An MMO guild needs constant renewal. If you are not recruiting, you are dying. People unsubscribe all the time, so you are trying to keep a colander filled.
I am not all about the new recruits. I may not learn their names until they have been around a while; until proven otherwise, I assume that everyone is just passing through. I do not have the reserves to get emotionally invested in a series of people who are going back to X or just playing until Y comes out, whether or not they mention that. There is a self-fulfilling prophecy in expecting people to leave soon, but over the years I have invested a lot of attention and gold in people who did not always bother leaving the “this game just isn’t for me” note. I understand that many people are capable of taking an appropriate level of interest in an acquaintance, but I do not relish the hazy zone between “some guy” and “close friend.”
I prefer a small, tight-knit group. This is hard to maintain across games, jobs, families, time zones, to say nothing of across the years. This would be a major factor of my taking the year off MMOs.
: Zubon
I know what you mean, I’ve been through a few guilds during my MMO times and have even run a couple.
I’m now dep leader of my guild and we’ve been together for a few years now. We founded with the aim of having a tight knit small guild where we all knew each other and helped each other where possible. The holy grail I know, but we’ve managed it so far.
We do have the occasional new recruit and also people that leave to try new games. Those that leave to try new things, stay in touch on the website, often coming back to one of the games we play.
We also have more than one branch as a few people wanted to try LOTRO and a branch was formed there. We plan to do the same for other MMO’s as we try them.
Our most recent guild meet ended a short while ago and as well as the usual bunch we had some members new to the meet’s attending as well as one player who hasn’t even been in game for a long while with us.
It’s my guild which keeps me interested in EQ2 and is certainly something to do with my continued interest in MMO’s.
Delegate, yo. Delegate. ;-}
Heh. Ok, Officer1 is in charge of befriending people whose names start with A-K, Officer2 is in charge of befrending L-Z, Officer3 is in charge of anyone with a name like LègölÄ…s, and Officer4 is in charge of anyone with “deth” in their name.
;)
And then all the guild leader has to do is make sure she is friends with all the officers and making sure they are invested enough in the guild to point out some good deputies for themselves before they leave.
Actually, aside from the alphabetical bit, that’s exactly what I mean, and it seems to work great!
I can relate to this for sure! Our guild will be celebrating it’s 4 year anniversary next month and we realized that we have maybe 4 people who were with us in the very beginning and less than 10 who were with us during our first year. This is surprising because we have a very low turnover rate (very few people leave and many come back soon as they do and we are very picky in recruiting). I used to be very invested in getting to know every single new recruit and giving every relationship 110%. After almost 4 years, people leaving out of the blue, we had an insurrection at one point as well, along with all the normal everyday changes in people’s lives that take them away from the game, I’ve definitely started putting less work into tending those relationships.
I can say that looking back, I believe I was a much better guild leader when I worked harder on those connections but I was not a better person. It was emotionally taxing and I had a long period of time that I spent being bitter about those that would leave. These days I spend my time much more casually getting to know new people and tending to the relationships with those that have been around a lot longer. While I know I’m not as “connected” with the guild and it’s new members, I’m a happier person and I’m thinking that is more important.
I think this is why, being a roleplayer, I am more loyal to game roleplaying communities/alliances than actual guilds.
This seems to work for me, and lets me get out of the whole “but I invested so much in you” problem.