Spiral Knights - What am I doing wrong? D:

What am I doing wrong? D:

19 replies [Last post]

Thu, 05/31/2012 - 11:49

Isekuube

Ok, first of all this may not even be on the right Forum, but since this place gets more viewers than "New Recruits" and I am not necissarily a "new recruit" I put it here, and this is my question.

What am I doing wrong? I have recently made a new guild, a 5* guild to be exact, and after four days of trying to recruit, I only have 3 members. Now I have already come up with a few speculations:

~This guild is strictly Five Star Only.

~Five Star players are unwilling to leave their guild for mine.

~My guild is not very plentiful.

~It might even be the name of the guild!

Now if you wish to see the Guild Page or the Recruitment Thread there they are.

I am really dedicated to this guild; I will not leave it for anything. You may not care about that, but I do care about what you guys have to say.

What am I doing wrong?

Thu, 05/31/2012 - 11:55

Lavitzer

cool

By the time someone hits 5* they're obviously going to have a load of connections with players and 99%
will have a Guild and mates in that Guild whose stuck with them since the 2*'s.

Hope you like either anti-socials or douches that've got kicked out of their previous Guilds.

Thu, 05/31/2012 - 12:09

Niichi

Well, what are you offering that other guilds aren't?

I mean, most other guilds are less exclusive and have an established active memberbase. Those are some pretty significant advantages so you're going to need something special to convince people to join your guild over the others.

Thu, 05/31/2012 - 12:27

Bopp

too many guilds

There are already too many guilds out there. Guilds basically fall into three categories:

* Elite guilds: These are healthy and stay healthy, because they're famous enough that people actually clamor to get in.

* Borderline guilds: These go through waves of health and sickness. Many Spiral Knights players quit the game after a few months. So a guild made out of such players needs to keep recruiting, to replace its losses.

* Unestablished guilds: These never really get off the ground, so the founders get frustrated and the guild dies. Or they get off the ground, but the founders quit the game and the guild dies soon after that.

Yours is apparently in the last category. Unless yours offers something really unique, it simply has no reason to exist, and there is no reason for new players to be attracted to it over other guilds. Frankly, most guilds are designed for 5-star people. Your guild might have more luck addressing a different niche, such as 2-star people. Good luck.

Thu, 05/31/2012 - 12:35

Bopp

also

I've looked at your recruitment materials. You have various "barriers to entry", which prevent losers from joining your guild. That's fine, but you should think about which ones are really important to you, and cut out the rest. For example:

* An applicant must watch a YouTube video about a Shadow Lair (or do a Shadow Lair himself). I can't stress how much I feel that this requirement must be removed. (That's my polite way of saying: This is really dumb.)

* An applicant must be Tier-3, and have a full 5-star set. But the latter pretty much implies the former. So remove the former?

* An applicant must rate his Vanaduke skill on a scale from 1 to 10. But what does 1 mean? What does 10 mean? You're going to get really crummy data out of this question.

Try to strip down your guild to its very essence: What is its purpose, that distinguishes it from other guilds? What are its key rules and requirements (and try to keep those to a minimum)? Also, your guild page talks a lot about Isekuube. It makes the guild look like a vanity project, which maybe it is. Remove some of this talk about yourself, to make it seem that the guild is about more than just you.

I don't say these things to be mean; I really hope that they help. Cheers.

Thu, 05/31/2012 - 13:14

Isekuube

Answer:

Thank you Bopp, that really helps me. Well, it talks about me for only one section I believe, I did that to tell the possible joiners about me so they know what they're getting themselves into. :P But, as I am typing I am editing the part where it narrates where I leave the guild, I keep the when and who it was created. The purpose... is to have a guild with elite players who want fun and organization in a guild. Overall, I thank you for your wisdom.

Thu, 05/31/2012 - 14:53

Bopp

yeah, I know

"The purpose... is to have a guild with elite players who want fun and organization in a guild."

Yeah, I know, but almost *every* guild says exactly that. That's why your guild has no distinguishing features. You need to go against the stream.

Off the top of my head, here's an idea: People comment pretty frequently on the forums that "everybody they know just farms FSC" and "they're tired of FSC, but can't get a party together to do anything else". See the opportunity?

Off the top of my head, here's another idea: Suppose that you play every day at the same time --- for example, 6:00-8:00 PM in game time. There are probably a lot of people like you, who play in that time slot. So form a guild to play at that time, by recruiting hard at exactly that time. You might even name your guild "6:00-8:00 PM", to get the point across. The guild will be highly active during the set time slot, and everyone will be happy. (It may be highly inactive at other times, but your members won't care.)

You're welcome, for what little I've given you. Cheers.

Thu, 05/31/2012 - 18:01

Ubernerd

Another idea: make it into an

Another idea: make it into an academy as well, training deserving lower * level players (or even complete newbies) up to T3. Worked with AFK, so why not your guild? There are plenty of mature new players out there who want to learn instead of remaining in ignorance and later flooding General Discussion with bad CE market management ideas.

Thu, 05/31/2012 - 18:10

Rommil

sorry but here is the reason

WHO ARE YOU??!?!?!

Thats not to be mean. Thats to say, if some random guy no one knows or has heard of starts a guild, then there is not any incentive or drive for anyone to join random XYZs 5* guild. Now if you started a no* gear you can probably fill it more adequately.

In contrast, if someone is very well known in game, they will be able to draw 5* recruits.

Thu, 05/31/2012 - 18:13

The-Rawrcake

Rommil is very famous.

Thu, 05/31/2012 - 18:19

#10

Rommil

I'll use a real world example

Hey everyone, I am starting a new PRO LEVEL football association, we are targeting the top 1% talent in the world. I'm having trouble recruiting anyone to join my PRO LEVEL league over the NFL!!!!

Any thoughts?

Yes, you are an unknown startup that is unlikely to be successful and have no hope of competing against the NFL giant. Now...some few others, with bigger names, have been able to start pro football leagues, such as Vince McMahon and Donald trump. NOW THOSE ARE CERTAINLY NAMES YOU NOW, recognize, AND HOLD A CERTAIN CACHE.

~~and even those endeavors have failed. Which makes subsequent endeavors look all the more unattractive. Also, those endeavors-while drawing a high level of competition--certainly had zero luck enticing the highest level of competition.

The same is true for a new-start guild. A known name will gain some traction, but likely fizzle out. An unknown name will not gain traction nor get off the ground.

Thu, 05/31/2012 - 18:22

#11

The-Rawrcake

Rommil, I.... I........ I

Rommil, I.... I........

I think we get it.

Thu, 05/31/2012 - 18:25

#12

Aquajag

Who are you trying to

Who are you trying to recruit, players already in a guild, or not? Most people I do runs with are in a guild. As mentioned above, I didn't do FSC runs for long before I was getting invites. So probably you're only going to get people who are in a lame guild. And your guild doesn't sound strong enough yet. I remember getting an invite from someone who was in a newish guild, and I declined. Why? I didn't need to be in yet one more guild where no one was ever on. Finally I got an invite to a decent guild, and there are (almost) always players on when I am. Works much better. I can't imagine what would make me leave it. So it's possible you just aren't getting lucky. You need to be recruiting people with no guild (might have to settle for T3 but 4* players), or figure out which guilds are actually crap and recruit those players.

Fri, 06/01/2012 - 01:24

#13

Enclavean

~~and even those endeavors

~~and even those endeavors have failed. Which makes subsequent endeavors look all the more unattractive. Also, those endeavors-while drawing a high level of competition--certainly had zero luck enticing the highest level of competition. - Rommil

For a second there i thought i read my own name >:O

Sun, 06/03/2012 - 12:23

#14

Raisinfist

Well, look at it this way...

Your requirements are EXTREMELY high. Most 5* players who have reached this level already have a guild. People you invite won't have heard of you - they won't leave their guild to go to you, but they would for a guild like, eg, Unity.
If I were you, I'd lower the requirements down to around 2* and invite every person w/o a guild who meets the requirements. Go in PUGs in the Arcade.

Then again, not being the starter of a guild, I wouldn't know.

Just my 2 cents, even though I don't live in America.

Sun, 06/03/2012 - 15:23

#15

Njthug

Being famous has nothing to

Being famous has nothing to do with it tbh Rommil:

Heron, Cootiecakes, Blanky, Christina, Madnus, Dogrock, Whitelancer, and many others were never famous or might not even still be "famous" or well known to this very day, but they all made n lead successful guilds (well lets be honest some of them lost their guild due to mgmt issues).

If you wish to make a great guild, I suggest inviting your friends in the game the only solid guilds are the ones run on friendship sounds lame, but if you have a good core of 10 active friends in your guild, and lets say 3 to 4 of you guys do a lot of pug runs your bound to find 1 or 2 new members everyday. My personal viewpoint, any noob can make a 100 person guild it takes less than 30 minutes to accomplish that, but if you want a strong solid guild which will be around for ages take your time building your core, no need to mass-recruit guilds are just a fun family. Finally, once you have a guild what is somewhat known, well then if you have a great product not much selling is needed.

Sun, 06/03/2012 - 19:24

#16

Gwenyvier

Donald Trump is a rather bad

Donald Trump is a rather bad example. The man has more failures under his belt then successes.

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2068227,... and http://www.cracked.com/blog/10-stories-about-donald-trump-you-wont-belie...

While the second is from a comedy website the facts (like normal from them) are accurate, just made amusing.

Back on topic. I agree with Nj. And while having an all 5* guild is interesting sometimes, it is more fun normally to have people with personalities that don't clash. EoS has people ranging from T2 to those that have high end 5* gear and we have a lot of fun for example.

~Gwen

Sun, 06/03/2012 - 19:36

#17

Rommil

well..

having a known name will definitely help in getting a guild up and running, especially if you want to upjump to 5* right out.

But that being said, njthug and gwen have the makings of a more enjoyable guild. If i were to ever start my own guild, you can bet that my goal would be to invite my friends that wanted to come along, and to fill it with in game friends. I often think that many guilds, and my own as well, place way too much value on 5* and "skill." Finding people i enjoy talking to and like being around is much more important to me.

Sun, 06/03/2012 - 20:34

#18

Serell

What are you doing wrong?

I heard you recuiting in zone chat a while ago.
Why did I not join?
You said nothing about waffles.
I only join guilds foa teh wafflez

Wed, 06/13/2012 - 09:07

#19

Isekuube

Well,

thank you all for your advice, I think I'm going to use some of that advice. BUT, this thread is not needed anymoar, I'm going to send it to the graveyard.

I do truly appreciate it! ^.^

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What am I doing wrong? D: