Our server just had a guild disband. Normally this wouldn’t be news except that most of the people who were a part of these guilds don’t go to other guilds in the server but rather transfer away. For blizz it’s awesome because $25 and probably another month of a sub, but for the rest of us in these small to medium servers, it’s very evident that the population is dying.
No idea what the answer is except to merge servers but I hope something happens soon. Majority of the guilds on my server are missing 5-10 people for a full raid and we only have 8 guilds that even do bwl. Recruiting is getting harder and harder and haven’t seen a non bot unguilded person for weeks.
I recommend moving to a larger server. Might I recommend Herod for Alliance? We have a very large Alliance presence, are perfectly balanced from a raiding standpoint and we get world bosses quite regularly. You’ll never run into this issue again.
Same problem on Arcanite Reaper Horde. We just had 1 (of our 6 total) raiding guild transfer off, and I’m told another is about to follow suit. They are transferring because as they have attrition there is no playerbase to recruit from, so they are trying to down BWL with ~30 people.
Yeah I think guild merges will have to happen soon… I mean, I did know this would happen eventually but I was outvoted when we moved from Whitemane. Since the move there have been huge positives about getting off from a mega server, but the long term was always going to be an issue.
There are three main solutions for you to pursue. And they each have their own pros/cons.
Transfer - Least effort solution with immediately perceptible results. Costs money, and forces you to integrate yourself into a new community which you may find takes a little time and you bounce around a hit before finding a home.
Forge a stronger inter-guild server community on your own server. A lot of diplomacy required. Get guilds working together to clear and help fill each other. Long term, this almost always results in guild mergers, which some people are wary of, but has its benefits too. If your officers are not personable, or other guilds officers are not personable, this may not be a tenable option. And, it doesn’t stop server wide trend of shrinkage. It’s a short term solution only.
Server recruitment. Campaign hard on external sources and Blizzard forums to bring fresh blood to your server. This is the best long term solution, but it is also the most difficult to pull off. It cant be understated how much effort upfront and ongoing this requires. I’ve been part of efforts to rebuild and strengthen communities before. It’s like a full time job but it CAN be done.
If you have the time and people charismatic enough to do it, a combination of 2 and 3 are what I suggest.
40-man raiding & the inevitable politics/drama/logistics involved is the antithesis of game-play fun anyway. That is why only a tiny % of the population was seriously interested in 40-man raiding back in Vanilla & why they shrunk the raids down to the 10/15/20/25-man level thereafter.
Even a good portion of the minority playerbase who did do 40-man raiding back in Vanilla literally did it for the loot-prestige only, despite the experience being akin to chewing glass shards for them.
Blizzard needs to start merging small servers. I know they won’t because the goal is to get transfers, but if they cared about the players over their own profits they would
Not everyone chooses to xfer blizzard. Many just fade away. Keep your subs and fortify smaller servers through merging
Its… not. It just takes a special set of skills to handle it. Social skills are very different from gameplay skills, and in the gamer community tend to be less developed to begin with. I’ve seen many guilds led by people who are fantastic players, but lack the charisma and social grace to navigate the pitfalls that pop up when you shove large groups of people together.