Guide - Making A Successful Guild

[Dogma]

Have you ever thought about making your own guild? If it's your first time accepting a leadership position in a guild, then this is the guide for you! Making and leading a guild is a very exciting experience that yields rewards such as friendships and fame, that many players dream of acheiving. This guide will show you how to make the best guild it can be!

My Experience: I have personally held numerous officer positions in the game and i have taken leadership and business courses throughout school, and i have recognized a pattern that separate the successful guilds from the premature disasters. I base the following information in this guide on my personal experience.



•Are You Really Ready To Undertake A Guild?•
The number one reason for a guild's demise is the Master. The master is the brain of the guild. Anything the master does directly influences the role of the guild. Before you buy that charter, ask yourself the following questions:

• Can i make the time to run this guild efficiently? Often times, an inactive guild master is a major turn-off for the other members. It shows the master is lazy and doesnt care for the guild. It's preferred for the master to be on around 2-4 hours a day at the very least. If your real life is busy, dont start a new guild. You are also expected to help someone run a map or kill a boss whenever they need it.

• Will i stick to this guild for the rest of my time playing AL? Generally, you want to make a guild that you would have a good time running. You want to try to make it a fun experience for your members and especially yourself. If an officer deliberately kicks many members, and leaves you with 1/100 of the members that were in the guild when you were last on, a good master will take the lesson and rebuild rather than mourn the loss and disband.

• Am i very knowledgeable about the game? As a master, people will look to you for advice and answers to the most difficult questions lingering in their minds. As a master, you are also a mentor, a guide, a teacher, and an illustrator. Try to experience every aspect of the game to appeal to more members.

• Am i in it for a good cause? Are you creating the guild to reunite a few friends? Are you doing so to meet new players? Are you trying to make a new PvP guild for a certain bracket? Many, many inexperienced masters all create a guild simply for the title of Master to appear below their name. They shortly realize that it's just a title and quickly lose interest.

• If i am making any guild other than a PvP guild, am i at the current lvl cap? Sadly, players do look at the level when they wonder how experienced their master is. If they are a level above you, most of them will ask to be officers or leave because they will think you have less experience than them. Again, guild masters are meant to be the wise masters of the game. People require a role model to look up to!

• Do you have good people skills? Are you sociable? Are you friendly? Are you respectful? Are you mature? This is common sense: Would you rather have a snobby master or a compassionate one?

• Can you handle the stress? Running a guild can be really stressful. You'll have worries about pleasing everyone, dealing with drama, and being completely fair and unbiased with everything. Angry members can be disheartening and seeing people leave can be gut-wrenching. You'll feel like a failure sometimes.


If you answered "No" to any of the above, then you are not ready to make your own guild! Try joining an existing guild.



•Collaborate With Your Friends!•
Never begin a guild on your own. Make a few guildless friends and ask them if they'd like to help you start a guild. This will help you set up a strong backbone for the guild and make things a lot easier for you in the early stages of the guild. You'll have help recruiting new players early on, you'll have help establishing rules, and you wont feel estranged and lonely being with people you dont necessarily know yet.



•If You Are Looking to be a Capped or Leaderboard Guild...•
Never begin a capped guild, unless if you are looking to merge two capped guilds into one (called a merger). You will have an extremely difficult time recruiting players to your guild early on. Instead, start with a relatively low level requirement (like maybe 10) and gradually raise the level requirement by about 5 lvls every several weeks. This helps establish a sturdy player base that allows the guild to directly grow with its members. It also helps you clean out inactives, because they wouldnt be able to keep up with your guild. After several months, your guild will be a thriving, capped paradise that many players would love to be a part of.

All of the top leaderboard guilds have been around for a very long time. They have established a loyal following dedicated to the guild over the many many months, if not years, of its lifetime. Dont expect to make it to the top from the very beginning. When determining the top guilds, the leaderboard considers the total AP's of players that are at least half the current lvl cap. A big guild isn't necessarily the best. You dont need thousands to strike the leaderboard.



•Making A PvP/Twink Guild•
The hardest guilds to make are PvP guilds. Not only are the target members extremely limited, but most twinks (low-level PvPers) already proudly belong to an existing guild. Make sure you have the best gear in your bracket and are trained to fight among the best of the best, because again, people are looking up to you and many want a strong master. Also, make a lot of friends in your bracket before making a guild and establish a reputation for yourself. Some may even want to join your brand new guild!



•Networking is a MUST•
What good is a guild that no one's ever heard of? Make your guild well-known. Create a guild thread on these forums, create a guild website, facebook page, private forum, twitter, and/or youtube channel. Try to encourage guild enthusiasm outside the game. Make the guild a fun and exciting experience. Look at other guild's networking for ideas!



•Guild Halls for 50 Platinum are Really Worth it!•
When you can, try to find a way to purchase a guild hall for your guild. Members love discounted potions and a large fancy guild hall. Im not going to sugarcoat this guide and say that you dont need to buy a guild hall, because yes you do. Would you want to stay in a guild with the basic Heroic Hall? I didnt think so.



•Make Sure You Have a Steady Income of Gold and Host Guild Events Often!•
I know you've heard me say this before, but make the guild a fun experience for everyone. Host guild events often to encourage involvement in the guild. You can create fun little contests or even hold occasional quizes in the guild hall. But of course, there should be prizes. Make sure you are able to frequently make steady gold to help fund prizes for your members. Because who doesnt like winning a cool new egg from getting the most points out of an elite contest?



•Choose Officers Carefully!•
Officers are the sturdy backbone of the guild. They help the master lead and enforce the rules. Make sure they understand your view of how you want the guild to exist and that they will do whatever they can to maintain a good experience for the other members. They are given the power to kick members as they see fit. So make sure you have a lot of trust and faith in them. Many guilds have gone from 500 members to 50 overnight so be careful! Dont promote based on level. Level should be a requirement in conjunction with trust.



•Be Consistent!•
Be completely fair and unbiased in all of your decisions. Make sure you stay consistent with your promotions. You want to make sure that the people who legitimately earned their ranks feel good. You dont want to have someone become an officer after being in the guild for months offering so much to the guild, and have someone else become an officer once they join.