State of the Republic

[sybarite]

My point is not to make more work for everyone but to just have some things stated that may already be common knowledge. I guess I am coming at that part of it from a recruiting standpoint. If we have some sort of 'mission statement' somewhere (like here on the boards) it's easier to point potential recruits to it so they can see if what they want to get out of the game is in line with what HLR wants out of the game. I went into this idea in more detail in the recruitment thread post I made, which I linked to above and was hoping to see some discussion on because it directly impacts the future of HLR, in my mind at least. It's easier to pull in new members if we seem vaguely organized. I'm not asking for Normandy invasion plans here but it seems like we should have some guidelines put down to lend the guild a sense of self over time as players come and go. Does that make sense?

[Kaiser]

I understand what you're getting at Syb, but I'm going to agree with Jupiter on this one. This is neither a business, nor a nonprofit organization. We are a group of people playing a game together in our free time. We don't need a "mission statement" or a "values statement." As far as I know we as a group do not hold any particular goals in the game, other than to have a good time; though I do know we have individual goals (e.g. Mura's desire to own every armor ever, and then some, and Khunlin's desire to make himself more perfect than he already is). I don't think we really need anything written down like that. I don't mind a statement of who we are, but we already have one of those. It may be a little outdated, so it could use some freshening up. It just seems that writing something like what you're suggesting is imposing too much structure on something that is naturally amorphous.

As self-nominated (temporary?) recruiting officer, I have been browsing the LFG threads on Guru and GWO. I sent a message to one guy that went something like this:

We are a small guild that is looking to grow and become more active. We try for a balance between PvE and PvP, based on what we feel like doing at the time. Overall we are just here to have fun. If you are interested, please check out our guild forums at hlrepublic.proboards79.com.

Now I would expect more if we were to put up something official in the Looking for Members forums (fora?). That would be like what Logo wrote up for us last year during the Factions recruiting drive, of which I think you were a part if I'm not mistaken . For talking to individuals, I think this is good enough. If they are interested they can learn more than they want to know about us from our forum.

[mura]

e.g. Mura's desire to own every armor ever

I've also been collecting many greens. <.< Don't forget that.

[norm]

I'm pretty bummed to hear that HLR is so quiet these days. I can't help but feel a bit bad that I havent been on at all and that I havent been kicked out yet.

I think recruiting is probably a good idea but it's never been easy for HLR to recruit has it? The typical GW player is not always something that we get along with and it's hard to find that next Delor, Ducky, Logo, Malae *shudder*, Jupiter, Kaiser, Triia, Khulin, Drum, Monkey, Mura and everyone else. I'm not saying we shouldnt try but I can understand why recruiting is not fun.

I havent been around but I like coming back here to see what you're all up to and I'm hoping youre all still here when I get some free time or when GW2 comes around. That's how much I like playing with you all.

[Khunlin]

I'm siding with Kasier and Jupiter here, Syb. Mission statements, pre-determined "entertainment" schedules and such are a bit beyond my level of devotion to this game. I don't see our problem, at this moment, as one of disorganization. Although we are notoriously good at flailing, we got by just fine back in the days of Factions.

I think the problem is lack of synchronization, rather than organization. Kaiser, Jupiter, and myself usually find ourselves on a good somewhere between 30 and 90 minutes before others, if anyone else is logging on at all. We conjecture as to when other people might show up, and try to come up with an activity that will fill that space. Someone logs in before we're done, goes off to do their own thing, and we end up in two or three separate groups playing along in parallel.

If we knew that you, or Triia, or someone else was going to be logging on in 10-15 minutes, we'd probably find a short little something to do rather than tackling a primary.

However, I will note one difference between today and the first days of Factions (which were, in my mind, the "Golden Days of the Republic"... at least since I joined)... is that back in the day, it was more common for guildies to go back to earlier parts of the game and accompany someone through a mission. At least, I remember spending several nights doing no new quests of my own, and it'd be foolish to think I was the only one.

Nowadays, there are more:

-Anyone at Doomlore Shrine?
-Nah, I went through there earlier.
-Okay, I'll hench it.

[Malae]

Isn't "we are a group of relaxed, friendly people looking to have fun more than any other purpose in this game" a mission statement of it's own? Having fun can be a goal!

My view on the entire "organization" standpoint, it used to be assume there would be guild events Friday and Saturday nights. In our glory days Thursday and Sundays were included too. I'm still figuring out my work and personal schedule out as my life is still a disorganized mess right now. However, It could be at least a start to do Friday night weekly event. Look for General Malae to force something to happen next week if discussion/debate/decisions aren't made about in time

[sybarite]

Thanks for illustrating my point Malae.
Khunlin, I'm not here to straight jacket anyone's play time, but you don't seem to realize that the type of schedule I'm advocating would do nothing more than provide the synchronization you are talking about.
It's plain to see that we're at an impasse. You guys are satisfied with the status quo and I'm not. This was my attempt to infuse the guild with a little vigor and get us back to the 'glory days', but it's not going to work.
I'm going to start looking for another guild. I hope to remain a member of HLR until that time, but if you want me to leave now I'll understand.
I wish you all the best.

[Logo]

The longer I'm away, the sillier all this guild business seems. I was part of the drama once, and now I look back on it with a smile and a little embarassment. Syb's last post just reminded me of how seriously we all take this sometimes. (Not the content, but the tone...) I'm glad I took a step back and realized it was just a game, and I'm glad that the guild as a whole seems to be on the same wavelength.

[mura]

Well, I wish Syb the best finding another guild. As I imagine it'll be quite the difficult task given I observed for quite a while before accepting said invite to this guild.

[Triia]

Ok, I read back through this thread a bit and have some observations to make.

Syb, you came back hoping to infuse a little life into the guild and for the most part everyone agreed with you. Some of the key points I noticed were:

- Try to have a little more structure in planning events
- Join an alliance
- Do some recruiting
- Get some advertising going with the wiki page
- Write out some goals to compliment our recruiting

As I see it, the main sticking points seem to be the structured events and the goals.

As for the written goals, I don't really have a problem with it. I took it to simply mean making sure we had something that made it clear about who we are as a guild, much like Malae said, perhaps with the addition of something stating that we do both PvP and PvE, are small (and planning on staying that way), laid back and looking for people who will be fun to play with and show some maturity. Someone mentioned the thing that Logo wrote and with a bit of tweaking, I think it still defines who we are pretty well. Maybe you wanted more than that, but that's what I was imagining.

The structured events are a little stickier. We already had kind of a default of PvE on weekdays and PvP on weekends. I've suggested something similar to what you wanted quite some time ago and it never really took. We used to plan big events, such as some of the high-end PvE areas, but we just don't have enough people and that's fallen by the wayside.

Now, you weren't around for a few days and missed that we've decided to enter an alliance with XXX and I'm hoping it will expand our group of players, as the members seem to be fairly regular and active. With more people around, either through the alliance or recruiting, I think the events might start to fall into place. You even offered to do some of the planning, which would have been wonderful and very helpful, but even your schedule seems to be kind of erratic.

I still like the idea of having our own wiki page, but personally, I wouldn't even know where to start with that and I just don't have the time to learn it right now. If anyone does know how to use it, it would be a great place to link potential recruits as well as the recruiting forum, since the forum overall might be a little overwhelming.

I'll be very sorry to see you go and I get the impression that you're leaving not so much because things aren't happening here, as you don't feel people are agreeing with you. I might be wrong but that's how it appears to me. I would really like to be doing more for the guild but I just can't right now. Your help with planning or recruiting might have made a difference as we just don't have anyone in that role right now.

I'm sorry it worked out this way and I'll wish you the best of luck where ever you end up.

[Khunlin]

I just un-announced this thread (I think). It's a bit outdated, no?