Best Practices: Founding a guild

Igni · 09/30/06, 7:32 AM

What are the best practices for founding a guild? What questions should the future GM have asked himself? What are the right and wrong reasons to be starting a guild? What questions should he be prepared to answer for others? What should he be prepared to do? What can he expect? How should he or she spend his first 45 days? What are the pitfalls that threaten his success?

Theorycraft backed up with your reasoning is welcome. Actual experience would be invaluable.

Vhex · 09/30/06, 7:49 AM

Speaking from experience, whatever you do, do -not- make someone you have misgivings about an officer. I ended up losing the guild that my friend and I had formed due to some really shady actions on someone that was made officer while I was studying for my final exams and didn't play for a few days. It all worked out in the end though. I ended up some place I really enjoy and they eventually disbanded. <3

Other then that some general things to keep in mind

1) Go with DKP for loot. In this day and age, officer select requires far too trusting of a membership. It works if you're a guild of friends or a guild that's been around for 3+ years. A single bad decision can ruin a guild that doesn't have the "Well, shit happens" mentality though and DKP places the blame for bad decisions firmly on nobody in particular.

2) Make sure your officers/raid leaders/guild leader all have a strong presence. Invariably an officer or two is going to end up quitting or ditching or something and if the remaining officers aren't able or willing to pick up and carry on you'll be screwed.

3) Finally, make sure you have nearly sole control of the guild bank. That way when your guild does implode, you can sell off the spoils of the last few months/years for ridiculous sums of money and appease your conscience with a new laptop or a kickass stereo system for your car. (haha!)

The rest will come naturally.

Igni · 09/30/06, 8:03 AM

If thinking about it in the specific will help, we can use me as a case study. I'm thinking about starting a guild. I know why I want to start a guild. I've set the goals for the guild I want to establish. I know what kind of people I'm pursuing an idea for the loot system we'll use (which does not include bonuses for roles filled).

I have a recruiting strategy. I have a marketing strategy. I have a web site, even though I have no idea how to use it. I let my Ventrillo server lapse, but I can reactivate it at my leisure.

So, besides writing up these details, what else do I need to be doing? What else do I need to consider? I'm leaving out the details on purpose so we don't get too bogged down in my theortical guild and can focus on the generalities as it is likely that my guild will not be the last one ever to be founded.

Jaz · 09/30/06, 8:32 AM

If the initial membership of your guild is your friends, and then you begin recruiting, try to stamp out any clique based drama early.

Bekah · 09/30/06, 9:05 AM

Originally Posted by Igni

If thinking about it in the specific will help, we can use me as a case study. I'm thinking about starting a guild. I know why I want to start a guild. I've set the goals for the guild I want to establish. I know what kind of people I'm pursuing an idea for the loot system we'll use (which does not include bonuses for roles filled).

I have a recruiting strategy. I have a marketing strategy. I have a web site, even though I have no idea how to use it. I let my Ventrillo server lapse, but I can reactivate it at my leisure.

So, besides writing up these details, what else do I need to be doing? What else do I need to consider? I'm leaving out the details on purpose so we don't get too bogged down in my theortical guild and can focus on the generalities as it is likely that my guild will not be the last one ever to be founded.

1) Have the website and ventrillo server waiting for your new guild. The best way to get people started using them early is to have them available immediatly. Make sure that everyone you guild is capable of running the ventrillo software (our server isn't compatable with Mac's. At the moment we weed out mac users during trial periods since they can't get in- but origionally we tried to make exceptions. Don't. Yes it's inconvenient- but whatever.) and that everyone knows how to get to a guild website and how to use it. Have website registration one of the starting points if possible (make registration as simple as possible though) so that people have put a small commitment into the guild already and are familiar with and can access the website.

2) Have valid information on the forums (you DO have forums right? If not- chop chop. Get to it) in each of the subforums. Make sure it's relevant information and the start of your stickies. Solid forums categories we use:

-General- open access to all registered members, like this forum is on EJ. This gives a semi private place for other guilds to contact you and friends of the guild to chat with members. Ours is kinda dead, but sometimes we have visitors drop by and it's nice to ahve a home for them outside of the recruit forum.
-New Recruits and Potential Members- Stickies: About Rebirth Skywall (a blurb on our goals etc), Application Form (along with informaiton on how to get our required attunements done and basic rules), Recruitment Status (Just a short simple post with open classes)
-Request access- Could probably be rolled into the recruits forum, but we like consolidating them in one place.

-Guild Discussion- Stickies: Recent policy changes, The "Go To" List (a list of guild officers and what thier duties are). Everything from burning crusade information to tips about the best kinds of videocards. If people want to talk it over with thier guildmates, they come here.
-RGP Discussion- Stickies: Item Costs (and links to all items), The Newbies Guide to RGP (a very basic FAQ and run down of our looting policy), That's Mathematics! (A dissertation on the mathematics behind our points system- nothing that is critical to know, but lots of stuff that people can look into if they want advanced knowledge of the system), Nexus Crystal Request Policy (because the number of available nexus crystals changes based on our supply), Alt RGP policy. This forum serves as a place to get all the information about looting and is also a place for peopel to report errors on the dkp site (it happens) to ask questions and to get additional information. (What happens when the moon is waning and a dog howls at midnight while I bid on my 4th pair of bracers at downgrade....)
-Recruit Evaluation- Stickies: The Golden Rule (What is said in this forum stays in this forum. Details of what you are and are not allowed to talk to recruits about (essentially, you can suggest ways to improve preformance but don't go saying Suzie says you SUCK!), and what the consequences are for breaking the golden rule.), What you can do to help evaluate recruits (Go on instance runs with them, pick thier brains, talk to them etc). We copy applications over and as for member feedback from thier trial runs. We don't have a member vote system- officer selection of new recruits is the final word- but we do want feedback and use feedback to help make those judgements.

-Raids- Stickies: The "I cannot make a raid this week" Thread (absolutly essential imo for keeping track of who's going on vacation when, who's taking a night off for wife aggro etc), BWL Alt Approval Thread (players have to meet certain gearing standards to bring thier alts to BWL- this is the thread where they post thier stats and get approved), AQ Scepter Chain Thread (listing everyone on the head quest and thier current progression through it), The "Everything Crafted" Thread (NR, FrR, T3 mats lists), and whatever strategy we need illustrated and easily accessed. At the moment we're keeping C'Thun stickied for the new recruits, and it looks like someone forgot to take down Anub'Rekhan and sticky the Patchwerk/Heigan/Gluth threads. This is the forum where we theorycraft for upcoming encounters, spread strat pictures and post raid specific tips, tricks, and talks. We've got a thread about advanced potting strategies, how to farm SM for gravemoss, and signup sheets for all optional raids, etc etc etc.
-Class Discussion- No stickies, note in the forum description that all threads must post the class in the title. This is where people post new specs, ask about how to up thier efficiency, share class specific macros, and share interesting threads from places like EJ so thier not-quite-as-adventurous fellow classmates can easily find relevant theorycrafting.

-Officer discussion- Has sub forums for our 4 councils (we have a council system to split the workload) and is where we talk about all that super secret stuff like can we recruit one extra priest and pretend they're a druid. >.>
-Archive- The trash heap, essentially. Only the abuse council and website admins can access the trash heap and fish stuff out if it got lost. Otherwise it's considered gone into the void. (so... much... trash in there...)

3) Write down a few things for your own information.
-Goals. Make some broad and some specific. Rebirth's motto: We kill dragons. Our specifics deal with how we're a PvE guild with a focus on raiding at the 40 man level while keeping a good image on server, minimizing the drama, and progressing at a reasonable pace.
-Rules. This should take you a while. If you put it all out at the start and leave nice spots for changes you may need to make, you've got the start of a workable charter. This is our charter: http://www.rebirthed.com/Rebirthv2/i...d=22&Itemid=29
It's a very very long document at this point because it covers everything from loot rules for organized 5 man content runs, to how to make a formal complint against one (or more) of the officers, to the details of how alternates are treated for raiding content, to how officers are selected. At startup you should have something similar to the Leadership Positions and Responsibilities section and to the Membership Ranks section. That you should know before you start bringing additional people into the guild. Everything else can be added in later, but the more you start with, the more solid your foundation can be. The more you start with before you add in officers- the more basic rules you can make that please you without ruffling feathers. Type it up nice and pretty and put it somewhere out of the way on your website. You don't want to scare people off with an 18 page document, by the same token you want them to be able to access it when they have questions. It should be public so your apps can stumble on it if they want to. I've found that my guild members are happier being able to ask questions and having one of the officers answer them about points rather than facing down a policy book. They know it's there, but trust us to tell them if they ask on the fly. Main change policy is pretty important to have, but it's not something your average guild member is going to need to know.

Once you have your pretty little nest set up, with a solid marketing and recruitment strategy you're set to start recruiting.

Tuco · 09/30/06, 11:32 AM

I'm thinking about starting a guild. I know why I want to start a guild. I've set the goals for the guild I want to establish. I know what kind of people I'm pursuing an idea for the loot system we'll use (which does not include bonuses for roles filled).

I have a recruiting strategy. I have a marketing strategy. I have a web site, even though I have no idea how to use it. I let my Ventrillo server lapse, but I can reactivate it at my leisure.

Besides what Bekah has provided(which is good information), other stuff I'd say is dependent on the value of those details.

It's pretty difficult to build a raiding guild from the ground up, splitting off another guild and joining smaller guilds that want to raid can be good if it works out(how my WoW guild was formed two years ago, and how a different guild of mine was formed 6 years ago, both of which are going strong today).

saramin · 09/30/06, 11:56 AM

I was toying with dissecting Bekah's post in piecemeal but decided against it on grounds of being cowed by the cyclopean enormity of her impending and doubtless well-articulated response.

I kid. :wub:

Regardless, I think the above is solid advice if you're looking solely into the administrative framework that comes with manhandling a group of some sixty simians all pressing individual demands. The main issue you're going to have as a new guild on an established realm is a lack of brand recognition. To not mince words: you're hawking a product. There's very little of the romantic about it. Your initial pool of applicants will be thin and will certainly be flawed. Most will be the dregs, the forum warriors who still pug Strat and don't know the str->dps conversion ratio. They will not be members of high-tier guilds for whatever reason and won't be part of tight-knit clans who have some other draw not based on progression. Find the common link, be it hierarchal stability or pvp competence or just a like-minded group who've grown beyond Furor-ridden emo rage. Sell the vision.

A guild is a more tenuous thing than people realize, with most real permanence based on ephemerals of character. Everything is in who you trust to share your time with. Recruit with that in mind. Above all else, look for applicants who have that admirably silent trait of being willing to put education ahead of ego or clique 'justice.' There is no doubt in my mind that the retention and harmony (heh) of guilds like EJ arises from the relative depth and complexity of their members. You can post a wholly random thread about beer connoisseurship and people will admit to having trawled the entirety of the States sampling alcohol. Many have wives, most have degrees. Learn to see past paper crane applicants who tailor generic carbon-copy applicantion that try too hard to not offend or try too little to impress. Look for character.

Don't accept anyone you otherwise would not based on progression necessity, skewed class ratios or a need for a "core" group of members. Don't accept anyone who is either unwilling to learn or unable to prove what they believe with math. Either/or.

Realize that you're expendable and should be expendable. You're not the intermediary between crystalized Gods and their mortal-endowed nectar, doled out only to the true prophet. Your role is largely that of a middle manager; you keep the monkeys from throwing feces and hitting each other in the head. You must introduce redundancies into the subordinates below you such that the only thing preventing a "hey, let's make a better splinter guild!" vent mutiny is not just bureaucracy holding members in thrall. Prove yourself worthy of loyalty without taking it for granted and your officers won't just stick around because you're the best way of hedging their bets. They should have skin in the game and should be earnest in doing so.

Granted, this all reads like the social science papers everyone fakes their way through in college while suppressing a gag reflex. But without knowing particulars it's as good as it gets. To conclude: don't craft a congregation. Craft a home.

Edit: There's a handy chance you're fucked proper if you start now, however noble your intentions. TBC in two months is going to severly hamper any guild-related efforts. I would very much so recommend waiting until there's fresh blood come November.

Kettle · 09/30/06, 2:03 PM

I think the first thing to bear in mind is that to run a sucessful guild can be extremely hard work.

It's almost like a second job for me and one that you don't get paid for to boot.

Many don't realise this. You can see it with each and every boom and bust zerg guild that spam for members and are gone within a month.

My first piece of advice ~ don't do it alone. If you have a small group of players that have simillar ideas and ideals about what a guild is and should be about, then it makes things a lot easier.

Secondly, stick with it. You'll have bad times, we all do.

If you're on a fresh server, half your new guild will race to sixy, three or four of those will burn out and quit, the rest will meander up to sixty over a few more weeks. You'll get there eventually with enough people to run two scholo's with and think 'what the fuck do we do now?'. Don't give up, nothing comes on a plate. Put yourselves about, let people know that you're a friendly bunch and gradually people will gravitate toward you. If you've brought on board good guys, they'll be your fingertips out there, pugging away and potentially bringing in new folk.

Start a guild/player networking channel on your server. Whenever you or your members find people that you like, invite them to it. Makes for a good source of people to party with and often eventually new friends and guildmembers.

Always have a goal. That first goal might be to start ZG. You might struggle to get 20 people, but once people know that you're running something in an organised way (more in a sec), it makes people notice.

Let people know what you're up to. Give your website a front page, tell people your news without being a realm forum nob.

Again, once you reach a goal, set a new one. Find out what it is that your members most want to do, then just start to plan it. Let people know exactly what you and they have to do together to move forwards.

Put things in place that you might not even be near using yet, DKP, raid rules etc.

Get to know your members and what they're good at. Somebody's a web designer? Ruthlessly take advantage of it and get them to build you a site. Get people involved!

Don't try to do everything by yourself! Make sure you have good people in officer positions and make sure each of those has a role that people can see they are actually doing something. Don't create an us and them situation by having people doing sod all in officer positions.

Don't hide in officer chat!

Have a clear guidline about the conduct of the members of your guild, make sure everyone that joins has read it and agrees. If someone's being a wanker, then you can pull them up on it.

Don't burn yourself out. If something's pissing you off or tiring you out, don't let it lie ~ identify it and deal with it.

Be prepared that much of your actual play time might be taken up with being in /tell hell, chasing people, dealing with recruiting and a bazillion other things that will crop up. If sitting on the bank in Orgrimmar answering tells for an hour as soon as you log on isn't your thing, being a GM might not be for you.

Be all knowing. Read up, be it on other classes that you haven't played or encounters that you haven't faced. It'll help you a lot in the long run.

There's a million other things I could put down here, but you'll learn much purely through experience. Lastly I'll just reitterate ~ don't give up. If you have good people in your guild and you're enjoying your playtime, things will eventually happen.

Going from being a guild of 15, never having spammed or advertised for members to having taken down the twin emps and starting on Naxx is one of the most satisfying things that I've done.

Maybe I should get out more.

All the best!

Igni · 09/30/06, 4:09 PM

Bekah, thank you for your well-written post. Your charter is exactly what I was hoping for as it will allow me to see what areas I might have not yet thought through. Thank you also for noting which parts I'd need up front and which you believe I can fill in later. How large is Rebirth? Do you have much turn-over? And finally, are you a fellow shadow priest?

Saramin, I've got the vision thing down :). And the release of TBC is what I'm banking on actually. As for my product, I've got me, my values and that vision thing.

I was the first and only PvP raid leader on Bleeding Hollow Alliance side about a year ago. Defiantly independent, I ran cross-guild AVs and ABs all day everyday on my own Ventrillo server. Guildless, I played no favorites, basing on skill and ability to work in a group. A lot of those people went on to become Grand Marshals as well as friends. Two even lead organized groups today, desperately searching for actual competition. And I'm pretty sure many of them, eight maybe as many as twelve, would be willing to write a few words of recommendation in a thread I'll start on the realm forums. Add to their commentary, a handful to maybe another dozen other people willing to say nice things about me once they see the thread going. That should go a long ways to establishing myself as a strong raid leader and decent person.

Combine this with a clear vision: a PvP guild focused on fielding teams that finish in the top ten of each PvP bracket and that sees PvE-ing and making money as simply means to that end. And finally, communicate that maintaining mutual respect, community and fun as the guild's foundation will be at the forefront of my mind. Those last three are my values and the reason why I want to found a guild; I've seen them so often unachieved, ignored or sacrificed in the name of PvE advancement and I want to see if I can do better. I believe PvP will allow me to do this: a) loot is not sum-zero, b) every battleground brings the possibility for a new challenge, and c) responsibility for victories and losses are shared each and every time.

I'll communicate my awareness of problems that come up during a guild's lifecycle. For example, according to several threads on these boards, what has dragged down a lot of guilds is a core carrying deadweight (#14); if you're blessed with strong opposition, PvP allows you to identify quickly who needs coaching.* I'll communicate in detail the loot system and how we'll use a zero-sum dkp system with caps per dungeon to avoid the newbie unfriendliness Maynard discusses in his thread since recruits are the lifeblood as guild's will always experience uncontrollable attrition. I'll explain the reason why we'll only admit people who have a love for PvP is because people with different priorities can only divide one's house (#6).

And, most importantly, I'll communicate that while I value skill, I understand that a guild needs a soul. Building a guild based entirely on the promise of success works great - right up until you start failing (#19)or the parameters change. EJ went almost two months between boss kills; I'm willing to bet people kept showing up raid day after raid day, armor repaired, loaded with consumables ready to give it yet another try. Such a dry spell might have broken a mercenary guild. Souls are such a fleeting thing to pin down, however. I was tossing around an idea titling my marketing post with "Recruiting mature, competitive, intelligent PvPers and their loved ones" or accepting applications for up to three people as an indivisible group to see if that will add stability and make the guild something people want to make work. Not sure whether that's the way to go but that's why I'm here looking for answers.

As for recruiting Saramin, we're on the same wavelength. Look for mature, competitive and intelligent people (#9). By not trying to become the top PvE guild, I can focus on recruiting the right people and not worry whether they're also the right class. I can recruit Horde since good people are good people and they have the time to level if they're willing to reroll. I'm going to market my vision to all the original launch, East Coast PvP servers in hopes of reaching out to those like me who don't simply want to farm honor. Come to think of it, I'll also advertise to all the new PvP servers since the people there are a) wanted a good PvP experience badly enough to start new and b) their mains aren't on transfer cooldown since you can't transfer to new PvP realms for four to six months. I intend to troll mmorpg.com on the forums for any PvP heavy MMOs about to be released. For anyone who loves PvP and doesn't require an FPS, the Arena system will provide it especially since being able to fight people from your own faction in Arenas will reduce wait times dramatically.

As for my timing, I thought about waiting until after the expansion. Guilds are likely to start blowing up in the weeks and months after the expansion because of the lower raiding cap. Additionally, innumerable people will be reactivating their accounts to see what the expansion is like. However, I'm thinking I can hedge my bets. Once I have everything written up and the aforementioned recommendations posted, I can start now, go cross-server with advertising making it clear that I'll be accepting applications for a two or three week window without inviting anyone. See how many people apply, converse with them about their interests, answer any questions they have about me. I even have an idea (#6) on how to lower risk for possible applicants who might be interested in joining me but don't want to do the 6-month cooldown transfer blind. Then, if I feel I have the critical mass, I'll move forward. If I don't, I can postpone it until after the expansion launch off with nothing but a lot of my time wasted and only a little bit of everyone else's.

While this is the the first written articulation of ideas for my guild, it should be obvious I've been thinking about it for a while. Thank goodness Gurgthock writes as well as he leads.

*Up until a week or two ago, I would have said removal, but these threads and a conversation with a friend have persuaded me that you should focus on the quality of people first and their productivity second. EJ advocates and practices coaching - which leads to great threads about beer - while Death and Taxes advocates ruthless efficiency and skill - which leads to game firsts. I'll take the beer.

Zagzil · 09/30/06, 4:14 PM

Originally Posted by Igni

EJ advocates and practices coaching - which leads to great threads about beer - while Death and Taxes advocates ruthless efficiency and skill - which leads to game firsts. I'll take the beer.

Well that's quite a comparison.

Igni · 09/30/06, 4:20 PM

Originally Posted by Kettle

There's a million other things I could put down here, but you'll learn much purely through experience.

I have no desire to reinvent the wheel. If you have any more advice to share, I'm eager to hear it. But I do appreciate the advice so far.

Regarding your point about "tell hell", how much of that can be transferred to a forum? Is requiring people to post their grievances on the guild forum unrealistic? Not that I'm trying to brush them off, far from it. But making people post their grievances will a) force them to think through their issue by articulating it and b) allow me to thoughtfully reply to it from work (i.e. not during game time). Or will this simply lead to problems festering because they won't take the time to write up their post until they are angry enough to write dramatic prose or just leave quietly?

On one hand, someone's idea of an emergency might not be my idea of an emergency. On the other, I'm all for open communications as I'm quite capable of explaining my rationale for my actions and quite capable of appreciating criticism and feedback. I'd certainly not want to be the OP - I am by no means criticising Oneiros, just learning from his experience - from the thread above who could only wonder why everyone left. However, he likely did bust his hump answering tell hell for five or six months and despite that, didn't see hint or sign of several imminent departures nor understand why they left after the fact.

How do you open lines of communication for serious give and take without opening the floodgates for trivial communications? Part of that is from recruiting which I'm obviously giving thought to. Part of that will come from a smaller raid cap and therefore a smaller overall guild. Part of that will come from doing fifteen man AB raids, thereby becoming more accessible and perhaps approachable by people. Part of that will come from me eventually removing myself from the role as raid leader and instead focusing on a) recruiting, b) community relations and c) discipline/coaching. Part of that may come from having an Emergency Issues board that I treat as an inviolate area where people should feel free to post well-thought out issues, promise to respond thoughtfully (though not necessarily admit fault or feel compelled to change immediately) within 24 hours and deal harshly with anyone who trivializes the forum.

That last one is an idea I just came up with now and strikes me as a low-cost measure - the time to set up one extra forum and one sticky - that could be part of a defense-in-depth against being blind-sided by guild-killing issues.

Igni · 09/30/06, 4:22 PM

Originally Posted by Zagzil

Well that's quite a comparison.

I intended it as high praise. If it doesn't communicate that, let me know and I'll re-examine the wording.

• Lanky · 09/30/06, 5:47 PM

Originally Posted by Igni

Originally Posted by Zagzil

Well that's quite a comparison.

I intended it as high praise. If it doesn't communicate that, let me know and I'll re-examine the wording.

Nah its good. Careful or Xi will eat your face though.
Also Beer >>> Ruthless Efficiency fo sho.

Heck, a good guild name would be "Beer!", keeps you close to your roots.
(I think I am going to take my own advice, excuse me.)

Dakous · 09/30/06, 6:48 PM

Originally Posted by Igni

What are the right and wrong reasons to be starting a guild?

Groucho Marx often said, "I wouldn't be a member of any club that'd have me."

What questions should he be prepared to answer for others?

I've seen guilds lead by car salesmen, guilds lead by quarterbacks, and guilds lead by fools. I'm terribly curious how top guild leaders would rate themselves as teachers.

Not drill instructors, but bona fide teachers. You know, give a man a fish, tonight he eats, teach a man to fish, he never goes hungry.

What should he be prepared to do?

Smart fellow, often quoted (and, I feel, misconstrued) gave pretty good advice about this - "He who would be master must serve even the least." At least, that's what I remember it to be, but I'm sure over time and the languages it may be a little misplaced...

What are the pitfalls that threaten his success?

Having seen a lot of guilds fail, I've yet to see one fail that wasn't, through sin of omission or comission, the failure of the guild master. So he himself, I think, would be the major threat.

Vanity is my favorite sin.

Kazanir · 09/30/06, 7:09 PM

Originally Posted by Dakous

You know, give a man a fish, tonight he eats, teach a man to fish, he never goes hungry.

I strongly prefer this one: "If you light a man a fire, he'll be warm for a day. If you light a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."

Anias · 09/30/06, 7:54 PM

If this thread turns out well, one of the mods might consider crosslinking it on the guild relations forum. It has potential I think.

The most important resource a guild master has is time, measured either as attention, or research, or simple hanging out. If you want to be a successful guild leader, you are committing to giving quite a bit of your personal time to the guild. You give of yourself to your guild, and hopefully they come through for you. I'm Rebirth's guild leader. I recieved that position mostly by failing to say Not It! fast enough in our officer chat when we made the change over from a multi-game clan to a wow pve guild. Everyone else stepped back and I found myself nominated. I was completely clueless (I didn't run screaming) about how much responsibility I'd accepted. By the same token, I think most guild leaders don't really look at how large their responsibility is. I don't view being guild leader for Rebirth as a testament to my skill and cunning, quite the opposite in fact. I view it as something I do to maintain the guild I love, even though I was snookered. Similiarly, some of the best members of Rebirth have led successful raiding guilds, and do quite a bit to help out because they feel the same way, though without the snookering. I understand what Xi is talking about, because I could probably step down and the guild would function. There are enough leader types in guild to make sure that anything that had to get done would get done.

When it comes down to it, no guild that shares a common goal and culture of success _needs_ a guild leader. We can, however, make quite a bit of difference. There is a world of room between "succeeds because we respond to contingencies well" and "succeeds because there are never any unforseen contingencies". Quite a bit of the job I do is planning ahead, and working out solutions to problems before they occur. At the moment? Looking at TBC, determining what our options are, and determining what we do in each case is my current focus. I'd say our officership has 80% of the available options worked out. We know what we'll do if the best content at 70 are exclusively raid content and rewards ilvl 90 epics (for instance) and what we'll do if the best content at 70 is divided between arena and raid, and what we'll do if the best content at 70 is multiple raid instances of varying sizes. There's not going to be any upheaval or running in circles, and that's a good thing. All of this takes time. I'd much rather be leveling an alt than juggling statistics and growth curves, but I'd also rather be playing when the burning crusade drops than running around trying to hold it all together. Part of that guild leader tag is putting the time in ahead of the problem so that the problem never happens. Our loot system took a solid two months to design, because we were nailing down "what ifs" and working out the math for our pricing model. It's been very successful, with very little downsides, and I've been asked "what took you so long to design this, nothing goes wrong!". Yeah, that was a headdesk moment, although I was smiling.

While all of this forward planning is going on, You still have to find time to be online to answer questions, mediate disputes, mentor where applicable, and help find mentors for others You don't feel comfortable teaching. At this point, I've learned quite a bit about the game. Not because I want to feel super-exceptional-nifty, but because I want to be able to answer questions with a more real response than, you should google that. You need to find people who are willing to learn about the game, and can pass that information along. Every guild has a strong incentive to develope good teaching habits, because you will consistently have a disparity of skill in your membership, so you gain from every time someone teaches another person a nice trick. I'd say DT expects their members to be active students of the game, rather than saying they simply cut anyone who's skill isn't up to par. It's a quaint, and often quoted idea that you simply cut the trash players. The truth of the matter is that while you do cut the trash, most successful guilds have a lower population of trash simply because so much effort is put into improving them. It's often not acknowledged as such, but we do a fair bit of teaching.

So you have time devoted to future problems, and time devoted to improving the current state of the guild. Beyond that you also have time devoted to actually playing, and you don't get to miss a bunch of days, or people will worry. Let's talk about that for a moment. One of the unrealized duties you accept when becoming guild leader is "figurehead" duty. You need to be visible, and visibly having fun, quite a bit of the time. Beyond the benefits of making you accessible to your guild so they can bounce questions off you (and you'll appreciate the feedback or early warnings) you improve morale simply by being there and being upbeat. Your guild will farm more, wipe more, succeed more, simply because you are there. This has nothing to do with your personal merit, and everything to do with having the mighty "guild leader of such and so" as your title. It's bizzarre, but seems to be true in my experience. The downside to this - when you're not there, people will not perform as well, and if you miss enough days, perception may change to "why are we being so bad"? So you have a responsibility to stick the "guild leader" tag on someone who will make a lot of days, so you can use that increased performance while around motivator to your advantage.

That's what you're getting into. If you're still sure you're willing to be the 'guild leader', then my best advice to you would be the following:

1 - Work out exactly what you want your guild to do. Nail it down, in a well written sentence or two, and don't be shy about it. You do not want to recruit anyone who doesn't fully agree with that sentence. Pay attention to word choice, because there's a world of difference between "We want to be the first guild to kill dragons" and "We want to be the first server to kill dragons" and "We want to be the first alliance to kill dragons" and "We want to kill dragons". Each means something different, and you need to know which you want. You also need to accept that there is going to be a very long time between when you write down your goal, and whe you look back and say "hey we got there".

2 - Make some organizational decisions. You can do this now, or after you recruit some officers, but there's a long list of basic organizational stuff that you need to nail down. At a minimum, a way to communicate outside of wow, and a basic sketch of your guild size/leadership structure are required. The more time you put in here, the less time you'll have to put in later. By the same token, be willing to adjust this as required.

3 - Once you know who you want to be, find other people who want to be that too. This never stops. You will always be recruiting. Accept that now. People are mutable, and we all change as we age. You will always need to be looking for new people, because you cannot expect all of your old recruits to stay. Ideally you'd recruit to 56 people, they'd never quit, you'd raid with them until you all died in your chairs. That doesn't happen, so don't ever think "Well just two more people and I'm done recruiting". You are never done recruiting. Plan and market accordingly.

4 - You now have some people, and some of them might even be officer-types. If you have some officers, delegate clearly and be sure to be supportive. Odds are you've suckered them, so try not to gloat. Work out the last of your organizational stuff now, and be as public as you can about it. You do not want to recruit people who don't fit into the culture you're trying to build. You cannot be the guild for everyman. Don't try. Remember your goal from up above and focus on it.

5 - There's probably an organized event or two you should be progressing towards. Start scheduling them. Even if you don't succeed - a failed day, if you stay upbeat about it, tells you what you need. "Well we didn't make ZG today, guess we need to find more warriors, everyone go pug and find us some please" is incredibly good for the guilld, even if it's disapointing not to have made your goal. The critical component here is to be upbeat about it. As long as you can phrase the outcome as a positive one, that's what people will come away from the game feeling.

6 - Keep yourself involved. It's very tempting to abstain from the day to day stuff, but you have to be there and accessible. It's just as important that you go to uldaman, as it is that you work on that paragraph in the rules about dkp on odd sundays.

7 - Lastly, know when you're not having fun anymore. This one's a hard one, but it's really important. If you're not having fun with the game - your friends (aka guildmembers) will realize it. Don't be the last one to figure it out. If you're just going through the motions - take a break and delegate. Nothing kills a guild faster than a guild leader loathing the game. If you're really interested in running a successful guild - keep an eye on your own morale too. Having fun is important.

Obviously I could write a book on this, but that's what springs to mind at the moment.

• Lanky · 09/30/06, 8:05 PM

@ Anias: That post is damn good. Don't ever lose your pedagogical approach ( I doubt you could now), it does indeed separate a good guild (leader) from a bad. By extension, and you seem to recognize this, never forget to continue learning from others as they learn from you. I've seen some damn good GM's "fall" into the trap of "knowing too much" about this videogame. Anyways, kudos on the post.

Anias · 09/30/06, 8:08 PM

*Laugh*

I learned how to bake salmon with lemons from a guildmate tuesday.

As the above poster mentioned, Beer is often > Ragnaros et all.

Trindade · 09/30/06, 9:21 PM

Originally Posted by Igni

What questions should the future have asked himself? What are the right and wrong reasons to be starting a guild? What questions should he be prepared to answer for others? What should he be prepared to do? What can he expect? How should he or she spend his first 45 days? What are the pitfalls that threaten his success?

Theorycraft backed up with your reasoning is welcome. Actual experience would be invaluable.

The first thing you need to ask yourself is "why am I forming this guild?"

If you are forming it because your ego could use the help, forget it; don't bother. What you need to do is assess the other guilds on the server. What is your guild going to do that they are not? How is your guild going to be different? Why is it that you don't want to join the other guilds? If your guild is not in some significant way different to another guild, then you will find, as Johnny come lately, that you will be the poor man's version of that guild forevermore.

I formed <Time> a while ago. We've lead our server's raid progression from MC right up to now in Naxx.

My reason for forming the guild was basically that I'd rolled on the server, and decided not to join any of the early zerg guilds, and instead fo wait and see while levelling and group with numerous people from the different guilds, then decide which one to join. What became clear to me was that none of them had very good leadership/good raid culture, and was not going to be what I was looking for (one of those early days guilds is still around, but they have unbelievable amounts of loot drama and are currently dying a slow death).

So once you've found your marketing niche for recruiting, you need to decide how you approach people with the guild concept. Recruiting the right people is the #1 thing that will make your guild work. Your officers are the #2 thing. How freely you trust people is the #3 thing. The fourth thing is, since you are starting your guild from the ground up, just create your DKP system and rules. Do not discuss this with your membership in early days; have it there before they join. Debate it with your first set of officers at most.

I'll explain :)

#1 - You need solid people to achieve whatever it is your guild wants to do. If you want to be a raiding guild, having casual nancies that whine when you raid more than 2 days a week because they fall behind on DKP is not going to help. Select people carefully. If it's a raid guild, make sure they can raid the hours you want and that they actually have a clue about the game.
Here were my rules of thumb for recruiting:
- No whores. That is, you will find a number of women who wave their e-pussy around to get what they want. They'll say all sorts of sexual stuff, and then manipulate guys to do whatever they want. They'll have a legion of e-boyfriends. They'll tear your guild apart. Stay the hell away from this kind of woman. Women in your guild are good, but this specific type is awful.
- Keep people in the same age range. For us, we're 20-30. It works well. A few people older, a few people younger, but bang on that age range. Generally younger people find it hard to fit in, same with older folk. We've lost people for that reason. If you are a teenager, recruit teenagers. if you are older, recruit older people. Your guild will be more likely to click with if this is adhered to. Get 40 people of the same age, watch them form a bunch of sub-groups with their different interests. Get 40 people from four different age ranges, you will find quite a few people left out in the cold because they don't fit into any of the sub-groups.
- Husband/wife, boyfriend/girlfriend, brother/brother, cousin/cousin pairings - you want these people. Couples and families will be the bedrock of your drama free guild. If one couple makes friends with another couple, and they like spending time together every night, those people will never leave. They'll enjoy the friendships too much. People will keep playing if their rl associates are still in the game.
- Egomaniacs. Identify them early on in the recruitment process, cut them asap.
- People who are overly argumentatitive. Don't let the recruiting process end successfully for them. They'll argue with you for the sake of arguing and because they're just disagreeable. End their recruiting process prematurely and don't bother.
Side note: I find that a sizeable chunk of the 'disagreeable' people on alliance play dwarf priests. It's taken me almost a year to find a few dwarf priests that are actually decent people. Beware the pathological liars and social outcasts who play a class/race with a unique ability to mask their social defects.

#2 - Your officers will end up doing more work than other people. At first, you'll need to do a lot yourself. Don't try to delegate too early. Keep a hold of some of the important stuff; it's gonna be shaky times at first, and there's gonna be some initial churn. You don't really know who's gonna be sticking around, and having someone start a role and then stop is really difficult.
- Keep control of the guild bank initially
- Keep control of recruiting
- Give someone else raid leadership wherever possible. If you're an excellent raid leader, well, ok then, you do it.
- Make someone else MT (I started out as OT, then had to MT when our MT quit halfway through AQ, and have finally gotten another warrior in as MT again)
- Make someone else do loot, but audit the DKP constantly to make sure nothing funny is happening. You can relax this later.
For me, I started the guild and was running recruiting + bank + raid leading early on. It was tough. But it was worth it because of officer churn. This ties into #3...

#3 Let's face it, it's the internet. People can say a whole bunch of stuff, and in the end it turns out they're full of manure. You really have no way of knowing if someone is on the level. Don't be trusting core elements of your guild to someone you don't know. For me, I started up, made the people I had levelled with my officers, then watched them burn out as I made each one an officer. It was an interesting experience. I suggest you get things going, then on your forums make a post "Officer positions available - [whatever position you are needing filled]".
Don't get people you have doubts about to be officers.
Don't get people you don't like to be officers.
Don't get people who aren't 100% in line with the guild mould to be officers.
e.g.: If you're a raid guild, your officers better damn well have 95%+ attendance. If they're 80% guys, trust me, burn out comin when you promote them... even if they don't have to do all that much.
Once you have good people in place, yes, can start delegating. Give up the bank to someone as soon as you find someone you can trust for it (don't advertise for this one, just choose someone. The right person will have strong reservations about how it will be managed and monitored and will ask questions along those veins when you talk to them.
The right person will be concerned about efficient practises and ways to keep the bank in the black; you'll find them outside of raids logged on bank toons more than their own). Keep a reserve on your own account though, just incase. Make the reserve sizeable; you want it on another toon you never touch. It's just there for 'well, crap, soandso just stole our bank. At least we can continue on with this though'. It's not to be used as a personal repairs fund, ever.
Give up as many responsibilities you can, and give them to different people. Your officers should be one trick ponies. Don't make your bank officer do dkp, or your dkp officer do recruiting, or your raid leaders do bank. Segmented roles, and multiple people holding same responsibilities is the way to go (so you want two dkp officers, two raid officers, two bank officers, etc).

#4 - If you ask your new guild "what dkp system should we use", you can expect to get 40 different replies. What's going to happen is that everyone in the guild will simply say whatever system they are happy with that they used before, and because people hate change, they'll argue till they're blue in the face for it. People are generally apprehensive about things they don't know. I saw this occur in a couple of new guilds I joined briefly while levelling on Khaz.
So what I did was basically put together a system with a stated set of aims, then wrote down all of the mechanics for it, and posted it. I said if people were unhappy they could comment on specific aspects of the system. So, they did, and we used my initial post as a base and then touched it up and moulded it from people's feedback. The result has been a loot system that's been relatively drama free. The only drama we've ever had is from people who didn't understand the rules so making an error; always resolved with a RTFM tell.

Finally, this is more advice for once you're up and running, be fair and consistent. It's unbelievably important. People don't mind when you say no to them, as long as they can see it happening consistently with others too. They might get upset at first, but if you're always rational and impartial, they'll always respect your decisions. Be consistent, be impartial, be fair.

Also, be mindful of the fact that your guild will be existing due to a number of smaller friendships that will form. You will have no idea who is friends with who. Try not to kick people out. Try to resolve problems without it. When recruiting, set up extensively long trial periods where people wear the tag and you are exposed to their personalities. If they are douche bags who get under your skin, don't wait, fail them. Kick them before they form friendships and it bcomes too hard to remove them.

My experience is that if you kick someone with a bunch of friends, those people will think "well, crap, that could happen to me now".... and they'll be insecure. Some of them might even quit. Try not to kick people; when you have to, make sure you write down every single detail of what lead to it occurring. You will need to kick people sometimes, but where you can avoid it, do so.

Hope all this helps.

Bekah · 09/30/06, 11:38 PM

Originally Posted by Igni

Bekah, thank you for your well-written post. Your charter is exactly what I was hoping for as it will allow me to see what areas I might have not yet thought through. Thank you also for noting which parts I'd need up front and which you believe I can fill in later. How large is Rebirth? Do you have much turn-over? And finally, are you a fellow shadow priest?

oOo you shouldn't get me started on statistics, I'm in the middle of a very lengthy evaluation of our membership size, turnover, retention, etc. heheh.
Rebirth has maintained a guild size of 56+-5 for 15 months. We're disgustingly stable atm.
We have a turnover of approx 5 members per month (skewed slightly up by startup trash and a very bad incident last January regarding linen farming.. but that's another matter) and on average recruit just over 5 members/month, although our recruitment tends to follow an 8/2/8/2 pattern. (mostly due to giving the recruitment folks a breather between waves of recruitment, and the new recruits a chance to settle in- attrition is fairy stable). Hopefully I'll have this statistics thing done soon and I'm compiling it into a post, so expect more detail in a few days or weeks depending on how much free time I have for data tracking lol.

The vast vast majority of our attrition is to people leaving the game entirely or being let go due to personality or raiding issues (we have a fairly low tolerance for asshattery recently and have been slowly cleaning out some of our troublemakers). We're the top guild on Skywall, and I can't honestly remember the last time someone walked away from us by choice to join another raid guild on server, although some have retired from raiding entirely and joined PvP guilds or social guilds. We did have 2 members leave to transfer to new servers when the transfer program went live, one of which is happily raiding in a guild more progressed than us (Hi Dem hehe.) and the other seems to have quit the game or stepped out of raiding.

Considering all members old and current, the mean length of the stay in the guild is 6.37 months with a standard deviation of 4.1.

You could call me shadow by heart, holy by profession. =)

Originally Posted by Igni

Regarding your point about "tell hell", how much of that can be transferred to a forum? Is requiring people to post their grievances on the guild forum unrealistic? Not that I'm trying to brush them off, far from it. But making people post their grievances will a) force them to think through their issue by articulating it and b) allow me to thoughtfully reply to it from work (i.e. not during game time). Or will this simply lead to problems festering because they won't take the time to write up their post until their angry enough to write dramatic prose?

Yes and no. The vast majority of the time tell hell will be necessary as it's the little shit that people want and need help for and with. People with a simple question about rules... people who want to know what order the upcoming bosses are going to be approached, people letting you know that there is a world boss up, people letting you know that there WAS a world boss up and So and So guild got it. People letting you know that there was a fight in a class channel... it's a lot of people bringing you little tidbits of informaiton presented as little offerings and expecting a friendly acknowledgement and possibly a discussion about your thoughts on the issue. Example- if another guild got the world boss, they might want to approach you with a little idea on how we could get to them first. If there was a fight, someone approaching you with thier thoughts on how to keep it form happening again or wanting reassurance that you will take thier side if it does happen again.

The people you CAN brush to the forums reasonably are the ones who are throwing temper tantrums in guild chat (Tell them to take it to the forums and if they don't- mute them. Make guild chat a relitivly happy and safe place for all of your members). The people who have big proposals can also be moved to the forums. People with new strategies for boss encounters. People who just want to talk can be put off or pointed towards the forums.

If you turn away all of what I like to term as the "small offerings" though, you'll be less approachable in general. One of the things I like best about my guilds officership is that we're divided into 4 councils so, technically, we only have to deal with our specialization of concerns. I'm abuse/itemization, as an example. I do a lot of minor mediation and breaking up fights and a lot of the dirty work of letting a player go when they've crossed the line from acceptable to unacceptable behavior. I also take care of introducing new players to the dkp system, master looting, and keeping track of what's on the horizion so I'm ready for whatever loot issues we'll have in the expansion. I'm generally well versed in what my council is doing at any given time and Anias (the guildleader) can redirect any concerns with loot or petty squabbles my way if he doesn't want to hear it out. I'm also one of the guild typists do to (as you can surely tell by now) my inability to post anything short of a book with far more information than anyone ever thought they'd need. When we're there, the guild leader can take a break from tell hell by scattering folks towards the right officers. =)

Igni · 10/01/06, 12:45 AM

Originally Posted by Dakous

Smart fellow, often quoted (and, I feel, misconstrued) gave pretty good advice about this - "He who would be master must serve even the least." At least, that's what I remember it to be, but I'm sure over time and the languages it may be a little misplaced...

Interestingly enough I was thinking about guild hierarchy and thought about giving myself title "Servant" and the officers the title of "King." While it struck me as too unorthodox, too subtle and too open to misinterpretation, the sentiment did occur to me.

Originally Posted by Dakous

Having seen a lot of guilds fail, I've yet to see one fail that wasn't, through sin of omission or comission, the failure of the guild master. So he himself, I think, would be the major threat.

For better, for worse, I agree. Omission is the one I'm working on avoiding here.

Originally Posted by Dakous

Vanity is my favorite sin.

Aw hell, I'm a fan of all seven... but right now, I'm gonna have to go with Wrath.

Igni · 10/01/06, 2:49 AM

Thank you Anias for taking the time to share your experiences.

Originally Posted by Anias

Looking at TBC, determining what our options are, and determining what we do in each case is my current focus. I'd say our officership has 80% of the available options worked out.

Would you be willing to share the scenarios you've come up with while you've been examining your TBC options? Many people have admitted to putting their heads in the sand regarding the coming tectonic shifts and knowing what might be coming would allow us all to plan better.

Originally Posted by Anias

It's a quaint, and often quoted idea that you simply cut the trash players. The truth of the matter is that while you do cut the trash, most successful guilds have a lower population of trash simply because so much effort is put into improving them. It's often not acknowledged as such, but we do a fair bit of teaching.

It certainly is and up until recently, I thought that was the way I'd address everything. However, server transfers have exposed the downside to the mercenary approach.

Teaching was not something I forsaw doing as recently as a week ago; likewise "willingness to learn" was not a trait I knew was important to look for. Worse yet, I've held a certain amount of disdain for people who believed they know other people's classes better than they know them; this is perhaps because I've had the luxury of working with some genuinely intelligent people. I've been learning about other classes to determine better ways to kill them come Arenas, not because I expected to teach other people how to play their classes. Sunder armor isn't the best way to hold aggro as main tank? How many other myths are out there parading as common sense or inviolate truths? How many threads about Hunter and Rogue DPS on this forum have I ignored but will now have to read? It's daunting, to say the least.

Originally Posted by Anias

One of the unrealized duties you accept when becoming guild leader is "figurehead" duty. You need to be visible, and visibly having fun, quite a bit of the time.

This is another piece of advice that is useful, but not common knowledge. I think Digo put it best (#58) when he said "Enthusiasm. Learn to fake it and you've got it made."

Originally Posted by Anias

If you have some officers, delegate clearly and be sure to be supportive. Odds are you've suckered them, so try not to gloat.

How sarcastic are you being here? And how sarcastic were you in the beginning when you said that you were made guild-master because you didn't realize everyone else was going to take a step back? At least for me, as the founder, I know what I'm getting myself into by asking all the questions I'm asking. Further, I can aspire to one day being superfluous once I establish the "culture of success" you mention in your second paragraph.

I ask because I've got to imagine that people who have both a) the competence to lead and b) the willingness to do so freely and benevolently is amazingly slim. Am I wrong and is it in fact common? Were the officers you have a result of your previous existence as a multi-game clan? Do people just step up when it's needed for them to do so? Do you as a guildmaster first establish stability and then maintain it long enough to attract others by their nature maintain stability?

All the friends I'm planning to ask to post recommendations for me are either no longer playing, loyal members of their own guilds or officers of their own guilds. Combine that experience with a landscape littered with the remains of shattered guilds and I'm left to wonder. This is perhaps the most significant obstacle I see and I've actually built the plans for my theoretical guild around it. This is why I came up with my now abandoned idea of compensating raid officers with additional dkp.

It is also why I've purposefully chosen PvP as an objective instead of PvE. The minimum size you're required to have in the expansion is still thirty to forty people if you want to be raid-capable. This is unmanagable for one person and there's no guarantee I'll be able to find the help/officers I'd need. With the Arena, you can find things to do with a group as small as two.

Going off on a tangent, perhaps that's why they're implementing Arenas with such small bracket sizes and with raid-equivalent rewards. Seeing the failure rate of guilds (guilds chartered versus guilds currently existing), Blizzard decided to create a venue which can sustain smaller guilds. At the very beginning, you had to get to sixty to be raid-capable. With ZG and then AQ20, it became possible for a guild of thirty to have something to do. Now, they've dropped the raid cap to 25 across the board and implemented the Arena which can provide activity for groups ranging from two to ten, a half-full team in the 2v2 bracket all the way to a full team in the 5v5 bracket respectively.

Originally Posted by Anias

Obviously I could write a book on this, but that's what springs to mind at the moment.

If you have the time, you're welcome to do so. Experience running a successful guild combined with the ability and willingness to write about it is not a common thing.

Thank you again.

Igni · 10/01/06, 3:03 AM

Originally Posted by Bekah

Considering all members old and current, the mean length of the stay in the guild is 6.37 months with a standard deviation of 4.1.

That's one hell of a standard deviation. Is it a core of people who've been around forever plus some number of recent recruits? Do you see any attrition patterns by class or perhaps by some other trait that you can eyeball?

Bekah · 10/01/06, 4:33 AM

Originally Posted by Igni

How sarcastic are you being here? And how sarcastic were you in the beginning when you said that you were made guild-master because you didn't realize everyone else was going to take a step back? At least for me, as the founder, I know what I'm getting myself into by asking all the questions I'm asking. Further, I can aspire to one day being superfluous once I establish the "culture of success" you mention in your second paragraph.

I ask because I've got to imagine that people who have both a) the competence to lead and b) the willingness to do so freely and benevolently is amazingly slim. Am I wrong and is it in fact common? Were the officers you have a result of your previous existence as a multi-game clan? Do people just step up when it's needed for them to do so? Do you as a guildmaster first establish stability and then maintain it long enough to attract others by their nature maintain stability?

No sarcasm at all. The hold over leader from when we seperated from the multigame clan stepped down fairly quickly and over the course of about 2 weeks we played hot potato with the guild leadership. Pretty much any of the formation officers knew they could wake up and be the one with the leadership tag thrown onto thier heads. We finally had a sit down meeting and literally decided guild leadership by 1.2.3 NOT IT. Anias was AFK at the time. Honestly I think 2 of the 5 of us considered would have done fairly well with the leadership- I'm not one of them. I've got a nasty temper and have days at a time where I need the ability to step back and let other people hold the line while I recenter myself. The other excellent choice is still a guild officer and still does a lot of the managerial stuff- he's just not quite as in your face and out there as Anias is.

We (I say we because anias and I came into the guild at the same time as friends playing together) joined the guild already made at level 40. The initial multi clan guild was fairly stable when we joined but was alarmingly unstable by the time the majority of folks hit 60. When we formally broke off it was pretty much a push from 3 of us, with another few coming along for the ride and willing to help out. We took 6 (I think) officers who had been officers in the origional guild and just kept them as officers, adding in a few spare folks who we thought had potential. We all had very different jobs at the time (I was a raid leader. LOL. That didn't work out.) but slapped together the new website, Trillo server and loot system and pretty much strongarmed a lot of sheep into the direction we wanted to head. The guild felt a lot like putty at the start, all we had to do was establish leadership (we had no formal leader position- all officers had the same vote and if you've ever tried getting eleven people to vote... it's a nightmare!) some sort of goal (oooookay... Molten Core!) some kind of loot system, and put it all on paper. The recruitment part didn't really come into play until we'd had the guild going for a few months.... we tagged anyone that a friend thought would be great and was interested in raiding.

I've known Anias for over 10 years. He can't follow. He tries... he wants to... but he's one of those people that will just naturally float into the middle of a party and start organizing people. He's learned a lot more tact since I've known him, but it's all the same in the end. He floats through, organizes the natives and winds up being elected thier leader. He's tried to step down, but we don't let him. He does very well at being the leader of the feces flinging monkies.

I'd say there was a lot of luck at the start of Rebirth, and a lot of it was pushed along by the fact that 3 or 4 of us at the start had a general idea of where we were going, agreed on it, and were willing to do the work to see that we got there. If the personalities involved hadn't been so strong, willing to trust eachother, and generally open to innovation- if we'd all disagreed on some facet of the guild... if if if a lot of things might have gone very differently.

One of our major attractions was that the guild ahead of us in progression was notorious for explosive drama- guild leaders sleeping with main tanks, stupid loot drama... you name it- Nightwind did it and did it messily. We were quiet, focused, kept all of our drama in house and offered a more mature approach to raiding along with stability. Yes, I'd say that stability attracted folks- but a lot of the attraction was because the competetion was busy plastering themselves across the front pages of the server forums for thier total inability to keep it clean. Once NW exploded and dissolved, we stepped in and have done our best to keep the very same image that we had then, and it's attractive.

Stability feeds on itself.

Originally Posted by Igni

Originally Posted by Bekah

Considering all members old and current, the mean length of the stay in the guild is 6.37 months with a standard deviation of 4.1.

That's one hell of a standard deviation. Is it a core of people who've been around forever plus some number of recent recruits? Do you see any attrition patterns by class or perhaps by some other trait that you can eyeball?

Yep it's a big deviation. I think it fairly reflects our overall change in status though. Only 12 of our current members have been here since Molten Core. We had 7 people leave in the first month of raiding, and we currently have 7 people who are brand new to the guild (this was a big recruitment month ^.^ Lots of happy new faces) this month. So straight off 14 of 121 members over 15 months are categorized as 1 month stay, and 12 are 14 or 15 month members.

Major factors in attrition:
New raid content released. People aren't happy with the new content. People are pissed about some change. People decideit's too hard to learn a whole new instance.
Changes in guild focus. Going from 3 days a week raiding to 5. Then from 5 to 6. Shifting from second best to top guild. Changes in the looting system.
A cut from the frequency chart that I'm working on at the moment (Like I said, this is all going into a post that I'm working on about guild stabiltiy)
15 0
14 1
13 2
12 3
11 3
10 4
9 6
8 2
7 9
6 6
5 6
4 7
3 5
2 6
1 7

This is just people who have actually left the guild (the full guild frequency charts are harder to explain without graphs and I don't have the graphs set up yet). Essentially, the longer someone is in guild- the more likely they are to stay. That said, the data is somewhat misleading- remember we've only been a guild for 15 months. Most of the 1 monthers left the first month we were formed, many of the 2 or 3 monthers left when we swapped to a 5 day/week raid schedule, and the crazy number of 7 monthers were mostly a group of folks who left when AQ Gates started and we had 11 people leave over a stupid linen farming incident- most of the 11 were members who'd been there from the start... which would be exactly 7 months. It's hard to get conclusive data from such a messy guild history and such a limited time frame.

That said, it's solid information from a guild that did manage to survive and thrive. I think I ran the numbers and saw that we had *about* 25% of the membership that's under 6 months old (very general number there). It's not too bad.

No noticable traits by class yet, but I havn't started working that into the calculations. If I had to eyeball it I'd say warriors are our most stable class, and priests are our least stable class(we went through SO many priests at the start up of the guild. God it was horrible)- but that's a total guess.

Seeten · 10/01/06, 11:08 PM

Have a solid foundation. I think thats your best overall starting point. That means your servers, website, and guild core, all need to be in place and rock solid. New, or old, you want to look stable and in it for the long haul.

You want to recruit the right people, and remove bad seeds fast. Bad seeds can cause your good people to leave, to escape them, don't let it happen.

You need to have a clear goal, and to have everyone on board about what the goal is, and how to achieve it.

When we created the ranks for my guild, I originally named the Guild Leader rank "Officer" and the officer rank "Officer" but it seemed to be buggy, so I renamed my rank "Officer+". I am not in it for status or epeen. Everyone knows it. I am on same loot priority as everyone else, etc, and if I will favor someone else prior to favoring me. Our first Atiesh(I am a mage) is not going to me, for example. I think all these things are important, but your core of players, your officers, yourself, and your basic guild services, are the cornerstone it is all built upon. Make sure its rock solid.