LF Guild?
For the second time since I came back to WoW, I find myself looking for a guild. It’s an interesting experience to walk around unguilded, especially at higher levels. There are tons of unguilded lowbies, but by the time you hit 30 or 40 nearly everyone has a guild. Walking through Orgrimmar or Shattrath at level 63, I almost feel a little bit naked, knowing that I don’t have a guild name beneath mine.
The first guild I was in on Shandris was a medium size family guild. We usually had around 20 to 25 people on each night and they were very friendly and pretty helpful for the most part. It was a large range of levels, with a few 70’s all the way down to some lowbies in their teens (as I was when I joined).
The guild was a nice place to come hang out each night, but the bad thing was it was just that. A place to come hang out. There was no real sense of brotherhood or camaraderie. Most nights when I would come online, there would be about 20 people on, and they would each be off doing their own thing. Trying to get a group together to do any kind of run was pretty much an exercise in futility. For the most part, I didn’t mind that, at least at the lower levels. I was pretty much focused on leveling and so playing solo wasn’t too big of a deal.
Once I got to the Outlands, however, that began to change. If you’ve been in the Outlands at 58, you know it’s tough to make it for those first two levels. Having a group makes things much much easier. On top of that, the first couple Outland dungeons are lots of fun and the loot is just incredible compared to what you’ve been getting in Azeroth. So when I made it to the Outlands, I started trying more to get guildies together to run things, but it still proved difficult to get anything going. Finally, when I tried for several nights in a row to get a group up for Scholomance (for my epic mount quest) and never could, I decided it was time for a change.
After I left that guild, I went to the Shandris forums to see if there were any good guilds recruiting. Most of the ones I found were raiding guilds, which I probably wouldn’t be eligible for (as I’m not 70 yet) and don’t know if I would want to join anyway. I’ve done the raiding thing and I’m not totally sure that I want to do that again. So I wasn’t sure what I was going to do guild-wise, but figured I’d just kinda hang out for a bit and see what developed.
About a week after I left the first guild, I got a whisper from a friendly 70 orc warrior in Orgrimmar, asking me if I wanted to join his guild. I really hesitated to join a guild blind like that, without being able to look at their website or find out what they are about, so I told him I would think about it and get back to him.
I was unable to find any mention of them or their website on the Shandris forums, so I did some /who searches over the next couple days to see what I could find out about them. It looked like they had a good number of members and that many of them were around my level. So I got back in touch with that orc and told him I’d like to join. I was a bit hesitant about it but I decided I would hope for the best.
So how’d it turn out? Well, it was short. Tom Cruise short. “My Favorite Books” by Paris Hilton short. About two weeks after I joined, I logged on one night and saw that we only had 4 people online. That was odd, as we usually had at least 15 to 20, but I just figured that some people were taking a night off. Then, as I’m walking down the street in Orgrimmar, I see the orc that invited me to the guild. He’s in a new guild. Then I see another guy that was in my guild. He’s in a new guild. And another and another. In the span of 10 minutes, I saw at least 5 old guildies that had left to join other guilds. So I /w one of them and asked, “Was there a mass exodus from this guild I didn’t hear about?” He replied, “Several of us didn’t like the direction the guild was going, so we decided to leave.” In other words, Yes. Yes, there was a mass exodus. Soon after that, the guild message was changed to (I’m paraphrasing here) “We’re disbanding. Find a new guild.”
Well alrighty.
So I’m looking for a new guild. Again. It’s tough to say exactly what makes a good guild, just as it’s tough to say exactly what I’m looking for in a guild. But if I were to try and sum it up, this is how it would be.
1) Friendly, helpful and active players. Helpful doesn’t mean that they are constantly offering to run people through dungeons, but they should (at the least) be willing to give advice and share knowledge about the game. Occasional dungeon runs are nice too.
2) Guild members should do as much stuff together as possible. Even if you have a lot of active players, if everyone is off doing their own thing, there’s not much point to being in a guild.
3) Purpose. If you are going to run a guild (or be an officer in one), know what kind of guild you want. Hardcore raiding, casual raiding, family-type, PvP, whatever. They’re all fine. Just know what you want and make it clear to people joining what you are trying to do.
4) Website. Don’t discount the importance of having a good website. If you are serious about making a good guild, this is absolutely essential. The website is probably the first thing that possible recruits are going to look at when they are deciding about a guild. You also need some forums on it so that guildies can bond and chat outside of the game. This is also a great place to organize guild runs.
So that’s what I’m looking for in a guild. But probably the most important thing in a guild is that indefinable quality of brotherhood. It’s being happy for your guildie when he gets the loot that he wanted, even though it means you didn’t get your loot. Knowing that when you ask, “Hey, anyone wanna do a run?” you’ll get some responses. I think that sort of thing will only happen over time but that’s what I want to find in my next guild.
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