Let's be serious for a moment.

[Reycied]

The Eilon is falling apart. There's no if's and's or but's about it. It's a tragedy, yes. But the tragedy can be averted.

To address the first issue: the fact that this guild is being pulled in three directions--instances, RP and PvP. There's no forcing anybody to anything they don't want to. This is a guild of friends, not a dictatorship. So in that vein I think we need to set aside some time to interact with each other, doing anything we want, as long as we're doing it together.

Secondly, is the issue of exclusion. Everyone has felt it, but Dosk has probably been hit hardest by this, and I think that's terrible. While some of us are at levels outstripping his, we should do our best to make everyone feel welcome (I believe the last guild 'party' I can recall was a RoastPony Run).

And third is our low population: the Eilon is made of five people playing alts and mains. To that end, I think we should open the floor to recruitment ideas and criteria.

My suggestion is simple; this week (I suggest Tuesday night, but, I'm open to ideas) we run an instance strictly for Maladin and Dosk. A full guild, in-character run. And then, having finished that, some kind of PvP event (again, open to ideas).

Please tell me what you think of these ideas, and please leave suggestions. The Eilon is ranked among the top guilds I've served in, and I would hate to see it fall. I want everyone to feel the radiant friendship and togetherness that I felt way back when I joined.

[Daeliria]

I am being very serious and I still think it's not quite as dire as you make it seem, Rey. But anyway.

My idea for recruitment was this: after putting the Eilon on the TB forum listings and (very lightly) spamming GuildRecruitment, we'd run any potential new members through an instance they need. In character. This would show us how good/dedicated of an RPer they were, how good of a team player (ideally since we have alts that span the level range, we wouldn't just blitz them through on 70s while they stood around) and how they react to 'emergencies'/dire situations. And it's an incentive for worthwhile people to apply, because hey, free instance run!

Like Dosk said, everyone has invite privs. This suggestion's just a suggestion I thought would be nifty.

By the way, the times you can most often catch me on are Monday and Tuesday nights, Friday afternoons, and all of Sunday.

[Doskious Steele]

Gotta say, good stuff there Rey and Dae. I have a couple of response-points ^_^

1) I deal just fine with being under-level (barring random crazy-thoughts of a highly irrational nature which occur rarely and which I ignore), and while a full instance run would be fun, (and in this case Underbog would get me quest completion) being grouped with 3 70s (or even 2 if we bring Dae instead of Dae) kinda gimps XP. Since I have quests, that's not so much of an issue, but honestly I feel like once I hit 70 we'd have a perfect 5-man, and so this interregnum before I hit 70 must be endured for spiffy things to follow.

2) Would PvP have to be world-PvP (which I find alternately boring and ultra-frustrating, corresponding to the degree of opposing presence (none and overwhelmingly-superior-both-in-gear-and-numbers respectively)), or can I as a level 6x enter the same BG as you 70s? And even if I could, would it be fun? I'd get abused by the Horde more easily on the basis of my level, and prolly abused by the alliance for being under-level as well. Also I'm not at all geared for PvP, and getting me properly set up would take a prohibitive amount of gold and more importantly time, no?

3) Which brings me to my third point, that being this: for me WoW is a game, a means by which I relax and partake of enjoyments. PvP feels like a chore most of the time, or it used to at least, and that was back when I had a premade 5-man group to roll with, with a voicechat server. I know that WoW has that chat in-game, now, but it can gimp your connection speed and cause lag. Recruiting feels even more like work - I don't mind being part of an interview, and I certainly don't mind Dae's suggestion of IC runthroughs (any not-just-RP activity is made 10x better by adding RP, imo), but the prospect of going out and finding people seems like too much work to me to pay $15 a month for the privilege of doing. I work 8 hours a day, 40+ hours a week, half the time spread out over 6 days rather than 5, and dagnabbit I want my fun time, not to come home to more work. I have RL housework to take care of that experience for me. ^__^ Point number 3 boils down to this: If I think it's too much like work, I'm not gonna do it. (Naturally if I didn't have to work for a living, my attitudes would drastically change, as would be online availability! If any of you have ideas on how to accomplish this feat, don't hesitate to let me know! ~_^)

Just my 2 cents, nobody should take offense at this - I'm really just trying to communicate where I stand (which can be summarized as Give It A Little More Time)...

~Dosk

[Reycied]

Dosk, you bring up some fair points (and incidentally, thank you for responding so fast. ).

However, I forgot to make this point in my post, this dungeon run would be less for EXP sake (although the gains would still be substantial, even with a few 70's along), and more about getting you and Maly new gear / quest completion and, to a greater extent, fostering guild unity through an IC experience and just PLAYING together for once. ^__^

And if others dont like guild recruitment, I'd be happy to take that job myself.


Thoughts?

[Cloudspur]

Warning for incoherence since I pulled an all-nighter.

Well, I wish the best to Eilon. Recruiting good people is definitely tough, and I can empathize with all sides of the getting-what-you-want thing.

To illustrate, I became part of Emerald Mosaic toward the end of last summer, one of the better-known RP guilds after Sunpath Riders and in-line with Fal Belore and similar ilk. But there's been a mass exodus of the heavy RPers, and I'm not even kidding. I know of at least three guild moves so far. People just weren't finding what they wanted. TB pve is definitely much stronger, but it felt like a "light/optional RP" server by then. There was very long and heated discussion about recruitment and official events in EM because most of us felt the environment was too difficult to work with by that point and no one had the energy to fully devote to recruitment/events (EM's recruitment required an IC application and in-game IC interview and a possible "trial" time, not to mention half the officers disappeared because they were working overtime or having babies--really XD); at the peak, EM's weekly IC meetings had 13-14 regulars. And it was still considered a small guild. Eilon is even smaller, so having social overlap is going to be tougher--although several of you have the advantage of knowing each other in real life.

I hope Dosk can ride the pve train to 70 with everyone! It certainly can be fun. Scratch that--it *should* be fun if you want to do it. Something like raiding or pvp--if it makes you upset or meh, stop immediately.

The irony is that it can be very difficult to "meet" new people in a huge social MMORPG once an insular group is in place, however big or small. The real issue then, which Dosk brought up and which EM discussed at great length, is the effort-to-fun ratio for members. It's one thing to have mostly college students with large blocks of free time, but another thing to be a married adult with two kids and a full-time job. Er, you get the picture. (Wait, did I have a picture? Uh, not sure now... >_>)

The one-shot instance run is creative, though--not bad. Not only could you test lore (if you really wanted to, haha), but teamwork, and multiple members can get an initial "feel" for someone.

Anyway. I'm getting sleepy, which is no good for this genre theory reading I have to finish. WARK. I'll still pop in on Cloud when I'm able to and do an old-fashioned kittysmack.

[Alt-Girl]

Certainly. Allow me to don my serious face.



There we go. ;D

All right. I've got that out of my system. The recruitment idea seems pretty awesome. Lure them in with an instance run, and then bean them over the head... or is it... I dunno. But whatever we're doing, I have duct tape!

(Ok, ok, now it's all out of my system.)

In all seriousness, for the past couple weeks/months/time periods, I've not been having fun. I don't like it when one of my few sources of entertainment ceases to be entertaining. It's highly frustrating. So I tried PvEing, even with my crappy gear and my ill-planned spec, and couldn't get a PuG through a single Heroic. I tried PvP and got to watch Zani die lots and a bunch of dumbasses stay in the midfield/fight on the roads/cap a lot of flags stupidly (EotS only). But I stuck to it (the PvP) and finally got a sword and snagged Pikkl's pretty damn neat spec. And since then, things have gotten a little better, now that I can actually solo decently. But I still find myself sitting in Shatt for half an hour or so, waiting for someone to need a rogue to go somewhere, sighing at how I missed (insert guildie here) by (insert brief amount of time here), until I get sick of it and log. I don't like playing this game by myself. It is an Massive Multiplayer Online RPG. If I were better at making friends outside the guild, this wouldn't be an issue, but here we are.

I'm not gonna lie to you: I'm not optimistic about our prospects. But you guys are like my best friends ever and if I was gonna resign myself to staying in a small crumblecake guild for a spell for anyone, it'd be for these peeps.

I've seriously racked my brain for a superspecialawesome solution to our problem, but I've come up empty and kinda accepted the inevitable. Main reason being that I seem to have caught raiding fever. Anyone have a cowbell? Or the number of a skilled exorcist?

[Daeliria]

For the record:
- Eilon listing added to TB realm forums
- Rey is officially put on recruitment duty
- Planning on talking with guild leader of Wrath Reborn about a guild-raid-alliance when I catch him on. If that doesn't work so much, I'll try with Exodus since they're one of the few others who seem to be accepting all classes.

I really don't want this to sound like an ultimatum or blackmail, but if the Eilon does fall apart, no matter how salvationary the outcome (everyone still together in a larger guild, for instance) I'm probably going to drop all my characters and move to the HRSFA guild on Spirestone. Even being an extreme lowbie in contested territory for 70 levels again would be comparatively fun after all the sweat, blood and tears that went into the Tribe and the Eilon. It's been worth it. It's been very worth it. I hope it continues to be.