One of the running themes is recruiting people of the same philosophy. If you recruit people who play religiously (>40 hours a week) and people who play leisurely (<10 hours a week), will that cause friction? If you set expectations that the people who play less often may not be able to get into PvE raids, does that upset them? Or are they willing to accept what effectively becomes a second class citizenship?

On one hand, I'm interested in results. On the other, I've been warned that I must create an environment conducive to fun, results be damned. I know EJ has pulled this off successfully, but what have other people experienced?

My guild started off as 10ish people from 5 mediocre guilds at the beginning of the server that were all fed up and desired to progress in the game faster than our guilds were letting us. Our initial recruiting policies were pretty open and we used trial membership to evaluate new members. Once it lead to a strong memberbase able to consistantly raid, we only recruited when ever there was a fallout and became very picky on choosing new recruits. Also, membership isn't taken lightly. "Rage" kicking or quitting is taken very seriously because these types of members that will show that emotion aren't very productive to establishing stability and moral among members.

It is imperitive for progression that your main raiders must be consistant raiders and have a dkp system set up to benefit them the most. Class priorities on tanking loot and resist gear need to be deligated accordly as well. My guild gave tanks priority on all tanking loot in naxx until we deemed it necessary to let rogues have a shot. It paid off when it was learned on how many tanks were needed for the 4HM.

Always, always follow through with your dkp system reguardless of how badly structured it is and how poorly loot maybe distributed. There's always room to revise rules and mechanics, just don't do it right when a certain piece of loot drops.

It is also great for progression that the guild sets up seperate dkp systems for new instances. Starting off I would believe that unless the guild is going straight into AQ40 and Naxx, it seperate MC/BWL dkp from AQ and Naxx dkp. The progression curve will take you into MC/BWL first where the timeline given to complete these instances will have a fallout of members when reaching the next content. Though it's harse to the founding members and raiders that have given alot of effort starting out the guild, if they drop out and take a break, for them to take loot over new raiders that have shown dedication will seriously halt progression. Having a 4-Week or 6-Week attendence priority rule is also very effective in deligating loot this way.

I am VERY wary of second class citizenhip in a guild structure- but people tend to stick to what's worked for them in the past and a single rank structure has worked well for us so I admit my bias.

I think it'd be difficult to make sure everyone knows exactly what the score is at the start- but if everyone agrees to it, whatever everyone agrees to will work. EJ certain doesn't seem to be suffering for it.

The problem with a lot of starting guilds and split ranks (imo) is the longevity concern. You start off with a mish mash of players and you need casuals (for lack of a better term) to fill up your 40 raid slots. For the first month or two, the casual members can get into pretty much any raid they have time to run because you're still recruiting full time raiders. So you recruit up to your 40-50 full time raiders and you're down to 1-2 slots for the more casual members. But a month ago they got to go along for everything because you needed warm bodies.... now they're being replaced by some new guy? It would almost feel like a bait and switch unless you were very careful with it.

I fixed it for you =)

I was in a discussion today with a founding member of a guild and he mentioned that when they formed, waaay back when, they basically wanted people who were interested in the game, were fun to play with... and that was it. Everything else came along naturally, but attitude was not something that could be improved. To this day they still have the same mindframe and goals, so remembering that your objective was to drain the swamp when you're knee high in shit is quite important.

Find one or two extremely trustworthy people with OCD and an Excel fetish. Get them to run your guild bank.

Cover your members' repair costs. This will significantly improve your raid attendance on new content.

Assign separate officers to handle recruitment, DKP, policies/enforcment, supply/logistics, and the bank. Overlapping causes burnout.

Keep the raid leaders separate from other officer positions like DKP monkey and the guild bank. This will go a long way toward preventing burnout if your raid leaders don't have to worry about administrative bullshit. Yes, you want 2 raid leaders, so if one isn't online for a particular raid, chaos doesn't ensue. Find two people that get along really well, have similar personalities, and share the same goals.

Don't be afraid to change rules that aren't working. We'ver overhauled our DKP system several times.

Decide well in advance how you will handle raid invites and make it posted where everyone can see so you don't create festering discontent or favortism. We track raid attendance and use that to determine who gets in. It goes 1. Class need. 2. 90-day attendance % 3. Skill/Gear/Experience

Pick class leaders that may not necessarily be the best at their class, but communicate well with others and are open to feedback. Don't pick people with thin skins. Have your raid leaders use the class leaders as points of contact for strats and group composition.

Create a section of your forums where officers, raid leaders, and class leaders can discuss things. Any time you make a change to policies, remind the guild that this decision was reached with the consensus of the officers and class leaders. This prevents coups and festering discontent.

Overrecruit. It's better to have 10 eager people sitting on the bench hungry for a raid spot than not being able to field a full raid. It also allows people to take time off or log early without crippling your raid.

Use 20-man raids to recruit new players and gear up alts. This also prevents burnout.

Make sure the officers play with the rest of the guild (PVP etc) and don't withdraw into a clique. Nothing kills a guild faster than an us-vs.-them mentality.

In case anyone is interested in the conclusions I've come to based on all of these best practices threads, you can find my assorted thoughts and ideas here.

At this point, I'd welcome any feedback or commentary. What would be most helpful to me are any areas which I have not yet addressed but should. If you feel my reasoning is unclear or my plans have obvious flaws, please point those logical failures out.

While the publicity of this post can do nothing but good, this is not a sideways recruiting effort. I really am looking for feedback and I still have not yet decided whether to move forward on forming this guild.

But it provides a place to start. A guild can't be all things to all people; your idea of basing one's policies on one's members treats them as if they are.

Somethings you have to know before you start recruiting. By laying out the principles of your guild, you can attract and screen for people with similiar interests. I think that this is more effective than simply taking everyone who applies and then trying to fit the guild to their needs. Wouldn't you agree?

Of course I am going to pay attention to the needs of the members after the guild has formed. But if they share common interests and expressed a desire for the guild's goals, I will have an easier task of doing so and greater chance of success of doing so.