Guild members thoughts on recruitment

[Newk]

I would be interested to find out what everyones thought are on guild recruitment, now that we are on a lightly populated server (not that server loading has any particular bearing on recruitment policy).

Personally, I would like to see a drive to recruit active players of any level, as long as they have a sponsor within the guild, hopefully this would weed out any plonkers.

Due to Wow (both beta and the soon, general release) and the usual Mmog's ability to make players drift away from the game, the guild will soon become nothing more than an extra channel where a few friends can chat to each other in a common channel, which is fine on one part, but restricts the playing style and game content for other players.

So lets get a bit of discussion going on the subject.

Newk xxx.

 

[Arknen]

From my experience so far as a new member of ClanUK who didn't play EQ1 or anything else with you guys new players may join but won't stay long if we can't be a little more supportive and co-operative.

More members is a good thing especially as it will fill out the numbers of people available to play with at any one time, or level. However, we must live up to the expectations of new members otherwise we'll just get a crap name for ourselves and the number of willing recruits will dwindle.

People who are unguilded and fairly high level are so for a reason. It is usually because the beaurocracy of being in a guild is too much that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. As a guild leadership (and us peons) we must be better at being seen to offer assistance.

I'm not saying that every time someone yells for help we should drop everything and run to the nearest bell, but the offer of help, information or otherwise, and the occassional valiant act (whether we are good or ebil) always goes down well with new recruits.

Just my 2 pennies from my short time as a Clanuk member.

 

[Nymawae]

Think I mentioned it in an earlier thread, i agree completely with Newk.

ClanUK has settled in nicely with a group of regular players that will fluctuate depending one what else is going on, (*cough* weddings *cough*)WoW release etc. The problem being that the base number of CUK members playing EQ2 is relatively low and leaves little room for manoeuver if people aren't playing. There's really only enough on at one time for one, maybe two groups tops.

If the numbers drop too far the guild just becomes a chat channel and eventualy people join other in game guilds a'la Camelot. Personaly i'd much rather see us recruit active, skilled members in game that fit in with the CUK personality. That's not to say a whole sale grab anyone, just if you group with someone and get to know them as someone who would fit in with the guild well perhaps we should approach them and make it known we're recruiting rather than on the off chance someone asks. CUK is quite small and relatively unknown on the server so we're unlikely to have people knocking on the door unless we make it known we'd welcome suitable people first.

Of course they'd still have to do the normal guild trialing etc - it seemed to work well in FFXIIIXCL, no reason why it shouldn't in EQ2. Always nice to have a vibrant guild online to make grouping, help and Tempy is a W****r jokes the norm, not just pot luck that there are a sew other people online.

Short version of that - Yes!

 

[Ollwen]

Fresh people are always good, but I do think we need a clear idea about what we want to achieve and also need some clear commitment. Putting myself in the shoes of a PNM how would I feel joining to find no groups happening? My gut feel is we need to get to the stage where 3 groups is the norm before we can start to really expand. I hate to say this as well but we need to be selective on the classes we attract initially too to balance out the shortages in certain areas or we will just have more people waiting for things to happen.

I think thats the biggest risk. If the guild goes on a recruitment drive it either needs to be big numbers quickly or total commitment to keeping people interested whilst the new people bed in.

Just my view even though I am stuck on RE!!

 

[Darakor]

Well, I am a bit torn on this. Actively recruiting is not something we have ever done except in the twillight days of EQUK and it did not work too well then. The people you get by actively recruiting are usually not the kind of people we would want in a guild. ;-)

However, I do agree that we are too few people and should consider a way to get more people to join the guild. I do not think we have too little to offer to the guild because people actually get a ton of help in this guild. Loads of crafted stuff at cost and whenever you really need help there are people willing to chip in. The problem would be how to attract the right people.

For me, I would say you need to play with someone, find out if they are a decent player and fit in personality wise and then ask if they would be interested in joining the guild. That won't really happen, though, for a simple reason - most of us only play with friends or guild members. How are you going to meet new people when you don't group with any / don't get to know any?

Depressing as it may sound, we may want to try doing more pickup groups. So we can meet and invite nonguilded people that we feel could fit in.

***EDIT: Also want to say that Olwen has a good point. Before we do any recruiting, we should consider what we want to do, what our goals are (if any) and what we actually need to complete them. He is right, even if they are great chaps, another 20 tanks won't help us much, unless we want to start raiding and do tank chains instead of healing chains. ;-) ***

Darakor

 

[Unbeliever]

I tried to resist commenting here but I guess I just can't

Firstly, for those of you that dont know, I ran (mostly successfully) the EQ1 UK guild for about 4 years through all sorts of stages (details not needed). I think this makes me very qualified to answer the question posed here while also be aware that the experience of one game may not happen with another (and of course my own experiences colour how I view things).

It's all really tied in with Darakor's poll on 'how' you wish to play the game, as what you want to do inevitably determines how you have to recruit. To believe otherwise is to view the world with rose tinted spectacles. If the game play is only casual then no particular recruitment is needed or indeed wil happen. If there are not enough players to form regular groups then people either find others to play with or they play less and less.

If you want hard core raiding then you have no choice, your recruitment strategy must by tailored to keeping the guild membership at a level where enough people are on almost every day to raid and unless you're already at that stage you can do nothing be recruit actively and quickly because while you dont have enough you dont raid and you loose members (because .. well .. they want to raid

These 2 opposite ends are the simplest. Anything in between is harder. Why? because as has been hinted at in several posts, people start going on about only recruiting 'our sort of people' or words to that effect. This is an extremely difficult task, requiring a significant amout of effort from at least a few people. The unfortunte thing is the sort of people who are willing to put in this amount of effort (time wise) to something like an online game are normally the power players and that sort of person is far more likely to be a hard core raider type.

Should we recruit? Yeh sure. Will we ever get enough to do more than occational raids? Maybe, but I doubt it. 'Casual raiding' actually requires more members than hard core raiding funnily enough, since you need the larger pool of members before you ever have enough on at a particular time who *want* to raid, to be able to raid.

It is likely that most of the 'easier' raid mobs will fall to pickup raids relatively soon after they spawn (at least this will happen in the near future), so whether you are casual or hard core you need to be able to move on a mob at least relatively quickly.

The only other option is instance type raids, which is something I think we could do, but it really depends on whether or not enough of them become available as I really dont know how many of these sort of raid encounters are currently in the game. This sort of thing can of course be done with far less total member as it can be planed ahead of time with far more precision. This sort of raiding fits in with just about any sort of recruitment strategy and is probably the most realistic goal for our guild.

Unny

 

[Darakor]

Well thought out post, Unny.

The poll I made showed about 18 people that wanted to raid casually or at least did not mind raiding. That would be enough for some raids, if everybody actually showed up. Maybe we should start to do some research regarding what mobs are in the game and how many people are needed to kill them. We should be able to at least do the "Group x 2" mobs .

Either way, if you take a look at the people we lost to WoW beta, those that are planning on playing WoW when it first comes out and those not interested in playing EQ2 anymore, I wonder if we actually have enough people for 2 exp groups, let alone raiding. TBH, I think it is not really a matter of "should we recruit" but more that we have to get more people or risk having a guild with not enough active people to fill a single exp group. Shortly after which, the remaining members will probably move on to other guilds or quit in frustration.

Darakor

 

[Flight]

Unny missed third option.

Join us in WoW cause EQ blows goats, there will be a lot of people about and we miss you all


Unny would make a great Hunter .... like a Ranger only better ......

 

[Darakor]

In that case, good that we are playing EQ2 and not EQ.

Darakor

 

[Cathral]

Flight we can tell how good wow is because your so bored you post in the EQ2 forum

Maybe you should try it before you slate it, now go back to your cartoon

 

[Omzig]

it was the relaxed recruiting policy in Horizons that got Sanctum into the guild.

So beware !

 

[Flight]

Flight we can tell how good wow is because your so bored you post in the EQ2 forum

Maybe you should try it before you slate it, now go back to your cartoon

Hey I caught Unny sneaking in the WoW forum. Had to come check up on him

Tried EQ2 extensively. Only two starting areas, one major area for lvl 10-20, Freeport having the worst designed zones in MMORPG history, evil side nowhere near finished, the whole evil/good separation at start just stank of the half finished game it is. EQ2 will be a terrific game in a years time, particualrly with more starting areas and I'll probably try it again then. Tried WoW and EQ2 and found WoW hugely more fun and challenging.

 

[Bazerka]

Challenging in the sense of getting all the macro utilities up and running?

 

[Cathral]

tried qeynos and freeport and prefer freeport zones. Qeynos equivalent either had memory leaks or were just no challenge. Freeport pretty much everything is aggro and travelling through nek forest without aggro is a challenge

If by tried extensively you meant beta then you dont have a clue about it from talking to beta testers. It improved a few 100% on release though I didnt get into beta to confirm or not.

 

[McHoff H. McChrist]

Hey, these uber hax of pwning don't write themselves, you know.

 

[Flight]

Challenging in the sense of getting all the macro utilities up and running?

Challenging in that high end instance, group or raid hunts aren't simply the MT holds aggro, the cleric(s) chain heal and everyone joins in when aggro is built up. There are times when each class comes into its own and are the key to victory Everyone has to be switched on and do well unlike EQ where half the group or raid could be bots or just follow a few simple commands.

Please dont take my thoughts personally. If you're enjoying EQ2 a lot stick with it and good luck to you You guys are missed by a lot of us is all I meant. Hope you are having fun.

 

[Muriel]

Flight,

Could you give us some examples of what you mean by

There are times when each class comes into its own and are the key to victory

I tried the WoW beta and got very bored very quickly. I didn't get any sort of feeling of connection either with my own character or with any community as a whole. Whereas EQ2 immediately drew me in and hasn't let go yet

But I'd be interested in getting some more insight into why I might want to try WoW again.

I'm still having a blast in EQ2 just getting the MT role sorted out (helps that I was a cleric in EQ1 so it's all new) - keep finding different ways to do stuff and find the whole group dynamic in EQ2 much better than EQ1.

As an example we had a 5 person lvl 25-28 guild group last night with no healer (1 guardian (me), 2 paladins, 1 SK, and a summoner) doing pretty well against multiple lvl 27-28 2 up arrow group mobs. Very little downtime and no deaths.

So I think maybe you're letting your feelings about EQ1 blind you to the possibilities EQ2 has to offer.

 

[Bazerka]

Everyone has to be switched on and do well unlike EQ where half the group or raid could be bots or just follow a few simple commands.

You've obviously not played EQ2 very much then.....

 

[Darakor]

You guys are missed by a lot of us is all I meant.

Feel free to join us in EQ2 whenever you feel like it, Flight. ;-)

Same goes to the rest of the WoWers.

Darakor

 

[Flight]

Bazerka,

I'd guess I spent between 200 and 300 hours in EQ2, prolly a third evil side and two thirds good side. The things that ruined it for me really were the things I listed - only two start/home places, one main area for everyone level 10-20 and the class system particularly. I also really thought a couple of the big long zones in Freeport were very badly designed. If you've not been bothered by those things then I genuinely wish you well in the game

Muri

The real strength of WoW is the true diversity in the class structure. At each level after lvl 9 you get one point per level to spend on talents. The game was firstly created without talents, so the class system is complete without them - talents just offer huge diversity within the classes. Talents exist on top of all the generic skills, spells and abilities all classes get a bunch of.

There are three trees of talents per class, very similar to Diablo's skill trees.

For instance, Hunter. This class is roughly equivalent to EQ's Ranger classes. They get tracking which displays mobs (and players) real time in your mini map on the right top of your screen, for example. Then they also can charm beasts in the game and keep them permanently as pets, levelling them up with themselves and using them as tanks or offensive units (they get to have 3 pets permanently, only 1 active and they can lose them at any time if they chose to if they want a different mob as a pet - they can also charm most rare spawns and keep them etc etc).

So we have Rangers with a tank unit as a pet. The Ranger talent tree is split into three, which basically enhances their pet, their ranged abilities or their melee abilities, namely Beast Mastery, Marksmanship or Survival . There is a massive number of different builds which make for very different experiences both solo and in groups. Each of the 3 trees has a single top skill, which requires you to have spent 30 points in that tree. Hence the top skills in the trees can be attained not before level 40. In most cases people will put 31 points into one tree, in a variet of ways, and 20 points in one of the other trees. Obviously there is a lot of variance in this. For example, if you chose to go Beast mastery your top of the tree skill is Spirit Bond, which heals you every time your pet hits a mob.

Hunter talent tree here for reference

I cant emphasise enough how much :

i) each class is a very different gaming experience, enhanced even more so by the talent system; and,

ii) what a huge difference there is in the gaming experience in all the different starter areas. A couple of them I actually hate, if I am honest, and find extremely boring, but others are just totally captivating. By starter areas I mean series of areas covering level 1-30. There are pretty much 6 sets of these ( one series of zones for each of the six starter areas) and they are big.

As for each class coming into its own, the talent system producing such huge diversity within the classes reflects one aspect of this - you couldnt just have a simple MT, healer etc setup in every situation.

To give an idea, a typical group night would be to clear an instance. Instances in WoW are similar to LDoN dungeons in EQ1, BUT they are much bigger (most of them), with a lot more interesting design, a series of quests in each of them and each having a series of well told stories to them. There are also a number of boss mobs in them each time you do them so you are guaranteed some decent loot for your efforts and no one else apart from your group can get to them

Its kind of like being able to zone into Plane of Time (except the instances are superior in gaming experience to Plane of Time) and knowing ahead that its going to be there for you and no one else can zone in apart from your group. There are over 30 instances in at the moment for single groups. They can take anything up to ten hours to do everything in one of them.

As you travel through each member of the goup is going to have to pull their weight, sometimes to the max, to deal with what is happening. You cannot split pull or lull often, so there may be places you know you are going to get 6 or 8 mobs. There are some instances where these mobs can be AE'ed and an AE class (Mage or Warlock) is going to save you hours literally. There are other places where you are just going to have to deal with those 6 or 8 mobs one on one or one on two etc. Warriors used to be able to keep all taunted but they removed that so now everyone has to do their bit.

edit : one little touch I do like is that every single trash mob has a small chance of dropping top items and a very, very small chances of dropping epic items. There are tiers of rarity reflected in the colour of the name and text of the item - grey, white is sell to vendor junk, green is uncommon and has stats, blue is rare (very) and is what drops off decent bosses. Purple is above blue and can drop off trash (as can blue items)

Probably the biggest strength of WoW is that they have managed to make it just as fun for solo, duo, group or raid play.