Relmstein on guild death

Relmstein has an interesting analysis on how guilds die. He claims that it is always either the guild master disbanding the guild, or somebody dividing the guild. Can't argue with the first one, it just happened to me yesterday. But I don't think the second one is that clear cut.

I do believe that divisions kill guilds, but it isn't necessarily the work of a single person. And it isn't necessarily somebody new, out to overthrow the old guild master. In fact the division is something that happens automatically, people develop at different speeds. A guild masters some step of the classic guild development path, lets say Molten Core. So the hardcore are pushing the guild to go to the next step, in this example Blackwing Lair. Guild goes to BWL and wipes ten times against Razorgore. And that is where the cracks start showing. Half the guild, the casual half, wants to go back to MC, enjoy the casual farming of the place, equip everybody in epics, and come back to BWL later, much later, when the guild is stronger. The other half, the hardcore half, doesn't want to "babysit" the casual half through MC. Instead they start lambasting the casuals for "not pulling their weight", "not being prepared", "not reading up", "not following orders", and whatever else they quote as reason for the failure in BWL. Casuals are sick and tired about being shouted at, and don't turn up to BWL raids any more. Hardcore are sick and tired of the casuals, and don't show up to MC raids any more. And then it isn't long until the guild falls apart, either splits up into two guilds or totally disbands. Note that MC/BWL was just an example, the same thing can happen at the UBRS/ZG transition, the ZG/MC transition, and any other point of the guild development path to Naxxramas.

Guilds that have strict policies on raid attendance are trying to avoid exactly that split, by keeping everybody at the same level. And sometimes the split isn't catastrophic, but is just a steady stream of hardcore guys leaving the guild to join a more leet other guild. It is really hard to keep everybody in a guild on the same meta level. The people who raid most usually have the best gear, and obviously also the most experience. But they often fail to see that they can't succeed alone. As Relmstein mentions, often the priests are among the more casual players, which is only natural, because somebody who wants to be at the top rarely plays a support class. While the main tank, the guy with the most epics, is always one of the more hardcore players. After a split, the hardcore players don't have enough support players any more, and the casual players don't have raid leaders and main tanks any more. The sensibile thing would be to stick together, accept the fact that transition to a new, harder raid dungeon involves lots of wipes, set up a system of incentives for both sides to come to each others raids, until one day the casual players are ready for the next dungeon too. Unfortunately patience is often in low supply, especially among the more ambitious players.

Fortunately there is some hope for improvement, with the raids being capped at 25 in the future. It is easier to keep a group of 25 at the same level than a group of 40. What we don't know yet, but what could also help, is how big the gap is between one raid dungeon and the next. If a guild that kills the last boss in one dungeon has a very good chance to kill the first boss of the next dungeon after a few tries, that would make the transition easier as well. It is much more acceptable to wipe in the middle of a dungeon, after having already received some loot at the start, than on the very first boss.
- posted by Tobold @ 2:09 PM Permanent Link