Tips for succesful guild creation?

Hello all.

I'd like to ask for your help, tips, cause im running out of ideas.
The subject is, that i created a guild, succesfully recruited some people, BUT they all left one by one. Leaving no reason why they did so.
And well, if they wouldnt have left, we would count already 13 members in the guild. Instead we have 2. (i hope the last one doesnt leave while i write this).

To the details: i created the guild on friday (oct 31 Halloween), under the name of Halloween Nights [Boo] (is this mabye the problem? funny name - i dont think so, cause they wouldnt have joined) and already before the foundation, some people seemed to have interest in joining. Right after i made the guild, ive created the cape and bought a guild hall.
This is a fun guild, i dont have great plans for it yet, but still would like to see some people in it. I think around 10, maximum 15 people would be enough, but id be happy even if that would be more. Only restrictions to join are these: must be at least 16 years old, should have completed a campaign, and speak english. According to other guilds restrictions, these are like a walk in the park.

I try to be as helpful to the members of the guild as i can be, i told them about the side events that were hold in Lion's Arch international district 1, and they joined in, seemed they had fun, but even so they left.
12 people left in 2 days. They could have waited a little more i guess.

I came up with the idea, to promote members to officers and encourage them to get 5 new members in two weeks. -Even if all the 5 leave. (This cant be so hard i made 15 invitees in a week) Ofcourse the officers left too.

Now Halloween's over and the towns and outposts are starting to get empty again. I have no more ideas on how to get the guild running.

I hope you guys know some answers, or i appreciate your stories about your guilds creations, if there were any troubles and how you managed to get past them.
Thank you very much for your responses.

~Pumpking

in my expierience it makes sense to have some friends willing to join your guild otherwise it doesnt really make sense
if it's a fun guid aspecially....
get your friends to get their friends
and you've already got atleast 20-30 members depending on how many friends you've got

thats a good base to start a guild on

^^

i would like to join, it would be nice to be in a fresh new guild again.

<----invite ign

My best answer is, get some friends (Not being mean)

If you can get a load of friends from outside GW (EG school or work) your guild will have a load of strong members that can slowly increase the guild's roster, (also you should be able to trust them not to spam invites out to anyone).

I'm currently in a guild with a lot of friends that I know from outside guild wars, and all it does is get slowly bigger.
It also helps to be in a big alliance, (doesn't have to be a faction farming one) this will be useful for new members because they'll have access to lots of help from experienced players.

quality over quantity, know how to lead a team, know wtf you're talking about, know where you want to get with the guild. any newb can make a guild but it takes someone who really knows how to do it to keep a guild of good players. this thread... well, it speaks for itself.

but as someone with no ambitions or ideas (helpful friendly pve is generic, meaningless, and everywhere) for a guild you'll probably get absolutely nowhere like all the guilds you see being sold for 5k in LA.

so overall the best advice i could give you is don't spend too much money on that guild lord because you just may wind up regretting that. good luck.

I think you got so many members so fast because of the guild name with Halloween being so fresh in everybody's system. They left because it's easy to see when a guild has a poor chance at succeeding.

You need character and friends with character, not just helpfulness. Get your members talking and feeling welcome, otherwise you're going to have lots of lonely recruits with no direction leaving the guild.

If you can talk a person into joining your guild while playing you're going to have a more loyal member than the one you recruited in Ascalon and forgot about soon after.

Speaking from my experiance, yes having a friend really helps out.

Me and my friend (Not from real life however) made a guild that is running very successfully at the moment.

But the true tips are, don't have too many officers, and don't put someone at officer till they deserve it.. I only have 4 officers in my guild and there are about 50 total people... but each officer is trusted to the fullest and know what they are doing.

Another tip is to just be PATCIENT.. It takes time for a guild to develop and find good and or decent members. My guild was growing fast to begin with but then we stop recruiting and what we thought were loyal members weren't.

Which brings me to my next tip... Don't STOP recruiting till you know for sure that your members will stay loyal. The thing you have to relize is that people will guild hop, and you can't stop that but one thing you can do is ask a favor to all your new recruits. the favor you ask them is something along the lines of ''Hey we are new and i'm working really hard to get this guild going, so if you could stay and try it out for a week then if you don't like it leave''
Many of my members are now loyal cause even though we were rough in some spots the new recruits stuck around to see how good we would get.

Another thing is yes you do have reqs, but don't be afraid of them. The people who pm you when you recruit and say ''invite me'', what you gotta do is ask them some questions first before they join... Those people that say that are the guild hoppers...

So yeah you have to get lucky with some recruits and be smart about it... I hope this helps and if not well good luck in the future with other guilds you may find.

~Wags

Reign of Judgement {RoJ}
Leader

Your name isn't the best, since it makes your guild appear to be a once-a-year novelty guild. That may be what those people who joined then left thought it was. Also, if you don't have a VoN set-up (TS or Vent), get one set up. There's so much more fun to be had chatting & joking around with your guildies & allies on TS while hanging out or rolling through a task. (The risk of drama does increase with these systems, so consider yourself warned.)

Mistakes I see all the time in recruitment messages:

1. "cool cape" - EVERY guild has a "cool cape" (at least in the opinion of the guild leader!)

2. "We do HA/TA/PVE/UW/FOW/ABs/TOMBS/HM/CONTESTS/VANQUISH/GvG/" (only to find out that they've got 10 members!) Have a sense of direction for your guild, know what it is you want your guild to be about. Specialize in a couple of things - maybe Vanquishing and UWSC's - at first, and build on that as your guild grows.

3. "First 5 to join become officers!" ( a cry of desperation!)

4. "Friendly, helpful" (I woould certianly hope so!)

5. JOIN MY GUILD BECAUSE I KNOW WHERE THE CAPS LOCK BUTTON IS AN AM NOT AFRAID TO USE IT!!!

6. Spammasters of the Universe [SPAM]* recruiting....PM for Invite!
Spammasters of the Universe [SPAM] recruiting....PM for Invite!
Spammasters of the Universe [SPAM] recruiting....PM for Invite!


*If there IS a guild with this name, my humblest apologies.

Have a group of people beforehand that would like to join so that you have a foundation. Make sure you and them are active and have time to spend. Do stuff that people want to do, or get people that are enthusiastic about what the guild wants to do.

Tips for being a guild leader/holding onto a guild

Guild leader and officers need to be highly active encouraging guild activities and helping out members where they need help. In the start this is the best way to encourage members to initially stay and they will tell their friends to move to your guild, this will give you a good base number of members. From then on with greater numbers it is a lot easier to attract members of greater talent/less noobs.

I find with attracting/holding onto members they are more likely to join/stay if you know them on a personal level either from real life or getting to know stuff about them.

Most people know there direction in gw life, mine tends to be pve I want to be grouped with like minded people as there is a greater chance of guildies working together towards a common cause. I've been in three guilds throughout GW, there is always a constant between them being strong leaders and officers. Members aren't going to be happy if a noob gets promoted to officer especially if he doesnt deserve it. When I was guild leader I used to ensure they were good enough by setting challenges (a simple idea but worked) as it would show that they really wanted to be an officer, had more than one brain cell working, and they weren't a t**t.

People are mainly in their guilds because they want to have fun, they don't want to it be a chore. Obviously because GW is dying many guilds are dying easily/don't have enough fighting spirit to make a new one work. Those that are getting new guilds at the moment are either ones that people don't want or they are one of the few active ppl left in their prior guilds and so will guild hop till they are happy.

Good luck with your guild.

Join a large guild and make some friends. Start spreading dissent amongst the ranks and paint the picture that the guild is crap and the leader sucks. Then, once things are thoroughly shitty, announce that you can do a better job as GL and you're leaving to start your own guild. If you've done things right, a lot of people will come along.

Seriously though. If you're a veteran GW player odds are you have a large Friends list. Talk to them and see if they're interested in starting up a new guild. If you're a new GW player you have no business running a guild, so take some time and get some experience and some friends. Then start your guild.

DO NOT recruit in town. This is the major failing of guilds. Guilds who recruit in town tend to have no interest in the quality of their members. It's a standing policy in my guild that we recruit out of PUGs. We group up and observe people and then extend the offer to worthy individuals (and that doesn't mean just skill).

Don't try to be the guild that does everything. Those guilds are stupid. Specialize on a few things. My guild does PvE title work and GvG. That's about it, and our members are happy.

Avoid any bullshit like a "council of elders", "guild inner circle", or a lengthy list of rules. People want to play the game, not abide by some charter or constitution.

Once you have a few members on your roster, join an alliance. This seems to be a big recruiting point. Make sure the alliance's goals and values parallel your own or you'll have a conflict of interest.

Running a guild is probably one of the hardest things to do in GW. It's not for everyone and you should only take on the task if you're willing to spend a good chunk of time in-game dealing with guild bullshit. It's a time sink, to be sure, and it takes away time from having fun. This finally got to me after two years of leading [STAR], and so I let it collapse and we reformed under one of my former officers. Everything stayed the same, I was just sick of the bullshit responsibilities of leading a guild.

Heres the steps for getting 100 ppl guilds

step 1: have a bunch of you and your pvp-skilled friends join clan
step 2: win hoh a couple of times
step 3: pve scrubs will all flock to your guild
step 4: ???
step 5: profit

or

step 1: buy a gold cape guild like eF
step 2: pve scrubs will all flock to your gu
step 3: ???
step 4: profit

imo, you'll have a lot easier time getting people if you remove the campaign completion requirement. I don't see what you're gaining from it, many people have already completed campaigns and still dunno wtf theyre talking about, and it will be a lot of hassle for you to actually find out if they have or not. If you're worried about noobs, stop worrying, because if you let them bother you then you might as well /uninstall. They're everywhere, have a requirement like that won't solve anything.

+ [email protected]

imo, you'll have a lot easier time getting people if you remove the campaign completion requirement. I don't see what you're gaining from it, many people have already completed campaigns and still dunno wtf theyre talking about, and it will be a lot of hassle for you to actually find out if they have or not. If you're worried about noobs, stop worrying, because if you let them bother you then you might as well /uninstall. They're everywhere, have a requirement like that won't solve anything.

+ [email protected]

1) get at least 5 very active officers. they need to be friendly, experienced, and interested in the guild

2) use vent often. encourage members to use it...people tend to stay if they know people on vent

3) recruit active people, kick inactive people.

4) of course you need a full hall and a website helps too

5) organize stuff that the members are interested in. this is optional but a certain percentage of players really like the company and involvement, and will leave if there are no guild activities.

You need a purpose.

Even with the decay of the player base, people have lots of options when it comes to what guild to join. You have to offer your prospective members something they can't get elsewhere. Otherwise, they'll eventually leave.

Whatever it is you do, you need to do it better than anyone else if you want to have a successful guild. Also, whatever it is has to be a popular enough activity that you can recruit people. It can be PvP or PvE, and it doesn't have to be measured in "win more gold capes than anyone else" or "get a rank 15 player before anyone else". It can be "provide best play experience at top 100 GvG level", where everyone knows everyone else and real rage isn't tolerated.

What I'm getting at is this: unfocused "PvX" guilds die, where focused "we are going to own Mallyx in HM daily" guilds survive, thrive and naturally recruit new players through word of mouth.

As others have already observed, if you don't already have a dedicated core of players, you're better off joining someone else's guild. You never could grow a decent guild from nothing, and it's only gotten harder as players have drifted away. If you haven't got a purpose in mind, the best way to find one is to wander through guild rosters until you find a good one and meet some players that agree with the purpose.

i need to reiterate this point
ive seen some crazy things

1) Have a purpose for the guild. Without a purpose, why are the people in it? PvE is fine for a purpose, but what part of PvE? Hard Mode, titles, etc. are all things people want to do, so make sure the guild has a focus.

2) Recruit correctly. Don't invite random people. Random invites will get people who don't share the guilds purpose. If you send a random invite to a PvP player and your guild is PvE based, they won't stay. Spend time talking to and playing with people before an invite is sent. Make sure that they are a good fit for you guild, but also that the guild is what they want.

3) Choose officers carefully. Don't promote people just because they are on a lot or first to join. Officers should have a clear understanding of the guild's purpose, and be active. Helps tremendously if they have done most of the game on at least one character, if not all of the game. Officers should always be ready, willing, and able to recruit.

best advice, get a vent server, find one somehow. a guild with a vent server gives off an aura of reliability, like because it has one it seems more stable if that makes any sense. also vent makes a fun casual guild more fun, talking to eachother rather than typing just works better.

also i'd be interested in joining yours, my old guild disbanded and im really only looking for a fun, casual kind of guild, nothing hardcore
my IGN is my forum name

no goal for guild? just quit your guild, you won't succeed and will only waste cash.

anyway, couple of suggestions:

1. (imo most important) an active forum for your guild, from my experience ppl that used forum actively made there some great friends there and got to know eachother much better. None of the members who used forum actively left yet.

2. Make a goal for your guild. Else just quit and join some other guild

3. Recruit trough forums like guru, GWonline, etc., invite some good PUGs that you met in some mission/quest etc.

4. Did i mention that without any goal for your guild you should just quit?

5. Guild name is not really great, gives me feeling like that's some random guild that invites just any randomers and is there to have nothing but filled roster - would never consider joining such guild myself.


good luck.

Get friends who are addicted and play all the time. It's good if you're like that too. Get them together. Form a new guild, them as officers (I used to play with a small trusted group and we took that role), and maybe a few members you pick up. Join a medium sized alliance.

Once you've found which guilds in the alliance, or all, have weak leaders and are mostly bad with a few good players, get those players over to you. Y'can make sure your guild is always the most active and helpful in alliance chat, can slowly create a negative image of the other guilds, whatever, but get those good players in your guild. Once you have a good amount, leave the alliance and find another. Repeat.

This method works quite well, I've found.

Also - get a good name and a good cape design. Get a guild hall that a lot of members like, and try to fill it. (For this reason it's good to choose a name that will work fine if you ever have to restart or transfer it to a mule account, so guild hall money isn't wasted.) Do events. Elite missions, alliance battles, team arena, hall of heroes. Note, don't try the harder ones such as HoH or some elite missions in HM if your guild members aren't good enough to do them well - it'll only cause frustration. Help them master easier sections and get them prepared ahead of time. Then do the tougher ones.

I think most of the things needed are already mentioned by others.
Activity, guild goals, selective recruitment.
What I'm kind of missing is if you have any officer experience in another guild.
That way you at least have some idea of the things you should expect from officers and members in your guild.
Remember, it's a game and people come and go whenever they like. Or when you make a bad decision (in their opinion).

bests way of making guild, get some friends who will join in the guild with you..
make em officer,
then you can reward em for good rescuiments,
make everyone rescuit. when you have enough ppl make some events,
For example Farming, titles etc and they will stay, when rescuit and rescuit and rescuint.
it takes time but you'll get pretty easyly amounth of ~60 with reqs like those

TBH, I personally think its too late to be thinking of building a guild from random players anymore. There are more guilds chasing an ever decreasing number of new players.

I will wish you luck though.

"Fun" guilds do not exist, or they exist with empty rosters like yours. That's because "a fun guild" is another way of saying "a guild without a focus" - why would anyone want to stay in one? People like to do something in this game, and the ones that don't, like me (costume brawl is gone; QQ), already have a guild, a friendlist, and several vent servers to chat with other old inactive players.

Basically,

1. Decide what you want to do.
2. Get your "core" of players with shared interests (this can be RL friends or friendlist).
3. Add people from there.

If you can't do step 1 or 2, don't bother.

1. Be brave and strong
2. have a brave and strong guildname
3. recruit only brave and strong people
4. ????
5. profit

He's making a guild not invading Iraq.

I agree get people who know and trust to join and take it from there. BTW it's prolly a bad time to start a new guild from scratch at this stage of the game's life.

Try to have a solid core crew that loves the game and logs on at least a few minutes every day. Officers you see once every two months aren't of much value.