Dying guilds

[tman1991]

There's nothing a community manager can do to reverse the damage Funcom's slow content development has created.

If T5 (and I'm talking new raid Palace of Cetriss, not rehashed 6 yr old T1 raids) would have been released a yr or so ago, most if not all of those folded T4 guilds would probably still be here.

For US guilds at this rate, when T6 comes out there will probably be only 1 raid guild left, it will probably be called the Rogue Prophets :P

It's simply too late, unfortunately.

And selling T5 as new raids is not going over well. Cetriss being T6 and prob not coming till 2015-2016 is not a good sign for future raids.

[sugarspice]

So, let me ask you then:

How can I - a (*COUGH*)humble (*COUGH*) community manager help?

What ways can we spice things up a bit in the community at large?

I have ideas, and want to see what you think would work.

I would be willing to devote one non raiding night a week to have a "raid leader" training night. Most of the progression guilds can of course read the strats but applying them to a raid is sometime difficult. I know when Prophets started the Coalition Raiders of Set, it was a Pug raid for T3, but the raid was half Prophets members to be able to teach those that came, and any Prophets member that attended had to bring their best toon to carry the raid. The raid progressed to the point of killing Thoth and many future raid leaders were trained on leading T3 raids thru that group.

I also know that tons of folks that can't be bothered to log on most of the time, do log on for the World boss event, so its a winner with most people.

As far as T5, I just don't know that we will get folks coming back..time after time I have seen guildies get full t4 on three or four toons and then just never log on again.

I really believe a true pick up pug t4 would be very difficult because of the jobs that every one must do to get sheng, Zodiac and Emp down, but a teaching pug where you had 12 strong and knowledgeable players teaching 12 others could work, I know it can work because that is how we got our weekend T4 raid thru T4. We weakened our weekday raid by bringing our strongest toons to the weekend raid force. So it was a very fast progression getting all the new folks thru T4.

[twinklez3]

There's nothing a community manager can do to reverse the damage Funcom ... created.

Not a truer thing can be said.

[Aylis]

Well in reflection to this thread I have no guild at the moment. I am the only one of a group of friends that still plays Conan (I just love the game so much). I have gotten as far as the Keeper and Thoth in T3 before the raids I am in fall apart, only ever killed Thoth two times and never on my main which hurts. I get a lot of offers from Guilds as they guess its funny seeing a full T2 toon with two or three T3 pieces running around. Trouble is I don’t know anyone in any guild. My main has been in 3 guilds, the first with the friends that left, the second folded and the 3rd I left. My problem is I don’t want to have the reputation as being a guild hopper, so am being a little careful on the next one a choose.
Have played since 2008 all my toons were T2 before world Boss, I just farm WB for T3 relics. My problem is to find a guild who can do upper T3 and teach me T3.5 and T4.

Well Texan just listed off the US guilds that do t3 t3.5 and t4. Apply or find and officer of those guilds and talk to them. I was in the very same problem as you and thats what i broke down and did. Now im in RA for better or worse lol. Its a hard move being in a guild that does highend content when you dont know it. But really if its something you want to do then you have to make the leap.
It wont be easy!

[Aylis]

So, let me ask you then:

How can I - a (*COUGH*)humble (*COUGH*) community manager help?

What ways can we spice things up a bit in the community at large?

I have ideas, and want to see what you think would work.

Well what are your ideas? I can imagine you not wanting to say for the flame war that would erupt but keep in mind alot of the ppl playing this game LOVE it. Are PASSIONATE about it. Alot of the flames and disagreements come from this love and passion. Not because they hate you or funcom.

1 thing i think that can help is once this "cough" t1 hardmode comes out (what you guys call t5) then you guys and funcom will have to seriously look at nerfing t3 t3.5 and t4. If you dont the gap between the old players and the new will just grow more pronounced and the newer players will be wondering how will they ever get to the point of competing and joining in. Honestly the nerfs should come before so many of those out there now wiping and getting dejected can start progression. Its rough on new players when they see a wall in front of them and no way around it. T3 is still that wall for alot of players. T4 must seem impossible and t3.5 is still way to hard. Its harder then most of t4.

Yes i know this game has be seriously hampered by lack of staff. Many of us understand it. And it frustrates the hell out of us players too.

[sugarspice]

Also sometimes you'll find players who're just bad and can't improve no matter how much they try. It's a tragic thing when those are also people who're very enthused about playing. Turning them down is like kicking puppies yet trying to play with them is futile and infuriating for everyone else. It's always demoralizing when the bad yet enthusiaistic guy has finally had it and quits the game.

If you really are a good guild with a lot of really good team players you CAN carry some "not so hot" folks, as long as they don't wipe the raid. I have not really found that to be a problem and I have seen the whole scope of fail, a tos 24th on the parse, poms 24th on the parse, tanks that can't tank, healers who have no clue how to heal, bears who have no clue, and the list goes on and on. I have also seen these same, TOTAL FAIL folks improve by leaps and bounds and I have seen these same people become not only better players thru the years, but warm, welcoming and very helpful as a whole, but there is the odd one every now and then that no matter what you do they can't play and yes its very sad, in my entire time as guild leader I have only told one person that they just can't come back until they improve and that was after we carried them to full t4 gear and they were getting ready to bring an alt, rarely do you have to draw the line reference performance, but yes on that rare occasion you may.

[cins]

I'll echo the sentiment that there's nothing a community manager can do about raiding and raiders.

FC has failed from the moment AoC tried to ape wow raiding. wow raiding works when you're wow, it pointedly not works when you're a small company with an evershrinking playerbase. Now the situation is a mess and unsalvagable without a huge infusion of money to revamp the whole thing. You nerf all raids to T1 for newbs, hardcore raiders are infuriated to the point of ragequit. You revamp all raids so they have a proper learning curve from 1 to 4, it halts all other work for who knows how long. You get rid of this stupid idea of raiding itself and focus on dungeons/pvp/crafting/whatever, you lose half of your players overnight.

That said, there might be things PR can do, especially for newbies and retention (vets like us are far too jaded to be moved by PR), though I have no idea what that could be at this point. Whatever it is, it can't depend on anything not in game right now and it can't be a wholly forums/web thing. And also any ingame event organized would need to be something lv30 noobs and T4 clad hamsters can play together, so any sort of fighting is right out.

[CimmerianHoX]

So, let me ask you then:

How can I - a (*COUGH*)humble (*COUGH*) community manager help?

What ways can we spice things up a bit in the community at large?

I have ideas, and want to see what you think would work.

Well, what are your ideas?



I think fixing renown would be a small help in assisting small guilds who want to move up in the world. Make renown grow faster, so that small groups of friends can really bum-rush the stuff that they want together. Reduce costs of building guild city a lot would also be great. We can't wait for crafting revamp any more for these things to be fixed. These are things that small guilds aspire towards in order to become bigger guild and attract players. These are things that separate some of the haves from have-nots, beyond simply having good members versus those who don't. The barriers to making new guilds are so colossal they aren't even funny. At this late stage, I think some of us active loners or small-guild fellows want to have a taste of life at the top without having to buy ourselves a T3 city or join a rank 20 guild that may or may not be even recruiting.

But those are things that have to be fixed in-game. From community standpoint, more communication on these forums, on the front page of the website, more info on what's news with top players, top guilds, stuff like that might be good. I saw a little of this. We maybe need more.

- Talk to us. What's being worked on? Details? What classes are gonna get better? Class progression is so important to long-suffering users of perceived 'weaker' classes. Progression is huge to a lot of veterans. Not all of whom have access to Testlive forums. Be open and frequent on info about what's in the works, to excite players who might want to return! This is front-page stuff. HoX is getting better Phoenix Cloak, improved damage overall? Hell yes I'm coming back to play my favorite class!

- Hold polls on what players think about various classes, or what players think about various faction gear for their classes, or their favorite dungeon, raid or 6-man, or what their favorite PvP map is, or their favorite maps to level on! You know, polls that help players know what other players are thinking. The last polls taken long ago showed that players saw Conq and HoX as the two most underpowered classes. Conq revamp followed shortly after and that was a bit much, but still welcome improvement. Now waiting on HoX. These polls are important not just to us to show that we are being recognized, but maybe important to Funcom as a company.

- Spotlights on youtube vids that show off the game to help feed the nostalgia trips that might bring players back to the game, like Henryx's the XII, which was solely responsible for bringing me back to this game. Twice. There are good youtubers making AoC content like Henryx and Yewcantseeme and others that should be recognized by Funcom for their efforts.


You can't reverse the damage. But you can slow the bleeding by a good bit by showing or pretending to show that as a company you still care about your players, even if not all of you do.

[xiulo88]

So, let me ask you then:

How can I - a (*COUGH*)humble (*COUGH*) community manager help?

What ways can we spice things up a bit in the community at large?

I have ideas, and want to see what you think would work.

I think anyone can't do anything to avoid guilds dying. This game will keep losing players and big guilds we'll leech medium guilds while they can. It's an old game and the investement on it is minimal. I think you should focus on pugs if you want the community last some more years you have to find a way to keep some good Raid leaders puging on global. I don't know how you could keep them around thinking that is your job not mine

Pd:I miss a lot the PUGs MC. I've been in a lot of guild raids but I've never laughed more than in a MC pug. You could try to convince the developers to put at least the rings back to MC to try to Bring back the MCs. We need El Camandante back

[ConanLogan]

Well I can only speak for our guild, Wrath of Amra, of which I am co-leader. Our guild is a good 18 months old and when I started playing I got blind invited into it, the guild was maybe 2,3 months old. We did everything from the scratch. That includes wiping big time at Onyx Chambers. All new players, very very few veterans joined us along the way. We are growing partly by blind invites, I hope you dont take badly - you can automatically decline blind invites in options, if it disturbes you. The core of our guild grew and grew, but very slowly. We lost a few players (not many) to bigger guilds, who could offer them more endgame content. A lot of players who became very good stayed, because they just like our casual, fun atmo. Actually we lose more players because they stop playing due to RL than because of the desire to do more endgame.

Meanwhile we can do 95% of all 6-mans ingame and proceeded to T3 Upper. It was a long road and we could only reach that level because of many friends in other guilds who helped and help us. I think that we could keep our good atmo, which is the main reason why we are pretty much alive, at leasts thats how I see it. By now, we have peaks of about 20 Lvl 80 players online (+ levelers) - and I dont speak of raid time (well at raid time we arent more lvl 80s online either^^). As we grew bigger some veterans joined us, at least with an alt and Im quite proud of what we reached

Never give up!

(And btw we have a full T3 guild city and Renown lvl 18 thx to caring GMs who never let us down since the renown is bugged)