Guild Hex

After writing my first WoW guide, “World of Warcraft- 10 tips to maximizing your game play,” I decided that one guide for a game of this size just wouldn’t be enough. While a few tips on how to play the game and understand your character is a valuable resource there are many more aspects of the game that you will be able to utilize. The feature of choice today is how to build your own guild and not let it go to waste.

A lot of people start guilds on a daily basis in WoW without ever really considering what it takes to start, and run a successful guild. I’m sure at some point in your play time; you’ve been assaulted by random people trying to get you to sign their guild charter, or seen in chat while sitting in a city, people offering gold for signatures. 9 out of 10 times these guilds won’t last very long. Running a guild, even a casual one, takes a level of commitment to the game and your members. Below is what you can consider starting points or a checklist if you want, of what to look for and do while starting your own guild.

1. Choosing a guild name- This will be the foundation of your guild. When first obtaining your charter you have to come up with a unique name for your guild. This may seem like an easy task, as you most likely have one in mind already, but really consider what you’ll be naming it. Remember, this is the name you and everyone in your guild will carry on your server and in the WoW community. Pick something that best suits your preference, whether it’s role play oriented, humorous, or even a clever use of gaming terms. Just remember to keep it appropriate, sexual references, vulgar, or offensive terms and names will be quickly removed by Blizzard GM’s.

2. Purchasing your guild bank- Assuming you have already gotten your signatures, the next step to forming your guild is the purchase of a guild bank. After you formed your guild you can head to any city bank and at the guild bank location select it and purchase your first tab and bank for 100 gold. I would advise purchasing one more tab in the case of having a new guild (though if you have the gold for it you can always purchase a third). After you have them, set their descriptions and what types of items they hold, maybe put some money in for repairs for other guild members or purchasing more items for the bank, and get your desired rank restrictions in place. A guild bank is a good way to get guild members to help contribute to the success of your guild as well as add another incentive for others to join.

3. Guild Website- A guild website is a reflection of who you are as a guild to the rest of the community and the world. Your website will be one of the many factors that will separate your guild from those that don’t make it. It also provides a place for people who might be interested in joining, to get a feel for who you are and what you represent in the game before they make any decision. To that extent, you’re more likely to get new recruits when needed and during the roster filling process, with a guild website rather than guilds that don’t utilize this option. While it may seem like a lot of work to start your own website, alot of sites on the internet already offer both free and paid guild hosting. Offering features like customizable templates, integrated DKP systems, and forums these sites are probably your best bet.

List of free and paid guild hosting services:
o guildomatic.com
o guildlaunch.com
o guilduniverse.com

4. Setting up a Vent server- One of the most common and sought out means of chat in both PvP and PvE, is the use of a voice chat hosting service provided by Ventrilo. It’s a third party program and doesn’t integrate itself into the World of Warcraft UI, but it’s easily setup and runs smoothly in the background. Now having vent is one thing, but if you’re gonna run a guild, you may want to consider actually purchasing on a monthly basis, a Ventrilo server from its website. They are fairly cheap to run, offer customizable channels, moderator privileges, password protection, and the server can be left running in the background without interfering with your other running programs. I highly, highly recommend getting a Ventrilo server for guild use, as not only does it provide a nice outlet for people to chat, knowing a guild has its own vent server can entice them to join.

5. What your guild focuses on- One of the mistakes people make in starting up a guild, is they fail to actively pursue one aspect of the game. While it is important to immerse yourself in all the features and aspects, your guild should represent, or focus primarily on one aspect of the game. There are 3 main areas of the game in which you can focus your guild on, PvP, PvE (raiding), and casual leveling. Though casual leveling is generally a guild for those who haven’t reached endgame, it’s potential lies in the dedicated members having spent so many gaming hours leveling with each other, and the option later on to become a guild focused on one of the more advanced areas of the game.

Choosing what you’ll be focusing on will ultimately determine who joins your guild and their chance of staying. Just make sure that whatever you choose, you have experience in. Guild members want a guild leader and officers who know what they are doing when it comes to their preferred aspect of WoW. You wouldn’t want to join a PvP guild with a leader who’s never officially stepped into the arena now would you?

6. Advertising your guild and getting new members- Now that you have an established website, a vent server open to your guild members, a guild bank (hopefully you have a few things and some gold in there by now), and have decided which area of the game you’ll be progressing in, you are now ready to push for new members. Hopefully you’ve already determined or have gotten your guild officers by now (you should always try to have trusted friends or players join to help you in running the guild), but may not have the amount of players, or the right classes to really get going in your guild progression.

Take the time to utilize things like trade chat, guild recruitment chat, pugs (pick up groups used in raiding, dungeons, and even pvp), and your battlegroup or server forums to find the classes and people you need to get your progression rolling. Clarify who you are, what your guild is about (raid or premade times, progression feats, etc), and what you are exactly looking for. Make sure to provide all resources of communication, guild website or forum recruitment page, in game characters to message, or even to clarify to leave a post describing who they are and what they are looking for in a guild right in your post comments.

Now that you’ve accomplished these goals all that is left is to dive into the game and run your guild! With features like scheduling on the in-game calendar, you can setup raid and premade times, or even meetings and fun events with your guild. Running a guild can be a very rewarding experience if done correctly, and will give you a group of trusted and reliable players. But as stated above, do not take this lightly, running a guild properly requires a high level of commitment to the game and to your members, and will push you to monitor requests, disputes, and the guild bank, along with any expense you may have for guild websites or Ventrilo servers. Regardless of things like that, remember to have fun and enjoy this experience.

Author: Dustin Casano (Zaiaku) 2009

Blog: http://www.whatthereviews.blogspot.com

World of Warcraft has exploded in terms of online popularity over the last few years with tons of people joining the already huge online gaming community. In fact online populations on the various servers have grown significantly and just like in the real world, it raises the question of just how many players there are.

In order to answer this question, it has seen the invention of the world of warcraft guild census tools. There are a few of them out there available for free download on the internet, some better than others but most do the job ok.

In fact, there are now websites set up that is dedicated to calculating this census information, which details various information such as guilds, races, classes etc. However, a question does have to be asked as to whether this information is accurate or not.

You can also get add-ons which when installed, will show you in-game census information as you play, real time. It will also gather census information from your server too, which can give you accurate information as to who is using your server to play Wow online and can provide some pretty cool world of warcraft guild census information too.

When using the add-on, you need to be careful because it can take some time to scan the server for the Wow population and certainly won’t be instant if you have a number of people all playing on it!

Using such tools is not only a fun thing to do, but you can dig up some really cool information as to who you are playing to. I have been able to find out just how many people were on my server at any one time and I also discovered the top guilds too, which is a really cool part of this world of warcraft guild census tool. Give it a go and download it, its great.

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Many World of Warcraft players eventually come to a point in their game play where they feel as if they are ready to create a guild. Creating a guild is not for everyone – it takes a lot of work, structure, organization, and patience in order to establish a productive guild. Here, you will discover some great strategies on how to develop a successful World of Warcraft guild. It is important for you to know and understand that this may take a little bit of time to accomplish. In addition to this, you may not always succeed when you try the first time. If this is the case, do not lose your motivation – there is always a way to turn things around in your favor.

Establishing your own guild is not a difficult task – the creation is the simple part. However, the process behind guild crafting may prove to be a bit challenging. First, you need to ensure that you have a bit of in-game cash that you can dedicate to the task. Once you have a good bit of funding to back you, you will simply want to find a Guild Master in the game. The cities that have these Guild Masters are as follows:

- Thunderbluff

- Darnassus

- Orgrimmar

- Undercity

- Ironforge

- Stormwind

If you are having a difficult time locating these individuals, you will find that there are various guards that are sprinkled throughout the city. Simply click on one of these and then select “Guild Master”. The guard will then inform you of where this individual is, and if you look at your map in the upper right hand corner of your game screen, you will see an arrow. This arrow will point you in the right direction. Simply follow this until you reach your destination.

Once you reach the Guild Master, you will want to click on the option that allows you to learn about creating your own guild. All you have to do at this point is select a name that reflects what you want your guild to be called. It is important to create a powerful name if you want a successful guild. Great names like “The Devotees”, “The Distinguished Dynasty”, and “Heroic Nights” are bound to pull in some interested parties. However, names like “The Chics”, “Fighters”, and “Demon Hunters” may not pull in a lot of traffic.

Once the name has been chosen, you will be issued a “Guild Charter”. This is a list that requires you to obtain at least ten names prior to the official “establishment” of your guild. While it may be tempting to just run around and invite anyone you see, it is important that you are a bit selective in this process. You will want to ensure that you review a character’s level, their skills, their knack for team work, and more. When inviting powerful players to sign your guild charter, you may want to offer a token of appreciation in return – like 50 silver pieces, or a gold piece.

Once you have acquired the necessary ten signatures, you will want to return to the Guild Master to officially “register”. Once this has been accomplished, the Guild is established on the server that you have selected. You will then want to create a Guild Tabard that your members can wear to display their devotion to the guild, as well as a bank tab that will allow players to deposit and withdraw in-game cash and items. In order to ensure that you are a successful guild, you will want to take few measures like:

- Encouraging members to become active in the guild by helping members complete quests, share items from skills, and place uncommon and rare items in the bank tab

- You will want to ensure that you create a website for your guild at the World of Warcraft website and make participation a stipulation for remaining a guild member

- You will want to encourage promotions in the guild by setting tasks that guild members must accomplish in order to advance in their standing

- You will want to ensure that you take the time to personally offer your assistance to all of the members and offer them incentives for being productive within the guild

If you take these steps, your World of Warcraft guild is sure to be one of the most successful ones on the server that you play on!

Derek Smithson