03-18-2009, 05:40 AM
What GG said.
What KotD did, back when we were lucky to have 8 members online at once and ZG was all the rage, was say "screw it", lets organize some 20 man raids with friends.
We decided, having experienced some MC alliances that ended up being just together long enough for one guild to recruit enough members to quit the alliance and do their own crap, canabalizing as much of their partner guilds as possible in the process, was that we would game mail all of our friends' lists in game.
We told them we were going to raid ZG on the same two nights every week, at the same time every week, and that if they committed to coming regularly, we would commit to giving them a spot. The important part there was OUR commitment to them. Once given a regular spot, we would not boot them from that guaranteed raiding spot even if we had new guildies join that wanted to raid. We gave non-guildies just as much preference when picking raiders for the night as we did any guildies, and new members of KotD were told on joining that members does not equal raiding spots, and that they should be just fine with Lurkers getting raid spots while they don't.
We had a "regulars list" of folks that had committed to raid regularly with us, and they were guaranteed spots if they signed up a day ahead of time. We then had an alternates list of folks that couldn't commit to be regular enough or wanted to be regular raiders but that we didnt' have room to give a spot to regularly.
You get the idea.
For the first month or three, it wasn't even specifically an alliance with just Lurkers. We had folks from 4-5 other guilds that were involved to some extent. Over time though, given the quality of Lurker players and their interest, they became the bulk of our regulars with just a handful of regulars from other guilds (we moved past ZG into Molten Core and beyond, finishing off BWL just days before TBC).
This is just one model, but it worked very well for us, and I'm mostly trying to emphasize that the key to a relationshp where one guild runs all raids and offers spots to non-guildies is to build trust through showing your commitment to their raiders. If they KNOW you aren't trying to poach their members or that you won't be kicking them two months later when you have enough members to raid without them, then it is a lot of fun.
Someone shoot me - I just rambled worse than GG ever does, and I'm tired so it probably makes half as much sense.
What KotD did, back when we were lucky to have 8 members online at once and ZG was all the rage, was say "screw it", lets organize some 20 man raids with friends.
We decided, having experienced some MC alliances that ended up being just together long enough for one guild to recruit enough members to quit the alliance and do their own crap, canabalizing as much of their partner guilds as possible in the process, was that we would game mail all of our friends' lists in game.
We told them we were going to raid ZG on the same two nights every week, at the same time every week, and that if they committed to coming regularly, we would commit to giving them a spot. The important part there was OUR commitment to them. Once given a regular spot, we would not boot them from that guaranteed raiding spot even if we had new guildies join that wanted to raid. We gave non-guildies just as much preference when picking raiders for the night as we did any guildies, and new members of KotD were told on joining that members does not equal raiding spots, and that they should be just fine with Lurkers getting raid spots while they don't.
We had a "regulars list" of folks that had committed to raid regularly with us, and they were guaranteed spots if they signed up a day ahead of time. We then had an alternates list of folks that couldn't commit to be regular enough or wanted to be regular raiders but that we didnt' have room to give a spot to regularly.
You get the idea.
For the first month or three, it wasn't even specifically an alliance with just Lurkers. We had folks from 4-5 other guilds that were involved to some extent. Over time though, given the quality of Lurker players and their interest, they became the bulk of our regulars with just a handful of regulars from other guilds (we moved past ZG into Molten Core and beyond, finishing off BWL just days before TBC).
This is just one model, but it worked very well for us, and I'm mostly trying to emphasize that the key to a relationshp where one guild runs all raids and offers spots to non-guildies is to build trust through showing your commitment to their raiders. If they KNOW you aren't trying to poach their members or that you won't be kicking them two months later when you have enough members to raid without them, then it is a lot of fun.
Someone shoot me - I just rambled worse than GG ever does, and I'm tired so it probably makes half as much sense.
Jormuttar is Soo Fat...