Guild Hex

Every World of Warcraft player knows that raiding at higher levels is almost impossible without being in a guild. Not that you will not be able to group up with some random people, but such pick up groups (known as PuGs) can easily end as a complete disaster. Solo playing in the end-game content is not an option either, this is why most people choose to join a guild and play with people they know and talk to often. Here is how you can find a suitable guild to match your interests and goals.

Assuming you already know your own goals (PvP, casual raiding, hard core raiding, friendly leveling etc) you should look for a guild that shares the same focus. One excellent place to find information about various guilds and their recruitment status are the realm forums. Almost every realm has a sticky post about guilds, guilds progression and recruitment. Take your time and check which guilds are currently in need of players if your goal is raiding guild. For PvP and casual raiding, you can either check the advertisements in the Guild Recruitment Channel or have a word with your friends (you probably have made some friends already) about their guilds and see if they have space for you as well.

From my personal experience, the most advanced guilds on a given realm are usually full and are rarely looking for more players to join their ranks. Even if they do look for one or two more players, their requirements are very high and you might not have a chance to join such a guild just yet. Gearing up is not as slow process as it used to be, however you still need a pretty decent kit to be able to stand a chance in joining such guild. This does not mean that you should give up – instead, see if you can make friends with some people from such a guild – join them for some heroics, see if you can get into one of their pug 10 man raids (most of the times on their alts) and try to make a good impression. Sometimes, advanced guilds do recruit players with poor gear if the player in question has proven to be a nice person and a skilled player. Do not overdo it though – just be yourself and do not act like someone you are not only because you are trying to make them like you. Fake is never good, so just stick to who you are – after all, people should like you for the person you are, and not for the person you are pretending to be.

The most important thing for me is to never give up. At the start, you might have to become a member of a smaller guild and slowly start gaining popularity and make new friends. There is nothing wrong with this. You will get a chance to join more active guilds as you become better geared and a more skilled player, and eventually you can even join the number one guild on your realm. No one said the path is easy or quick though, but it is definitely possible – you should just work towards your goals and eventually you will get there.

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.

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

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 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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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.

At the very beginning of World of Warcraft, there were no guild banks. Quickly, Blizzard realized the need for such a tool, as the guilds were struggling storing their materials collected from various raid instances. As a result, these new banks were officially introduced to the game.

Guild bank is an in-game storage interface accessible for everyone who is a member of the guild. Additionally, some access rights can be given in order to make sure that only certain rank guild members can withdraw money and items from the bank. It is the guild master who has the option to set view/ deposit/withdraw rights for the different guild ranks and this makes the bank interface completely customize-able by the guild and not by Blizzard.

The guild banks were placed right next to the players’ banks areas in all major cities and are accessible the same way as the personal banks. The difference is that the guild bank tabs are much larger and it is much more expensive to buy additional tabs. A guild tab has 98 item slots and the first tab costs 100 gold to purchase. After that the prices for each successive tab increase – 250, 500, 1000, 2500 and 5000 gold, which makes a total of 9350 gold for all tabs.

One of the differences between player bank and guild bank is that the guild bank can store money and players can use the money from the guild bank to pay for their repairs. A special interface was also added at all repair vendors, allowing the players to use not their own but the guild money to pay for their repairs. Most of the guilds use this option only for repairs during raids – it is again the guild master who can turn this feature on and off as they see fit. In my guild, we use the guild money for repairs only on progress raid evenings – when we are working on defeating a new boss and we wipe numerous times while learning the fight. After we have managed to kill the boss, we no longer use the money from the guild for repairs; we pay with our own money. Some guilds also use their guild gold to buy materials to craft flask, food buffs and everything else needed for successful raid. I’m not sure if casual guilds use guild money for something like that, as most likely they do not run strong guild economy to produce this money in first place. For example, my guild was making money for the guild bank by selling patterns, cartables and other rare items obtainable only from the end game raid instances and this was helping us have money for repairs and flasks.

The access to the bank is fully controllable by the guild master – he or she can decide which ranks from the guild can view, deposit and withdraw items and money. This can be done for each separate tab and additionally a withdraw limit can be set. This all makes using guild bank easy and stress free for everyone, so we are very thankful to blizzard for introducing the guild banks in patch 2.3

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.

A Guild in World of Warcraft is a tightly knit community of similar minded people. The guild goals can vary – from casual raiding and leveling together to hard-core end game raiding. There are also guilds focusing mostly on the PvP aspect of the game, while other guilds have PvE as their number one priority. It is a good idea to decide upfront what you are planning to do and what you expect to achieve in the game, how many hours per week you will be willing to spend and the like before you look for a guild or decide to create one on your own together with some friends.

I will give you some tips about what you should do if you have decided to start your own guild and how to tackle the guild recruitment process in order to get people who will share similar goals and interests with you and will build a good team.

Choose a goal: decide what the focus of your guild will be. Will you spend many hours each evening trying to beat the hardest bosses in the game or would you rather go more casual style and clear some instances whenever people are up for it? Will you focus on PvE or PvP content? Having an answer ready to these questions is important; as players have different interests when it comes to World of Warcraft and a guild composed by players who have totally different interests will not work too well in the long run.

Decide on Recruitment Requirements: it is important to know what players you are looking for to join your guild. If you are looking for fast progression, it is probably best to recruit players who are soon to reach the level cap or are already there. If you are looking for fun and friendly leveling atmosphere, the level of the players might be of less importance. Also, get real – you will not be able to recruit players who have superior gear to everyone else in the guild and expect to get carried through the content. The key is the right requirements and the right attitude – no one should expect others to carry him through the content, as this almost never happens in World of Warcraft. If you are creating a guild with focus on PvE raiding, make sure people are clear on your expectations upfront – how many hours a day they will have to be available for raids, how many days a week the raids will happen, what classes are you looking for and so on. Be as exact and precise on your requirements as possible – this will save a lot of disappointment and frustration for both you and your guildies in the long run.

Focus on your guild members: after all, World of Warcraft is a multiplayer online game, meaning that not everyone will always be able to come online – people have work, school, get sick, go on vacation or just need time off the game. As a guild master, you must be able to understand all that and focus on your guild members and make them as happy as possible with the online gaming experience when they are able to come online and spend some time playing with you and the other guild members.

No one says that running a successful World of Warcraft guild is easy, but depending on your goals, it may prove just doable – all you need to do is set your goals straight and look for similar minded people to share the experience with.

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.

What is in a name? The name you choose for your guild a very important decision that you will make during the creation process.

Starting a guild is almost like having a baby. So it makes sense that choosing a name for a new guild can be a just as personal, emotional and ultimately difficult as naming a newborn.

One thing that you should remember is that there is power in words. Choose something that promotes power. You will find that a powerful name will attract prospective guild members much more easily.

Some suggestions would be names from history. These could be names of battles, places or things. Another suggestion would be words that represent large things.

In my experience in the MMORPG industry I have found that guilds with a single word name seem to recruit more successfully than those with longer names. If you do decide to choose a longer name make sure that it is something that sounds powerful. A very good way to look for names is to visit Thesarus.com and input a few powerful words and look at homonyms, synonyms, and antonyms. This can be a very helpful thing in the search for a good guild name

Some examples of guild names that have and promote power include Thermopylae, Monolith, Blades of Wrath, Afterlife, Legion, Guardians of the Flame, Covenant, Salvation, From the Ashes, Sunder, Fated, Vision, Leviathan, Authority, etc.

The naming process can be very frustrating. If you are starting this new guild with a group of friends perhaps you should all get together and toss some names around until you come up with something all of you can agree on. In most gaming systems a guild name is permanent unless you want to disband the guild and start over, so be sure when you make your final decision.

Lee Ruleman

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!

Stop by http://www.mmogamepro.com and grab your Free copy today.

In this series of articles we will be outlining the various types of guilds that are found in the World of Warcraft Universe. While this series of articles is geared to World of Warcraft, the game I currently spend most of my time in, they are found in nearly all other MMO games as well.

The first type of guild that comes to mind is the Family or Chat Guild guild

These guilds can be basically thought of as a friend and family sort of affair or a glorified chat room. They seldom, if ever get together and do anything as a guild unit. This is not to say that they do not group together; rather that expecting to do anything in the way of mass raiding is most likely never going to happen. They usually have no scheduled guild events or reward systems.

The typical types of players joining these types of guilds are those who enjoy having a group to chat with but would rather pursue their own agenda. This type of guild appeals for the most part to those who are loners or prefer to solo most of the time.

There are usually very few rules to follow in a guild of this type and they may consist of simply have a good time, and treat others like you would have them treat you. These guilds usually suffer from member loss more than any other guild type, as most (though not all) players will join these types of guild when they are young or new to a server. They will remain until they gain some levels and gaming experience and discover a guild that is more suited their individual preferences.

On the bright side these types of guilds seem to hang around forever, there are always new players joining the game and younger characters of high-level players in other guilds.

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!