Guild Master’s Guild Creation Guide

Guild Master Guide to running a successful casual guild

This guide is for players of WOW and other MMO’s looking for a sound and tried system to create a stable guild environment that is enjoyable yet productive with the least amount of work. As anyone who has played an MMO knows, it can be quite addicting and quite time consuming. Running a guild can for the most part be like a part time job. There are many guilds out there that are formed simply because someone wants the status symbolism of being a leader and “in charge” but beyond that they have little to no interest in the guild’s or their members progression. In the following paragraphs I will show ways of creating a loyal following, a sound recruiting system, an established guild bank, and website that is productive and stable.

1. Guild Creation 

The most important thing to focus on when first creating a guild is surrounding yourself with a solid core group of starting members. You will see many people on the realms spamming signatures to get a guild charter started and they will take anyone and everyone and attempt to weed out the details later. Granted this works, and gets you moving very quickly, it is much better to start off on the right foot with a decent core group already at hand. This does not mean you need already geared, raid ready members signing your charter, rather it means know who you are starting with and that those handful of people can be relied upon to help you recruit in the beginning , be supportive and be active. A guild charter full of level one nobody alts is not very attractive towards new incoming members and is most likely going to cause a high turnover rate as people come and go rather quickly. Serious players will look for signs that the guild has some stability to it, even if it is a new guild. Having people joining and quitting on a daily basis shows a lack of stability and will cause more serious players to go elsewhere.If you don’t have a good group of friends to start things out with you, then simply take the time to talk to people. Look for players you are running instances with or questing with that are friendly and unguilded. You can also find “disgruntled” players already in guilds that are failing. A common problem in larger guilds is that they tend to “forget” about the little guy. Often those people are adrift and feel as if they are alone in the game and will gladly come to a guild that is going to be proactive. I do not recommend spamming trade or general channels for members. There are many leeches and drifters on the realms that are simply looking to hop from guild to guild, especially if you have an easily accessible guild bank. I will cover this in a later chapter. One on one conversation in whisper will generally reveal quite a bit about a person. If you want an adult based guild, I find it ok to ask a general age. If you are not going to monitor everything said in your guild chat, in particular language, i recommend setting a general age limit to try to stick to. Another useful tip is to keep an eye on the trade and general channels. Trouble makers tend to make themselves known. Anyone constantly talking non relevant nonsense in trade channel or constantly arguing with people about everything and anything tend not to make very good guild members and can be “drama” causers. Look for adult couples that play. Ive found couples tend to make good additions to the guild as it picks up two players at once, and helps to add stability. You almost guarantee to get two mature players every time. Also you will find often that couples know other couples that play, which means getting one couple can often lead to adding many more stable members as the process repeats itself. Another method of recruiting is through your myspace and or website. I shall discuss the usefulness of a website shortly. Once you have gathered enough signatures to get your charter filled, file it and create a guild name and tabard. Make a catchy preferably fantasy name as a nonsense guild name is sometimes enough in itself to keep people away. Remember, when you scroll over a guildies name once they have joined, the guild name will show also, so something ridiculous is a big turnoff as you are labeled with that as long as you remain in the guild. Your guild tabard is not so relevant, but a flashy or well thought out tabard will intice more guild members to actually wear it. A good looking tabard is a statement in itself, and if you create a guild website, makes for decent group pictures for such. Go to the tabard vendor and spend some time messing around with different colors and combinations, and you can even put it up to a guild vote if you like or at least get opinions once you have settled on one. It doesn’t cost much to go back and change it if the majority thinks it should be. Once this is done, you are well on your way and should have a stable core group, decent name and tabard.

2. Guild bank

This section shall provide a loose workable format for a guild bank. As the guild grows the need for a guild bank will also. When you first start out it is recommended that you at least purchase your first tab. It helps to assist with gear and materials people can make use of as they level. Guild banks are the most expensive aspect of running a guild. Tabs are costly, and once the guild gets more established, the items in them can be rather valuable. Restrict bank tab access by ranks, in the beginning this will be irrelevant, but as the bank grows it will become important to protect guild assets. Set a reasonable guild bank daily repair allotment. If not monitored closely, this can be quickly drained. Normally its a good idea to watch the deposits versus withdrawals. If too much is being taken out and not enough deposited in return, then shut down guild bank repair until the bank has built itself back up. Normally this is enough incentive for people to start contributing towards the repair funds. As your guild bank gains more tabs, separate the tabs into separate categories for different things. Some examples follow:

 1. First tab…general all access

2. Armory tab…….only weapons and equipment

3.Materials tab….materials relevant to professions

4.Library…..recipes, schematics,books

5.Raid tab….supplies for raiding only, such as flasks, repair bots, scrolls, buff food

6.Officers tab…a restricted access area for epic B.O.E items or high cost materials etc. that you don’t want open for public access

7. Leveling tab….quest items , enchantments, inscriptions etc.

These are just a few examples of possible combinations you could use for guild bank format. It is recommended you keep grey and white items out of the bank and periodically “clean out” the bank of non moving items to keep the bank fresh and used. You don’t want the guild bank to turn into a depository for guildies trash. Once you have set your tab assignments, make sure to list in each tabs notes section that tabs restrictions and your expectations so people know what to deposit there and what they can withdraw. Make sure to note that guildies should only withdraw what they need from stacks and not full stacks. That is one of the worst habits of guildies with a guild bank. Make sure to set individual restrictions per rank for each tab. Do not allow unrestricted access to all tabs to all guild members, that leaves the door open to log in one day and have no bank left at all. Make sure to monitor guild bank withdrawals, look for people taking out items not suited to their class or profession. You don’t want guildies pulling items out of the guild bank to turn around and resell on the auction house for personal profit. That should be done by officers as the guild bank is periodically cleaned, and the profits redeposited in the bank to help out with the guild bank repair fund. It helps to have one or two officers designated as “bankers” whose job it is to watch the guild bank and assist the GM in maintaining it. It may serve to have one officer designated as such and given a totally separate rank that has a more unrestricted bank access so as to be able to manage the guild bank without the GM constantly needing to adjust the withdrawal amounts every time the bank needs to be worked on.

3. Organazation 

This chapter shall refer to guild rank structure. It is generally a good idea to have a designated number of officers that are limited as to the size of the guild and the guilds needs. You don’t want to get into the “to many chiefs not enough indians” mode. Only designate enough high ranking positions to do what needs to be done in the guild. Have a starting rank that is a “trial” period membership to weed out drifters and guild jumpers. Set a time period of a couple weeks to a month and limit guild bank access and guild bank repair access until members have been promoted beyond that rank. Anyone serious about joining your guild should understand the need for this method. If not, then they are more then likely looking for an easy guild to take advantage of and move on to the next. Create several ranks attainable by non-officers so that guildies still see a place they can progress to, normally about 3 classes, and another 3 classes of officers. Officers should have distinct duties to do in the guild. Don’t make officer rank just a status symbol. Duties could include a personnel officer, recruitment officer, new member welcoming officer, ventrilo or voice server officer, as stated above a banker or quartermaster, a guild secretary, guild photographer etc. It is a good idea if you create a website to list the officers duties and who is responsible for what so that guildies know who to go to if they require certain things. Along with these individual duties, all officers should be responsible for general guild supervision as far as guild chat, making sure guildies who need questions answered or assistance get such or are pointed in the right direction, etc. Officers should also be active in depositing in the guild bank and assisting as needed. Officers that are sleepers don’t serve much use to the guild. Hold officer meetings periodically to address general guild questions and needs. Everyone is not going to be on at the same time all the time, so its good to occasionally get everyone together to hash things over. As guild master you will make many decisions solely by yourself, but occasionally you may want to cast things to an officer vote. Only allow one of a persons toons to hold a certain rank, not every toon they have. Let them pick which of their toons they want at “rank” and promote that one. You may also want to place a level restriction on officers as it will better serve to show the experience your officers bring to the table for newer players and new guildies. You don’t want a level 25 officer over level 70-80 toons.

4. Websites and Voice Servers

Websites and Voice servers are extras that help augment internal game affairs. Voice servers are extremely useful (almost necessary eventually) systems of communication designed to supplement a guilds activity by allowing communication over headsets versus typing. Nice for casual day to day use, they are very important for raiding purposes where typing commands is just not going to be possible.They generally cost a nominal monthly fee depending on what service you use and can handle from 10 to 40 people. An average size guild will make good use of a 25 man capable voice server. Another use for such service is if you are screening age requirements for your guild. Its rather hard for a 10 year old to hide his age if you get him on speaker. Most MMO’s have internal voice, however the outside providers tend to offer better, more functional and clearer service. Once a service is set up, establish several different rooms for different situations so as to keep “cross chatter” to a minimum. Create a couple different instance and raid rooms, an officer room, etc. to serve different functions depending on the situation and what it calls for. Set a definitive order of rules for chatter during raids so that everyone is not trying to talk over each other. Normally the officer providing the service should be the one in charge of it. Monitor it as you see fit for language etc, although it is slightly harder to do them in guild chat as there are no language filters.Ventrilo or teamspeak are the two most commonly used.

 Websites serve multiple purposes. They can provide a very useful tool for the GM to relay weekly or monthly information to the guild members. They can serve as places to put leveling guides, list recent guild achievements, upcoming events, forums for class advice,add pictures taken during raids, raid or boss fight strategies, officer duties, guild rules etc. The GM can manage the website (recommended) or can assign it to an officer to manage. Make sure the website address is listed where all guild members can see it as well as the information for your voice server. To get guildies to go to the site, you can run a guild lottery and post the winner on the site. Keep useful information they will want to see there. Another good use for a website would be a page dedicated to just links to other sites players need to access for hints and tips etc. There are many good boss strategy sites , gear and profession sites and the like that people use and having the links to those in one convenient place is of great help to a guild, especially to new players that are not familiar with all the sites available to them.

Thotbot, boss-killers,curse,wow-head,are just a few examples. A good site for website creation that is user friendly would be freewebs.com

Hopefully this guide goes to help you create a successful guild and at the very least an easy to manage functional environment that is enjoyable for you and for your guild members.