Starting and Maintaining a Guild

Could someone please give me a little insight of starting and maintaining a guild?

I've have been officer in a guild for about a month and will remain and officer for probably another six months or so, but I'd like to start getting plans together for my own guild, so I was wondering, what are the essentials that I would need to know when starting a guild, and later, the essentials of maintaining a decent guild.

Thanks very much,
Izzy.

A guild that is comprised of friends either in real life or in game have a lot more chances of thriving than one that gets it's members by spamming in Old Ascalon. Once you get your friend/friends to join, then you can get their friends to join and so on and so forth. Being active in game and interacting with your guild is a big plus, too.

Step 1 is get a group of friends that want to start a guild with you. If you don't, people won't care about your guild (who would you rather join: a guild with 2 people or one with 80+, full hall, website, regular HM, PvP, etc) and won't join. Even the ones that do will just leave. You also need to dedicate to your guild; you can't just make it, get a bunch of people to join, and expect it to run flawlessly. You need to put time and effort in to ensure it runs, settle disputes, organise PvP/PvP/guild events, etc.

Simple Solution. Dont bother. This far in if you dont got friends who would be interested in starting up in a new guild you wont get far. Too many randoms and noobs who join guilds, stay for a bit, try to abuse whatever good services u offer. wether it be contests with prizes or giveaways or whatever may benefit them at no cost, they use it and leave.

^ This is sadly the truth. Unless you've got a group of friends willing to help you out, you're not gonna get very far. Sorry.

A Guild Forum helps a lot to contact each other even when not playing.

persistance,patience and undertanding. three things that may help you achieve your current goal, as the above posters have mentioned, friends are a huge plus,forums and random/spamming invites only gets you a revolving door in your guild. i've managed to keep a fairly active guild for over 4 years now by being careful with my invites and promotions to officer. having a clear set of rules and trusting in my officers to do the right thing when i am not online. there are times when you will be challenged to walk a fine line on decisions, but as a GL you will need to make them and live with it :P good luck and hopefully it all works out for you

1) Have people you know (whether in real life or in game) that you KNOW will join. Talk to them about it BEFORE you make the guild. Discuss with them things they would like out of the guild, and whether they would be willing to be an officer or not.

2) Have a focus. If you want to do PvE, then don't recruit saying you do PvE, PvP, GvG, HM, etc., etc., etc. It is alright to have a broad focus, but new people will be looking for something specific. If someone is only interested in doing GvG and you list it as something your guild does in recruiting, but only do so once a week, and use heroes for it, they won't be happy and will leave.

3) Get a full hall. Even people who don't use all the NPCs in a guild hall will want to see them there. It provides more convenient options for people looking to sell/buy things. It costs a lot, so if you are going to have friends help set the guild up, ask them if they would be willing to buy some of the NPCs.

4) Have and maintain a website with a forum. This allows you to communicate outside the game, plan activities, and discuss builds, weapons, armor, etc. without spamming chat in the game. It also provides you a place to show people what the guild offers before they join.

5) BE ACTIVE. This may be the most important part. Nobody wants to join a guild and see the guild leader on significantly less than they are. Not only do you need to be on often, but interact with the members regularly. Plan events (things like GvG, HA, UW, FoW, etc.) and offer members a reason to do them (prizes are not hard to come up with).

6) Recruit with intelligence. Spamming local chat in towns usually gets people to join who will leave after a couple days, beg for money, spam chat, ask to be an officer, log on once a month, or start flamming other members. Spend time talking with people before you invite them, and make sure they fit your guild, and your guild fits them. This makes for a stronger guild, but is a little slower.

7) Have rules, and enforce them. Things like language, activity, and conduct are important. If those things don't matter, then expect people to argue often, and be able to calm rough situations. If you have rules, make them detailed, but simple.

8) Join an alliance with similar interests. If your guild is one that likes to do UWSC, then don't join an alliance that is working at controling a city in Factions and wants people to do MQSC. However, if they alliance wants to do HM PvE, your guild may find people from the other alliance guilds wanting to join you to learn how to do the UWSC, or to join in when you need more people.

I would set up a Twitter, a forum with a .com/.net domain, focus of the guild, contests where people can donate, and weekly events like ritualist Friday, etc.

Build some rules and expectations (but not too strict). It'll save yourself drama and people from rage leaving.

Accept that there will be people who'll leave. Appreciate who you do have.

This is from a member view since I've never been a leader or officer.

Get Money, one of the make or break things for people looking to join a guild is the hall. They cost 523k~ (510k+sigil), so you'll need a bit of gold to get a hall.

I find from personal experience that the best guild is one started with irl or close ingame friends.

OK I agree with everything that I have read so far on here.

I was in a guild and then left that guild and started my own, dismantled that guild went back to the first guild and into another guild and then bought 99% of the NPC's for the Guild that I am in now.

So now I am in a guild with 1 guild leader (not me) 1 Officer (that is me) and 1 member ( not been on in 3 weeks)

AHHHHHHHHHH that said, we have the alliance which the first guild I ever joined is the leader of.

So, this is what it takes to be a FAB guild.. everything that you seen above.

IF you are not willing to put in 3-5 hours a day...every day..for every then do not start the guild.

When I was in my first guild I would recruit in PreSearing Ascalon. I would find someone asking for help and then help them right through Presearing and on to post lvl 8-10. This would only take me 3-4 days but I would show tricks and stuff to them and introduce new members to the guild/alliance.

I would build trust with them and a small friendship. This took time and a lot of typing and doing NOTHING for myself while I was tutoring the new member. I could not farm stuff nor get gold, nor advance my toon at all through death lvling as I am above lvl 16. This helps when most people are lvl 1-10 with the occasional lvl 10-16 and even less lvl 17's and up. Being lvl 19 has its advantages.

So as you can see by the length of my post..there is a lot of time needed to become a good guild leader and even more time needed to become a great guild leader.

Even with all of the help that I have given in pre none of the people I have helped stayed in my guild. Once they left pre they were on their own as others in the guild did not pick up where I left off.

So not only is your attitude important, but the actions of your officers are way more important. To many Officers spoils the guild.

Set limits, be diligent and have a Goal for your Guild. The guild I am in now is called...the Knitter's Guild. can you guess what we do? We knit of course. So there is a common bond in RL as well as in the game.

Thanks everyone