World of Warcraft®

Hey forum readers,

I'm in a bit of a quandary over whether I want to start my own guild or not, and would appreciate some feedback from the community.

First off, a little information on the kind of guild I desire to make:

- A solid community where people have a mature sense of humour and get along
- Not necessarily big on numbers; more of a guild for quality instead of quantity
- An active player base that openly interacts with one another
- Friendly and helpful towards new/inexperienced players

To make it clear, I do not wish to make this guild solely for raiding purposes or progressing through endgame content, although the odd casual raid for fun and achievements/mounts/transmog/etc. organised spontaneously by officers and such would be likely.

My hope is that the likes of raids and 5 mans would naturally occur within the guild as members interact with one another; be it more of an informal event rather than a formal signup thing.

I take the time to explain my intentions like so because I do not wish to refer to this as a "casual" guild, oh no, the two are completely different in my mind. A casual guild will do everything a hardcore guild will, they will just spend less time at it, and perhaps possess a less serious mindset in their encounters. This, my friends, I'd like to refer to as an old-fashioned social guild, where the bonds between members are genuine and the atmosphere is comfortable regardless of the player's background or experience.

So, my question is... would there be a large enough percentage in the WoW community of today who are interested enough to partake in such to make a guild like this a 'success'?

Obviously people cannot speak for the whole population, but please do let me know your own thoughts on the subject. It'd make an interesting read :)

Thanks for taking the time to read this long post, any helpful responses are appreciated. Have a good day!

Most people seem to want something.
Friendship comes way down the list.
Ok examples.
They want a boost
They want to steal from your bank.
They want a regular raid spot usually dps class.
If you don’t deliver they will go elsewhere.

Sorry, but I find it difficult to believe that every person in the WoW community is like how you have described.

As I stated in my post, I would be recruiting people who're interesting in a guild where they can enjoy the social aspect of the game without belonging to one of the many 'just for perks' so-called social guilds that exist today. Therefore, I would not be inviting people who would just want to join to leech from the guild.

Sure, I wouldn't be delivering quality raids to my guild members as that is not what I intend the guild to be for; however, as a guild leader, I intend to provide members with a comfortable atmosphere where they can get along with like-minded, fellow gamers without all the hustle and bustle from the serious crowd.

Nevertheless, thank you for your thoughts.

Homika, I think there are plenty of players out there, like you describe. As long as you stick to your edict and make sure everyone else is aware of what the guild is about, you shouldn't have too much trouble. Yes, there are the odd few players out there who fit Mephismo's description, but if you are a saavy leader, you can spot them pretty quickly. If they don't fit with the guild they will leave, but that is okay. It isn't your job to make the guild fit with them and their specific needs. Good luck if you do decide to start your own guild.

Hi Jannah, thank you for your response.

Proper social guilds seemed somewhat uncommon back in vanilla/TBC when the community was more close-knit, nowadays however, from what I've experienced, such guilds are almost unheard of.

After all, the main aim here is to have fun, and I appreciate that each person has a different idea of what they enjoy about the game. For me, my enjoyment comes from helping people and being involved in a thriving community, and thus I'd like to create that close-knit community again for the players who miss the old, traditional sort of relationship between guild members.

But yes, I do agree that anything is possible with a little faith :).

Hello,

I'm convinced you could make it work but I wouldn't advice trying if you don't have a few likeminded players to help you get started. Leading a guild is quite a bit of work and doing everything yourself is almost impossible, having those few people you can count on and help build your guild will make a world of diffirence for you.

Indeed, building a guild like this is impossible alone. You will need to secure it with a good core to help you start and maintain it, you've described a guild very much like mine which was started in vanilla by myself, my brother, some drinking buddies of our's, our best friends and some players we constantly did things with in-game. Without this core it would've been impossible to maintain the ethos as it would've had no weight behind it. If you cannot garner the favour of some friends to help you start this guild, you should make some new like-minded friends and then rally them together to try.

The problem is the perks system makes the Guild worth more than the people in it.
How do we know you arent recruiting people so you can sell your Guild at a later date for 200k

Hi Homika,

I've been playing this game for the best part of 6 years and i understand exactly where you are coming from.

I have built up relations with some of the players i have met over this period of time and we were getting fed up with completing numerous achievements for guilds and then management fell out or guild disbanded so we formed our own on the casual basis you have discussed.

We are always happy to help others and will "casually" attempt raids as and when we can, the problem i think you will find is that to form a strong core to a guild you will need to have quite a number of friends join you in the formation of the guild.

However as mentioned by Mephismo the guild perk system is against you, eventhough my guild now has a strong core it is nearly impossible to recruit as players now only care about getting the top perks.

As a whole good idea, best of luck to you !

Hey Homika!
I really like the ideas you have for your guild - I'm one of those who are looking for a guild just like the one you describe. I've been back for 2 moths after a 2 year pause and still haven't come bye the guild I'm searching for :P

- A solid community where people have a mature sense of humour and get along
- Not necessarily big on numbers; more of a guild for quality instead of quantity
- An active player base that openly interacts with one another
- Friendly and helpful towards new/inexperienced players

I'm sure there are plenty of players like you and I out there.
The problem with these guilds though - is that the thing that makes them successful is the thing that also makes them unheard of.
- These guilds are as you say small guilds with few members but very loyal and close-knitted.
- They don't advertise the guild (this is why people like you and I can't find them).

Have you decided to make the guild?
If so - what server will you roll on?

Have a nice day! :)

Hey there.

I have a guild like the one you wish to make. Recruiting is rarely an issue for us, lately we have even stopped recruiting for a while.

Let me try to give a few points of what I feel has helped us.

1. The add - make sure your recruitment add is clear in the communication. If half your new members are seeking other goals than you, the guild is bound to fail.

2. Set some standards. There's lots of guilds out there, why is your guild better than the rest? For my guild, we expect no drama, mature behaviour and a polite attitude whether it's in LFR, dungeons, on wow forums or in trade channel. On the other hand we have quite a lot of trust in our members. We treat them as friends and the officers are always ready to help and listen.

3. who's your dream member? Do you want your guild to consist of young players? new players? a mix? or bantering old farts? then remember to point it out when you recruit.

4. limited recruiting. It's easy to spam a macro in trade or whisper all lvl 1-10. This will not create the guild you want. We ask of our applicants to write a little about themselves, not their char, so that our members gets to know each others and we get a feeling of the player behind. Yes, 7 of 10 interested people don't want to write an application and move on, but imo if they can't be arsed to write 10 lines about themselves, they are not social enough or interested enough in your guild.
We never use trade for recruiting, as we do not support recruit spam in trade.

5. organisation! As your guild grows, remember to adjust guildrules etc so that noone has doubts how to behave as a member. This can avoid a lot of distress.

6. Casual guild - what do you offer? We write in our add, that we have a lot of variety in our guild. We have pvp'ers, dungeongrinders, achievement hunters, petcollectors and altoholics, and room for all of them :) We throw oldschool raids occasionally, from time to time a cata raid, we have lore contests and other fun contests and events.

7. Leadership - even though you are a social guild, consider how you'll lead it. My officers and I are 5 in total. Majority rules - also when the gm disagrees. We never kick a player without a looong discussion back and forth between officers. As our guild is a home, people should not have to worry about being kicked and loose their hard work.
When our vault gets overflowed occasionally, we have santa events, where an officer finds out which alts/mains could benefit from recipes gear etc and then divide it. We are very determined that our vault is for the members and not the gm.

Most people seem to want something.
Friendship comes way down the list.
Ok examples.
They want a boost
They want to steal from your bank.
They want a regular raid spot usually dps class.
If you don’t deliver they will go elsewhere.

This is very true. I've seen lots of social guild attempts, but the problem you need to consider is the guild level and guild perks.

Players in the simplest sense have a massive reason NOT to be in your guild. And +, you're not even making the promise of getting the levels through content etc.

I'd say make the guild. But the guild model you're describing will require a very strong, very faithful core of members. So find yourself some seriously dedicated Officers!

Once you have that, go on an endless recruitment drive and find some lowbies to level in your guild to help level it.

I wish you luck.

It never happend, check the OPs profile