Who Are You, as a Guild?

Too many guilds act like the world already knows who they are and how awesome they are, and the only reason everyone isn't pounding on the door to get in is because they haven't been told "hey, we're looking for your class!"

Back in my EverQuest days, we had a guild below us in progression called Dark Conquest. The joke in my guild was that their advertising slogan should read: "Do you breathe and play EverQuest? Then join Dark Conquest!"

My guild, Temerity, explicitly set ourselves out as a raid guild and everything about us was pointed at raiding, from the rules and regulations, to what we told applicants, to why people were tagged (or not.)

Dark Conquest, if you were into tradeskilling, told you they supported tradeskillers. If you preferred roleplaying, they told you they did a lot of RP. Raiding? Yup that too. Levelling alts? Definitely! The result was a guild that never made substantial progress and lagged behind the rest of the server as time passed. They also had a lot of drama over confused priorities (should a drop with +INT go to a caster, or to a ranger who wanted to make his tradeskillups easier?)


Every officer (and member) should understand why your guild exists and why you are doing what you're doing. Everything flows from that, including things like how you handle loot, how you talk to prospective members about the guild, when and why you gkick, etc.

Even if your guild raids casually (or doesn't raid), that doesn't excuse having no clue who you are other than "people who share a guild tag." (although if that's actually your definition, then embrace it and make it work!)


Throughout this post I will use two WoW guilds as examples: Fusion, my current guild, and Untold Prophecy, my previous guild, since both had strong identities but were very different.


Who are you?

• Do you exist to raid and nothing else?
  If so, you probably have a system like DKP or officer loot ("loot council".) You have mandatory attendance with minimum attendance percentages. You might raid a lot. You probably don't ever recruit beyond what you see as the bare minimum of players. You care about how someone plays (and possibly also their personality.)

• Are you a pure social guild?
  If so, you might use /random for loot. You have a large guild with a lot of members. You might have multiple raid groups or might not even do much beyond a semi-organized Karazhan once a week. You care most about whether someone is friends with someone in the guild and doesn't disrupt guildchat *too* much.

• Are you somewhere in between?
  Where in between, how much on each side? What things do you care about? What don't you care about?

Untold Prophecy described themselves as: A raiding guild for people with real lives. That catchphrase was the support for a guild structure that was focused around the high end of mid-tier raiding (they killed Illidan mid-February) but was explicitly designed around assuming people had real lives and WoW was not the top priority.

Fusion is an end-game raid guild, like many. Top 10 US Horde for Illidan kills, etc. We don't raid 6-7 days a week, however, and we never raid for more than 5 hours at a stretch, which already starts to make some differences between us and some other guilds.


Does your structure match who you are?

Once you've written down who you are, examine the foundations of your guild and make sure it makes sense within your goals.

The loot system is a very important cornerstone of any guild, if only because it seems to produce the most debate and drama no matter what system is chosen.

Untold Prophecy used DKP, because that worked well to avoid drama over favoritism, and let them handle raiders with widely differing schedules. They wanted loot to go primarily to those who raided the most, since that's what would make progress, and since the officers don't want to spend 80 hours in game each week, they try to cut down on the drama by removing opportunities for it to happen.

Fusion uses Officer Loot ("loot council") because they expect everyone to make 90% of the raids, so attendance shouldn't be an issue (therefore DKP is less attractive.)

This isn't to say both guilds couldn't swap loot systems and make them work, but it's a good example of careful thought by each set of officers about what best fit the guild.

If anyone ever tells you they have the "best" loot system", they have an agenda. There are systems that are better than others, but it's always in some context. High-end raiding context, social guild context, raid group context, "group of friends" context, etc.


Do you have enough officers? One danger in more casual guilds is that "that guy" ends up running everything. Pick your officers carefully, so you don't burn out officers because the rest of the officers are also playing casually. If you care a lot about having a lot of input, then having the guild involved more directly in decisions and/or a lot of officers may be important.

Do you have too many officers? If it's important to you to move quickly, then having only a few officers will be better, since they can make decisions and move on without a lot of debate. Just make sure you have enough coverage so the guild doesn't stop moving when one person goes on vacation.


Are raids run appropriately? If you say you're a guild of friends, your raidleader shouldn't be yelling on vent each time someone lags a bit behind.

If you say you're a progression guild, then repeated raid-wiping mistakes shouldn't be ignored, and bad players should be benched, not tolerated because of who they know.


Does your recruiting message match who you are?

No one cares that you're recruiting "only the best."

We know you require consumables.... need people to make your raid times.... are looking for low-drama members. What *else* can you tell us?

Think of your guild in terms of qualifiers and distinguishers. Most guilds just list the qualifiers -- "You must be this high to ride this ride." They're the nuts and bolts about when you raid, what content level you're on, what classes you're looking for, and that you "want quality applicants who know their class."

Include what makes me, an applicant, read your post and say "wow, I could fit in with those guys" beyond "they need my class, yay!" Those are the distinguishers and that's how you convey your guild's character and style ("who are you?") and attract the people who will fit in from day one.

For example, Fusion feels its distinguishers are:

• We raid fewer days/hours (5 days @ 4.5 hours/day) than many at our progression level
• We have a long guild history of focusing on fast, efficient clears (e.g. clearing T5 weekly *while* clearing T6 and still getting in the top ten for US horde)
• We have a respectful raid environment (humor does not come exclusively from bashing of various minorities, nor is every minor mistake handled by being chewed out on vent although we do make sure mistakes get corrected and are public when needed)
• We run a tight roster (the guild ran at ~28 members for a long time)
• We don't 'raid stack' or swap for fights unless it's really needed to kill a boss

That's what we want in our recruiting message. Just saying "HAY GUYZ WE'RE GUD APP TO US" won't work, particularly in a world where so many guilds have killed Illidan.


Does your recruiting process find people who fit in?

Two keys to help avoid recruiting mistakes:

• Vent interviews
  Even if you call it a chat rather than an interview, do it. Spend the 15-20 minutes to have at least 1-2 officers or leads talk to the prospective members. It makes them feel more valued, and also gives you a heads up on any issues early. If you don't use vent, then have a chat in groupchat.
  
  An example in Untold Prophecy: applicants were encouraged to look elsewhere if they wanted a guild that was going to push for server firsts, or if they wanted to have long, chatty raids. At only 15 hours of raiding a week, the guild wasn't hitting server firsts except when the guilds that raided more screwed up, and this saved some member churn.
  
  In Fusion, applicants are asked things like what other video games they play, because general 'gaming interest' tends to be an indicator for WoW skill. They're also asked a variety of open-ended questions because Fusion cares very deeply about personality fit, and getting someone talking is the best way to figure that out.

• Tag early but provisionally
  If your guild can handle potentially detagging an application, don't leave applicants untagged the entire application period. It's hard to learn about an app when they spend a month untagged, and it's hard for them to get to know you as well.
  
  1-2 weeks in gchat and most people start to relax and you see the rest of their personality that you wouldn't have seen otherwise. It also lets them have far more member interaction than an apps chat channel gives them, since they can easily join groups, pvp premades, etc.
  
  The hardest thing as an officer other than gkicking a member is gkicking an applicant -- but you end up with a better guild in the end when you give people a long period to interact with your members before you commit to a full raiding position for them.