What makes a guild great.

New to World of Warcraft or some other MMO? More than likely you’ve been noticing that many players belong ‘Guilds’ which are a group of players who have come together to work towards a common goal.

Many are out there. Not all of them are good. Here are some pieces of advice from players just like you on what good, long term guilds they prefer.

Goreshot: “I look for two things in a guild. First and foremost, when I’m playing an MMO, I love to get to the endgame and progress by becoming a better player and getting better gear. I have a job and a life outside of MMOs (for the most part, that is) and so I am not that hardcore of a player. I would classify myself as the most hardcore you can be while still being located on the casual spectrum… with an unhealthy dose of delusions of raiding grandeur. So the first thing I’m looking for is a guild that can help me attain my aforementioned goals without requiring 20+ hours a week to qualify for the core raiding team.

The second thing is an interesting group of people. When it comes down to it, MMOs are a grind and after 10+ years of playing various MMOs, the grind wears on me. The best way I have found to mitigate that grind is to have like-minded people who you can talk to and laugh with while killing that seventeenth boar hoping you will finally obtain the last kidney you need for the holiday cooking quest.

The bad news is that it is practically impossible to know if a guild can offer these things before you join. But once I find these traits in a guild, I’ll stick with them forever! Or, at the very least, until I unsubscribe…

I will always remember the first day I got a tryout for a spot with my Burning Crusade guild, The Gods of War. I was raiding as an Affliction Warlock at the time and there were two other warlocks in the Karazhan raid that night and I wanted to prove myself. The first boss, Attumen the Huntsman, would be my greatest failure and my greatest success.

I DPS’d Attumen so hard after the phase change when he mounts his horse, Midnight. Omen started flashing because my threat was rising, so I stopped chain casting Shadowbolt… but it did little to reduce my threat. The raid leader told me in Vent that I should ease off the DPS and I told him I had already stopped casting, but my DoTs were still going… and going… and going. Then it happened, Curse of Doom proc’d and I pulled off the tank. Attumen instantly cut me down.

I got a battle rez and I went right back to DPSing, however, before long, I was pulling threat again. I stopped casting Shadowbolt, but it didn’t matter. I died again because my DoTs just kept on ticking. Cue the second battle rez. Regrettably, history repeated itself and the same thing happened—Attumen killed me for the third and final time. I was immediately shunned and I saw my dreams of being a member of the core raiding team slipping from my grasp. Despite my gratuitous errors, I beat not only the other two warlocks on DPS, but everyone else in the raid by a huge margin (10-12%) despite being dead for a large portion of the fight.

Yes, I was a baddie because I pulled threat three times, but I accomplished my goal and earned a spot on the core raiding team (on the condition that I learned how to manage my threat better). I was putting up numbers the other DPS just couldn’t compete with. From that point on, I was the top dog of our raiding team that everyone was gunning for. I held the top DPS spot until I unsubscribed before the Sunwell raid hit and I learned the skills necessary to not only manage my threat, but to squeeze every ounce of damage out of my gear/skills. In my little WoW microcosm, I was the best there was at DPS and I loved it. But no matter how good I was, The Gods of War never let me forget the time I died three times to the same boss…”

Anyå: “Keeping a guild socially active I feel is key. We could run all the progression in the world, but if the community/conversation isn’t there.

I was a progression raider. Back in Cata I was in a guild (name withheld) and we did Dragon Soul normal and then heroic progression every week. We had a guild facebook group as well. This was great because it gave us a way to become a closer knit group and be able to communicate on and off the game. We would raid and want to succeed, but the conversation in vent and chat was kept light hearted. We talked about random stuff, personal stuff, game stuff… there was always a conversation going.

Then we got a new tank who was more ‘all serious business’ which was great for aiding our progression, but hurt our spirit and morale. Eventually tensions rose since everyone was focusing more on the negatives and what needed improvement and conversation wasn’t so gleeful. At that point I left the core raiding group.”

Jade: “What I look for in a guild has always been along the lines as feeling like I’ve been a part of something. Things can be isolating at times, and the prospect of working with a couple dozen other people towards something just feels great.

I will never forget the day KKW downed the Twin Emps, for that reason. I still know how that encounter went down to the smallest detail, and how we barely scratched by the moment we hit the enrage timer after weeks of trying. Hell, for the longest time I thought that the video we made of that kill included vent going wild when they went down, only to share it with someone and have them point out that our cheering isn’t in that video. The memory is that strong.

I don’t think I’ve ever ‘been in the spotlight’ in either KKW or Pie, or on Maelstrom while we were there, but I liked being included. For me, as pathetic as this sounds, I just like to be made a part of things, I don’t need to be topping the DPS charts or the best geared healer. I think that stems from a long history of feeling unwanted, which is too screwy to get into here, especially on Facebook. I like noticing that in a lot of very old screenshots of Maelstrom, Tairel’s not the focus, but she’s there. That’s always how I’ve felt in guilds or communities especially in WoW.

I think that it’s difficult though, because you’re trying to organize people on such a scale, that it’s easy to see how politics and what’s best for the guild can interfere with many of the bonds people make. This seems to be easier now, but I’m not proud to say that I had my own dealings to better position myself in KKW. I actually got good at it, good enough that it still makes me uncomfortable. But in these guilds, that’s often how things are, I know I wasn’t the only one. Anyways…

Pie I largely stayed more on the fringes, at least until we came back just now. It’s interesting though, because I haven’t met any Pie folk face to face (I met a bunch of KKW folk at a meetup once), you lose the ability to look someone in the eye, or pick up on body language that someone my be distressed about something. This can lead to you interpreting their behaviour in-game differently, than if you knew them IRL. It’s easier to think someone’s just being mean or a fuck-up if you can’t see the expression on their face. Although given how isolated people are these days, a guild can be a really great way to socialize. I suffer from bipolar disorder, and the stretches when I just can’t leave the house, I login and I realize how much I missed at least being able to communicate with someone, it means a lot even if it’s just chit chat. So there’s good and bad.

But what I look for in a guild, is just to find my niche, because that’s hard as fuck IRL (although I’m proud that I try). I generally look for some place where I can be me, and have that be okay, because that’s been difficult. Hell, it’s been difficult for me to just let me be. If that makes any sense at all. I like being a part of something, contributing, discussing, theorycrafting, and honestly, I like doing things for people and it’s nice when they notice.

My favourite Pie memory is nothing like my KKW one. We were doing Karazhan (which I loved) a couple months after I had rerolled to join up with Pie post-KKW. It wasn’t easy for me (it still isn’t, weirdly), and then Jen PM’ed me out of the blue and said I was doing really well. I inquired why she’d say that seemingly at random (even if it was quite nice) and she said, “You’re starting to fit in. You kept yourself separate, for the longest time you were ‘that KKW Priest’.”

It was a small gesture, I’m not even sure if Jen remembers, but it meant that someone noticed and gave a damn, and that meant a lot. It also helped me realize how I’d started to chat with people on vent more, came along for raids, started sharing in the weird andfunny shit that happened in day to day WoW life…

Moments like that, of being able to make a connection and find a place where I fit in is really something, and I could never be in a guild where that feeling wasn’t possible.

These are real relationships, built around a game, sure, but don’t ever pretend that your interactions with a guild don’t matter.

I’d also like to mention that I met my first and second girlfriend through WoW (and led to another at times ambiguous relationship that I cherish to this day). The first one had suspicions, but wanted to know more about me before reaching out, so she asked my guildies about me. They told her enough for her to decide she wanted to message me. So if nothing else, guilds can be a valuable wingman.

Playing WoW got me laid. Take that, stereotypes.”

Kaalla: *Reads Jade’s comment* lol “WoW got me laid, take that stereotypes.” “Valuable wingman” lololololol

You know, I recruited this girl, Nairn, to the guild where she met mark, who are STILL dating to this day. (I’m the) best wingwoman ever.

TGL: Mind if I include it?

Kaalla: Go for it! We were playing that one dungeon in cata, the sea one, thehellwasitcalled.jpeg…THRONE OF THE TIDES!

When it was brand new and so stinking hard. I was tanking, Paperwaster was a DPS, and we were with one other two other guildies. We got Nairn as a random priest healer and everyone was getting messed up by the dungeons at the time so rage quitting was a problem. We got Nairn and she was so cool about trying and trying again she was a great healer so I told her about Mercenaries of Mayhem(My guild).

She made a toon on the server, i invited her and maxed out that character in a couple of weeks, got really into the guild, mark was another officer at the time who also tanked and wanted a healer to go with him to dungeons because everyone could only take so much of mark but she didn’t mind him.

And BOOM like a year later shes flying out to Chicago to meet him and they’re still dating lol

I initially liked (Mercenaries of Mayhem) because they were a big guild with a variety of people and a huge bank and if you stayed with them long enough they eventually promoted you. So I did become an officer with all the cool perks. We would plan random ass events that were a nice break from grinding ie naked gnome races, got to know the people really well. We had a vent and no one was shy to use it.

 

Shabooty: “I think it boils down to consistency. Whether you’re casual or hardcore, a role-player or raider, you want to be a part of a group who is consistently online and doing what you want to do (bonus points for good chat logs, too).

I found my core group back in BC, and I still rank a few of them among my best friends. While we’ve floated off in different directions by way of new servers, opposing factions, grad-school and/or parenthood, we always maintain a “home” where we can unite under a common banner.”

Methospriest: “For me:- A sense of community.

If you log on and there isn’t anyone else there, no one to say “what’s up?” to or no one to ask to join you in stuff – this game, that was meant to be a multi-player game, becomes a 1-player game. Sure you can still do 25-man raids, 5-man randoms, etc. with these other people you are randomly paired with, but they aren’t your guildies/friends, there isn’t that camaraderie. That simply requires an active guild, not a raiding guild, pvp guild, RP guild – all that falls in place once you have a base of active players.”

 

 

I wish you all the best of luck finding that great guild!