Guild Hex

The state of your world of Warcraft Guild should be a major concern for all players involved, Officers and members alike. When you have a problem with the direction that your guild is going you need to come up with some ideas regarding what needs to be done. Our guild is presently going through a very trying time and I though I would share our solutions with you.

In this article I am going to outline some ideas that I see as solutions to when a guild is on the rocks. Many may not like the things that I am going to suggest, others will.

We are a casual guild that has been raiding of late but we suffer from lack of participation from many of our members. The lack of participation stems from many different things including real life issues and the game becoming stale.

If you want a guild to survive then here are a few solutions that may help.

1.) Leave it as it is

In this scenario the guild stays just as it is. This solution is usually the death blow to any guild that has become stagnant. If your World of Warcraft guild stagnates it will become simply a glorified chat room for some players and a stepping stone to a better guild for others.

A guild that has degenerated into a family or chat guild will remain for quite awhile. Take it from me I have been involved in many of them over the years and most of them are still part of the gaming universe that they were created in.

Leaving your guild as it is means that you as a player have to get used to the fact that raiding is going to be a hit or miss thing and unfortunately mostly miss. New players will come over time and others will leave. Some will be content with their life in the guild and will be there forever.

2.) Dig in and make a go of it

Choosing this option means that you may have to take a look at completely revamping the guild including its structure and the players you have in place as officers. Will everyone be happy? No. Will you lose players? Yes. That is the price that you going to have to pay if you want to dig in and make your guild the one that you want it to be.

There are those who are going to say you don’t need change and those are the players that are content with life as it is. It is time to take a look at what you as a whole want and then make it happen.

Your officers are going to have to be ready to commit to more raid time, and need to be at as many raids as possible. If they cannot do this then they need to be replaced by players who can. I know everyone has a real life and time is precious but it is something that must be done if you want to create an atmosphere where raiding is the norm.

You should take a survey to determine which days are the best for your guild to raid. If the majority can be online Friday, Saturday, and Sunday…then those are the raid days. Other nights you should be doing heroics for those interested. Those who are not interested in participating in some guild activity are honestly dead weight and need to be left behind.

If your guild is anything like ours everyone says that they want to raid and get the best items available. However, your guild like ours has to do more than just talk about it. Purples do not fall out of the sky or arrive in our mail box in brightly colored gift wrap. If you want it then you have to earn it. If earning it means devoting more real life time to the game then we each need to make a decision. The $64 question is are we willing to trade real life time for game time to get them? If you are not willing then step aside and let others lead who can do it.

3.) Move to another Guild

You could do this but I suggest that you do some real research first. You must be very careful when looking for a guild to join. Real raid guilds want players that can be dedicated and be at the raids. If your own performance is lacking in that area then why would you jump to a fully raid based guild? Chances are that when a raid guild learns that you cannot or will not make a certain percentage of their raids you will be asked to leave or not be accepted in the first place.

If you decide to choose another casual guild you need to be sure that they are actually raiding and that you can commit to their raid schedule. You do not want to jump ship only to find that the ship that you jumped to is named the Titanic.

4.) Server Move

This is another area that requires some thorough research. Perhaps you could discover the name of the newest server that fits your game style (PvE or PvP) and move there. Before you jump you need to find out what guilds are on the new server and decide if you can take a bite out of the player base and create a new guild there.

The key here is that you want a server with a fairly sparse guild population. Once you decide which server then you need to move as a group and start a new guild immediately and recruit hard. However this gets right back to our commitment and play time problem.

Why jump to a new server and start an exact replica of what you already have. If you are going to suffer in misery you might as well do it where you are.

4.) Guild Merger

Take a look at some of the smaller guilds on your server and see if they are looking toward raid content. Once you find a suitable guild you can either ask them to merge with you or merge with them. Personally I don’t like the idea of losing my guild’s identity but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Many guilds will want you to merge with them and perhaps rightly so. Your roster may say that you have 200+ members when in actuality you only have about 30 active members. The rest are alts from other guilds, alts of our own, or people who have not played in months. Should the guild that you have chosen have more active players and is going in the direction that you want to go, then merge with them.

When your guild is experiencing real problems these are the options that you have as I see them. Remember that you need to do something to ensure that you are satisfied with your gaming experience. If you are happy with most of your guild mates I suggest that you should do something as a group. Trickling off the main characters to other guilds until your guild is nothing but an alt, family, or chat guild is NOT my idea of doing something.

Lee Ruleman

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.

The final type of guild that you will encounter in World of Warcraft is the Hardcore Raid guild.

Hardcore Raiding Guilds are the top of the food chain in every MMORPG. They are the ones that have the best equipment the most money and the envy of many of the other guilds on their server. This is the type of guild that just salivates at the thought of a new expansion.

These types of guilds are usually multi-national with members in many different time zones and tend to have a raid of some kind going on all the time. It does not matter what time of the day or night you log in there is usually something going on.

The rules for this type of guild are very strict. One that I was a part of had a rule that stated, “If you are online and our guild is raiding …YOU are raiding.” I got a lot of killer equipment while in the guild but burnt out quickly.

If you are considering starting this type of guild you had better be ready. The commitment from the Guild Leader and officers in this type of guild is absolutely immense. You can’t just come home from work and decide to lounge around on the couch; there will be players in the game ready to do something. A Guild Leader cannot undertake running a guild like this alone. You must have trusted officers who know what they need to do.

The Hardcore Raiding Guild appeals to the fanatical “I MUST PLAY’ type of individual. If you are considering this type of guild, as your first attempt at running a guild then it would be my opinion that you should seek professional help…you are going to need it.

These types of guilds are few and far between, but can be found if you look hard enough. I have been a member of these types of guilds and while the reward was great so was stress.

Lee Ruleman is a 10 year veteran of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) beginning with Ultima Online and continuing on through the present. It is Lee’s goal is to assist other players in attaining maximum level, the best equipment, large cash reserves, and advanced gaming knowledge, all in a 100% legal manner.

For a limited time Lee is offering his brand new product “Effective MMORPG Guild Creation and Management” for Free!

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There are many ways to effectively manage a Guild in World of Warcraft’s Wrath of the Lich King. There are many changes when it comes to Talent Trees, Spells, Abilities, Classes, and more. If you are interested in gearing up a new Guild that will be productive and beneficial to all of the members that you recruit, there are just a few things that you should be aware of. Here, you will learn a few steps and types of information that is important when it comes to effectively manage a Guild in World of Warcraft’s Wrath of the Lich King.

Guild Control Panel

When operating a Guild in Wrath of the Lich King, you should learn as much as you possibly can about the Control Panel. This will allow you to perform many different operations. The following details some of the controls that are listed, as well as the function of these controls:

1.    “Guild Control” – This function allows you to view a special pane that allows you to take a look at the members of the Guild, set up the ranks that you want in the Guild, determine the different permissions of the ranks that are involved in the Guild, and several other tasks.

2.    “Group Invite” – If you select this option, you can see a whole list of characters that are in your Guild. Then, if you create a “Party”, you can scroll through this list and hit the appropriate button to invite them to join the party that you have established.

3.    “Add Member” – With this option, you can click on the button and type in a name of an individual that you would like to add to your Wrath of the Lich King Guild, and invite them. If the player accepts, they will automatically be placed in your Guild.

4.    “Promote” – Within each Guild, there are ranks. As a Guild Leader, it is important to understand that the right promotions are a necessary component to the success of your Guild. You can use this option to promote various members to different ranks, but do so with caution. If you promote the wrong person, and give them the wrong permissions, you may quickly find your Guild falling to pieces!

5.    “Demote” – Naturally, with this option, you are issued the ability to take a rank away from someone in the Guild. This, too, should be used with caution.

6.    “Remove” – When you use this option on an individual in your Guild, you will actually be removing them completely from the Guild that you are the leader of.

7.    “Player Notes” – The “Player Notes” option in the Control Panel allows a memo to be added to any and all Guild members. Many Guilds may wish to add notes to alts, stating that they are an alt to another character. In some Guilds, adding a note about the professions of a certain player is acceptable.

8.    “Guild Message of the Day” – Here, you can enter in relevant information pertaining to your Guild, or simply a message stating a welcome message to all members. This is a message that can be seen by every single Guild member that signs into the game on the day that it is entered.

9.    “Officer’s Notes” – This is a great wait to put secret information on various members of the Guild. Only Officers have permission to see the information that is listed. For example, if you have a player that has been on and off and taking quite a bit of stuff from the Guild Bank, but has not been contributing to the Guild overall, you may want to place an alert on the character by way of the “Officer’s Notes” section.

If you want to have the best Guild there is with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, it is important that you learn how to manage the Guild through the Guild Control Panel.

The Screen Actors Guild is a union. It’s a union of actors, producers and crew. The union itself does not make movies. SAG enforces minimum wages, collects and distributes residuals, enforces standard working conditions and offers health care.

In Los Angeles and New York, most productions are “closed shops”. That means you must be a member of the SAG union to participate as an actor, or that minimum numbers of SAG members must be hired before non-union actors are hired. You need to have a credit as principal from a SAG production to become a member. So, it’s a bit difficult to join when you need SAG credits, but cannot work unless you are a SAG member. Often it’s easier to get SAG credits in a state where SAG cannot operate as a “closed shop”. You can get credits on SAG projects, then become a member and pursue roles in New York or Los Angeles. You can also sometimes get credits by working as an extra.

Conversely, SAG members are not to participate in non-union projects. The Screen Actors Guild refers to this a rule one. That provides the encouragement for most major productions to become SAG productions. Any production that is non-union has eliminated a large segment of the working actors from casting.

In addition to the credit requirement to join, there are union dues. A one time initiation fee is charged to join. Yearly dues must then be paid to remain a member of the Screen Actors Guild.

A similar union is the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists or AFTRA. While SAG covers the film industry, AFTRA covers television and radio. AFTRA provides the same protections for those working in the mentioned mediums.
from http://www.actingscenes.com.

Actingscenes.com

With a subscriber base of over 9 million players, it can seem a little lonely if you join a server with nowhere to go. To help players out, a guild system was invented by Blizzard, which allows players to talk to each other and team up to do different quests. So let’s look at you’re two options: finding one, or starting one up of your own…

Finding a Guild:

If you are fairly new to the game (level 15 or lower), it’s pretty important you find a good guild to help you out. Each server typically has hundreds of them, and you need to know what to look for when you join one.

First off, look at the times the guild is online. You’ll want to join one that has most of its members on around the same times as you normally play. If you can’t play with your guild when you normally play the game, then it’s not worth staying with them.

Secondly, the members of the guild you join should be around the same level as you are. Try to pick ones with members who share your chosen professions, so you can participate in quests with the guild. It ultimately comes down to what you want to do. If you want to join a guild to do quests with them, then pick a guild whose members are similar to your character. If you just want to chat with other players, it won’t matter so much.

Starting a Guild:

If you can’t find something you like, the other option is to become a guild master and create your own guild. This is not easy, however, and many players end up regretting become a guild master after a while.

When you start a guild you’ll need to go out of your way to try and find members. The problem is that most players aren’t interested in new start-ups, and would naturally rather join large, active guilds with many members to talk to. If you have some friends who play the game, then get them to join. This will at least kick start it in the right direction.

Another thing you have to do is set up a leadership chain. Many guilds don’t last longer than a few days because starting up a leadership chain takes work. You need to set up different styles of command, and position your friends to take different roles.

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Dave Latimer runs WoW Tips For Gold. He is the author of this article and has played World of Warcraft since it was first released in November 2004, and has made thousands of gold in WoW. Visit his website now for some of the best free information on gold mining you’ll ever find.