Currently, our recruitment system has been passive, which means we have not exerted any of our own efforts nor resources in getting more members. New members come to us through invitations from current members or word of mouth. This has worked fine for a few years.
At first we had more than enough people at each run -in fact I often felt it was too many people and through the years our number has come down to sit somewhere around 30. Personally, I've been very comfortable with this number and I've tried to keep us at around this figure. Nevertheless, we've recently had problems with understaffed runs due to various reasons: a lot of old members have lost interest in runs other than Northlands and Dreamlands, many have simply gotten what the wanted and decided to move on, a few only attend runs which are convenient to them, a few of the linkshells that form our member base have disbanded and as their members move onto other end-game groups they've been asked to leave other shells, etc.
We are therefore faced with three options: leave things as they are, increase membership through active recruitment, or reduce membership through stricter member selection and filtering. I'll go over all the options, give some opinions and once you've read please vote. I do ask you take the time to read.
Option 1: Leave things as they are Sadly, with this option I don't foresee the shell lasting too long. Too many people will bail and not enough will come in. If we're lucky we keep the good ones and this basically becomes option 3 and if we're unlucky we end up closing shop. This option will not be up to vote on since it's based mostly on luck and it's what happens anyway if nothing is done. There isn't much to explain here but you've all seen the trend. We get a trickle of new people. We do cities but do poorly cause we're understaffed. New members get a bad impression of the shell and leave. I've had this happen with at least 5 people off the top of my head in the last 2 months.
Option 2: Increase membership through active recruitment This would require that all members invite at least one friend into the shell. If we cannot pull it off that way, we'd have to simply do away with trial votes and let anyone who wants to go enter into trial period. Note that they still need vote for full membership. Once we got rid of trial votes we'd need to start shouting in Whitegate. Ideally we'd reach a critical mass of 50 per run. This would be a pretty standard game plan for any dynamis shell. Simply keep recruiting and plow through the rest of the year and onward.
- Pros:
- With more members it may be easier to clear areas. This is if those people are at least decent at their jobs. If they are at least decent there is a great deal to be said about having sheer numbers. Although dynamis mob difficulty is dependent on how many people enter according to our past experience the last 3 years.
- With more city run attendance we could hopefully make more bank money and do more of other runs. Again depending on recruitment quality.
- Dreamland runs would be limited to those with highest attendance. This would leave out members who only attend when convenient. Posted as both pro and con. Pro because it would get rid of a lot of the mediocre, whiny and lazy players.
- Cons:
- You will effectively double your competition on a few pieces of AF.
- Points and management will become a very big burden. We would need new officers every so many months and Rathiel would need to step down for someone with more time to lead. ~I'd at least stay leader while we trained someone and I wouldn't leave the shell, but I would definitely have to pass the reigns to someone with the energy and desire to keep it going under that sort of burden.
- Dreamland runs would be limited to those with highest attendance. This would leave out members who only attend when convenient. Posted as both pro and con. Con because we'd loose people and have to possibly re-recruit and deal with offended people and their friends.
- All the pros are up to chance. We could get 30 awesome new players or 30 horrible ones. If the players are bad then any pro we could've gotten by sheer number gets lost.
- Training a massive amount of new players would require that each member take responsibility and watch out for the new ones. I foresee aggro at the death house and other such mishaps.
- You start a permanent cycle of the shell. SM would never actually be finished and recruitment would have to be maintained. If you don't get what I mean with "finished" just read on to the next option.
Option 3: Reduce membership through stricter member selection and filtering I should start out stating that this is my own personal preference and I've been talking about this for a long time. So, I am biased and you can keep that in mind while you think on the matter. Nonetheless, I will make my best effort to be fair.
Anyway, this option would mean to take our current roster and reduce it drastically. We would try and keep anywhere between 18 and 24 active members on each day. Ask those who stay to commit to real attendance (miss no more than one or 2 runs a month tops). Then we'd sit down and make a list of everything everyone wanted out of dynamis and we'd rotate runs to meet those needs. We could focus on goals and check them off. Once all the goals are met we can take time to see if we have any new goals or if we would like to move on to something else. In this sense SM would be eventually finished and could possibly become something else, an einherjar shell, an assault shell, a salvage shell, or disband, whatever the members wanted. This would be decided at that time by all the members together. Recruitment would be rare and much more thorough. Days could still be kept separate. We could, if enough people are honestly interested and willing to put for the effort have 2 separate 18 man cells farming cities and join up for cop and northlands. But again this would all be up for vote and there would still be an absolute cap at 36 very honest and dedicated members.
- Pros
- Much less competition for drops. Drops could be handled differently. We could guarantee to focus on getting particular people particular drops they really wanted.
- Management would be reduced to minimum. We could actually do away with points and decide drops on a more simple level if we all chose. Either way with reduced management responsibilities current leadership could commit to seeing the shell through to the meeting of all goals.
- All members get a say in all decisions, all things can be decided by vote in a very simple and fast manner.
- Dynamis with less people is a lot more challenging and fun - everyone matters and has an important role.
- Mobs are scaled down with smaller groups. There is a lot of wondering about this, but I can probably confirm this on personal experience as can many of the more veteran players. Particularly back when we had attendance of 40+ on Wednesday and 20+ on Sundays, we would often comment how much smoother Sunday runs went.
- Schedule can become more flexible- switching areas if needed or if we just felt like it can be done quickly. Areas can be planned around members more easily.
- On a personal note, I've always wanted to be fair an honest with this shell. One problem that I've come to learn in my years of leadership is that there is a limit as to how many people you can work with and honestly try to meet their goals. I think that if membership were reduced and made more strict then I could make an honest and real effort to actually meet people's goals. Which is something I can actually stand behind and commit to.
- Cons
- Having to decide which players to let go of and placing them in other shells if they so choose. I can currently pearl people for some of the other shells on request alone if I choose to sponsor them in. This whole process can be rough to say the least. I don't worry about my self personally making enemies since that's just part of leading the shell but I do worry about others getting caught in the middle of it.
- With each member becoming more important attendance would be absolutely essential. If we plan a run around certain people meeting certain goals and they don't show it defeats the purpose.
- People would actually have to pay attention and do more to earn their AF. No more engaging and going off to watch TV, buffing yourself, a few people every 5 minutes and reading the rest of the time, etc.
- You would, in fact, need to commit to seeing it through to the entirety of the goals.
So far these are all the things I can think of for pros and cons. If you can come up with any more pro's and con's please post and I will add them (or if you want to correct and go further in depth into a current one feel free to post too). I ask that this poll only be edited to vote and that all members vote only once. If you wish to emphasize your support of one idea or another please post about why you agree or just say that you agree instead of voting more than once.
Personally, I am very clear as to what I want to do and what kind of shell I want to lead. If the shell chooses to go down a path that I do not support I will still do my best to serve the shell as much as I can and I will pass it on to someone who does share the vision of the majority of the shell as soon as I can without jeopardizing the group. I guess what I am trying to say with this is that I want each of you to actually consider what you want and if SM is meeting your needs or not. Then I need you to say why or why not so we can have an honest discussion about it. I want the shell to succeed and I want to help everyone meet their goals. I've personally come to realize that we haven't been doing our best to help all the members out and that something needs to change. Thanks for taking the time to read and I hope that you think on these things seriously, contribute to the argument and vote for what you want to see happen.
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