Making a faction thrive

Starflair - Dreamweaver · September 2012

Hello all. I am currently an officer in a DW server faction and we've kinda hit a bump in the road. As a result, I've decided to turn to you guys for some advice. I would like the opinions of successful faction leaders as well as non-leader input as to what you look for in a faction.
Grammar **** put down your guns, I'm doing this on my phone so please excuse me.

Here's a little bit about it: the factions name is Feral. It was born a couple of weeks after dreamweavers inception, is lvl 3 and currently has 99 members...About a third of which are alts and about a tenth of which are active users. Our top levels are three 101s, 1 of which is active. A couple of 100s, a few 90s, and the average level of active players is around 80-90, but those are just a few. On a good day (usually Saturday) we have a max of about 12 people online. Maybe a few more.

We've had countless councils with each other on how to keep members in and how to entice newer ones, but not much progress has been made.

The goal of Feral is to be a brotherhood of casual gamers (non-TW) but still have fun and basically for friendships and help each other out. Stuff like that.

I've thought of some suggestions but they seem to fall through and so I'm hoping maybe you guys can shed a little light on rebuilding a fairly broken faction.

I suppose my basic goals are: what recruiting methods usually work best? What can we do to ensure players will stay with us? How can we effectively put a team of officers together that can be motivated enough to actively recruit? What are people looking for in a faction aside from TW?

Some of this may sound like it would be stupid easy to answer or accomplish and trust me, I have my list. I simply want to hear what the public has to say and hopefully apply your comments and ideas to our situation.

Thanks in advance, and I hope to hear from you soon.

kawaiijen · September 2012

Starflair - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Hello all. I am currently an officer in a DW server faction and we've kinda hit a bump in the road. As a result, I've decided to turn to you guys for some advice. I would like the opinions of successful faction leaders as well as non-leader input as to what you look for in a faction.
Grammar **** put down your guns, I'm doing this on my phone so please excuse me.

Here's a little bit about it: the factions name is Feral. It was born a couple of weeks after dreamweavers inception, is lvl 3 and currently has 99 members...About a third of which are alts and about a tenth of which are active users. Our top levels are three 101s, 1 of which is active. A couple of 100s, a few 90s, and the average level of active players is around 80-90, but those are just a few. On a good day (usually Saturday) we have a max of about 12 people online. Maybe a few more.

We've had countless councils with each other on how to keep members in and how to entice newer ones, but not much progress has been made.

The goal of Feral is to be a brotherhood of casual gamers (non-TW) but still have fun and basically for friendships and help each other out. Stuff like that.

I've thought of some suggestions but they seem to fall through and so I'm hoping maybe you guys can shed a little light on rebuilding a fairly broken faction.

I suppose my basic goals are: what recruiting methods usually work best? What can we do to ensure players will stay with us? How can we effectively put a team of officers together that can be motivated enough to actively recruit? What are people looking for in a faction aside from TW?

Some of this may sound like it would be stupid easy to answer or accomplish and trust me, I have my list. I simply want to hear what the public has to say and hopefully apply your comments and ideas to our situation.

Thanks in advance, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Be original in your recruiting methods. Don't be your typical "We do this this and this and recruit level x+". But at the same time don't make your message sound obnoxious or very childish as that will scare some away.

Generally this game has come down to me me me for most people. Find a way to statisfy the "me" and at the same time benefit the faction or squad. Such as holding random event's for prizes, but in order to participate in the events you have to do X task(s).

For officers try to find people who enjoy helping out others at the sacrifice of their own time to be doing stuff for themselves. Sometimes they are rewarded for the time they dedicate for others, so that could be an incentive but don't tell others because that will get you poor officers who only do it for the rewards.

That's just my food for thought, but take it for a grain of salt.

SashaGray - Heavens Tear · September 2012

KawaiiJen wrote: »

That's just my food for thought, but take it for a grain of salt.

for all intensive purposes, im going to take my escape goat with me if i take that for a grain of salt

FatherTed - Dreamweaver · September 2012

Zan still lead of Feral? That could be part of your problem. That dude smells funny.

Jhalil - Heavens Tear · September 2012

"The goal of Feral is to be a brotherhood of casual gamers (non-TW) but still have fun and basically for friendships and help each other out. Stuff like that."

That's the problem in my opinion. The game is pretty much void of newcomers, people who are left want to gear up and TW or are already at level 10x and just want to chat with friends. The problem I encountered with PVE "fun" based factions when I tried putting my alts in them is that it just has no one to PVE with. It also is the level of repetitiveness and the gear level to PVE difficulty gap. When everything in game can be easily accomplished with TT99 gear. Which is dirt cheap, what other purpose does it serve to better your gear if you're only going to PVE?

Nahktuul - Archosaur · September 2012

Sounds like one hell of a bump in the road.

Narla itself has had many, many bumps the road along its path. It was created even before Archosaur was opened to the public, has seen its highest peak as a TW powerhouse owning over half the map, and still thrives to this day....not as a TW powerhouse, but as a strong, steady, organized family-atmosphere type faction.

My biggest lesson as founder and leader of Narla over the past 2 1/2 years is that your core of Officers must, read MUST, be determined, communicative, active and hardworking. The faction as a whole looks up the Officer structure for support, guidance and views it for the most part as the 'spine' of the faction.

Also, you have to be unique. There are hundreds of factions on each server, all blasting in caps their recruitment messages about what they do, what levels they recruit. Some get witty and make clever catch phrases. But in the end, they are the same old boring factions that lack any kind of relationship and interaction with their members.

Narla consistently keeps their members engaged. We utilize any and all tools possible to keep our faction integrated and close-knit. From an active forum loaded with information, pictures, videos, design and quiz contests, to utilizing a faction facebook, to coming up with different in-game faction sponsored events. PWI does not provide enough variety for most, and it is the faction's best interest to supplement that variety with events of their own.

Finding that fine line to tightrope your faction to success is difficult, may take many trial and errors, but if you stay persistent, you will find yourself attracting others.

Good luck! b:victory

Starflair - Dreamweaver · September 2012

FatherTed - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Zan still lead of Feral? That could be part of your problem. That dude smells funny.

Xan left a while ago, though he's still "in" (probably out of respect and nostalgia) and put his RL friend in lead.

Jhalil wrote:

what Jhalil said

That's sad but damn true. Kinda sucks but hopefully we can overcome that.

I appreciate the feedback and I'll be sure to hopefully make some good use of it

Boartracker - Raging Tide · September 2012

As a PvE faction, you need activities. Try faction groups and squad runs. Push team work & members leveling up & getting their gear. Have trivia games, Trials and anything else you can get to work. There are always ideas; but, participation is the issue. Members skip stuff unless it helps them. Set activity levels for your faction members. If they don't participate, drop them. 99 folks with 10 active is a faction of 10. Keep drama out of faction. Recruit your lowest levels and help them level up, not power level. Teach them how to do each BH. Use the higher levels & more experienced players to teach the lower levels. Do Public quests together. Look for World Bosses and do faction events on them. We see level 90's that have no idea about base quests, BHs, culti's, how to make a genie, farm for coins, how to make tomes or many of the things we've learned over time.

Members who join low and level in the faction will tend to stay longer. Don't allow "clicks," work to get everyone playing with all the members. You might get an alliance with a TWing faction to allow members a place to go try TW and come back in time. Keep it fun & friendly.

Nothing stays the same, it goes up or it goes down. See what works for you & keep at it.

b:bye

Jaabg - Sanctuary · September 2012

Personally i treat pwi as a game. That means if i turn on faction chat, friendly banter, discussing something rl or otherwise, that is fine. People asking for help, those who can say so in faction chat or a pm is fine. People too busy or not interested to help, saying so is fine as well. If the faction advertises that it does trials, and only does 7~15 trials a week or more, that is great.

Things that are not fine, people creating a big fuss over not being helped that right instant for a bh 29~89. There is a bh platform for that, please use that first. If you need to fill spaces, ask in faction. If no one asks on platform, no squad will get created and the myth no one does lower bh will become true. If you don't like the current content of faction chat, turn it off, ask an officer to see if it is good for faction, in a pm. If you have issues, take it up in pm, not factoin/world chat. If you advertise trials and only do one trial, please don't say you do trials. Doing 1 trial a day is not hard at all. All trials up to 7 are easy. 8 is easyish to, 9 does require co-ordination and OP people.

Asking faction members to pay money is ok, as long as members see it back in terms of prizes, things they can buy for cheap. Asking them to pay with no return is not fine. Having officers who are interested, is great. The biggest thing of all, have a faction that is active in pve. If you want people to stick around, they should find it easy to do things, that would be hard on their own or random squads. Need a full delta, no problem, want to farm 3-x, no problem. Faction vana runs, or faction 99 key runs, or faction caster runs. Sadly people forget to help and play with others as time goes on, in a faction have to ensure that people still help others.

Reaperarm - Harshlands · September 2012

I'm not a faction leader but I think that I might have a little useful information.

I have been a solo person for a very long time now. I lost my desire to be in factions because most of them don't do anything they claim to on world chat. I think alot of other players probly go factionless for the same reasons. I have had nothing but bad experiences in factions. Always outside the "clicks" that form and left out of farming tt, nirvana etc. Make sure your faction actually does those things it claims motivate your officers to cordinate tt runs(and include everyone) and the gearing of your members as they level up. What good is their in being in a faction if its like your solo anways? If your faction members are running around in nice up to date gear for their level it will also draw new blood to your faction when a low level might ask them how they got it. They could tell them their faction helped them farm it. Just my two cents. b:bye

alaxwilson4u · September 2012

Jhalil - Heavens Tear wrote: »

"The goal of Feral is to be a brotherhood of casual gamers (non-TW) but still have fun and basically for friendships and help each other out. Stuff like that."

That's the problem in my opinion. The game is pretty much void of newcomers, people who are left want to gear up and TW or are already at level 10x and just want to chat with friends. The problem I encountered with PVE "fun" based factions when I tried putting my alts in them is that it just has no one to PVE with. It also is the level of repetitiveness and the gear level to PVE difficulty gap. When everything in game can be easily accomplished with TT99 gear. Which is dirt cheap, what other purpose does it serve to better your gear if you're only going to PVE?

i love ur signatures pic ...buddy awesome

Quilue - Sanctuary · September 2012

If you want a faction to thrive there has to be some element of PvP to it. That is the state of this game right now. You can't depend on having good officers and good leaders who are motivated because as much as we would like to have that, people will come and go as this game is getting older, to have a core of officers who really love the game is hard to find even in major TW factions...the next best thing is stuff that keep players interested and working together. Even when some players are busy IRL and log only for daily, they will spare the 20min or so if your people are doing something really fun.

Honestly nothing rallies everyone together like PK. I was officer in a midsized faction for over a year, and that is my experience. Even if you get out geared and trash talked on, getting 10-20 people to come and just experiencing it brings your faction together. Not only do you make friends fast, learn to play the game better, but a lot of members also get motivated to PvE more. I watched the gear progression of a lot of members, and a lot of the ones that come to PK end up farming R9, while the ones who never do still complain about how suck their gear is a year later. I personally hated the idea of having to buy GS or dropping gear, so we used to mob to DT and zerg other factions...and that is aside from TW.

Anyways, do make it to some PvP events or make your own PvP events. TW is OK against smaller factions, Blood theater is a must, player-made events is good too, especially stuff like npc gear tournaments so everyone can participate and not feel bad about having **** gear. I know one faction here were making it to 8x Tournament, rolled alts just to go to 8x tourney so they wouldn't have to deal with the R9s in 10x tourney.

Making a faction thrive

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