The Daily Grind: Could you do a better job running your guild?

Absolutely, unequivocally NO. Quite possibly the least appealing thing to get tangled up in on an massively multiplayer online game to my mind.

All the guilds I have lead were small and had friend only membership. Basically there was no leader. I prefer my guilds this way and this is how I run my guilds so from that perspective I could not run my guild much better than that.
But for the times that I was a member in a large raiding guild I have to admit that I couldn't do it. Keeping track off everything needed while still coming across as a level headed even tempered human being would drive me insane.
Thanks to all the guild leaders who can do it and retain their humanity.

Yes..

First I would start by having 9 raids a month.
Then I would make sure I started all of the Raids at 9 O'clock promptly.
And to maintain raider status, I would make sure that the guild member maintained 90% attendance..

It's my 9/9/90 plan. I think it'll work.

I'm actually starting a guild for the first time on SWTOR, along with a friend - at the moment we're sharing ownership of one Republic and one Empire guild via their guild finder system. Our guilds were set up pretty much for the reason in the article - we felt another guild wasn't working and thought we could do better.

We openly label ourselves as LGBT-friendly, so there is some kind of niche attraction or 'selling point' there. We already have about 60 members, including quite a few of our own friends from RL and from other games. We've made a lot of headway getting to know others by setting up a Facebook group, and at the moment members seem to really appreciate and utilise it.

However, since neither of us have run a guild before (though I think we have both been officers and organisers in other guilds), I'd be interested in hearing about what noob guild leaders should know before they dive in. There's still 2 months before launch so I'd like to know what we're in for!

I'm cure I could. But would I want to? NO!

Why? Because I dont have 10+ hrs a day to sit and stare at the computer. The best guild leaders are those with no life or retired people, because they have the time. Though there are sokme great leaders of smaller guilds.

For a small mmoRPG guild, not an mmo level rushing guild - I could def handle that and enjoy it.

Funny thing is, even though I've disagreed with guild leaders about things before, I've never wanted to be a guild leader. Too many headaches and in a non-corrupt guild, not enough perks.

The most successful guild I was in generally handed "guild leader" status to an inactive or barely active player, and important decisions were actually made by the officers voting in private, with the guild leader only casting a deciding vote if necessary (and if he could be found).

It worked out a lot better than you'd think it would. although we were far from "uber."

Short Answer: No

Long Answer: Nooooooooooooooooo

I'm one of those people that logs in to play, if I want another "cat herding" experience I'll PM another project at work. :)

No, but it doesn't really give the leader any reason to be an unequivocal dick.

I can and I have run 5 guilds.

Making the guild better is simple:

A) Define your guild's goal. And I don't mean just "We're gonna PVP! I mean many small, MEASURABLE goals every month towards a grandiose vision. And if you aren't meeting those goals, take a good hard look WHY and make the changes to make it happen.

EXAMPLE: "We're going to kill X enemy players per Y hours on Z days for the purpose of our faction's players to enjoy A, B, and C zones without challenge from enemy players."


B) Define your membership: Some players just wanna hang out. Others want to push end-game content to the extreme. Others want to raid/PVP but will also just want to do whatever seems "fun" at that moment.

Spare the guild grief and:
1. Identify the guild's general atmosphere
2. Identify what the guild leadership (you) wants to attain
3. Invest in players within your guild who want to help you reach your goals
4. Recruit the player types you want but lack

Long story short, invest in growing and maturing your players.

C) Leg Work: Stuff doesn't happen without you, and if it does expect that group of players to leave your guild once they figure out you're unnecessary. If you have goals you want to achieve, be there--even if you're the only karker fivver there to do it.


D) Branding -- Player Glamor: Strong guilds are nice but they need ENERGY. If you can, get good with video and web. Maybe even drawing and music (music video anyone?). Build a multimedia scrap book of your guild's greatness for the world and your recruits to see. And DO THINGS in-game worth recording too---crazy stuff, like occupying an enemy capital for an hour! Make your guild the kind that people will beg to get in just to have the guild -TAG- under their name. Write a guild history--anything to make and establish your brand.


E) Hang Out: Your soldiers will need down time. Hang out, have fun. Do in-game holiday events. Take a breather. BE FRIENDS, or at least, decent casual acquaintances.




Yeah, but , seriously... the WORK... I mean, a decent sized-guild has 20+ people in it. Small businesses grossing $1million/year have less people...

To run with the small-business comparison, I have to: Do human resources with recruiting and screening. To effectively run the guild day-to-day I need to work as hard as an owner who works the assembly line with the other employees. And then I need to be one part chaplain, two parts nanny in dealing with petty egos and "I want it now!" attitudes.

Yes, I could run the guild better. No, I am perfectly fine with just going with the flow and playing the game. ESPECIALLY since PVP end-game content is solo friendly. Yeah, I pug like a fiend and I usually lose, but PVP rewards WORK, not lottery rolls for loot. I WILL get my gear with enough work, and I'm good with that.

I tried to make my own guild once....I just couldn't get anyone to join....I was organised, had a website, details guild rules, was friendly, accomodating and casual.

When the game came out I was alone and couldn't get 5 people to help me create it so I could start recruiting. So.....no guild.

Running a guild not as important as getting people interested enough to help create it. Once you create it any fool can throw blind invites and get some hits.

Most certainly, yes. I actually created a large successful guild in the UO/EQ days. After leaving the genre for a few years I returned to the guild. It was being managed so poorly that I eventually quit in disgust. It was not the same guild any longer and lost everything that made it great in the first place.

I first had that thought almost 4 years ago.

I was in a mega-guild of almost 100 people that was merely coasting by in the RP-PvP scene. I was a regular member there, and I started making suggestions to the relatively hit-and-miss officer core. In response, they made me an officer - without ever asking me if I wanted to be one!

That lasted for about a month while I tried to hold things together. I planned roleplay events, ran the PvP operations, got us a Vent server, and everything. It went largely unappreciated by the leadership... until I unceremoniously left and a quarter of the guild, comprising of all of their best members, followed me and asked me to be their guild leader.

Here I am, four years and a half-dozen games later, and I still have the same officer core I did then. I've made a lot of dumb mistakes along the way; the only thing I knew about leading a guild was what NOT to do, but had no clue what the RIGHT thing to do was. That all came from a lot of mistakes. And I still make them, just new and different mistakes.

It's the hardest job I've ever had, thankless at times, infuriating at times, but by far the most rewarding hobby I can imagine. I love being a guild leader.

I was in a guild in AoC whose leader decided there was to be no more swearing in guild chat, because his young children played the game. I hadn't noticed the swearing, plus there is a filter, and wtf, why are his kids playing that game?

Anyone in the world could have done a better job running that guild.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

-Having your friends in your guild
-Having a guild free of drama
-Having a guild that raids at least somewhat competently

Choose two.

There is an argument to be found here for guilds-within-guilds. No guild can be all things to all people, and as a leader of one it is best to recognize that when your guildmates want something different than you do, you either failed to convince them to follow your mission statement (not everyone has that kind of charisma) or you're out of touch. No one likes to find out they're 'wrong.' This is when delegation becomes key.

Not any longer and never again. No time, and no interest.

In my old college MUD days, I would spend upwards of 12-18 hours online everyday. With this sort of time commitment, there was time to build networks with the then guild leadership, time to say hello to everyone as they logged in on the guild channel, and project an image both friendly and welcoming, as well as competent and inclusive a leader and teacher in terms of the "endgame" group activity of killing big mobs in a group of 4-8 people.

Little wonder that I progressed quite naturally as guild third, then second-in-command, and finally guild leader. Then came more obligations, recruitment and screening - we did a casual in-game interview to screen applicants then, and an in-game scavenger hunt activity, part ritual, part rite of passage, part increasing the applicant's knowledge of the world - a kind of fun character-building test of persistence. Delegation of officers to do those duties, council and committee forming to develop a constant pace of interesting "stuff to do" for members, watching the guild donation and stores for in-guild thieves and disciplinary action, in those days no such things as logs we could make use of - we had to run a bot 24/7 to sit in the room and watch people taking stuff out of chests. Drama, rivalries, quitting (we had to type in a command to help members leave the guild, they couldn't just gquit, so lots of administrative hassle and periodic roster purges of inactive people)...

I ended up taking on the persona of this competent, always-friendly, responsible, capable guild leader that I pretty much fooled myself for a couple years as to who I was and what my gaming preferences were. Eventually burnout hit, lost interest in the game rather than the guild, and my current time pressures just simply prohibit living so long and actively in one single game. There's no way you can run a guild by remote, you've got to be present to foster that respect...

So no, I might conceivably do a better job of running a guild, but I sure wouldn't want to. Mad props to those that give so much of themselves and their time to do so.