The KGB Oracle Forums The KGB Great Hall of History (ARCHIVE) Darkfall Members Forum To big or not too big, that is the question?

150 Active players

Are you ready ?

You know, there are quite a few folks who are using Warhammer to pass the time. But, there is probably an equal number of folks that are just waiting for DFO. I know that Brutal is one of those, he's been watching Warhammer over my shoulder but isn't interested in another MMO until DFO releases. Is there an easy way to poll active members to see where we stand with who all is just waiting in the wings for DFO to hit the stores? Or do you already have that info, Derid, and that's what your assumptions are based on?

Just based on my gut, I'd say that Jet is likely right. I would think that folks would come crawling out of the woodwork as soon as the game releases.

I mostly already have that info, but things change....

Another thing to keep in mind, is.. typically you have between 20 and 35% of your active playerbase on during guild primetime hours , and will typically average about 10% off-peak. Of course there are exceptions and fluctuations based on day of the week, how hardcore people get about the game, what time it is exactly.. and so on.

But generally speaking, unless you are recruiting specifically for off-peak hours, if you want one more FG of military during your average evening, you need to recruit at least 25 more people, and to maintain that extra group you need to recruit about 35 more people over a moderate period of time to maintain for dropoff.

One of the biggest factors I am anticipating, is a large dropoff in "harcore" players over the past few years... now, this could be very wrong and I hop eit is, but the sense I get is that the number of people in the guild who will play super hardcore hours has dropped dramatically over the past few years.

So where 2 years ago say, we might have had 40 hardcore peeps that produced 25 players ave during a 12 hour 4pm-4am EST stretch and 10 during the off hours might now only equate to 20 or less hardcore of which maybe 8~12 will be garunteed to be on during the 4pm-4am stretch with a handfull on during off hours.

It has been a long time, and peoples RL situations have changed, some have simply gotten into the WoW routine and might not even play DFO, or WH, or are chilling more with other guilds and may or may not come back to KGB for DFO....
there are a lot of variables.

What I am trying to gauge, is how the people who will be playing DFO for sure, think about the overall tone of how we handle a sub-optimal situation, if we find ourselves in one.. and conversely, impart the message to those that are sitting on the fence - that in DFO, if KGB is going to have a shot at tier1 status you need to come on day one with your game face on and be prepared for some highly disciplined powergaming.

We will see how it turns out, but people do need to know ahead of time that whether the server is stable or shit, a commitment to kicking ass with KGB in DFO from day one is needed.

I remain very optimistic, I think there are alot of fringe folks that have been waiting for a "Real Game" to come along. As the date approaches, we will see people come out of the wood work.

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some have simply gotten into the WoW routine and might not even play DFO, or WH, or are chilling more with other guilds and may or may not come back to KGB for DFO....

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I'll be talking with the guys about that matter come december if WOTLK blows up it could be another yr cycle easily for the guys if it leads to breaks etc frustration sets in fast and hello DFO lol

In all honesty tho if DFO doesn't hold attention in the first 45 days and is laced with bugs etc expect the mass exodus once again

I've read over everything posted and I agree with a lot of the points made above.

I really think that a lot of KGB'ers are going to be of the 5-15 hour a week variety (myself included), more then the hardcore 25+ hour a week kind.

That's not to say that someone who plays 10 hours a week can't contribute or be productive... but it does mean that we'll need more members to cover off peak hours.


The way I look at it... here's how I see it going:

1) Game launches and you have a ton of guilds out there... you'll have your zerg guilds who build their gigantic cities right off the bat and look for every exploit possible to pass on to their members, you'll also have your little 5-7 group of friend guilds who have no idea what they're getting into.

2) First wave of repose patches from the dev's hit and you see some guilds disband due to fighting, others break off because half their members are pissed that the other half aren't listening to them. You'll also start to see the little 5-7 man guilds band together. Some of the zerg guilds will still persist during this time, but it won't be as prevelant as it was at launch.

3) The boredom factor hits (about 45-60 days into the game) and you see the gigantic zerg guilds implode due to squabbling and dropouts. This is the time where KGB generally rises from the cusp of the middle of the pack to the middle of the top.

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It just always seems to happen this way... the medium sized guilds that stay the course and have a good mix of hardcore and casual players who are all treated fairly always end up doing better then the zerg guilds in the long run.

I'd much rather have a guild of 80 people who are somewhat dependale in terms of logging on and working together, then a guild of 240 people who come and go as they please and only show up for the "glory" parts of the guild.

I really think KGB had a great approach to AoC... had things continued the way they were before the entire "gem duping/nerfing" issue, I think that KGB was poised to be one of the top 8 guilds on the server.

Bottom line is that regardless which path you decide to take. If you want to be any force you will need numbers.

Not only do you need numbers, you need a solid core of hard/semi hardcore players.

If you stick to being too small you limit yourself to being not much more than a group of a few people roaming around looking for fights to jump into. Now that isnt a bad option if that is what the game in fact turns into. I have no qualms about mercing out to other guilds.

I think you should initiate a roll call and start from there. Solid player base is the first step to anything.

We picked up a lot of new recruits in AoC and even in WAR we are picking up several people. A few of them are solid players but we have a ton of casuals that our core is working on training up.

The biggest thing we lack in KGB overall is dedicated healers.

/salute

Ya with WAR we have a ton of casual players, which is fine, but the number of hardcore players in war is not nearly as high in past games. I don't think that we lack dedicated healers in KGB. Other games then WAR we've had plenty of them. We even have plenty in WAR but those who are Shaman and DOK's can't be full on healers and their healer classes aren't really a blow out healer like in past games. Mixed with Dots, group heals and not very many DD heals makes for hard work on the healers in War..I do think you guys will get a big turn out, but I also agree with Derid, KGB's hardcore playing days are not like they were years ago. Many of us longterm KGB'ers have started to have families, careers etc that doesn't allow for playtime as much as we use to.


Overall though, barring any issues with the game, I think you will find a good amount of people who've just been sitting waiting on Darkfall, like Brutal, there are several of them who don't want to invest in hold over games such as WAR. Although I did a poll in the Warhammer forums trying to see who was going to be jumping ship when Darkfall comes out and there seems to be an equal amount of folks who will go to darkfall compared to who will stay in War

I guess though... Elph brings up a valid point. The KGB is going on what... 11 years this coming year? We're getting old. I guess a lot of the old timers especially may have been in high school or college when they joined, but are now struggling to find time to game.

But I guess that means we can just recruit a new wave of hardcore players. Although maybe this maturing will make us less tolerant of playing with kids, I'm sure there are still fantastic people out there to play with (hell, I know for a fact there are, there are 2 kids I used to play WoW with when I returned the second time around that were Juniors in High School, and were both great players, kind people... one was really mature, the other not so much, but was so funny you could forgive it.) So yeah, although I don't want to compromise the integrity of our guild for the sake of being a zerg, I think selective recruitment could be pretty healthy and add very needed and welcome additions to the guild roster.

The thing with recruiting is that it's essential to know what you have to work with so you know what you need to get.

What is the current active status of the guild either on the forums or in game? Anyone know? Who is accountable for this information and that of who our new players are?

I think that for recruitment to be effective you have to know where your organization stands in relation to how much recruiting you need to do and what specifics need to be covered in that recruiting program.

I think a sponsorship process is required making people responsible and giving them a form of ownership in the guild structure so that you can both recruit specifically and accurately track the process and get to know those you recruit.

If you recruit willy-nilly not only will you not be able to recruit specifically needed class/race/builds but you also invite mass confusion and lack of acknowledgement. You will constantly be performing membership maintinence deleting alts, adding mains, deleting mains, adding alts, deleting absent players or inactives, trying to find out who is who and what new guy is with this other new guy etc. Nobody will ever get to know anybody, and in the end your warm body count continues to get cold because people join for a day fall through the cracks and leave without ever telling anyone they left, and while guild jumping has unfortunately become common with all guilds this sort of thing can and should be addressed.

Just because you keep track of every name that has ever logged into the site does not mean you know who is here and who is not.

In DFO you can hit the ground running with recruitment like you have in every game for the last couple but it does not mean you have any more of a idea of how much and what type of recruiting you need any more then we did in the prievious games.

While recruiting will undoubtedly play a major role in DFO it will be equally important to have some sort of control on it so that with time you will be able to account for it.