Guild Leaders share your experience!!

TL;DR - What important lessons have you learned about leading guilds, about life, and about people in general, from having had the opportunity to lead a guild in Guild wars?
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Loooooooong version:
Man I've been through hell and back - both in game and out of game. Notwithstanding what I've been through in real life, in game, my "leadership story" is kind of like this:



Guild #1: Luminous Invictus
I was in a guild, back when Guild Wars had just started. The leader disappeared, and some of the guys decided to start a guild. I happened upon a superior absorption rune and used the proceeds to buy the guild, cape, and hall for everyone. It was a rough start, but we kept on, and grew pretty nicely. We eventually started PvPing, and I refused to run boon prot, but we were still cool.

My experience here led me to write this, which was supposed to be a compendium of everything I learned from [Li].

Eventually, I got a job in real life, that my then girlfriend's mom graciously helped me out with, and decided to give up the leader spot. After that, the officers started treating me like garbage, and the guild just felt cold and distant. My "girl" at the time also bought GW, and we decided to form:



Guild #2: The Flower Cult
Things were tough. It was like I couldn't get the guild entirely off the ground, so to speak. My then-"girlfriend's" mom also got her a job where she got me one, and we worked together. I had to go overseas and do something regrettable, (and yes, I really had to go do it), and my then-"girl" decided to invite a mutual coworker to our guild. They boned. His daddy was a big whig at the place that we worked, so, naturally, I wasn't kept there very long after that. Plus, I don't think I'm very employable in the first place...

Anyway, I went to a mall after I got fired from my job. I went there, actually, to try to solve the girlfriend problem and the job problem in one swoop - and I got hired at Victoria's Secret . It didn't quite work out as expected, but it was a start. Skip a few years, knocks, and jobs later, and



Guild #3: The Toad!
This is my current guild. I won't indulge hubris and claim any unreasonable accolades, but these guys and ladies are really awesome. I'm having an incredible time with everyone.

I've used the lessons I learned in my previous guilds to make an amazing guild in the present.

Furthermore, given the lessons I learned in [Li] and [tFC], I dodged several proverbial bullets in real life. I used those lessons and the confidence from them to start a cute little business that paid off my car and my debts, and I'll be finishing off my Accounting degree, sponsored again by the business, preceded by lessons learned from these guilds. And if you're curious, I'm in an amazing relationship. Thanks for wondering .



Of course, the guilds aren't ALL of my education, but they certainly played a significant part. I wonder, if I learned all of this, what have all of you learned in leading your guilds? Or if you don't lead, what have you learned from being an officer or even a member?


Here are a few cute little tidbits that summarize a few key things I've learned, and please chime in if you disagree:


- People want 3 basic things in a guild:
1) Immediate expectations: Anything from doing SCs, GvGs, or something, to just hanging out and messing around. People want a guild to have a specific purpose.

2) Friendship: All the acronyms read in recruiting spam may entice a few people to join a guild, but it won't be enough to keep them. People need to make friends with other like minded individuals, and they expect that from a guild, or they leave.

3) Unique signature: Everyone wants their guild to stand out from all of the other ones. "Our SC guild has the best time for clearing North Kryta Province, muthaphukaz!" It doesn't matter what, but people crave that claim to belonging to an organization unlike any other. The more compelling the unique claim, the stronger that bond.

- It takes at least 3 people to start a guild. 1 to specifically recruit people, 1 to make sure that everyone feels welcomed, connected, and introduced, and 1 to create the system and framework within which everyone else will create their own roles and participate

- Some people aren't really leaders, they're just L O U D

- People will only push you as far as you let them. (yeah, I learned it more in a guild than I did in real life...thankfully! hahaha)

- If you care about your members, they return the favor. Treat them like names on a roster or stepping stones to a larger ego, and you can forget about ever having a decent guild in the first place.

- Life is too short to have guild requirements.

What about you guys? Share some of your experience!

Good post - I think a lot of players forget the impact that a "fantasy" game can have on their real lives sometimes, thinking it shameful or 'geek'ish..but I can honestly say I've had some of the best times I can remember sitting with guilds and playing in HA, GvG, or just running around questing.

I wish I could say that I stayed in three guilds in my over 6+ years of playing the game, but I hopped around quite a bit. In PvP, players don't stick around too long, just like in professional sports. You always want the best opportunities to advance yourself as a player..but I can say I learned a lot of valuable things in here. How to make friends, how to be succesful, how to be extremely poor and never be considered rich in game but still somehow make it (heh).

^ Pretty much all important summarized... show your members that you actually care about them, and respect them. Don't be a leader-dictator, nobody likes those; be a teamplayer, be there when they need your help...

Toss in an event or two once in a while (every few weeks); like contests with prizes, or guild dungeon/elite area runs, some random giveaways... and you'll be on a path to making a decent guild community.

I have been member, officer and leader. From little tiny 15-20 member guild to massive 10 guild Alliances, that are constantly vying for HzH or Cavalon.

The first Guild I was in was small 15-20ish, we swapped leadership every few months, recruited almost never and played a lot. Unfortunately we were all pretty noobish and joined the game quite late, year 3. So as we grew as players we all seemed to split in our play interests. The Guild joined an Alliance to help members with their different needs, and in order to help The Alliance we merged with another Guild. Which as current Guild Leader I pushed for, I did not have the play experience in certain areas to help my members and thought it would be wise to give them a chance to see it all. This worked out well I'm glad to say, at least for my members. I became an Officer and the problems started.....

I like familiarity and can handle the politics and diplomacy of large Alliances. One day a large disagreement occurred in AC, and before things could be smoothed over we had left the Ally which I really enjoyed (Shout to NICE Ally ) I was quite upset that Officers and Membership had not been consulted.
Over the next several weeks we bounced from one Ally to another, and this didn't sit well with me either. So I said my farewells and ventured forth.

I was Guild free for a few days and eventually chatted up in KC by and Officer from TIG Ally's. I joined and had a great time immediately. They had an easy to navigate webpage, friendly people and 10 very large Guilds all controlled by one central figure. I took the opportunity here to use the web page and host many HM events everything from the Deep to DoA to Slavers to UW, many HM missions and VQ's as well as faction events. Was not long and I was promoted. After a bit things started to become stagnate (2 years) and I noticed a lot of crap involving Officers/Leaders and unwarranted promotions that I couldn't stomach. So I stepped down to member rather than spend my last year or so in GW getting involved in Drama that I no longer had the time or stomach for, yeah I evolved, no more politics I took some time off from TIG to chase my Kurz (later with that). So I returned after three months of chasing my Kurz and was totally excited. Only to find more drama than when I left. Old Leadership people were returning and I honestly think this guy is possibly the worst person I ever met in GW, he wanted his power back and started and absolute free for all with no concern over Members, Guilds or the Alliance, and of course he was on the buddy system with that one central figure so everything he said was golden, no matter how blatantly false. Any how I said my peace this time and left. Shout to all my friends in TIG that stayed, hopefully your not still bound by the chains HYPOCRISY!! And to my friends that left to form their own thang

Chasing the Kurz, joined an MTSC Guild (shout to Coco and Chi ) Completed my Kurz and wanted to go home. Got home and see above LOL So I returned here I had been promoted while I was chasing and re-promoted upon return. I spent a lot of time recruiting here. This Guild wanted members and had big turnover. Surprisingly I found plenty of recruits, hint whisp @ players w/o tags much more personal that spamming crap in towns. But this Ally would break up and get back together like Kim Kardashian and the LA Lakers. So I wasn't happy there in the end. Said my farewells and moved on, GREAT core group in Chi though!!

And now as Guild Wars draws to a close for me I find my self back with the group I merged my Guild with, as look around I realize what a wonderful ride it was. I saw it all as far as Guilds and Ally's go, I did it all, but in the end I came full circle

I guess what you can take from this is there was everything out there small, intimate groups, large event based groups, and even larger single goal minded groups. They are what you make of them and unless you have the time to mold a bunch of people into one of these I suggest taking your time and trying the entire buffet (going into GW2). You will meet a great variety of people this way some will become fast friends and others well maybe the most horrible person of 2011 LOL.