Suggestions for improving the guild?

[Music-chan]

In light of recent problems amongst guildmates, I was curious whether or not anyone has any suggestions to improve the way we handle ourselves as a guild.  We've been very lax ever since the beginning (everyone's fault) and now our guild participation is suffering for it.

So, basically, what do you think we can do to increase guild participation and help expand membership?  Or do you think we're beyond help and are a doomed guild?

Personally, I think if we tried to stay in character a bit more would help a lot.  We could treat this more like a D&D game with all the backstory and character development that should go with it.  I've seen other groups have full-blown role playing sessions and while we wouldn't have to be quite as dramatic as some, doing this amongst ourselves would make our daily interactions more interesting. This might also help us attract more guildmates.

Opinions?

[kpjam]

A quick observations.  or not so quick in retrospect.

The defection of Rez to remove one of his characters from the guild shouldn't be an obituary on the guild.  He still has Kerasyn. Though, It is a fine time to take stock and ask ourselves what we want from the guild.  Obviously Rez wanted to explore something else.  I don't blame him.  Wish him well, and require him to bring back the odd bit of info.  

Not withstanding the effection I have for you all, I'm curious about what another guild, or many different guilds act and feel like. (Before anyone says anything - Bailde and Jaenellange are Soulriders as long as I'm in the game and the guild stands)  I might, or might not with an alt on silverhand or another server.  Who knows.  I'm curious, I'm always curious.

I joined the guild for easy access to people.  You people!  Whom I like and enjoy. To say the guild needs to be improved is a mistake unless you define what you feel is lacking in the guild.  For all I know, nothing is lacking per se, just a different set of problems all guilds face.

But there is no reason that discussing things we might feel are lacking in our guild is a bad thing.  But to try and please everyone is folly.  So, a generally concensoous or direction for the guild is preferred, and maybe needed.  Will it just remain a simple association, and is that what we want it to be, or will it be something else.

In my opinion, if anything in the guild is altered, it's the cohesiveness in which we face the world.  Except for the odd instance run, there's hardly ever times when guildies quest together.  Wheteher it's teaming up through roll-play, events, etc.  Hardly is an exaggeration, since I remember some fun runs with other guildies.  But I know I spend hours upon hours soloing and grouping up with other guilds to finish stuff.  LFG is probably what I type in general more than anything else.

More members, more interaction with society and the game as a whole, and more questing together.  I think those things would make a stronger guild.  How that comports with other peoples desires in game is something for discussion.

I'd be wary of saying 'more' roleplaying would help, unless you define what you mean by that.  Speaking as Bailde with a dwarven accent wouldn't do anything to effect my enjoyment of the game or the guild.  But that's just me~_^.  Though, Jaenelleang flirting with a warrior that helped me beat the bride of the embalmer was amusing, until he wouldn't leave me alone.

[Music-chan]

I hardy think the "accents" and such are what make role playing. Not all dwarves speak in scottish accents. It's just what blizzard seems to have set as the status quo.

No, as for role playing, I was thinking more behind the scenes. What motivates our characters to run around azeroth? Do they have a family? A history? A story?   Does your character desperately hate the horde because they killed his/her family?  Or are they just an adventurer, trying to discover the world on which they live?  Writing a short backstory for your

And to be honest, I think the guild IS lacking, according to what Brian set down as it's original intention. A heavy role-playing guild. We don't hardly role play at all as a guild. HAVE we ever role-played together? I don't know.

I asked the Silver Hand forum (in which I participate more and more) for other suggestions that might make our guild more open and more enjoyable to be in, instead of just a way to chat with people we chat with over IRC every day.  Talking in /say when you're together is a big way. As a troll mentioned, people love to listen in when someone is actually playing a character. I'm no exception. I've been known to sit in an area for an hour just to listen to what's going on.

I'm not trying to say we have a bad guild filled with bad people. That's not it at all. I'm just saying we could be doing more AS a guild, reguardless of level.  Even though Lindele is approaching 50, she's more than willing to go through lower-level instances with guild mates, if only for the fun of it.  She needs to go through Uldaman again but I've been seriously considering searching out a non-guild group just because no one is ever around to discuss it.  And what about Mauradon? or Zul'Farak? Or just wandering around the Hinterlands with anyone else other than just Koryn?  We could be doing so much more, and I think we're all at fault with me. I'm not excluded from these problems. I just feel we need to address them more now before it's too late.

[Brian]

Nnng.  I have a chemical imbalance that causes me to over-react.  Either that or I'm just emotionally unstable.  It seems about every 2-3 months I start becoming an asshole, and then suddenly spiral into depression, over-reacting to whatever happens in whatever way can infer the most hurt tomyself.  Surprised?

So, yeah.  I was already in the depths of a depression over the events of the day (broke up with girlfriend, took a day off of work to deal with life because work is pretty damn stressful), and Rez's message just hit me at ... as far as I know ... the worst possible time he could have.  So I need time to sort myself out and figure out what I'm doing.

And I should encourage you to ignore my outbursts until I manage to outgrow them (which I should have done, oh, decades ago).

So.  Now, down to business.  KP, I don't think the way you spoke to me was appropriate for a non-officer.  Therefore, you're getting promoted (also, someone should take over Rez's spot anyway :p).

As far as what the guild can do in the way of events, I was thinking about this.  I'd (ideally) like it to be in the form of a quest we can set up for lower-level guildies.

And we can do this; I don't see why not.  The trick is finding a suitable quest/reward.

Tangible rewards are generally going to be restricted in who can use them, so we could give more obscure rewards (one supposes).  I'm going to throw out ideas for activities, and we can see which sound promising, and which ... don't.  Anyway:

A free escort for a lower-level through gnomeregan (or similar situation) for a chance to roll on loot with higher level players.  This doesn't seem that creative, or leave a lot of room for RPing, unless the lower level player has to hunt down the higher level players and "convince" them to help out in-character in /say.

Fetch quests A.  We could send someone out to help collect resources for crafting (which could help the crafters).  This might not be so beneficial for the lower-level character ... but trading high-level crafted goods in exchange for raw materials doesn't hurt, and we need more suppliers for our crafters.  The biggest issue here is that this might not be rewarding for the collectee.  Especially since higher level items tend to require a loooot of materials, and some materials are hard to find.

Fetch quests B.  We could assemble a team of like-minded crafters to farm resources in specific areas to work on their crafting skill.  This could be especially fun around levels 25-30, as (unless I'm mistaken) that's when mages start getting teleport spells, which happens to coincide with the timeframe for reaching artisan-level skill in whatever craft is being pursued.  This might actually not work well for anything but leatherworking, though, since resources don't tend to all be right next to one-another.

Fetch quests C.  We give members specific items (say, some random crafted item, so it'll have the <Created By Player> tag on it), and ask them to deliver it to another player.  Of course, this will be different from mailing an item, as the deliveree would have some form of reward for the deliverer.  Er.  Ererer.  Eeeeee.  (The best reward I can think of would be a tabbard ... but I don't have the funds to do this easily.)

Ye Olde Instance run.  We still do these on occasion, though the game makes it so easy to run an instance with non-guildies (/1 Looking for group for Deadmines!) that it seems to me most people won't bother (as an aside, I've never run an instance for the first time except with the guild. :D).  It's still an option.  We should probably put a notice for our MoTD that says, "Want to schedule an instance run?  Put it on the board!" or the like.  That may help a bit....

Now, more RP oriented quests, which I think would be fun.

The easy way out of this one is riddle contests and the like.

A multiple-point fetch quest involving the questee trying to get information from each person in the chain.  If one of the answer-givers is appropriately leveled, then there could even be a /duel involved.  Ultimately, lower-level players would work together to reveal the complete message, and then (just for kicks) we could assemble a raid and attack an instance.  Or just have a party with tons of booze and firworks (Shaya found an easy place to get them), plus any AE spells that are appropriately flashy.  Obviously, this one would require a lot of work, and all of the questees would need to be given their information.  We'd also need to make sure that each character would have specific circumstances they'd give up their information in: losing a duel, being given an item that drops from some relatively nearby creature ("I'll give you what you want in exchange for some spider ichor"), or maybe just a bribe (40 CP, an armor kit; something concievably useful to the character in question).

Thoughts?

[Music-chan]

Once again, I'd highly suggest the emphermal mod that I posted a thread about. It's not in any way illegal to the game as the items you create can't be sold or traded in an official sense.

I think the mod would help with a lot of Brian's suggestions.