Server Transfer?

[Varibash]

I think we are all aware that Skullcrusher is a dying server, being such, we are having extreme difficultly recruiting and keeping a raid group with 25 people stable. Being such, the option has come up that we transfer the guild to another server with a larger population to aid in keep our raid team strong and going strong into the future.

Before we make this decision, we would need the majority of the raiders in the guild say they are willing and able to pay to transfer their character. Please answer the poll, and let u know about any concerns you may have with a possible transfer.

[Heldarram]

i shall claim my rep on a new server

[Holyshade]

i most likely wouldn't be willing to transfer, but i level fast enough to make another 90

[Hauclir]

Hrm.

[Tychondris]

Starting over again on a new server w/o BoA gear to level, much less lack of access to toons with maxed lvl trade skills is too slow & painful. I might be willing to transfer at some point but atm money is an issue.

Edited May 9, 2013 by Tychondris

[Ansky]

Here are my reasons:

1) I have many alts with different professions that accomodate my main with what I need. I don't want to leave them behind nor do I want to spend $100 on transferring them.

2) I have two RL friends on this sever that literally just transferred yesterday to play together.

3) I honestly don't see a big issue with the server. We always end up with enough for a 25m, people who miss some days show up other days. We went from having to swap people every fight to having just enough each night. We turned down a lot of people last patch, and lost a lot this patch. I would say try agressive recruiting tactics, forums, trade chat, etc. (I am more than willing to help!) before transferring to another server that, despite having a high pop, might not have people who can do/want our raid times. It just seems like a huge risk to take on a problem that is experienced by WoW in general (25m dying because 10m gives the same rewards), not really our server (esp with server transfers being so easy now that off-server recruiting is very common). Who is to say we leave all our friends, alts, and memories behind just to end up in the same situation (or worse because not everyone will transfer so instead of having exactly 25 people at 8 we'll have 20 and no recruits)? Not to mention que times and lag outs for high pop servers are no fun.

I think that's all. I do see a lot of yes votes and I don't want to be the rock in the shoe, but these are my honest thoughts. This guild has been awesome and I wouldn't want it to go.

[Mastric]

I'm ok as long if we can get a GM to move the entire guild, but I don't want to fracture.

[Unholy]

^{I haven't been on much lately due to a number of reasons, should be available more before too long. If the Gumps and main guild party peeps are willing to move to another server, so am I.}

^{Maybe on the new server we can fix the name so it doesn't have that damned special character in it lol.}

[Lyntha]

GM's don't just move entire guilds. They have a paid guild transfer feature, but it only transfers the GM and the guild itself (Gold, gbank, level, achievements, etc). If anyone wants to xfer to be with the guild after it moves, they have to pay for a normal transfer. It should go without saying that this would be cost-prohibitive. Whatever we stand to gain from xferring guilds will be offset by the fact that surely not everyone will xfer their characters. It might be a good long-term decision, but I don't see how it wouldn't kill the guild's raiding ability in the short-term. We might get enough people to xfer to make up a 10man raid, but that's it, and this guild structure is built off of being a 25man guild. Also, we have a LOT of casual players and our raiders have a LOT of alts. These people will get left behind.

I personally don't think it's a good idea unless there was some option to xfer EVERYONE at once, but I don't think that such an option exists. The only exception is if we took advantage of a free character transfers, but that only happens from High pop to low pop realms.

Addendum: I think that the server isn't the issue. The issue is that Bash is the only person who does recruiting, and he can only do it so long before he gets worn out. Me taking a break and causing him to have to raid lead as well surely isn't helping his motivation to put in all the extra time needed to recruit.

We need more people to step up and help out with recruiting.

That being said, if the guild moves, I WILL move with it, but I won't like it. I made my home here and consolidated all of my alts here (A VERY costly endeavor to the tune of about $300) so I won't be happy leaving.

[Pìkachu]

This is a pretty terrible idea but i guess i dont raid anymore so i dont have much say

It is not going to solve any of your problems in any efficient time frame

[Ansky]

Addendum: I think that the server isn't the issue. The issue is that Bash is the only person who does recruiting, and he can only do it so long before he gets worn out. Me taking a break and causing him to have to raid lead as well surely isn't helping his motivation to put in all the extra time needed to recruit.

We need more people to step up and help out with recruiting.

I -honestly- did not think we had an issue with recruiting because any time Bash said anything over mumble it was, "if you have any friends, ask them to join". To me, that said "ask your friends to fill in our currently missing spots until our main raiders come back" not "we must recruit more people regardless of familiar status or we're going to transfer off the server". If I knew we needed actual recruiting help, I would have stepped in a long time ago, but we've had enough every raid night by 8 so I didn't realize it was that much of an issue.

That said, last night people seemed pretty excited about a transfer. =\ I can't help feeling like it's going to divide the guild.

[Lyntha]

It might be a good choice for the guild in the long term, which is why Bash is bringing it up but short-term is going to be absolutely brutal.

Also, Skullcrusher is NOT a dead server. Take a look at this site: http://wow.realmpop.com/us.html

According to that, there are 70,000 characters on Skullcrusher, placing us in the top 50% of server population. There ARE some servers which are 2 or 3 times as full, but they're very rare. Most servers are right around the 70,000 mark. Also, this doesn't take into account that Skullcrusher is a horde-dominant server. If you sort by just Horde, we are amazingly, # 28 in horde server pop out of 246 servers. If we further limit that to EST PVP american servers, it places us at # 4 in horde server pop.

So I say again, it's not the server that's the problem.

[Varibash]

Nothing is set in stone, this is all brain storming. Of the 22 votes cast at this time, only 59% have voted for it, therefore, more then likely we won't be transferring, I am not willing to abandon a good chunk of our raid team just to make recruiting easy for myself and for others in the future.

Skullcrusher has been my home server for 6 years now, and leaving it won't be an easy choice.

That being said, we NEED to sort out a way to continue gaining skilled players to join us, all the talent on skullcrusher that is worth having are already loyal to a guild, so it wont be an easy task. We are losing our players faster then I am able to replace them, I am sure you have noticed the dire situation we are in currently, every night the last 2 weeks, we have had no subs to swap people in and out, and we have barely filled. Last week we brought 2 casual within the guild to fill, and this week we had to bring a non-guild member to fill.

in the last month we have lost: Justicemaker, Pikachu, Lyntha, Rawberrie, Aweburn, Chex, Chartul, Unholyfaith..... and we have gained Darizz and Commie.. not exactly even in terms of a recruitment standpoint.

According to that, there are 70,000 characters on Skullcrusher, placing us in the top 50% of server population. There ARE some servers which are 2 or 3 times as full, but they're very rare. Most servers are right around the 70,000 mark. Also, this doesn't take into account that Skullcrusher is a horde-dominant server. If you sort by just Horde, we are amazingly, # 28 in horde server pop out of 246 servers. If we further limit that to EST PVP american servers, it places us at # 4 in horde server pop.

That doesnt prove anything, just because Skullcrusher has that many characters... less then 3500 of those characters are active in the game, and even less then that are dedicated raiders.

http://www.wowprogress.com/pve/us/skullcrusher

Look how many active raiding guilds there are on the server right now. Only around 37!!!!

Now look how many active raiding guilds we had at the start of Cata. Roughly 170 ranked raiding guilds..... see that massive drop in the number of active raiding players....

http://www.wowprogress.com/pve/us/skullcrusher/rating.tier11

Hell we had more active raiding 25 man guilds during ICC then we have raiding guilds in general right now

http://www.wowprogress.com/pve/us/skullcrusher/rating.tier10_25

Skullcrusher IS the issue here.

[Lyntha]

Maybe man, but Skullcrusher isn't a special snowflake. If you're saying that a lot of people have left the game and there's a lot of dead characters on the server, it's going to be like that on all servers. Skullcrusher has a big enough population that its population activity should reflect that of WoW in general.

So let's assume you're right... Skullcrusher IS a dying server and there's a ton of alts or characters who no longer play or don't raid. If that's true, it's going to be the same case across all servers, with few exceptions. This means that the census data I linked above is still relevant. If you want a higher-pop server, you have to move into one of the servers in like the top 1 or 2% of horde population.

I mean, that just doesn't sound right that we are near the top in terms of horde population yet we are having recruiting issues. Are all the realms below us in pop just completely screwed then? Wouldn't we know about an issue that massive? I still think that recruiting is the issue, and it's not your fault bash. How many of the officers even do recruiting any more? It used to be me, you and Rebel. Rebel stopped recruiting when work stuff took up more of his time and I stopped recruiting hard late Cata when I took my first short break and stopped playing as much. Since then, it's been just pretty much you. Now that you're raid-leading too, that's too much for one person.

EDIT/UPDATE/ICANTSHUTUP:

I like analyzing data. To see if I was right, I took a look at one of your possible transfer destinations: Arthas. Arthas is the #1 server with horde population that's still PVP-EST. They have about twice as many horde characters on the server than skullcrusher. They also have an almost identical Horde to Alliance ratio, with twice as many alliance as skullcrusher as well.

In T11_25, they had 25 25m raiding guilds, 2 more than SC:

http://www.wowprogress.com/pve/us/arthas/rating.tier11_25

In T14_25, they now have 17 25m raiding guilds (Im not counting 1/12 guilds, anyone can kill jinrokh), compared to SC's 4:

http://www.wowprogress.com/pve/us/arthas/rating.tier15_25

Certainly seems more active. Let's take a look at 10m guilds. They have 85 guilds at least 4/12, versus our server's 21 guilds.

Arthas: http://www.wowprogress.com/pve/us/arthas/rating.tier15_10

SC: http://www.wowprogress.com/pve/us/skullcrusher/rating.tier15_10

So I take back what I said. You were right, SC IS a dying server. For our population, we should have at least twice as many raiding guilds, if Arthas is a half-decent benchmark.

[Mastric]

GM's don't just move entire guilds. They have a paid guild transfer feature, but it only transfers the GM and the guild itself (Gold, gbank, level, achievements, etc). If anyone wants to xfer to be with the guild after it moves, they have to pay for a normal transfer. It should go without saying that this would be cost-prohibitive. Whatever we stand to gain from xferring guilds will be offset by the fact that surely not everyone will xfer their characters. It might be a good long-term decision, but I don't see how it wouldn't kill the guild's raiding ability in the short-term. We might get enough people to xfer to make up a 10man raid, but that's it, and this guild structure is built off of being a 25man guild. Also, we have a LOT of casual players and our raiders have a LOT of alts. These people will get left behind.

I personally don't think it's a good idea unless there was some option to xfer EVERYONE at once, but I don't think that such an option exists. The only exception is if we took advantage of a free character transfers, but that only happens from High pop to low pop realms.

Addendum: I think that the server isn't the issue. The issue is that Bash is the only person who does recruiting, and he can only do it so long before he gets worn out. Me taking a break and causing him to have to raid lead as well surely isn't helping his motivation to put in all the extra time needed to recruit.

We need more people to step up and help out with recruiting.

That being said, if the guild moves, I WILL move with it, but I won't like it. I made my home here and consolidated all of my alts here (A VERY costly endeavor to the tune of about $300) so I won't be happy leaving.

This is a pretty terrible idea but i guess i dont raid anymore so i dont have much say

It is not going to solve any of your problems in any efficient time frame

You two are part of the problem!!

[Heldarram]

Honestly it is a fact skullcrusher is dieing i hate to say it cause its been my home for 5+ years now but its nowhere like it used to be during its peak where cities were flooded trade chat had more going on then just us trolls in it and the alliance race actually existed =O. Tbh i know there is alot of servers that are in a worse case then us but just our decline over the past year or 2 weve lost alot of good raiding guilds /players who have felt the same way making the whole pool of decent players on the server a lot smaller. In all honesty me myself would of probably left a long time ago if it wasn't for such a amazing guild that i feel so tied to because i know i wont find another one with this same environment / flexabilty plus i do have a ton of memories here. Although i just feel this is a good idea because at the current rate things are going right now sure we can get by sure we might be able to recruit people for the next 6 months to a year but in the long term you really have to stop and look at it and realize its only going to get harder as time goes on due to the talent and interest pool decreasing. Its already a fact that this server wont get any better its already hit its peak long ago and is steadily in the decline. Im just looking at this from the point of us almost having to cancel raid twice in the past week and a bit and just go to a 10 man because if and when one of those night comes alot of people will sit out =( but the only reason we managed to get by these weeks is cause of casuals that could come those nights or because of friends of people in the guild. I understand now people will just say oh recruit but honestly that puts alot on bash because say he recruits for a hour a day gets about 4 bites in a week if that because i know he doesn't even get that much but then 2 bail 1 things dont work for and we recruit 1 and there semi decent but then they tend to leave for whatever reason were just having way hard time gaining members for what were losing and its not cause hes not trying its just due to facts.

Ps sorry for the wall of text i just wanted to state how i really felt

[Lyntha]

GM's don't just move entire guilds. They have a paid guild transfer feature, but it only transfers the GM and the guild itself (Gold, gbank, level, achievements, etc). If anyone wants to xfer to be with the guild after it moves, they have to pay for a normal transfer. It should go without saying that this would be cost-prohibitive. Whatever we stand to gain from xferring guilds will be offset by the fact that surely not everyone will xfer their characters. It might be a good long-term decision, but I don't see how it wouldn't kill the guild's raiding ability in the short-term. We might get enough people to xfer to make up a 10man raid, but that's it, and this guild structure is built off of being a 25man guild. Also, we have a LOT of casual players and our raiders have a LOT of alts. These people will get left behind.

I personally don't think it's a good idea unless there was some option to xfer EVERYONE at once, but I don't think that such an option exists. The only exception is if we took advantage of a free character transfers, but that only happens from High pop to low pop realms.

Addendum: I think that the server isn't the issue. The issue is that Bash is the only person who does recruiting, and he can only do it so long before he gets worn out. Me taking a break and causing him to have to raid lead as well surely isn't helping his motivation to put in all the extra time needed to recruit.

We need more people to step up and help out with recruiting.

That being said, if the guild moves, I WILL move with it, but I won't like it. I made my home here and consolidated all of my alts here (A VERY costly endeavor to the tune of about $300) so I won't be happy leaving.

This is a pretty terrible idea but i guess i dont raid anymore so i dont have much say

It is not going to solve any of your problems in any efficient time frame

You two are part of the problem!!

Why, because we stopped raiding? I'm sorry, but I got RL stuff going on and needed a break, which is the same thing that happened with Unholy and Rebel. I'm always considering when I can come back and do what I did before. I don't know when that'll be.

Pikachu has to work a job where he works nights. Same with Chex, same with Chartul, same with Icemaker. I don't know what happened with the burns but almost all of the recently departed players just literally cannot make the raids anymore. We're a mature guild and our members have responsibilities and things to take care of. It's what makes the guild great but also makes it volatile. Very few players leave this guild for another guild and the few players who do are typically guys who just wanted a more hardcore experience to match their play style (Sazda, Berms), which we cannot offer them.

I think that we were our strongest in late Cata and early MOP because we had so many talented officers who did so much for the guild. Nowadays, a lot of those officers are no longer raiding and Bash is carrying the whole thing on his shoulders. He needs help. Either the officers who left need to come back (I'M POINTING AT YOU LYNTHA!) or we need to find more members who are willing to put in the same time and effort that Bash is.

Even if we change servers, it won't solve the core issues that this guild is built on having multiple officers who each contribute in their own way, not having one or two guys who do almost everything when it comes to active in-game leadership.

By the way, I don't mean to demean the other officers who do other things for the guild. We all know that Thundere helps with raid leading, Mastric does site and DKP things (Same with Unholy) and Gump takes care of overall guild policy and management. But now that me and Rebel are more or less not there to actively support the raid and recruit, there's not too many people who are doing the more "Active In-Game" responsibilities such as raid-leading and recruiting.

[Varibash]

I am getting help, thundere, mastric, wilistari and heldarram are doing a lot to help out, and it really helps to lighten the load.

The topic of this thread is to sort out the recruitment problem we are having.

I don't fault anyone for needing a break or having RL take priority, and I certainly wasn't blaming anyone, I merely pointed those names out to show the difference in people we are losing vs the people we are gaining. The ratio if it maintains at this rate means that in a few weeks, we WONT be able to field a 25m team at all.

That is the issue being discussed, please stay on topic.

[Zauberei]

I realize I don't raid anymore, so feel free to take my sentiments with a grain of salt. However, if I were to start raiding again, I would want to raid with this guild (I'm assuming that you'd have me!) because I like the guild's raiding atmosphere and the guild's leadership.

Therefore, for what its worth, I would happily follow ATR off of Skullcrusher (depending on the intended server and not doing anything crazy like going Alliance).

Also, I came to Skullcrusher toward the end of Tier 10.

Maybe it's nostalgia, but Skullcrusher seemed quite different then and in comparison, Skullcrusher now seems moribund, lethargic, and more to the point, dying.

[Heldarram]

Im helping with raid leading these days snuggle!

[Lyntha]

Snuggle these days:

In all seriousness, I'm behind whatever you do Bash. I personally think that other options that are less destructive should be explored. With that being said, other options may not work or be viable and the writing has been on the wall with Skullcrusher for a while. Whatever happens, I'm with you guys.

If you guys do move server, were you looking at staying PVP or going PVE? I see no reason to stick to a PVP server as it's inconvenienced us more than anything, but what do you guys think?

[Heldarram]

wait were on a pvp server right now i couldnt tell =O

but as it stands right now we have 13 that have said yes, both ansky and soknar have said no, tych darizz tiggles and chex dont know im not counting you snuggle cause you said you would come if we did, and lastly that leaves pika and mastric who said they would never leave skullcrusher (but we all know pika will follow me anywhere ) but that still tends to leave alot of our raiders and others who havent voted yet

[Mastric]

We should swap Lyntha and Heldarram. "Officer Heldarram" and "Heldarram's Lytha" sound better.

For Snugg, Heldarram has his own rank called "Heldarram's"

[Infertil]

Skullcrusher has been here since day one and was a very populated server. since then alot of the big guilds have left via free server transfers when q's were 30 minutes or more so that got rid of a big population. Then people got bored and quit. The problem is since it was an original server it has been a leave server and not a go to server. The games old and people are leaving the game to do other things people have got older and decided to stop playing. I miss the days of there being balance and not knowing if i was going to get raped out in the world. I miss gump freaking out and calling the whole guild to come kill one person he cant beat haha. There are other servers that have more people on them but they have to be found. I'm for moving to another server. I understand why everyone wants to be loyal to skullcrusher but if you really stop and think about what drew you to skullcrusher and look at it now its not the same. The mastique of the server is gone. Cross realms helped bring some of it back. I think if we were really wanting to transfer the officers should pick a server and everyoen go roll new charaters on the server and level for a bit and then make the decision on to transfer or not. there is no point of paying to transfer if its only skullcrusher part 2. We have time to figure this out but we can not be the old horse thar was only allowed to walk in circles his whole life to be freed and still only walk in circles. What makes our guild special is we all have a connection with each other. It shouldn't matter what server we are on as long as we can continue to have fun and enjoy each others company.

[Ansky]

I've been checking this thread and thinking about this all day, and I think I'm more angry at Blizz for making transfers such a pain and killing off our server with killing 25man raiding. If I'm one of two, transferring isn't completely out of the question, but we really do need to make sure we go to a server that needs a casual 2 day 25 man. Instead of leveling new chars I'd say go to a prospective server and ask in trade and on the forums about if anyone is interested in joining. If there is interest, we can go from there. Log on during peak times to make sure there's no que times. My preference is Normal over PVP.