Why Guilds Don't Progress, and "Seeing Content"

Namthe recently quoted a (casual?) friend of his, whom responded to his (widly-held) complaint of raids being too easy...

Are you kidding me? You can’t wait 4 weeks for a new challenge while less hardcore players get a chance to see the content you’ve been taking for granted?

This made me stop and think, about what keeps guilds from seeing content? Is it difficulty?

I'm fairly convinced that it is not how hard Bosses hit, or how many HP they have, and that the 3.0 nerf won't result in any significant, widespread availability of content - it actually hurts the still-raiding player base.

The reason guilds don't progress comes down, plain and simple, to issues surrounding its members. Lets look at some situations...

1) A guild doesn't possess 10 or 25, active, raiding members (plus extras for replacements)

2) A guild has enough raiders, but they don't log on in unison.

3) The guild is a revolving door, and new members force the re-learning of old content, while keeping any consecutive time on new content from happening.

4) A guild does not have enough members willing to put in the time/effort/consumables/repairs to learn new bosses / boss mechanics.

Nerfing a bosses health and damage does not change any of those factors. There are no fights that cannot be overcome by a fairly-regular, dedicated, prepared group of people willing to put in the time.

Now, those seem like reasonable requirements. And you may be thinking - my guild is like that, why aren't we farming Kil'Jaden? 

Time. LOKI got off to a late start, and has consistenly progressed, but that didn't put us into deep Sunwell before 3.0. There are countless other guilds that didn't form (or get past the above barriers to progression) until recently. And what do these guilds need? - Another month of being about to work on content. 

Example: Kadomi and (Daughters of the Horde) just got Hex down (Congrats, btw!), and were working on Zul'jin. I'm positive that they would have killed him pre-wrath, and had a satisfactory conclusion to BC. Likewise, LOKI was on the cusp of downing Kalecgos and being a legit Sunwell guild. In both cases, another month would have provided what would have felt like a legitimate, capstone achievement. 

What we got, however, was an anti-climatic *poof*. Robbed of any real chalange, we now wonder the glove, uncovering map, working on achievements, and occassionally going into instances where the single perk is spending time with the people we've struggeled together with in the past.

Honestly - if casual player's real desire was to just see the content - they could always come back at 80. However, I'm willing to bet that the great majority of such lv 70 players have not gone back and "seen" all of BWL, AQ40, ect. And its not how hard a boss hits, or their max HP thats keeping people from doing those encounters - its the same reasons they aren't raiding current content - there aren't enough people interested in putting in time and effort.

Regardless, whats done is done: we have been left with meeningless content a month earlier then we should have. Sigh.

Recruitment, Now and In Wrath

There's been a flux in apps like this, recently...

Why are you leaving your current guild / why did you leave your last guild? 
The guild is very casual and does not raid anything above ZA, and I would like to see BT before the Xpac hits and it disappears forever.

I guess for some, its just now sinking in that the Xpac is coming. And while content won't be disappearing, the time left for it to be done "as intended" is shrinking. I applaud people who set their goals realistically (ie, The Stoic Guardian). I get chaffed quite bad, however, by people who want to just jump on the bandwagon following a big kill, or think that our guild is "running tours".

Sometimes my responses to apps can be rather harsh - but I'm not quite sure how to take it when someone in enenchanted, ungemmed (or green gemmed) gear thinks that they would fit into a progression focused, T6 guild. I honestly think I take it as an insult - that this person is willing to put in |-this-| much effort, and wants to capitalize on |--------------This-------------| much effort that the current raiders have put in. I don't expect miracles. I know that there are very few T5 progressing guilds currently, and you really can't match the hours put in by current members; but I think that at the very least, full badge and crafted gear can be expected, since it is directly related to effort (time turns into badges, badges turn into gear. No randomness involved). Enchants and Rare gems fall under the same category. ZA gear is a large plus, but I know that random loot is random, and some people really have run Bear a hojillion times and never had X drop.

Arg. Now that I sounds like an elitist jerk (and not the awesome, theorycrafting type)...

I'm now looking forward to 70-80, and determining how I'll be handling recruitment during that period. 

One option, is to not. This keeps us with our tried and true players.

...but realistically, with people switching mains, we're going to probably end up with some type of class/role imbalance. 

I'm defiantly going to close applications to the masses, pre-lv80. What I'm considering, is how I can fairly bring people into the guild based on current member recommendations (people they currently know/play with, and people that make positive impressions on while leveling). I know that ability and attitude will need to be primary criteria, but I'm still hammering out details. I don't want it to be a free for all, and end up with a mass of people - but on the other hand, I don't want to block out potential great players.