Despite so many of them ending in drama and despair, I’m still a great believer in the concept of guilds/clans/player associations/call them what you like, in MMOs. Maybe I’ve been luckier than most in the guilds I have chosen to join in my time, but I guess I’ve also made some of my own luck by creating some guilds from the ground up with the simple concept of creating the kind of MMO guild that I would want to be in. A pretty simple concept.
What I’ve hoped to do with this series is record some of my thoughts on guild creation. Maybe my thoughts will work for you and give you something to think about. Or maybe you’ll write me some hate mail and tell me that this is a bunch of crap. Either way, let me be the first to acknowledge that, like most things in life, there is no single “right way” to create an MMO guild. What works for me, might not work for you – and vice versa. OK, that’s the intro done.
With the guild name and hosting package out of the way, for our third (and final) outing we’re delving into the realm of recruiting. This is always a very interesting area, with many ways to approach it.
Generally speaking, the official forums for your game of choice will be the main battleground where you will try to attract talent to your guild, but how will you do that?
The process starts by asking yourself what kind of personnel you want. Or, put another way, how do you want your guild to look in a few months time? At one end of the scale, you might want it to be a tiny, intimate guild of pure role-players. At the other end, you might envisage a massive virtual frat house with 250 people running around in their underwear, drinking and shouting at each other at all hours of the day or night.
How you recruit will determine what you become.
If you go out with a very hard-nosed, perhaps role-played, introduction thread to your guild, chances are you aren’t going to attract the wild and crazy people. You can ensure this by perhaps setting some pre-conditions on people joining the guild, such as writing a backstory for their character or even serving a “trial period” with the guild before they are even accepted as a full member. You will certainly sort the wheat from the chaff with such a method, and be left with what you set out to get: a group of very dedicated, hardcore role-play type people who don’t act very crazy.
Meanwhile, if you go out with an “anything goes” attitude on the forum, and perhaps already have a bit of a posting reputation yourself, you are guaranteed to get that frat house sooner than you can say, “free beer”. And if that’s what you’re looking for — awesome! I find, however, that even the most tolerant guild leaders eventually get a little saddened and annoyed at the antics of their members when they haven’t set any boundaries or controls over them during the recruitment process. “What do you mean I can’t cyber the only girl in the guild? You didn’t say anything about no cybering when I signed up!” a member might explode one day. Is it your fault for having no rules?
Of course, I am working in these brief example with two extremes of guild recruiting. Your job now is to determine where along the scale of recruiting you wish your guild to fall. Very few of you, I believe, will want to be in a highly anal role-playing guild — even if you like roleplaying — in much the same way, that I find very few people over the age of, say 16, are truly comfortable in frat house style environments. So have a good, hard think about it before you do anything. At the end of the day you need to determine:
* Roleplay or non-roleplay?
* PvP? PvE? A mix?
* Any geographical boundaries and timezones preferred?
* Any rules to be laid down to members before they walk in?
And so on. The more you can get a handle on these questions BEFORE people start showing an interest in your guild, the better! Good luck with your guild!