Project Lore

Ensidia FTW! I'm going go gear up a bit more and then I'm going to try out there. I hope I get in and if I do, I hope I stay in!

There's a lot of contributing factors to this, and I think it may all stem from content.

All the raid content is puggable - there isn't any reason to be in a guild when you can join any group and have a reasonable amount of success. I'm in one of the oldest guilds on my server, and we're struggling to have enough attendance for 25 man raids. We have a consistent group of PUGs that join us. They're all in different guilds - sometimes they only ever have a couple people in their current guild. Some other people don't even raid with people from their guild at all.

This has resulted in a ridiculous amount of guilds. I see a new guild name pop up in trade chat trying to recruit for 25s every day.

I think we're going to see a lot less of this in WoWcat (my abbreviation for Cataclysm, use it! Make it catch on!), what with the guild leveling system... I think people will finally be prone to settling down again.

my ideal guild is one that raids 10 AND 25mans and has friendly people in it :D

As a guild leader of a pretty casual guild with raid hopes I have this to pass along:
In a guild of friends and aquaintences, mistakes and learning curves are more forgiving. For not standing in the fire to be second nature to most raiders, the new people haven't figured out that trick yet. They get a tunnel vision focused on doing just what it is they do, and aren't always aware of their surroundings. Also, the more casual mindset doesn't research or study up on fights coming up, and have to be explained the mechanics, tricks and phases.
My guild is by no means heavy progression focused (We just downed Kel'Thud last weekend) and we only raid once a week when everyone's schedule lines up (as many of the members are spread out across the states) but we stick together because we're friends and family first and a guild second.
Certainly there's a difference of opinion in regards of raids, some folk want the next level of gear or wish to see the content, others have more fun just being social with everyone. To me it sounds like you want a similar experience, friends and those willing to socialize with, but still have a raid-oriented theme to the guild, with progression as a goal. Of course, there's the bottom line, goals that is. Your goal is to gear up and hit the newest thing with the mindset of a dedicated raider. Maybe these other guilds you're having trouble with are finding people with a goal of seeing the raid stuff, but not with the dedication it requires.
Find friends with the same goals as you first, then see about the guild formation from that foundation.

Your ideal guild is pretty much my guild. Except our three raid nights a week are usually progression, or farming upgrades to use in progression.

We're close, friendly, and spend a lot of time bantering and socializing in Vent even if we aren't doing anything in game as a group. We 5-man together, we raid together, we PvP together, and we level alts together.

Of course, there's always going to be someone who doesn't particularly care for someone else. However, it's rare ever a major issue, and if it *is* the antagonist involved is removed and all is well again. By and large, everyone likes everyone else and get along.

I founded my guild, Portent Alliance, in EQ1 six years ago. It's varied in size over the years, varied in ability to raid, achievements, etc... but has always been around, has always been active, and has never been on the chopping block of guild disbandment. We actually have several members who have been with us for the full six years.

My theory, after six years of watching other guilds fail (including ones created by people who rage /gquit my guild to form their own for various reasons), is simply that anyone can make a guild but few people have any business leading one. More often than not, it's poor leadership (in an array of flavors) that leads to guild death. Sure, you might be able to point to a fatal drama explosion and pin it on a troublemaker member, but it was the leadership that failed to remove that troublemaker.

Likewise, failure to communicate with your leadership is another major problem. In six years, we have had our handful of problems, and most were caused by dissention among the ranks that festered over time. Those who were aware of the growing displeasure of the involved parties refused to bring it to the attention of the officers because "They didn't want to start something". Instead, they let a minor issue develop into a major event, including (on one occasion) an attempted coup.

If all parties involved have an active concern in seeing a guild succeed, it will. If all people want from the guild is phat lewt and glorious titles... they aren't going to care if the guild lives or dies, so long as some guild somewhere fulfills their selfish needs.

This is one of those subjects where one person can go "meh" and another would get emotional.
I'm kind of in between.
About a year or more ago, my guild was having problem. Not like we haven't had problems before but this time was serious. And I think it mostly stemmed from the 10-25 man content. Even though I was an officer of that guild my life was pretty hectic at the time (and still kind of is) so I was never privy to all the information of what was going on so I got second hand gossip.
But it got so bad that the GM just said eff it and kicked nearly 90% of the guild, (excluding myself and the other officers, alts of those officers and GM and maybe a few other people who were on the GM side).
Compound the attitude and politics of the server and what has transpired I just couldn't take it so I moved one of my toons to a new server and started over.
While I still have toons in that guild and yes there are still people in there (albeit a fraction of what it once was and barely anyone on when I log in) I couldn't bare to leave that guild entirely because of how much fun it used to be pre-bc and the friends I made in there. Also all the hard work I put into the website design and maintenance as well as other ideas to make raiding better.
But now I don't see a reason for joining a guild other than being with or making new friends who you can talk to, level with, or just having fun. Sure the guild can schedule raids but everywhere you go it's the same damn whining you hear, "We need more people for XX".

If you are in a guild or created one, my advice is if you want the guild to raid. Don't try to force yourself in getting 10/25 guild members ever X amount of days instead get as many as you can and PUG the rest and just have fun.
It shouldn't be a race for gear or for content (although seeing content if very fun for me, and gear is a nice bonus) but just plan fun.

If it must be a full guild or non-pug, try communicating with another guild who is having the same problem and try joint raids.

My ideal guild is the same as yours there koopa maybe a bit smaller but some close knit friends that work well together but trust me its not easy to come by i've finally found it but it took me through several stages.

My brother and Itransfered servers to help out an old collage buddy of his when it turned out he found someone in the mean time we got into a large guild cause we liked the name more than anything else they were raiding 25 naxx at the time and it gave me a good taste of end game raiding. But due to issues with the GM the guild members kinda split into grooups because of his raiding decisions Iwas on the side that kinda opposed him.

Eventually the guild split and my group formed the guild . this was a golden guild in its early days but eventually an old friend of the GM of our last guild because he was fed up with him. he talked his way into becoming an officer and everything was still fine but he eventually started recruiting random people because he couldn't always get a full guild run. Now the Idea this guild was about was a small group that could get together two or three times a week and chill together inbetween, so the random recruiting kind of got some of the original members pissed.

So those core members decided to break off peacefully and create an new 12 man guild solely for our original purpouse well as the few of us left there were a few of us that decided to stay with the old guild and its newest guild leader the ones of us that left had talked to our old friends but they all semed happy with there current situations. As such holy grail became a resounding failure with its old members fleeing to many other guilds.

Just recently once the faction change came around most of the members from what was once holy grail ended up switching factions. It was kind of a miricle but I logged on to our old vent to tell the guys I had given up and switched horde in search of greener pastures I was imediately greeted by old friends saying that they had done the same. As such we managed to form a guild of what holy grail was suppoused to be is it's name and it has been working beatifully so far.

So like I said it may take a while the first raid I had was just as the bulk of guilds were making it to naxx 25 and now several months and four guils later im finally at my ideal guild.

i think what creates the deception that their are more noobs then skilled players is ones defenition of what is a bad player

many players atleast on my server lack the qualitys of a "good" player for starters lets look at 10 man is harder then 25 man it really depends on the composition and how "skilled" is the player. and the second most important factor the abillity to addept to the shifting phases and learn from your mistakes tweak your strategy to best suit the boss fight the most important quality is perserverence to not give when a going gets tuff not to be afraid of a large repair bill

i (should be a capital) think what creates the deception that their are more noobs then skilled players is ones defenition (definition is the correct spelling) of what is a bad player
many players atleast on my server lack the qualitys (wtf? qualities) of a “good” player for starters lets look at 10 man is harder then 25 man it really depends on the composition and how “skilled” is the player. and the second most important factor the abillity( really 2 l's?) to addept (adept) to the shifting phases and learn from your mistakes tweak your strategy to best suit the boss fight the most important quality is perserverence (big words are hard to spell perseverance) to not give when a going gets tuff not to be afraid of a large repair bill

I am sorry I cannot take your opinion serious if it is gonna be full of grammar,punctuation, and spelling mistakes.

theres this guild in the ysondre server my main is in called exodus which i think is the first guild 2 beat ulduar in the entire that i wish 2 join but cause i go 2 school its unlikely i will join. the guild of my dreams r the 1s that is a friendly guild, does lots of raids on weekends, and doesnt have 2 tell me go get a vent like the guild im in the russian mafia GM tell me i should get vent (seems pointless) and members which r usually active (like Project Lore).

LOL although i do say gg at Lrn2spell for posting all that, is anything gained by it?

Get a decent friendslist addon (AuldLangSyne maybe), so you can put detailed notes about people on it. Put detailed notes of guildmates on it as well, so that if the guild later disintegrates, you can grab them on /w and ask them why they gquit, and if their new guild is raiding, and maybe get an /invite or two.

Once you've rung around all your buddies see if you can get a /ginvite for yourself and the better people on your friendslist. This way, you should get a higher concentration of good players within a guild which helps to keep it together.

@angesh: One fullstop per post is an improvement, so there is gain from it. :-)

I run a relatively small 10-man guild, composed of friends, friends of friends, and people we've met who had potential (plus a revolving few that I know are going to leave a week after they join because we don't spoon feed them gear). We have a good rapport with some of the other guilds at our level and do guild alliance 25s with them. Some of us are hardcore, some are casual, but we just figure out who can do what when and go from there. I learned a long time ago that you can't force raids if you want to last. Shit happens and you deal with it, canceling a raid or cutting one short isn't the end of the world; people are people.
I've been running this guild for about 7 months now (old GM got bored so yay, all of the trials and tribulations get passed on to me) and it takes work and (LOTS of) patience to run things properly. People will come and go, as I said before, life happens. The thing to remember is to never burn bridges. I've had everything you can think of take people out of my roster; babies, jobs, school, knees ruined by parrying a soccer ball...and some things will take people away for good. Most will not. You have to think long term, and keep your door open.

P.S. Having the GM be the biggest asshole in the guild really helps.

P.P.S. If I rambled sorry, 4 a.m. does that.

me and my friends just moved to retail after playing on a privet server for a long time.
we are 10 guys, so we opened a guild (sons of chuck).
its easier to run a guild when you already know all the ppl that are in it.
that's why when we recruit new members we tell them to come to vent to talk to us, or we wont take them in.
cause face it.... you cant raid without a vent.