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 is a multiplayer game and as such gathering groups of people is something completely normal and part of the game. In World of Warcraft such groups are called Guilds. These provide many benefits – banks, chat where you can communicate with other fellow members and come World of Warcraft: Cataclysm – the guild advancement system and other bonuses. All this makes being a member worth it. Many players choose to create a guild themselves and here is how you can do it if this sounds to you like a good idea.

First of all, you need 10 people to form a guild. If you have made some friends already, ask them if they would like to help you start a new guild so you can keep in touch easier and have more fun.

There are a few things you have to decide before moving on such as a name. Think about some nice names, as very often players who are playing just for fun join guilds simply because of the cool name. If having fun is the only goal you have, go and think of a name that’s cool/funny/entertaining. If you are planning to build step-by-step a more serious raiding guild that will eventually focus solely on the end-game content, maybe something more serious will fit well as a name for the guild. If you have some friends who are interested in starting a new guild together with you, maybe they also have some good ideas about guild names so hear them out.

Next step once you have decided on a name is to buy a Charter. It costs only 10 silver and you can buy it from the Visitor’s Center from the Guild Master NPC standing there. Once you have the Guild Charter, it is time to find 9 more players to sign up for the new guild. If you have enough friends to form the guild at once you can just do that, if not – try asking some random players who are not in a guild already to signup for your Guild Charter. Normally people would help you for a small tip of 5-10 gold coins, after which they can either stay in your guild or leave it once the guild is formed.

Once you have all 10 signatures, you can go back to the Guild Master and register your guild. Make sure your Guild Charter is in your Backpack, as having it in any other bag may cause some problems when the Guild Master tries to recognize it. Once the guild is registered, it is all official – you are a proud Guild Master to your newly formed guild and it is time for you to start working on getting more people into the guild and work on your goals!

I’ve been playing WoW for more than four years. You can tell whenever I’m offline because I’m writing articles instead to stay in the zone. Support my habit (and yours) at http://www.getfreewowtips.com.

As you begin playing World of Warcraft, it might come to your attention that there are people running around in game with a line of text underneath their name. What you are seeing is evidence that these people part of a World of Warcraft guild. A World of Warcraft guild is essentially a group of player characters who are affiliated with one another, who might share bank space and who have often come together for a specific purpose. Is joining a guild something that you might be interested in?

The first thing that you need to remember is that a World of Warcraft guild is not something that is run by Blizzard; it is run by other players and as such will vary based on how fairly they will treat their members and what they do. There are several advantages for being part of a guild. If you participate in raids and instances, you’ll be able to take on areas that you would not be able t handle alone, you will be able to get help getting up to the master level of your skills and you’ll be able to pick up trade skill ingredients through other guild members. You will also find that the social aspect of World of Warcraft can be extremely beneficial as well.

Finding a guild is relatively easy, but remember that there are lots of different kinds of guilds out there. Some guilds are completely geared towards the end game and taking on the dungeons and instances there. These guilds take their raiding very seriously and often have fairly stiff requirements for their members in terms of gear and experience. You will also find that there are guilds who are completely oriented towards role playing, where people will get into character and interact socially as the characters. Some guilds are a mix of both. Take your time and find the World of Warcraft guild that is going to be the best suited for your needs.

Especially when you are in the big cities, you’ll discover that there are people who are interested in having you sign their guild charter. A guild needs a certain amount of people to get started and in some cases, the people who are looking for their charter members will simply boot you from the guild when they have all the signatures that they need, though if they are going to do this, they will typically give you a tip for your trouble.

For many people, guilds are both the most enjoyable and frustrating aspect of the game. There is something incredibly fun about throwing in with a group of people and taking a challenging dungeon. For a lot of the endgame content, remember that it is not something that you can solo. Take some time and see how you might feel about joining a guild and make sure that when you do it, you choose wisely. Guild hopping will get pretty tiresome after a while, so see what your needs are going to be like.

Derek Smithson has written articles on World of Warcraft gold and the many World of Warcraft mods which are available, as well as a number of World of Warcraft guides.

You’ve been hearing all about World of Warcraft guilds and you’ve been playing long enough and have the confidence that you’re starting to think maybe it’s time to get into a guild yourself. So you looked around and talked to some guild members and got the background and decided, hey, rather than joining one that already exists, why not start up an entirely new one yourself? Well, you and some of your friends. But how do you go about starting a guild exactly?

Starting up your own World of Warcraft guild isn’t really all that complicated. Which isn’t to say that there aren’t the required hoops you’ll have to jump through. World of Warcraft is just like any other bureaucracy and as such there is a strict protocol of steps that must be taken. The first thing to do is to track down a Guild Master in any of these cities: Darnassus, Ironforge, Orgrimmar, Stormwind, Thunderbluff, or the Undercity. After you’ve found a Guild Master, click “How do I create a guild?” Simply type in the name of your guild and acquire the guild charter. What’s a guild charter? It’s basically a piece of parchment on which you will need to get nine other signatures in order to create your guild. It shows up in your inventory list.

When you begin looking for players to put down their signature, open up your inventory and right click on the charter, then click “Request Signature.” When you do that, the other player gets a pop-up box asking them to sign the charter. Make sure that you know who is signing your charter. If you ask some random player to sign and then he goes on to join another guild before you’ve registered yours, you’ll have to begin the whole process over again.

Once you do manage to get all your signatures, quickly head back to the Guild Master and right-click on him. You’ll be presented with the option to register your guild charter at that point. Once you’ve successfully registered the charter, you will become an official World of Warcraft guild.

One thing to be aware of is that you can’t just pop in anything as your guild name and expect it to be accepted. Certain restrictions have been placed on guild names. Some of these range from the litigious-inspired restrictions that won’t allow you to infringe on any company’s copyrighted trademark to the somewhat silly, like not allowing you to incorporate famous names into your guild name. In addition, don’t even think about using something ethnically or racially offensive and, it should go without saying, anything deemed sexually or otherwise vulgar or profane.

Author: Matt Garrett © 2007 http://www.WoWGuide.org