Advice on running a WoW guild please.

Master Skooter

Master Skooter

Master Skooter

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Me & a mate at work created a guild a month or so ago. We created it mainly as a 'family' guild, for like-minded people who loved the game, help each other out, have a chat etc. Nothing too anal.

We know have around 60 members, with usually a dozen or so members active most evenings which isn't too bad.

Obviously we have a tabard & a rank system, but we need to start looking at creating a guild website & also a bank. I've been looking around on the net for articles on banks & it sounds like it's a lot of time & work! How do you guys run your banks?

It would be interesting to here what rules people use for their guilds, i think we definately need to 'clean' things up a little. Also what kind of things do people do to keep members content/enjoying the guild? The higher lvls amongst our members (the highest being 70) try to help the lower lvl members as much as possible, but what events can we do to keep things interesting & make people feel part of something, rather than just being randoms having a guild tag?

Running a guild can be a little more tricky than first thought! :D

Cheers
Skoot
 
Its a very hard and mostly unrewarding job.

I used to be leader of a guild/city and SWG and then an Exectutive Officer in WOW. On and off ive been involved with guilds for about 5 years :)

WE started with the same ideals you have sadly you will find most players fall into the "need phat lewt" group and will rarely if ever help lowbies, tho there are exceptions.

Be mindfull of the fact that having a level 70 toon doesnt mean a person is ready or suitible to be an officer.

As for keeping it fun, try to organise weekly events/instance runs or even a help a lowbie night. Try to keep the guild social and discourage the hardcore, it tends to kill a fun guild and makes them more into a job.

AS for the website, we used to run our own, but then ported over to Guildportal which is just so much easier and it has some decent addons for WOW, and its FREE!

My former guild can be found here if you want a look about.

If you have anyquestions or issues just let us know,
 
Thanks for replying :)

The lvl 70 is my mate, he's the GM :D

We've done the lowbies night & since then are finding a 'boost' culture developing with some members, who ask constantly for boosts instead of grouping up with guildies or using LFG like we had to at their level. With updated the guild info highlighting this & have spoken directly to the culprits, so hopefully this will reslove itself.

Funnily enough, since posting i have actually registered with Guild Portal & created a basic site, just need to polish it up & then get members to create accounts.

I'll check out your guild site, sure theres a few things i can pick up :)

Any suggestions about running a bank? I'll give it my best shot & see how things develop.

Thanks again!
 
No idea on guild bank..I was always a recruiter :)

Boosting can ruin a game, towards the end of my WoW life I acutally formed a splinter WoW guild just so me and a few buddies could level lowbies together, worked quite well but I was tired of wow by then.
 
I feel for you, running a guild can be fun at the beginning, but as said above, it becomes more trouble than its worth. I know this from first hand experience. I wont ever run a guild again unless i'm completely in love with the game i'm playing. And I havn't come across a game like that for 6+ years.

If you're on a PvP server you could try to organise an event like raiding a small outpost with equal leveled hostile players or some such.

Theres not really all that much you can do with a varied level guild.
 
Master Skooter said:
Thanks for replying :)

The lvl 70 is my mate, he's the GM :D

We've done the lowbies night & since then are finding a 'boost' culture developing with some members, who ask constantly for boosts instead of grouping up with guildies or using LFG like we had to at their level. With updated the guild info highlighting this & have spoken directly to the culprits, so hopefully this will reslove itself.

Funnily enough, since posting i have actually registered with Guild Portal & created a basic site, just need to polish it up & then get members to create accounts.

I'll check out your guild site, sure theres a few things i can pick up :)

Any suggestions about running a bank? I'll give it my best shot & see how things develop.

Thanks again!
Click to expand...

Then you have the wrong people in your guild. In our guild we have "Tuesday nights boost night" and you're not allowed to ask for a boost any other day unless someone offers, and repeat offenders gets nuked very quickly. This has resulted in probably the most mature guild I've ever seen and it's a pleasure to play the game again. We mostly have people that's aged 25+ and only 2-3 teenies that stays well in line.

We also have a bi-weekly get-togethers somewhere nice (like an island) and have stuff like firework nights or worst dress competitions, bad joke competitions or duel for money. All sorts of silly things to keep it interesting and keep the guild together.
 
ClaritY^ said:
Slightly off-topic.

What realm are you on?

The bank ive seen ppl do it many ways, just from a simple web page which someone updates to a fully coded php script.

What do you think about this - http://ui.worldofwar.net/ui.php?id=1063

Fully php bank for you :-)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link, definately sounds interesting! I'm on Eonar.


regulus said:
Then you have the wrong people in your guild. In our guild we have "Tuesday nights boost night" and you're not allowed to ask for a boost any other day unless someone offers, and repeat offenders gets nuked very quickly. This has resulted in probably the most mature guild I've ever seen and it's a pleasure to play the game again. We mostly have people that's aged 25+ and only 2-3 teenies that stays well in line.

We also have a bi-weekly get-togethers somewhere nice (like an island) and have stuff like firework nights or worst dress competitions, bad joke competitions or duel for money. All sorts of silly things to keep it interesting and keep the guild together.
Click to expand...

I've just been speaking with the GM & we are going to turf out all the annoying/begging/immature members very soon. Hopefully then we will have good members to build on & their stay will be more enjoyable. The 'boost night' sounds like a great idea, nice one. Dueling for money sounds like a laugh too :)
 
In the event you find running a guild is something you like, you might want to think long term as well. As everyone (even casuals) drift gradually towards end game, you want to ensure that everyone has a good idea about how to play their class - this means limiting how much boosting they get (the once weekly thing is a great idea as long as it's not abused by the same people). You first start developing your grouping skills in Scarlet Monastery (imo), so if you're a couple of level 32s dragged through the Cathedral by a level 70, you'll miss out on a lot of the learning (and fun) in the game.

Having a guild website is a good way of developing community - you might want to ask people to have a minimum of 1 post/week, just so you know they are interested and keeping track of guild events.

As for the guild bank, I'd hold it off until you have a number of people at level 70, where you might actually need it. Otherwise you'll find it gets crammed with absolute tat that lowbies may or may not need, and the 'bank manager' will rapidly get frustrated at being asked to log the bank character as someone 'urgently' needs 2 lustrous pearls and 10 pieces of silk cloth.

A final thought (that springs to mind), would be to keep a good eye on class balance - you don't want to find you've got 10 Rogues, 12 hunters, 1 Warrior and 1 Priest. The tank and healer will get burned out VERY fast at being constantly /w to go on instance runs and feeling guilty when they don't want to. Class balance can go askew in no time if you're very lenient on recruiting 'friend of a friend' or 'this cool Hunter I just met in Shadowfang'.
 
All good points, thanks for the post.

Tbh the guild did start off as a bit of fun, but the GM (my mate) is really enjoying the whole guild thing, which is why we want the guild to progress into something worthwhile.

We'll be laying down tonight the direction we would like the guild to be going & what we expect from members. Remind them that you get out what you put into a guild.

So hopefully all the crap will be weeded out & we'll have an enjoyable mature guild free of annoying spamming/begging kids constantly /w us for boosts etc. It's only a small percentage, so shouldn't cause any problems for the guild. hopefully the opposite!

I'm going to work on our Guildportal site tonight & as you said it would probably be a good idea to out a bank on the back burning until we get more decent level members.

Thanks.
 
If you want to know what kind of stuff to do ingame thats fun why not try and introduce things that are fun in real life?

Some ideas:

*Treasure hunt.
*Quiz (main problem is that being online everyone will get 100%) :)
*A general get together for a big guild BBQ.
*A race, set out certain points and see who can get around them the quickest.
*Celebrate peoples birthdays with a party and presents.
*Try and do a weekly newsletter, welcoming noobs to the guild, congratulating people on levelling up and finishing areas.

Just a few ideas on events that are both fun and bring people together!
 
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