guild recruiting how to do it?

If you really want to build an active guild, you need to give your members a good reason to both join your guild and be active.

A good thing to do would be set out clear objectives of your guild and stick to them.

My current guild is a "have fun" type guild, where pretty much everyone only logs on for events or updates and is very attractive for plenty of old time players that simply don't have anything else to do on a day-to-day basis. The drawback is there are usually a max of 4 members online when there isn't an event. I know quite a few other guilds that are in a similar status as my guild.

If you want constantly active members, you need to look towards newer players that haven't yet finished all the missions. Devoting time towards assisting players completing missions would definitely be an attractive feature to get them to join and stay in your guild.

First, thanks for telling us the sources of information that you've already tried. That saves us some time.

Second, I agree with Skepticraven. Basically there are too many small guilds. To stand out, you need a clear identity or reason for existing: excelling at PvP, continual Shadow Lair runs, collecting data, etc. Almost all guilds are like Skepticraven's: "nice people who just want to have fun". That's great, but we could do with about 1/10 as many as we currently have.

Third, because this game is casual, players tend to play for a few months and then quit. Even the heavy players tend to play for one or two years and then go on hiatus until new content arrives. So even if your guild succeeds this month, it may be nearly dead four months from now. And you might not want to kick out your dear friends who are just waiting for new content.

So here are my honest recommendations:

A. If your guild doesn't really have a reason for existing, then maybe it shouldn't. Consider merging your guild into another one. You get a *momentary* bump in population and activity.

B. You need to recruit actively all of the time, to maintain a steady flow of new members. To keep up the pace you need a decent Officer corps. So you need to keep track of your best members and gradually promote them up the ranks. Never get complacent.

C. Yes, recruiting in Haven works. Don't recruit 0-star knights, because they have a low rate of sticking around. Recruit 2-star knights or so. Start open missions, Arcade runs, and PvP matches, and try to recruit players who don't annoy you. Keep up your politeness. Looking desperate doesn't help.

D. Once you've recruited someone, try to keep them hooked. You need lots of members online, offering to help with missions, etc. In other words, when you have many members online, then recruit aggressively, so that new members entering your guild will see a lot of activity.

You already know all of this probably. There's no magic answer. You just have to keep trying. Frankly it's a lot of work, if you really care about your guild. Good luck.

thanks for the tips!
Indeed, this is another guild which is about having fun. (do I have to apologize? naah.)
The helping other players part is something I could expand on, as is possible on the officers part. (is 2-3 officers a good start? I don't know)
Arcade runs are something that's very slow in my opinion, I try, but most of the time they're already in a guild and don't want to.
Politeness, always! that's something should be expected from everyone I think. Although I should now better then that.

One more question though: why promoting gradually when you're in need of officers?
would like to know that. Thanks in advance!

P.S. posting a thread without checking sources first is... laziness I think ;D

"One more question though: why promoting gradually when you're in need of officers?"

1. Bopp's C's final sentence: "Looking desperate doesn't help."
2. Dedicated members should be the only ones to hold positions of power. If members aren't in the guild for long enough, there isn't a good way of showing their dedication towards the guild. If you aren't strict about this, you will likely lose officers as fast as you get them.

My guild promotes recruits to members after about a week.
Member -> Veteran is at least 1 month of being active in the guild (not during an event).
Veteran -> Officer is at least 4 months of being active in the guild.
Officer -> Guild Master... has only happened 6 times in the past 4 years this guild has existed only when officers made significant contributions to the guild (setting up wiki page, private forums, large events).

Thanks for the anwser!
It's true looking desperate doesn't help. thought it was about recruiting :P

I think that's all I need for now, if I need more help with this, I'll just bump this thread

When you first start your guild, it makes sense to suddenly get a couple of Officers, especially if they're already friends that you know well. But after that it is important to promote slowly. Skepticraven gave good reasons. I would put my reasons like this:

A. Some players don't care much about promotion, but some players care a lot. For the latter, you want to spread out the promotions, so that those players have something to look forward to. Once they reach Officer, they probably won't be promoted ever again.

B. People value things more if they have to work for them. So make each rank, but especially Officer, have some minimum criterion that must be reached, even if it's something easy like "be in the guild for a month". If it's trivially easy to become Officer, then a player might leave, because she can always come back and become Officer again, right? You want her to be invested in your guild.

C. Your Officers have power over your other members (and the guild hall). They must be responsible and know all guild policies. Bad Officers can seriously harm a guild. It takes time for you to know that a Veteran is responsible, and for that that Veteran to learn the rules.