We have recently started to run into the same thing. I’m the guild leader and am often randomly approached with potential recruits. Where from “Pugs that saw our folks be good and friendly!”. So now we are at teh crux of deciding, do we like our smaller family-size guild, or do we want to expand and start looking ahead to end-game 10-mans?

How does your group do things?

I started to get back into WOW again after taking a much needed break from leading or really doing much of anything in-game. From my point of view I’m watching the guild I built crumble as the new guildmaster flails in frustration over the same things I flailed at. And the one thing I realized: so many people want to be officers but they don’t want responsability and nobody wants to be Guild Master.

I wish I could contribute to this blog, but I guess my email got tucked away with all the spam.

http://code.google.com/p/epgp/

Basically the system works as follows: you gain Effort Points for working towards the guild’s goals (nearly the same as DKP). But then when you get loot, you gain Gear Points based on the add-on’s calculations. The add-on calculates an items level, stats and location (head, hand, finger, weapon) and gives it a point value.

So who gets priority for the next piece of loot that drops?

Priority = Effort / Gear

Whoever has higher priority gets the loot if they want it. No bidding, just ask for tells. It works really well when trying to prevent someone from getting lots of DKP then dumping it all in one night. Using a DKP system, someone saved up a lot of points from coming to all of our MC raids and then was absent from all of our BWL raids. He came along during one of our full BWL clears (while we were working on AQ40) and because he hadn’t spent a dime, was able to outbid everyone for nearly everything that dropped that night.

This keeps things flowing without creating downtime in-between fights.

Basically what you (as guild master) must remember, is that it won’t be the last. First of all, talk to your members individually. I find that getting them on ventrilo is the first step, because it allowed me to run around doing dailies and pvp. Find out what they are prepared for and what they want. Sure other than the usual gear and progression, people still have other needs in the game. Some folks can only be online for 3 hours at a time, how do you work that in? Think about all the different situations of all the different players and how they can all fit together. I would always be thinking about this sort of stuff on my drive to work. Sometimes sitting down and drawing out a little org chart is good too. It helps you realize who is connected to who in your guild. Some people are related, some are just friends, others will follow people to the end of the earth. These are the things you have to know. It helps you keep the guild together.

When people start leaving, that little org chart will help you realize who you need to cuddle up with and who you can let go. As you start to make those decisions, then you can face challenges like Curator without that fear keeping you up at night. Don’t get overconfident and make sure your members don’t either. Nothing is easy in the game and your next big challenge is going to be even harder: getting 25 people online regularly.