Introduction 

The use of guilds within games has been a long standing idea. The longest surviving guilds carry across games. These are the guilds where the members tend to count each other as friends and actually meet up in real life! A quick search on the internet shows at least one guild that has been around since 1996.

At the other end of the scale, every day many guilds disband through arguments, misunderstandings, boredom and other negative reasons. I'm sure that most people reading this will have either been a part of one of these guilds, or know someone who has.

The point of this set of articles is to look at why these splits occur and how they can be avoided. This will be covered through a number of topics ranging from creating a guild through to long term management covering both in game and out of game community issues. It will be based around WoW, although many of these ideas can be carried over between games.

In case you're wondering who I am. I'm a 27 year old female gamer. I play a range of games, although tend to consider myself a hardcore gamer with casual traits. I play games because they're fun and they entertain me. If a game doesn't entertain me I don't play it. Until a year ago I was a dedicated PC gamer, however I tend to play more console games now as I don't have the money to keep upgrading my PC. I've run one very successful (by my own standards) guild that continues to survive after I handed over management. I don't currently play any MMORPG however I do still have  a hand in the running of a community of guilds, which was initially set up as a way to allow smaller guilds access to end game content in WoW whilst still retaining their own identity.

Guilds - Forming a successful guild

- Why you want to make a guild

It might sound a pretty daft question, but it's one that's not asked frequently enough. You've decided you want to make a guild, you need to know why. If you don't know why you're making the guild it's likely to spiral out of control pretty quickly as you're not going to be able to set basic values for it and you're probably going to find yourself sorting out disputes or dealing with lack of members pretty quickly.

There's plenty of reasons to make your own guild. You might want to set up a guild of existing friends, or maybe your current guild isn't working out for you and you want something that's a little more aimed towards the type of game you want.

Questions to ask yourself:
Why do I want to make a guild?

- Is creating a new guild the right thing to do

There are hundreds of guilds out there, from small to large, from pvp to pve orientated, country based, language based, gender based, age based... Making your own guild might not be the answer in a guild flooded environment as you might struggle for membership. Look around at what else is available and check that "the perfect guild for you" doesn't already exist. There's a lot of work involved in holding together a guild and having too many guilds of the same type on one server will just involve those guilds struggling for membership.

Questions to ask yourself:
Will I be competing with other guilds for members?
Are there enough people of the type I'm looking for available?
Is there a guild I could join that would satisfy my gaming needs?
How will I recruit players to the guild?

- Setting values for the guild, aims, ideals

It's best to have some personal aims for the guild you're about to create. Is it going to be PvE orientated, or PvP, maybe a bit of both. Are you hoping to be the "best on the server", if so, what does that mean to you. Does it mean a guild with a high retention rate, or the guild with the most members, the guild that progresses the fastest through PvE, or the guild with the best PvP rankings.

Most issues that split guilds up can be prevented by stating in advance what type of members the guild is trying to appeal to. It's no good trying to make a PvE raiding only guild, but not telling people that when they want to join and instead telling them that "of course you can do PvP" then getting angry because no one signs up to your raids. These ideals need to be clearly defined, and anyone joining the guild needs to know what to expect of the guild. It's a two way process between a guild and it's members. The guild doesn't exist without it's members.

You might think it's a simple process to set up a guild of your friends. However have you actually asked what your friends want to get from the game? Are they looking for a relaxed game play style, logging in maybe a couple of times a week, or are they looking for 4 hours of raiding every night and wanting to be the most advanced guild on the server? I recommend avoiding making a guild of just in real life friends and saying you won't ever invite anyone else, unless you have a big group of friends and they all want to do the same thing. Players will come and go over time and if you limit yourself in this way you're likely to end up in a situation where you don't have enough players to continue, or people want to do different things and end up going their separate ways. You're playing a MMORPG, enjoy the experience and use it to meet new people.

The size of a guild is very important. A guild can fail if it's too large, and too small (unless your aim is to make the biggest guild on the realm). A guild can often deal with a variety of members, however it needs to be understood that this is the case. There needs to be a large enough group of people to cover for this. For example if you're looking to do raiding every night, you'll need to guarantee that you've got enough members of appropriate classes logging in each night. It's not going to work if you've got 25 members who only play twice a week (unless that happens to be the same night!), however it will work if you've got 25 members who log in twice a week and are backed up by 20 members who log in every night. This means that you're likely to have enough people each night who can play.

Again, the size of the guild goes back to deciding what type of guild you are looking for, and what the aims of the guild are.

Questions to ask yourself:
What is the aim of the guild?
Who is the guild aimed at? (family types, causal, hardcore, gender, age)
What should the overall population of the guild be?
Will I allow alts in the guild?

- Recruiting the guild

The reason for setting up your guild will probably give you a basic set of people for the guild. For example if you're setting it up because of a group of friends then it's pretty obvious who the first people in the guild are going to be. Where you go from there is very important as it'll set the standard for new members. You really want to avoid inviting just anyone to the guild. That's not going to work as you're going to end up having people in the guild who are there for the sake of being in *a* guild, not *your* guild. When looking for members it's important to go back over all the reasons for setting up the guild, and the aims of the guild and ensuring that new members match those specifics. There will always be exceptions to those requirements. For example you might allow partners of current members to join, even if they aren't into raiding and the guild is about raiding. Anyone who joins as an exception should be made aware that they are an exception and the guild probably isn't going to cater for their needs.

It will take a while for the guild name to be known across the server, and spamming the various chat channels isn't really the way to go about it. You need to accept that the best guilds aren't created over night. Instead post on the realm forums (some have a thread for guilds), include all the details about your guild including contact details for members who can recruit.

Make yourself known in game and out of game, reply to threads on the realm forums, answer questions in chat channels. How and which questions you decide to answer will show your personality and so the personality of the guild. If you're a helpful person who doesn't flame everyone then you're probably going to attract a different type of person to your guild than someone who flames everyone. Encourage other members of your guild to help out.

Go on lots of instance runs with randoms. I know... it's frustrating and possibly annoying to go with randoms, but it's a great way to meet new people and other guilds. Don't spend the instance trip trying to recruit people, instead play well and it will show through. Alternatively if you are looking for a PvP guild sign up for lots of PvP, and get yourself known in the arena's and battlegrounds.

When people join ensure they realise that it's a new guild, and so it will take a while to get up and running. Otherwise there is a chance they will get annoyed and leave very quickly. If you've already set up an offline area (i.e. forum) then direct all new members to this.

Don't try to actively recruit from other guilds. If people want to leave their guild and join yours then it's up to them, but you shouldn't be actively encouraging them to leave their guild. Your guild will quickly get a bad reputation for "stealing" players.

It's a good idea to have a vetting process in place. This might be as simple as attending a couple of runs with a player, to a full blown six months probation period during which time the player must perform X, Y and Z. It doesn't hurt to do a quick search on the realm forums for their name to make sure they haven't posted something which you disagree with, or their name is in a "never play with this character" type post. Double check with existing members if they recognise the name as well.

- Setting guild roles

WoW allows you to have a number of guild ranks, and each rank can be given it's own permissions. It's good to have a number of ranks that can't invite players. You don't want those new people you just invited to the guild to start inviting your friends and to come back online to find your guild is full off 100 people you've never met. At the other end of the scale, you don't want just yourself to be able to invite new players (unless you really do play 24/7) as there will be times when people will want to join the guild and can't. (for example alts if you allow them, or partners of current players etc...)

Some guilds start off with founding members able to invite. That's fine if you know your founding members and everyone understands the aims your guild is going for.

Officer chat is a decision that will probably be based on how you want to run the guild. From a personal point of view my guild never uses officer chat as if someone’s a member of the guild they know exactly what's going on with the guild. There are no secrets. Other guilds use officer chat as an area for dealing with admin that the rest of the guild might not be interested in (we use our forum for all that)

Have a few "fun" ranks, for example a guild mascot, or a rank for shame (i.e. if someone caused an amusing wipe). The ranks should reflect the people in them. A good way to deal with alts is to give them their own rank. Avoid giving alts any permissions for inviting etc... as it allows those players a break from guild admin.

Questions to ask yourself:
Who will cover for me should I be unable to play?
Is the guild able to survive without me?
Who should be able to invite players?
Will the guild use officer chat?

A guild is a two way process, an individual needs to give to the guild and the guild as a whole needs to give back to it's members. A guild consists of it's members, without them it doesn't exist.

(3) Comments