So how do you keep your Guild together?

Hi all! I am currently the Guild Leader of a small guild, Immortal Blood (iB), and am going through the usual problem of people not being on at the same time. No, this has not always been a problem, just happened recently, and I love our guild, and have no intentions of leaving.

I guess what I'm asking is is this something that every guild goes through, and how do you deal with it. My question to fellow guild leaders is, "So, how do you keep your Guild together?"

My suggestion would be make an announcement. Something along the lines of a pvp event for your guild. If you have a guildhall maybe an unrated guild match. *Wink.
From there who knows where the wind may blow?
PS: We had an all time high for number of peeps on at once last week. Out of a guild of 10 people we had 9!!! (the last one hadn't been on for three weeks so I booted :P)

You just have to keep working on it, as a guild leader you need to know and understand that as time goes on some people get bored with the game, play less and less and eventually not at all. Other situations arise as well so one month you may have a core group of players that are extremely active and play all the time together, a week later the number starts dwindling down til you have only 1 or 2 active. The best way to offset this is to keep your members interested, work on common goals together, start new chars and work together to level those up, as stated above, do pvp or other events together, or even just get on ts or vent while someone is at their computer to chat, even if out of game. Work to recruit other active members. Get your guild officers to help you as well, It is a lot of work keeping your guild together and active, especially if you are a small guild, but keep working at it.

~Zandria

I'd suggest parties every now and then.

Stock up on that ale! *Hic*
~Veripare

I had 3 good people in my guild and they are gone only because I brought in a leader of another guild into mine and made him an officer never do that and alway ask question on why he want to leave his guild.I have the same problem where no one i getting online and most have been off for a month even the guild founder.It come to my conclusion when this is going to happen they will probably not get online again they may have enjoyed beta but don't want to play every night or 2 nd.I put in the Guild Annoucement a yahoogroups all I do have forums some of those out there don't like that type of thing.This is a beter way to communicate instead of in game.I am rebuilding mine.

my guild consists of my friends and clanmates from counterstrike

we've had a teamspeak server for years now, and we all are always around doing something.. be it helping eachother in gw, or losing scrims!
*shakes fist* damn all those cal-m reforms

Well I do actually try and get everyone together to do guild parties, such as drake hunting or whatever everyone agrees on. And I did have a someone leave the guild, and when I asked them why, they said it was because our guild wasn't friendly. I found this hard to believe cuz when we are all on, our guild is one of the more friendly groups of people I have played any type of online game with.

Make a Forum / message board, and as a rule all members have to join the Forum and visit in @ least once a week.
There people can post what they want to do, or if they are leaving the game...and anything else.
Its good for the Guildspirit and gives Guildleaders a much better overview.
All our 43 members are not only active in the game, but also in the Forums.
The guildspirit is always very high.

Organise PvP and GvG nights, and UW/FoW nights for your guild members. Get them interested in the game.

Well... I'm the guild leader of Unspoken Rebirth [Life] (and theres another guild that has the tag like ours) But, theres several ways to keep your guild together... your officers, should have a designated job to do, so it keeps them busy. And the pvp/gvg/hoh thingy is not a bad thing. You schedual those things and they'll be on for it. Time..date.. location thats about what you need to do. Another thing would be fun is a guild tournament. I recently did this with my guild and we do this a lot. And its, go to team arena. =D Get at least 8 members to participate, make 2 teams and double check it and stuff. Click enter mission, and see which one last the longest =]. The team that wins, gets free ale or something =P its good to have challanges in your guild. Otherwise, it can get really boring =/ XD

I've thought of many other things to do too. Just being together with my guild makes me happy =] I love them to death ^___^ (concidering.. I own 2 other guilds as well) =X =P

Keeping members is not really the problem in my clan (Havoc Legion) because the core 17 people of the clan have known each over for over a year and we move from game to game together. The biggest problem I find is the recruitment process. Every aspect of GW is instanced based, so unlike traditional MMOs where a player's abilities and comradery can be truly tested and developed, GW requires a "hard-to-sell" approach where clans pit each other with glamorized marketing tactics and new recruits bombards clan with a "trial & error" attitude that often works against the effects of bonding.

Over the course of 2 months since our clan has existed, we've only been able to recruit approx. 3 new pepz into our ranks. Slow recruitment, yes. Slow developments, yes. Is our clan stable? yes. Its a waiting game.

Yeah, I think all of you have some excellent ideas so thanks for sharing.
I do regularly try and set up get togethers with everyone, and we usually get a good crowd for our events. I hope that maybe it is just that time of year, with everyone taking vacations or what not before school starts back.

well, we have ppl on our teamspeak everynight, either gaming or chatting. We really are a fun bunch. PLUS! we help each other alot. We have a section on our forums for example of items you are in need of or want, if we get one we remember you and we give it to you. We sometimes even give rare awsome gold items to each other. I once bought 3 guys new armor sets, dyes for it and some runes.

We slowly built up our member list but people stay or leave and come back.

We even talk about real life problems sometimes, that binds you like nothing else!

Hi, I'm the leader of 70+ members guild (Fantasy Kingdom [FK]) . I always post events, forum,and annoucement on my website (I check it everyday). I have guild rule that whoever afk over 2 weeks without notify any officers or me, he'll be kick out from our guild. Therefore, all my members are active (Always have 20+ members on everytime). We do alot tomb, uw/fow, mission together (once a week gvg). I always set up events for certain time of the day for people who would like to join. I also have polls for members to vote for their favorite members and officers every 2 weeks. And that winner will get $$ as a prize for being outstanding. Most of my members and officers are experienced players, so if 1 member needs help with quests or missions. Other players will help out too.
About how to recruite members, I didn't set any requirement. Anyone is welcome to join. However, I normally won't go around town or city to look for people. Most of the time, when we have big group to do mission or uw, and someone else from other guild comes along. They think that we always do things together as a guild and they would like to join. However, one thing I want to ask everyone of you. Do your guild has lack of communications? The reason I asked this because many members that I recruited from the past, They always told me that either their leaders not always on, or not many active members to do things together. Therefore, they want to leave their guild.
Personally, I have high expectations on my officers. Whenever I want to promote someone to become an officers. I will post an annoucement on the website and let my members to sign up for interviews. Normally, I'll interview each one individually at guild hall and determine if anyone will meet my expectations. Is he Active? How much expereince he has about this game? What can he do to help this guild? Is he helpful? (I always monitor my guild chat to see if he helps other members or not) I think it's the best way to choose your officers, so that everyone has a chance to interview and find out if he can do it or not. My goal is to be fair to everyone and respect everyone. Therefore, I think it is the best way to keep your members together.
Some of my members leave my guild before because they needs to help out their friends or start a new one. However, I still keep in touch with them whenever they need helps with. Some of them didn't work out good and rejoin our guild. I seriously believe that me as a leader and my fellow officers plays an important role of my guild. Communication is the solution to manage your guild and to build trust from each other.
Although my guild sounds pretty good, I still have problems with it. I cant satisfy everyone needs!! many people would like to become an officers, but then , I cant have too many officers in our guild. I always just tell them that wait till another interview and i'll promote people. Sometimes people just dont want to wait and join a small guild as an officer. Life is tough

Well, the truth is people are getting busier lately. School is just around the corner for some people while others have already started. Guild Wars takes a whole lot of your time and people just don't have the time to play it as much as before. And others, they leave because they don't find this game entertaining anymore. Moving on people.

One of the things that's made the whole thing eaiser for ODT is using forums to better organize GvG matches.

When a player wants a try a new build in GvG we request that they post the build to the forums first. We then hammer out any rough edges by discussing the build, ensuring that experts in the various classes can provide advice. When the build is ready for testing, the title and 10 available spots are posted in a seperate message. Guild members sign up to fill those spots, and when they are full a time is negotiated at which to test the build. Everyone shows up at that time, the group leader works out who can bring which character, and the characters are formed up and ready to go within around 15 minutes.

This saves us a lot of time which might otherwise be spent running to get a new skill for a build, debating which skills work best, finding that 7th or 8th player, etc. Because of this strategy, even players who can only play for an hour at a time are still able to participate in GvG.

If your guild is focused on PvE, I would suggest a similar strategy for Underworld or Fissure runs, though admittedly you can't control favor if you only play PvE, so scheduling could be a mess.

I am nice to all my people at all times. If I am in the middle of something and they requet aid, I will drop whatever I am doing and help them.

They do the same for me, but I rarely ask.

We basically put patience and common sense before other things, and put each other first. Works well.

It is work keeping a guild together. My guild (Avatars of Faith) has a good core group and excellent leaders who are willing to help others. We have guild events on a regular basis and a web site with forum where members can post ideas, complaints, etc. Guild rule #1: be nice ... no rudeness, yelling or foul language. (actually booted a member in the middle of a mission for violating all three parts of rule #1, after warning him twice)

I'd have to say that I believe school is the biggest factor. There are a lot of kids playing and you know what us old folks say. School work comes first.

Keeping that in mind i would schedule activities for the weekend and get a core group to geek with during the week.

Note: Avatars of Faith...I have worshipers?

Recruit, recruit, and keep recruiting. While this creates a lot of work for the Leadership/Officers if you don't continually have "fresh blood" coming into the guild people will stop playing or leave over time and the guild will wither and die.

After that you just have to sell your guild versus all of the other alternatives out there. Just like there are many different models of cars, almost infinite different types of shoes, etc, everyone is looking for something a bit different in a guild and as long as you maintain a consistant set of goals and recruit players interested in those goals you should hopefully grow and flourish (unless you have really odd goals like we're a guild focused only on going into areas to die, we don't attack we just run and die until we're all dead and then start over -- you might have a hard time recruiting for that ).

Take a careful look at entry requirents as well. If they are too time consuming people are going to just look past you - but if you have no screening, then you'll get all kinds of people and that can cause your good people to leave. The better guilds have people complete online applications that include what they want out of guild and what they have to offer. If this is a good match with the guild, they are in. If not, then its suggested they go elsewhere. Such a simple filter can help you get mature players that will support the goals of the guild. Spam recruiting does the opposite.

Well, thanks all for your posts! I just wanted to give everyone an update since I first posted my topic. I luckily picked up a new officer, and he has helped my save my guild! We recently got a guild hall, teamspeak, and a website, and are currently over 20 members! Yes, I know active members isn't alot to some guilds, but going from 4 to 5 active to 20 blows my mind!

my guild, of which i am the leader, has one problem, my pickyness.
i recruit people fresh outta presearing, and help them through the game with advice, occasional equips and whatnot.
i try to look for someone that seems intelligent, willing and able to learn, and needs help, but wont beg for it.
unfortunatly these kinds of players are very rare, and so i recruit MAYBEE one person into my guild a week...if that.
the only problem is that since i purposly keep the guild small (i dont want new members to feel like they're in ascalon district 1 when they go to my hall) and the recruitment process is so slow, and since i purposly recruit people outta pre, the "construction time" for a new, effective, active, helpfull, intelligent, self-sufficient member often exceeds the duration of activity of the less enthusiastic members.
aka, we tend to lose people at the same rate we gain them, or faster. and normally it wouldnt bother me, but when you invest as much time and effort into a member, only to have them go afk for 3 weeks without notice, its frustrating.
that having been said, the 11 active (including 5 very active) members we have form the core of my ideal gaming community...i just wish there were more of us.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=22222

This should at least a little help to you. It deals alot with the early stages in building a guild, but still should be helpful.