Welcome to Gaia! ::

I've done monthly PM newsletters in the past. They're frustrating. You have to add every member, constantly update your distributing list which gets annoying when people change names, remove people who quit or were inactive, and Gaia only lets you send bulk messages to a few people at a time. In a guild of over 100 members you'll be losing big chunks of time that way which is why I suggested maybe using Kik, FB or Twitter. Honestly when a Gaia notice pops up on my phone, I usually ignore it, but if I get a Kik or FB alert, I'm more likely to check it. Everyone's on social media these days - especially gamers. Gaia is notorious for spam so I ignore their notifications system. Another issue with PMs is that they get buried easily. Let's say someone doesn't open their PMs in a particular order, they might miss the guild PM entirely or it'll get buried under a stack of Loyal's Bazaar, marketplace sold, and other admin messages. With social media and messengers, you can reach out to people more often, reminding us a couple days in advance and also on the day of the event. Not sure if it changed here on Gaia, but I think the announcements can only be done once a week or so? People can easily forget stuff as the week goes on and some may forget to log in entirely on the day of the event.

That is true. It could work though since not everyone would sign up for the announcement PMs. If we go the social media route we'd need to figure out which we'd use and stuff. A poll would need to be made or something to figure it out. Another option is having a thing on the guild homepage that says something about upcoming things. Would require people having to check, but it could help. Guild announcements can be sent every 24 hours.

Having guild crew posting often makes them seem approachable. A lot of work falls on your shoulders when you run a guild. It requires an insane amount of sacrifice and effort. You have to constantly captivate our attention. No guild is free from that issue. You're entertainers and salesmen. People need to be reminded as to why the guild is so great and why they shouldn't forget about it.

Yeah, that is true. None of my friends or I have even ran a guild so we kinda went into it not knowing what we were doing. We'll have to work on that.

Do you guys have a thread in the guild recruitment forum? That's a good place to be. Another tactic would be to just have your crew post often all across Gaia - primarily in public gaming threads. The more places your sig ad is seen, the more likely you'll reach a player who had no idea this place existed.

We don't. I saw that place and was thinking of posting there. I don't know how much it would help since joining this guild you kinda have to play Splatoon, but a thread there wouldn't hurt. True. I'm more of a lurker so I don't post much in forums, but that is something I'll try to do more.

As far as the questionnaire for those looking to join, it's always good to keep it simple. Maybe have them acknowledge that you want members who can post often and that people may be removed from the guild due to inactivity. Maybe you can also ask for their NNID and time zone and update the ID thread with that info so we have like a "vault" that may help people set up matches and things.

Sounds good. Yeah, maybe even include rank and what their preferred game modes are. I wish there was a guild members list like how there is a friends list that has all who is online.

Advertising incentives are too difficult to track. It's like giving people bonuses for recruiting. -_- They just end up having their mules or friends who don't even have the game join so they get a prize.

Yeah and if they have it in their sig, but don't post much it's pointless anyway. True, it would most likely lead to more inactive members.

surprised But you can use that welcome message as a way to "force" people to acknowledge content and events. surprised Like..

"Congratulations! You're now an official member of the Splatoon Squad guild! I'm (name), [captain/vice captain/forum mod] at the guild and wanted to say welcome and offer help if you've got any questions.

We recommend everyone new visit our introductions thread and tell us a little about yourself. You can then check out our Nintendo Network ID Vault where you can add other members to your Wii U friends list. Always be sure to PM or quote a person you're adding so they know who you are!

If you're new to Splatoon, haven't played in a while or just want to improve your skills, we've got some great tips here.

As far as events go, you can sign up for our upcoming tournament here. We also have an avatar costume contest so feel free to enter - you may win an awesome prize!

Thanks for joining the Splatoon Squad. I look forward to seeing you out in the Splat Zones! Feel free to reach out to me if you need any assistance."

Nice and easy. Save and copy and paste to each newbie. :p Change the urls once a month (unless you recycle the same threads). Great way to get people to start posting once they join.

Looks good. Thanks for all the help. Maybe we can even include this with the welcome message. We were going to use it for tourney sign ups.

Like what Shimo mentioned we mess around with games (bumper brushes/hide and seek), but we also play the game modes (turf and ranked). Last meet we were playing more of ranked modes than the mini games. Is the thing about ranked battles that interests you the ranking up and stuff or do you just prefer those modes over turf? If it's the latter that is what we do. Sometimes we just play the rank modes normal or we do something like everyone uses the same weapon to make it more fun.

Because it's fun and you can meet new people? I don't know if you just play squads, but the no deranking part is pretty nice. You can try learning how to play new weapons too. There will come to a point where rewards are meaningless anyway and you only play for fun. When you have good stats on your gear and have more money than you need.

1) What would you want to see from the guild?

Bi Weekly organized squads (suited to us working adults!)
No practice required, just some actual straight up chill AF
squad matches without stress about "ranking up"
OR weekly organized squads.

Private matches with full teams that aren't gimmicky games,
rather actual game modes.

Do you have any ideas how we'd go about this? Also do you have any suggestions on how we can decide on a date/time? Not being close to the same rank and stuff could lead to problems. Though I guess if people care about rank they can just not participate. Maybe go into it knowing you may derank. Though with rank differences it could lead to a lot of losses and it can be hard to be chill if you're getting frustrated. The thing I like about private battles is 8 people can play which is why meets can been centered on that. I felt like 1-3 people is something people could set up on their own without an announcement, but it's something we can try out. Just need to figure how to go about it.

3) Are the meetups and squidgames appealing to you or something else is needed?
Not really, I would rather squad or private matches where we play the game modes.

We have been playing normal modes. It's just the 2 before the most recent one we did hide and seek/bumper brushes for the first time so it was something new to us. We could do meets where we just do rank modes or whatever. Change it up so it's not the same every time. The meet right after the tournament announce was actually rank games only, but that one didn't have many show up.

Yeah, it's starting to pick up more. And yup, for those who don't want to talk can just listen in, and type their replies (or don't have to listen, that's up to them). I'll put a little Discord guide in a spoiler just so those who haven't used it before don't get too confused (in case you want to check it out. I also recommend downloading it as opposed to using the browser for it).

If you have Chrome I run this addon so I know what mode and maps are up
while I am browsing. Then I decide if I wanna play or not! >D