Tips to Make Your Guild Awesome

[masterpoobaa]

For a while i was a casual memeber of a 10man raiding guild at the end of cata. Was a friend guild that i joined.
Those guys raided 2-3 nights a week, which i couldnt do, but every monday night they did a fun, slightly alcohol fueled, classic/bc dungeon raid. No real requirements, Was a ball and stress relief for the raiders doing the odd daft and hillarious pull/strat.
People could also work on their legacy gearsets.

Fitted the guild well as a small semi-hardcore but still friendly guild.
Don't ignore the teambuilding abilities of a casual old content 'fun run'

[Mcduffie]

In my first guild, we stole the flight master from Org and kited him up to Winterspring. Where we held him ransom for 4 hours. We had a mining pick up for 100 gold on the shared auction house that was for sale for his release. Good times.

[Digren]

Be willing to stick with it. Those other members - they're people too.

In the decade (yes, decade) that I've been in my guild, we've managed to meet most of them IRL. Weddings, births, good and bad times.

Blizzard doesn't make you form a five-member guild to field an arena team, nor do they make you form a guild to run an instance. I have no idea why they think you should form a guild to raid. A raiding organization is more like a job. A guild is more like a family.

[inthedrops]

Tips to Make Your Guild Awesome: Put awesome people in your guild.

[Skye1013]

Tips to Make Your Guild Awesome: Put awesome people in your guild.

This doesn't always work to your benefit... someone I consider Awesome (friends/family) may be a shitty player...

[Mcduffie]

I think he does mean "awesome" as in overall awesome.

However, you're right, there's a dual aspect to consider. A great player could be a real dick. A really nice guy could be a horrible player.

[inthedrops]

I mean "awesome" as in whatever you want awesome to mean for your guild. I wasn't talking about "game skills".

Awesome could mean:
* Takes criticism well.
* Learns quickly.
* Never barks at people.
* Is respectful and considerate.
* Is very funny and makes people laugh.
* Never stands in fire.
* Always does the right thing.

Whatever. I made that simple line above because to me it's what it boils down to. Conversely, getting rid of people who cause trouble, while scary (for example if they are highest dps in a raiding guild) can often be an overall improvement in guild atmosphere, and therefore health.

[Nikachelle]

*Most* great players ARE dicks. Which unfortunately seems to be caused by when they figure out they ARE good and suddenly they realize/think everyone is worse than them.

All of these tips really depend on what your guild is like. We have a raiding side and we have a casual side (and by casual, I mean they do not raid at all). We have some awesome players who are casual. They are friendly, helpful and fun to chat to. Being awesome doesn't mean you have to be an amazing raider, or even a raider at all.

Like it's been said before, it all depends on what your guild's goals are. I like awesome people, but they don't necessarily have to raid.

[mclem]

-Remove players that damage the guild's ethos and atmosphere.

This is one I have real difficulty with. It's easy when you've got people who are directly antagonistic, of course, but other situations are a bit more nuanced.

Right now in our guild we have one member who has strong opinions about how we do things, opinions which he's very vocal about, with lots of complaining. On the other hand, though, I feel a number of his criticisms are valid, they're just presented poorly, which makes it easy to dismiss his issues as a litany of complaints and nothing else. Some officers think he's consciously trying to destabilise the guild, which is a possibility, but I tend not to be quite as paranoid about things as some.

The officers are currently having a vote as to whether to kick him. It's extremely tight. On the one hand, I think the guild would probably benefit - socially - from losing him. On the other, though, I'm not sure it's the just thing to do.

[Nikachelle]

Then someone, preferably someone in charge, needs to talk to the person and explain that constant whinging isn't helping their case and that they are presenting themselves poorly and it's having a negative effect on guild atmosphere.

Although, speaking from experience, very few people actually LISTEN to you when you tell them this and they think you're not being serious. Then they get booted and it's like they've never had any amount of warning.

[Mcduffie]

Getting rid of people is always a weird situation to be in. On one hand, you don't want to ruin their game experience. On the other, you don't want them ruining everyone else's. It's always smart to weight the pros and cons.

However, I am really against ninja-kicking people. Unless they're just never online or something. We had a guy we wanted to get rid of. Couldn't stop standing in fire, and then blaming it on other people. We had pretty much decided to get rid of him, and his computer went out. Someone kicked him, then he posted on our website with "Hey guys! Don't worry, I'm still alive! Can't wait to raid!"

That got a little awkward.

[Marsha]

This thread "Winners vs Whiners" http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1869415177 listed 10 attributes that apply to 5 man groups (and raiding in general). If your guild members are "Winners" you're probably in a "Awesome" Guild

[Trav]

However, I am really against ninja-kicking people.

This. About a year ago, my guild and another one merged, to really just get the cream of the crop. The new GM (their GM) decided to just start kicking people from the guild for performance reasons. Which is fine for what was accomplished, but he did it without talking to them first...hell he did it without discussing it with the other officers first. So I, as the most vocal officer of our previous guild, was the one dealing with the fallout. I had asked him to change the way it was being done, all "his" officers bitched back at me, and eventually the result was me quitting the game for a few months and the guild falling apart less than a week after I quit.

Treating others with respect, and not being a coward when it comes to doing hard things like sitting/booting people goes a long way. For everyone, but especially officers.

[Mcduffie]

Still looking for more solid tips.

[Blackharon]

It's more of the "Hey, we wiped a lot on XYZ boss and I've looked at the Logs and we took X% of damage from ABC ability. Maybe if we do <insert talent/consumable/spell>, this can relieve some pressure" or a tweak to your current strategy based on the videos that you watched or your own understanding of the encounter.

I would pay for a guildie who did that.

Seriously. I would pay their subscription fees. Its just the officers in my guild who checks the logs and suggests strategies. The only feedback we get is "QQ I've been benched 20% of the time while he's been benched 18% its not fair!"

For a non-hardcore/cutting edge guild like ours the key is to focus on the fun. Having our french healer singing Happy Birthday to the people in english is great, laughing at the raid leader (me) because he said 'The next person who gets hit by the poison bomb is going to get gkicked' and then having him hit the next one is priceless. Its what keeps me there on weeks where we have regression instead of progression.