A beginner’s guide to guilds.
November 20, 2009 :: Posted by - Ozimandias :: Category - Community, Guilds
Keeping a guild together for any significant amount of time in WoW is an unbelievable accomplishment. People and personalities always seem to get in the way, drama takes over the guild and keeping everyone happy seems to take an extraordinary amount of effort. If you are looking for a guild, you know, one of the good ones, then it pays to do your homework. Here are a couple of tips to finding a guild that fits your personality.
“When the student is ready, he will find his master.” It is not the other way around. Good guilds usually are not in trade channel recruiting. So when you see a guild spamming trade channel or you get a random whisper inviting you to a guild, my advice is to steer clear. The worst (and rudest) way to get an invite is to have the window pop up on your screen, “Mstrbater wants to invite you to the guild, ‘Purple headed yogurt spewers.’” Steer clear of these invites and follow up with a nice /rasp for their efforts.
So how do you find a good guild? You can check out wow headhunter. They have you answer some quick questions and you are matched up to a guild based on your answers. My advice is to ask around. Join a PUG group for a dungeon your level and find the best players in terms of gear and play-style, but don’t discount personality at all. In fact, I really think that personality wins out over gear check every day. The ret pally with uber gear but an ugly attitude when you accidentally pull agro in Dead Mines probably will not be a great raid teammate in end-game content. Ideally, your future guild mates will be people that you would want to hang out with in RL.
So when you find a good player and ask him about his guild, you should check for a couple of things. One, what is the guild focused on? Is it end-game content stuff? Progression raiding? Is it a causal group of players that is out just for fun? Is it one that dabbles in end-game raiding? When are the raids are usually set up? Are they willing to gear you up for encounters that you have not caught up to? Are there guild dues or mandatory meetings? Finally, what is the overall attitude of the guild?
These are some very important questions to ask before you submit yourself to join the guild. If too many of these questions do not match what you are looking for, consider looking for another guild. Why join a guild if you can’t raid on their schedule? Or why join a guild that raids when you can, but there are no slots open? Some guilds have a set group of raiders that never changes, so if you can’t get in on the raid, why join?
How the guild handles your request to join them also says a lot about how the guild is run and organized. It also says a lot about the effort that the leadership has put into developing the guild. If you are not directed to a website to submit an application, you might not be joining an established/organized guild. The website says a lot about the guild’s communication setup and allows dissemination of information even though people are away from the game. (Like at work.) It is virtually impossible to get every member of a guild online at the same time, so the website allows everyone to be on the same page as far as where the guild is heading. Also there should be some sort of interview with an officer in the guild where both of you can gauge how well of a fit you are going to make.
None of these are hard and fast rules. Not all guilds are going to fit into these guidelines, but it is my experience that the guidelines that I outlined here will go a long way to making your experience in WoW a pleasant one. My guild, The Blackwater Seawolves on the Argent Dawn server-US, is celebrating its 5 year anniversary on November 23. Now that is quite an accomplishment.
