struggling server or transfer to a new realm. The risks are substantial, and the benefits aren't guaranteed. This week, one guild member is asking for advice about transfers and also about whether or not to accept a promotion to raid leader.
Hey Scott,
Recently our guild hit a fairly major bump and we're attempting to sort everything out. While I have no doubt that we as a guild will make it though and continue back to HM progression; its a excruciating slow process recruiting and we are losing players who are impatient to continue raiding the way they like . . .
It was decided that as we were not picking up recruits on our server, and that our guild had obtained a reputation as a guild that gears players for the top 200 guilds while just being short of it ourselves. While we know we would lose some of our good players who have ties to the server, it was decided mostly by top officers that our guild should server transfer to a higher populated realm. In addition from the enthusiasm of those same officers it seems as if this is something that will happen.
Hi, OIWM. A server switch is a big deal, no doubt about it. It's something that my own guild considered as recruiting slowed to a crawl a few months after Dragon Soul's release. We decided not to in the end -- transferring is a dicey process and has fewer benefits now than in the past.Hence my email, I foresee a couple problems with switching servers and was wondering if you had tips of your own to solve some. Namely, that switching servers won't bring in the players we need, the server isn't set in stone quite yet but I fear that switching to a new server might not resolve the core issue: our lack of players.
Secondly; because of my great performance and preparedness over the last few months, the officer core wants to promote me to a raid leading position. While they seem confident in my ability I find myself doubting if I can really step up to the position and accomplish everything that is required of a good raid leader. Especially leading the raid through the encounter and calling out abilities and cooldowns.
I appreciate any help or advice you can give,
Best Regards
One Incredibly Worried Mage
Before you pull the trigger on it, consider the alternatives. You could try to form an alliance with another guild on your server. With the advent of cross-realm raiding, your guild's server isn't as crucial as it used to be. I'd recommend trying out a cross-realm raiding service such as OpenRaid. A few people in my guild have been making use of it to do hard modes from previous tiers -- quite successfully, I'll add.
The risks of transfers
If you do decide to switch, you will almost definitely lose a number of players, as you surmise. Players with friends and other long-term ties to the server may not want to leave.
Gaining players on the other end isn't a given. At first, you'll have no reputation on that server whatsoever. That could be good or bad. It all depends on how willing the players on that realm are to take a chance on an unknown.
The raiding guilds on that server won't welcome you with open arms; you'll be new and unwanted competition for them. The worst-case scenario is that the players who do make the switch decide that joining one of those established guilds is much easier than trying to rebuild your own.
The good news is, you could still raid cross-server with those who choose to stay on your original server, provided they are willing. In the best scenario, you retain their services while adding recruits from your destination realm.
Research and preparation
Before you make the jump, the officers need to talk to your players and get a sense for who would go and who would stay. They also need to determine the commitment of the players who would switch over and whether those who stay would agree to cross-realm raids. Overall, if more members are against it than in favor, they may want to reconsider.
I'd also recommend speaking with some of the players on the realm you're targeting. Ask them how they feel about that server's current and future raiding environment. Is it easy to find new raiders? Have any guilds recently transferred away? Is progression competitive with other realms? Do the guilds there often poach from each other? Are they stable and established, or are guilds collapsing and reforming every month?
You may not always get answers (or honest answers), but if you ask enough people, you'll eventually piece together what things are like. For such a big decision, it's worth taking the time to learn more. The better you prepare, the smoother the transfer will go.
Raid lead
You've been in enough raids by now, I would guess, to know pretty well what you'll be expected to do. Add to that some background work dealing with whispers from raiders, evaluating combat logs, and talking to the other officers about team members, and that's the job.
Raid leading can be very rewarding. When your team progresses through content and meets its goals, you'll feel like you were a big part of that. You'll feel pride, not just in your individual performance, but in how the team rose to the challenge and came together under your guidance. Ranged DPS classes like yours have the added benefit of being able to survey the field of battle and see who's in position and who's not, without the added worry of watching health bars.
If you have doubts, you have to figure out if those doubts are about questioning your ability to do the job or questioning your desire. If it's ability, then there's only one way to find out whether you can hack it, and that's to give it a shot. No one will expect you to be perfect immediately, and your raid team will help you with suggestions (whether you want them or not, usually). It won't be the end of the world if you find out that it's not for you.
If it's desire, however, then that's a more serious problem. Serving as raid leader could lead to burning yourself out quickly and needing a break from the game. That would leave your team lacking not just a raid leader but another raider too.
Search your feelings, as the jedi like to say, and you'll find the answer.
/salute
Officers' Quarters keeps your guild leadership on track to cope with sticky situations such as members turned poachers or the return of an ex-guild leader and looking forward to what guilds need in Mists of Pandaria. Send your own guild-related questions and suggestions to scott@wowinsider.com.
Filed under: Officers' Quarters (Guild Leadership)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Sally Bowls Mar 20th 2012 12:44PM
I just want to mention that WoW crafting (and pricing) tend to lock people with professions into a realm. E.g., I have one of every profession at max and more than one alchemist (WTB epic gem transmute.) So a realm transfer would entail my main not having the support and income from the rest. Or spending serious $ to move them all.
Aaron Mar 20th 2012 1:48PM
Even if you're not running your own cartel, you'll have to rethink how your business will fit into the new realm. You may find that your principal money makers aren't profitable any more, or that a once-flooded market is now wide open. On my mid-population realm, twink and heirloom enchants sell slowly, but margins are pretty healthy because I'm one of about three sellers. On my high-population realm, demand for those goods is high, but supply is higher. I can sell as many enchants as I can churn out, but Crusader has such low margins that I may as well just sell the materials.
eel5pe Mar 20th 2012 1:48PM
I would recommend against a realm transfer based on what I've seen from guilds who leave my server. I'm stuck on a low population realm, where many of the larger and more advanced guilds have departed for greener pastures on higher pop realms. Even before character transfers it seemed that every year or so the top PvE guild decides that they've grown too big for my server, citing many of the same problems that you did: difficulty of recruiting, sucky economy etc.
Let me tell you something though: not one of those guilds lasted longer than six months on their new server. Sure, small sample size, but every one of those guilds that left, often with middle fingers waving at this backwater server, has stopped raiding completely.
I can only hypothesize about why the transferring guilds broke up, but:
1) You have no street cred whatsoever when you join a new server. Why would someone want to join your guild when they can join an established one? Not to mention that after the transfer you're likely missing a good chunk of players, so starting anew may take a while. On top of that, no longer being top dawg on the server will create morale issues.
2) A lot of raiders may simply be burned out on the game, and they think life on another server might be better when really they're just tired of WoW.
3) (And this one probably doesn't apply to you but bears mentioning) Frankly, the leadership in some of the departing guilds were a bunch of dicks. People may have been stuck with you when you're the only progression guild on the server, but when there are options don't expect them to tolerate assholery as much.
So yeah I would advise against it, but if you do pull the trigger be sure to come back and tell us how it went!
As for raid leading: give it a try! You're fearing rain and there isn't a single cloud in the sky- your fellow raiders seem to think you'd do a good job. Worst case scenario you give it a try, it doesn't take, and you graciously bow out.
Shadda Mar 20th 2012 4:14PM
I have no experience with guild transfers but have seen character transfers be quite successful. Sometimes, peoples' schedules or play styles simply don't mesh with their current server/guild. In that case, transferring can be a blessing.
Perhaps your officers are feeling this conflict right now? Guilds often promote the most avid players to officer positions: people who always show up ready to raid and will spend extra time helping gear others of giving them tips. Unfortunately, this can cause a divide where your officers are more keen on progression than the your other raid members. Your officers may be tempted to jump to a server that accommodates their goals (speedy progression) but feel obligated to throw a line to the rest of you. This way they aren't "killing" the guild, just changing it's face.
It's a difficult position for all sides. :(
eel5pe Mar 20th 2012 1:50PM
If I may add a closing remark: all of this discussion belies the fact that Blizzard needs to do something about low population and faction-imbalanced servers. One of the biggest disappointments about the Pandaland press tour was that there was no mention at all of the "big plans" Blizzard supposedly has about fixing dying or imbalanced realms.
Rem Mar 20th 2012 3:07PM
Maybe because it was a press tour about the expansion and not a press tour about low pop servers? What do you want them to do, just move everyone including people who don't want to move? Or give everyone a free xfer to a new server and say screw you to the people who paid for one?
Give them time. When it's time to announce something, they will.
eel5pe Mar 20th 2012 3:33PM
Okay, maybe I can provide a little context. About three weeks before the press tour there was a blue post on the forums responding to someone complaining about dead or imbalanced servers. I'm too lazy to find it now, but the basic gist of it was that the systems people were planning something different and exciting to fix the server problem.
Now it's hard to imagine anyone getting excited about a server fix, but there it was, and I actually was excited because the usual fixes that get tossed around (free transfers, server merges) are poor solutions and have a lot of drawbacks, like you said. However, for the next few weeks whenever someone complained about server imbalances there was a blue poster linking to that post and shutting the thread down. Now do you see why I was expecting some sort of announcement at the press tour? I don't see how it being a press tour about the expansion precludes any sort of announcement about server adjustments: one of the selling points of other games (GW1 comes to mind) is free and infinite server transfers.
I can't emphasize this enough: I sincerely believe that the server population problem is one of the most significant problems for WoW's long term health. The simple fact is that the game is VASTLY different if you play on a low or high population server, in terms of server economy, PuG activity, etc. Also having played on a realm that was 2:1 against my faction, I can say again that the game is vastly different if you are outnumbered (we usually held Wintergrasp like twice a week during peak hours). Not just that, a lot of new players are directed to these virtual ghostowns, and you can imagine how discouraging it is when you log on to a "massively multiplayer" game and find there's only thirty denizens in the capital city at peak hours.
And yes, Blizzard does things on their own time but here's why I would prefer a server fix now rather than later: server populations traditionally spike after an expansion. In six months I don't want the powers-that-be looking at realm populations and deciding that everything's hunky dory and any server fix can be put on the back burner. Again.
Gigi Mar 20th 2012 4:41PM
Perhaps a better idea is to recruit players to your server. After having a hard time finding a new rogue for our progression guild we started to look around to other servers. We tried them out with the real-id raiding of HM Firelands so we could actually see them in action and see if they would be a good fit first then invited them to server change to join our guild. It was neater then trying for our entire guild to switch realms. You have to realize there are many people looking for a new server. You see people roll an alt all the time and start poking around to see the economy and what raiding is like. I think you should give this a chance before the entire guild changing realms.
vay Mar 20th 2012 5:32PM
I moved my guild at Christmas, and it was a huge success. Here's my tips.
Firstly, we took everyone on our roster, which even I was surprised about. However, I worked hard to make this happen. First, I posted up on our forum that we would be moving, with the reasons why. I opened the discussion up for people to say what they knew of other servers, and what they were looking for. Then, for every raider who had NOT posted on the thread that they would be going with us, I waited until they came online and /w them, asking how they felt and telling them that we hoped they would come with us, so everyone felt valued and part of the decision. This was a lot of work, as we are a 25-man guild! But it gave me a lot of information about what people were looking for.
Then, I did a lot of research into the other realms, having drawn up a list of what mattered to us, based on what I thought we needed and what people said they wanted. Things we considered is that raiding is better on a PvP server for some reason, but unless you're hardcore PvP types, pick one with more of your faction! And try to pick a server that's on the high end of medium pop, but isn't high - or you'll be queueing to get on on patch day. I visited the servers that looked likely, rolling a level 1 and looking at /2 in Org to get a feel for the place - were there plenty of pugs, pleasant chit-chat, not too much anal spam? I also researched population, pop balance, and WoW Progress - the internet is your friend. Your guildies will probably have some experience of other servers, too. Then when a server looked a good choice and looked like it would tick everyone's boxes, I rolled a toon there and levelled for a couple of weekends and a few evenings, to get a feel for it. I posted where I wanted to move us to, said why and how I felt it met our needs, and gave everyone a last chance to comment. I did offer to move a toon for everyone who couldn't afford it, which you may not want to do, but in the event only one person took me up on the offer. We also stockpiled flasks and gems, and told people we had, to recognize that people wouldn't have their alts there. Not necessary in the end, but again, it made people feel that we were helping them, and that the move was thought through.
Finally, we moved, having given everyone all the information they needed, plus some notice of when - we did it over the Christmas break. As soon as we got to the new server, we started advertising - I stood in trade posting that we were new to the server, and what sort of a guild we are. We pride ourselves on being organized and being a low-drama guild, so that's what we told people. If you know your Unique Selling Point, you can always get players. We hit the ground running, and got going as soon as we got there. If we hadn't have got all our roster there, it may have been harder, but we got the one or two people we needed to be viable within a day or two. We've never looked back.
I will say that our guild was strong, and we picked our time well when we still had enough people to just about be raiding. That's why I wouldn't necessarily wait to long trying other options - if you have just about enough people to raid, you will be in a better place to recruit on your new server.
Oh, and raid leading? Go for it - if it doesn't work out, you have at least tried. Expect to make mistakes, it's the only way to learn, and don't take it hard when you have a bad night - it ISN'T all your fault, and as long as you learn from it it isn't a wasted night. Good luck!
Sbao Mar 20th 2012 5:36PM
About Cross Realm raiding- It doesn't work with Dragon Soul:/
Pretty sure OIWM means progression in DS, so just making sure it's known that cross realm raiding only works with pre-Dragon Soul raids.
Brett Porter Mar 20th 2012 6:39PM
"A few people in my guild have been making use of it to do hard modes from previous tiers -- quite successfully, I'll add."
Hard/heroic modes of previous tiers can be just as hard, but often harder, than current tier. The bonus is you're not restricted to just your server. It sounds like Scott knows that, imo at least...
Aaron Mar 20th 2012 8:56PM
The writer worries me when he says that the transfer "was decided mostly by top officers", and that they're willing to accept leaving people behind. If the leaders are willing to abandon half of their raid team for a chance at cracking the top 200, they're going to have a tough time building a reputation on the other server, where they have to compete with a wider array of raiding guilds and there's little cost to jumping ship.
Then again, this is just my interpretation of one person's account. Maybe the leaders don't like being a training guild because the volatile roster prevents the guild from developing its own history and culture. Maybe they feel the move would lead to a more stable team and happier players.