Starting a guild from scratch
by Mike Schramm 
Nov 27th 2007 at 8:33PM
I don't think Scott has ever covered this topic in his Officers' Quarters column, but it might be a good one: how exactly do you start a brand new guild from scratch? Actually this is pretty close, but even that column doesn't get to the nitty gritty of bringing a guild from an idea in someone's head, to a group of 25 people raiding successfully every week. It seems such a tough job that it's a wonder guilds have succeeded at all.I have only formed my own guild once, and it wasn't in World of Warcraft-- a group of people I grouped with in another online game thought "Silver Monkeys of Death" would be a good name for a guild, and so, strangers though we were, we paid the fee and grouped up. It lasted about a week. The only way I can see a guild really succeeding is if you have a few people who know each other in real-life to support it-- if you can get a chain of about 10 people who know each other really well (as in friends of friends), then you're on your way to getting a good guild rolling.
But other than that, I can't really see it happening. I'm not talking about guilds who move from game to game-- I'm talking about guilds that are supposedly formed by people who've met each other only in game. Is it really possible for a group of people who have only met each other in game to actually form a full-fledged raiding guild?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Guilds, Odds and ends, Raiding
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
tdw_Durid Nov 27th 2007 9:21PM
My guild formed a year ago with myself and one other player I knew in real life - the others being ppl we met in-game. The first 12 people on our roster were all under level 20, and most were new to the game. Since then we've slowly progressed, to the point where we have more than 100 members between level 40-70 and are successfully raiding Kara and about to start ZA. We have worked to ensure a very low rate of /gquit and /gkick by transparent policy making and careful screening. So, it can be done with proactive leadership and careful recruitment.
Charlie Nov 27th 2007 9:44PM
Ussualy, on the upper end, you raid with people for a long time, and then if everyone decides that they are mutually unhappy about their situations, they form a new guild. This happened pre-bc on burning blade horde side. About 30 people from the best top 5 horde raiding guilds were uphappy, and since most of them were mutual friends, tehy cause a big drama uproar and formed a new guild. (Part of it was because they "stole" alot of members away from other guilds =/)
Check the guild relations forum on the wow forums. Its not visited nearly enough, and its got great resources.
klink-o Nov 27th 2007 10:26PM
Forming a guild from scratch takes time, you can't pick up a charter one week and expect to be in Kara the next. With good leadership and determination it can be done but it's going to take a few weeks to a few months to get up to speed, especially if it's started on a thoroughly established server.
Girl Meets WoW Nov 28th 2007 12:26AM
It's very possible for a solid raiding guild to get started without anyone having met each other. The key is to be selective about putting together a compatible group. Even though you may not know these people in real life, you should still be able to enjoy or at least easily tolerate each others' company in-game. Focus entirely on raiding goals while ignoring the need to establish a common guild culture is a recipe for disaster.
Basil Nov 28th 2007 3:16AM
Over 100 accounts and counting. Started from a previous guild of about 5 active people when I took over. Dont know a single other person in real life thats in the guild. Raided 40 mans pre-BC and raiding 25 mans now. Although I just retired from GM it was built from scratch with alot of hard work and a shared love of the game without having to devote your whole life to seeing it. : )
Rene Nov 28th 2007 5:44AM
I started two guilds in my "WoW career" and have to admit, I failed miserably. Nowadays, I rather join another guild than make my own, even if it takes a while to get a good one.
In my experience, if you really want to form your own guild, you need a good starting roster. Starting a guild on a server that already has a large number of guilds is usually a pain, just because people have too much choice. It's good to start with a couple of friends and make sure that those friends are actually online with those chars a lot, otherwise people that may join will make a "/who g-guildname" and find out that barely anyone is online, and that is bad. Make sure that you don't allow people to join with their twink or alt. They should join with their mains. This is especially true if you're on a very new server that has a low population; people are going there, creating an alt, playing it until 20, join a guild...and rarely come back.
These are all the mistakes I made, I let people join with their alts (and they rarely returned), I created a guild on a very new server with a very low population (even though this is an actual good thing to do, since people have less choice, they are more likely to join your guild), I started a guild with only two friends, and when we wanted to recruit, people were asking "How many people are in your guild? Are you raiding?" - "Umm...well...there's the three of us...raiding...some time...maybe".
Oh well, maybe I'm just not born to be a leader.
Fizzl Nov 28th 2007 7:14AM
I don't think there was anyone in my guild to start with that new each other, the founders came from various different pre TBC guild and decided they would form a 'hardcore' guild together, they viewed it as the only way this server would get progress.
We got the server first mag kill and now have 3 down in BT though i think we mainly stay together because we want to do the end game content and being a long way ahead of the competition they only way to progress is stay together or skip server.
Valyre Nov 28th 2007 8:19AM
I think starting from scratch (i.e. barely having enough people to sign a charter) would be very difficult. We chose the easy way out and just defected from a terrible guild as a group of about 20 (back pre-BC). Other than knowing my husband irl, I've never met any of the other guild mates in person. We've done up through Naxx, and now are a decent chunk through MH/BT.
Like Girl Meets WoW says, it's all about recruiting people that fit your guild's personality. That has to be a priority to be successful. Mad skillz alone won't help us.
Elysi Nov 28th 2007 8:34AM
I took over leadership of our guild in March of this year. I knew one person in real life. I have since met four of our members outside of the game and am delighted to have made new friends; something very hard to do as an adult. We now have around 80 members with 50 or so being incredibly active. The key as someone mentioned earlier, is to maintain your guild's culture at all costs. We recruit mostly adults and strictly enforce our "no beggars" policy as well as encourage lively, light hearted guild chat. While raiding is important and we provide that for our members, we remember that it's a game and keep things casual. We are constantly helping the lower level members, as this only adds to our guild atmosphere (ie. pay if forward) and increases the amount of members that can enjoy end game content. casual-crusaders.net Feel free to check us out on Echo Isles.
Nathan Nov 28th 2007 8:26AM
If my experience in trade chat is any indication:
Apparently, you have to inform people that you're "helpful" and "fun." Make sure to note that you're "new, but growing" and that you're going to "have events, pvp and raid when you have enough people"
Don't forget to tell people you have a tabard!
esumiwa Nov 28th 2007 10:50AM
I just started a guild on Eonar 3 weeks ago. And 2 weeks later we were and still are running Kara. In fact, we are starting a second kara team.
#3: contrary to what you said, My guild did just that.
#10: On eonar, you cant post in chat with out getting flamed. You must us guilR. Several guilds on eonar sit in the trade channel and rip your throat out if you post in trade.
#10 saying you have the BESTEST TABARD EVA is good for laughs.
I find that most of my recruits are tired of the dramatics in large raid guilds and simply want to have fun - which is somehow a dirty word now - while progressing.
But, yeah, there are nights when a new recruit leaves because a larger guild promised them the [class] on their kara team. Of course, whenI look, they usually arent in kara.
You definately need to get a website up and have ventrillo set up, for some reason that is important.
And if you promise something, you need to keep it.
esumiwa Nov 28th 2007 10:56AM
To the author:
Yes, it is possible and definately happens a lot than you are aware of. Give people more credit than that, reading your article feels like people should not even try to form thier own guild.
Hell, if you have 5 friends, form your own guild. There is nothing wrong , contrary to popular belief, with running 5 mans. The few end content events are not the be all of the game. And no, you don't have to be a pvp guild to be a real guild either.
And being casual is not a dirty word either.
Milktub Nov 28th 2007 11:23AM
I was just thinking about how guilds start (sort of like where babies come from) last night. I always want to start a guild, since I have great leadership and diplomatic skills, but the idea of going from ten people on a charter to ten people in Karazhan with and other ten going in the next day, while twenty others level up so they can go in next month ... seems like a lot.
Still don't know the origins of my current guild, but I do remember the previous guild. I was on my wee warrior alt, killing wolves, and someone in the General chat in Mulgore said they were recruiting. I figured why not, so I joined. Popped on, and I was member #11 -- they'd just signed the charter in Thunder Bluff. Eventually I brought my main over to the guild, and we were just about to have our 10th level 70 when it all fell apart. Oh well, another guild, another day.
Dave Nov 28th 2007 11:41AM
IMO (and I know that most people don't understand or agree with this idea) the uber-fragmentation of players in the game is the absolute biggest problem.
On my server (and I can't really say about others) we have a very very small amount of bigger guilds that are capable of successfully filling raid spots and executing good raids on the endgame stuff... and we have a plethora of tiny crap guilds who are maybe filling a single 10-man every week. Far too many people that for whatever reason aren't interested in being a team player with other people for a common goal, and they'd just all rather be the king of crap mountain in their little guild where they can call the shots.
As a result, the raid scene on my server really stinks. The single top progression guild gets all the skilled players, the rest of the guilds aren't even passing SSC/TK content. Most guilds can't even field a Gruul team without getting random people involved from the /trade channel or LFG. We've had more successful PUG runs than honest guild attempts. It's pretty pathetic. Oh, and this is a -full- launch server. It's not a lack of people. It's a lack of cohesion. Guilds don't team up, they stay in their own little "I don't like anyone" world.
http://wowjutsu.com/us/tichondrius/index_horde.html
For an old server, i think that's fairly pathetic raid progress. The top guild is the top by a longshot, and the other two aren't bad.. but after those three, it's basically an endless see if mediocrity. Half the guilds weren't around 3 months ago. Lots of those guilds are boosted by PUG attempts and/or a smaller guild player hooking up with a bigger guild for a run. Almost all of the non-top guilds are looking to fill a spot or three in the trade channel on a regular basis.
So, no I'd suggest that unless you already have a large and established base of friends to start a guild with... I'd just find someone else's guild to join. Surely you've played with other people in the game you're friends with and could hook up with them. At some point you're going to have to stop being just a pack of friends and start treating it like serious junk if you expect to realistically progress towards Black Temple... and it's better to not get into bad habits of making sure your friends are hooked up before everyone else and all that. It'll eventually put your guild on Dramawatch here if you do.
This game needs more huge guilds with plenty of people for any activity. This game needs a lot less small guilds with no real hope for hitting the Sunwell before the next expansion comes out.
kidah Nov 28th 2007 4:34PM
A group of us started a guild about a year ago now. We met in another guild, got along great and just killed Kael'thas as a group of people that only know each other only from playing WoW together.
It has been an amazing experience, probably a rare case but proof that its possible.
Good_Idea Nov 28th 2007 5:16PM
Starting a new guild is not easy. You need at least:
- A core of 5-10 people that will not leave and be the heart of the guild.
- A purpose for the guild, something that makes it unique or at least different. Why would someone want to join your guild instead of "Raids Inc"?
It's tough, because I see most server's populations declining, it's hard to get good recruits. Even for raiding guilds it's a nightmare right now. It's probably better (and easier) to join an established guild and help them with their rebuilding efforts and become an officer (if you really think you're good enough to be a GM, you'll be an officer in no time).
Patch 2.3 is a good time to start a new guild, 10-mans make it easy to create new startup guilds, mostly from unhappy raiders and loners who get excited at the idea of phat loot.
alex Nov 29th 2007 5:56AM
We started a guild roughly one year ago simply because all the other "good" guilds are run by geeky perverts with retarded senses of humour involving calling each other "fags" and posting pictures of cats doing stupid things. We didn't know each other in rl or even live in the same countries. Our guild is still a mix with people from UK, Austria, Germany, Romania, Iceland, Italy and even Israel. We raid 4 nights a week and currently doing Kael'thas. Their was a time when we thought we would disband the guild as we were wiping on Curator :P
We should be in MH soon ^^