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The We Have a Tabard series is designed to help guild leaders, officers, members achieve their goals to maximize their cooperative experience.

I'm relatively new to leading a raiding guild. I've been working on building and training my team for about six months. I've been leading the recruiting and correcting members, managing raids, and in general trying to make my online family as functional as possible. It's a lot of work for one person, and no matter how much I love my guildies I have to admit that I am tired.

The best thing that I've ever done for myself and my guild is to ask for help. I have some great players in my guild that are well respected by other members and the server community. They have expertise in areas that do I do not. Probably most importantly they are less likely to mince words than I do and are willing to do what it takes to get the job done. Having some backup has helped some become more invested in the guild and has really lightened my load.

Choosing who to ask for help can be a tough call. It does little good to select only your favorites or your friends, if they are not successful leaders. Take several factors into account when selecting a council of officers:

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, How-tos, Guilds, (Guild Leadership) We Have a Tabard

We get lots of email from our readers trying to find their way though WoW. I'd like to take a moment to answer a question about membership retention. This also builds on a previous response regarding the trials and tribulations of starting a guild.

Hi I been reading your posts and listening to the podcast and you recently made a new guild. I have a guild with around 140 members and we do some raiding weekly but every time I log off, it seems that people start arguing, and drama just starts building up. I went away for a couple days and when I come back from my vacation, Alot of people have left the guild. Maybe 10-15 people. Now they are stealing my members and have made a new guild. Do you have tips on member retaining and stuff like that, would be cool if you can do a post on that kind of stuff and how you work that out, thanks

Hello reader,

Thank you for the email. One of the hardest things I've noticed about a guild is dealing with a certain amount of churn. Acceptance is the first step. People leave for all kinds of reasons. There will be those that come and go. The stronger you make your core, the stronger you make your guild.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Tips, How-tos, Guilds, Raiding

Oldmaveric of Azgalor posed the question on the General Discussion Forum: are Big guilds on their way out due to easy WoW? He suggested that easier content on 10 man raids and regular content nerfs has led to the breakdown of some of the top guilds and caused players to quit the game.

Savvage of Spinebreaker quickly responded that big guilds have their place, but "People can now play in closer more tightly-knit groups..." For many players, raiding offers sufficient challenge while being more enjoyable than it once was. The raiding experience is not only more accessible, but also more fun. Smaller guilds can afford to be more selective of the online personalities of their membership, while still being able to to make progress.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Guilds, Raiding, Forums, Forum Post of the Day

I'd like to take a moment to address another reader email. In this post I kind of skirt the direct issues of recruiting and establishing a guild bank. I offer my best advice on the absolute basics of starting a guild. Please ignore spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors in the reader's email, and direct all of your ire toward mine.

heya,

me and my friend want to start up our own to guild working towards raid progression. We have both done all pre 3.1 content on other characters on different servers and on moving to a new server have found it hard to find a guild that meets our needs/scheduale; thus we want to form our own guild. However neither of us has any experience in doing so, and would appreciate some tips on how best to start ie. how to recruit, how developed the guild bank needs to be etc

thanks

Before you get started making your guild, I'd like to let you in on a little secret. Some of the most painful experiences in my life include boiling the skin off the back of my right hand with scalding water from a steam iron (you wouldn't notice the scar unless I pointed it out, but even 22 years later I use it to tell left from right), the massive hangover I had on 1/1/2000- three days after I got my tongue pierced (and working a double shift), and starting a guild with a handful of friends. My best advice is that unless there is a real need for a guild, don't do it. You and your friend may want to look for a guild that meets your needs, our readers have posted many that are looking for members.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Guilds, Instances

We get a lot of email from our readers who are trying to improve their in-game experience. I'd like to take a moment to address a reader who's struggling to find or make the right guild. Beware of the following wall of text.

I started playing over a year ago. Never have been able to find a good guild. I'm a warrior tank. Love it. Even made a second just for fun. Trouble is, it seems all of the guilds that can do anything already have their tanks. I'm really sick of pugging Ulduar and getting stuck on kologarn cause either healers or the other tanks fail.

I started my own guild after my leaving my last guild because they refused to let me tank. I couldn't even roll on tank gear as fury when all of their tanks had all best in slots. But my guild is stuck with 36 level 80s who are never all on at the same time... and most of the ones that are on are under-geared or aren't skilled in the least bit. what's your advice?

Dear anonymous reader,

Sometimes starting your own guild is the answer, sometimes it's not. It takes time, patience, and vigilance to build a raid guild. Be sure to check out Scott Andrew's Officer's Quarters. He regularly addresses the ups and downs of guild leadership and offers practical advice on the challenges you may face.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Guilds, Raiding, Classes

I'd like to take a minute to address the concerns of one of our readers. Since my return to WoW Insider, I've been focusing on sanity, progression, and congruence.

Dear WoW Insider:

I need help, and I figure between me and that guy in the last Breakfast Topic, I'd have more than a good chance of you guys having suggestions to my current dilemma.

I'm fairly new to WoW, having started in December 2008, after a long stint on FFXI. I was glad I made the move, and I haven't looked back. I toyed with a few classes before settling on a blood elf rogue. I zoomed through classic, Burning Crusade and have now made Northrend my home.

I hit 80 a couple of months ago, and although many guilds have offered for me to join along the way, I always replied that my brother's guild was going to take me in as soon as I turned 80. I've been with them on a few heroics and even saw the inside of Sunwell as my first raid ever, although I must confess all that left me feeling a little bit bewildered as I didn't really know what was happening most of the time. I was constantly asking for help, asking where I should stand and what not. While most of the guild was really nice and understanding (and still are), I'm feeling a little bit out of my depth. Most of the guild members are very experienced, as you can imagine. Some of them are on their second or third alts clearing Naxxramas, and most of the guild are working on Ulduar progression.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Tips, Fan stuff, Guilds, Raiding

Mellere of Wildhammer posted a brief lament about her guild leaders treatment of a Discipline Priest. The discipline priest was below a Retadin on HPS. Without understanding the role of mitigation as a healer, the Raid Leader told him to go holy to bring up his HPS. The OP expressed disappointment in the RL at this action.

Several responders posted that this is partly the fault of Blizzard as they don't take into account shielding and mitigation to healing scores in the combat log. Daerilla of Spirestone intimated that she did not want to see mitigation included in healing figures, because then people would take notice of how overpowered Disc Priests are in raids. There were some less-than-kind comments about the Raid Leader's competence.

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Filed under: Priest, Analysis / Opinion, Guilds, Raiding, Talents, Forum Post of the Day

Snaboo of Greymane shouted out to the Blizzard posters on the forums. He appreciates that they are being customer focused and social. This elicited positive responses from a handful of blue posters, except Bornakk, who's still grumpy.

Some posters disagreed about the attention the blues pay to the community. That they are slow to respond to "serious" questions or that they seem disrespectful of players. Crygil pointed out that in many cases there are several threads on a particular subject. The blues try to address at least one of them, but aren't able to respond in all of the threads on a single topic.

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Filed under: Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Blizzard, Forum Post of the Day

I've been reading the comments from some of our recent posts and realized that there is quite a bit of mismatch between players and guilds. There are casual players in hardcore guilds that find themselves being passed over in content. There are hardcore players in casual guilds that don't get to move on to things they want. Some players need a higher level of maturity.

There are usually a handful of guilds recruiting in the Guildwatch column, but I think, for today, we can do better. If your guild looking for more take a moment to comment with the nitty gritty. If you're interested in putting up a little advertisement take a moment to copy/paste and complete the following form:

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Filed under: Fan stuff, Guilds, PvP, Instances, Raiding

Did you manage to get your tickets? I'm sure there will be plenty of folks who are returning to BlizzCon. I wasn't able to go but I followed WoW Insider's coverage of the event from the opening ceremonies to the final concert. It was an awesome time for fans to get insight on some of the behind the scenes aspects of WoW, including an art gallery, a sound panel, and an introduction to Ghostcrawler.

I have to admit that even with the massive amount of information on classes and mechanics, my favorite part was the goofy fan stuff. I love how some people really get into their costumes and dances. I think I missed out most by missing the WoW Insider meet up. It's amazing that real people get so into our favorite game franchises.

For those of you who went last year, or even were following along with me, what's the best BlizzCon memory that you carry with you?

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BlizzCon 2009 is coming up on August 21st and 22nd! We've got all the latest news and information. At BlizzCon you can play the latest games, meet your guildmates, and ask the developers your questions. Plus, there's some great looking costumes.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, BlizzCon