Veteran Player Looking to Start Community - Questions

[Knetik.4356]

Hey everyone! I am veteran player who is looking to come back to GW2. I also run a small gaming community and would like to open a division here in GW2.

My questions are as follows:

1. How hard is it, with GW2 in its current state, to start up a new guild or community?
2. Are guilds usually more focused in one type of gameplay, or do they generally try to cover all bases?
3. I realize that a player can be a part of multiple guilds, how "community" driven are guild members? Or do they prefer to hop around guilds depending on their activity that day?
4. When I last played, each server had an immense community of its own, and guilds worked together collaboratively in WvW. Is this still an institution or has this gone to way side?

[phs.6089]

Hai, I'll try to give you the picture

1. it's not hard if you have couple of friends to start with. If you go for guild hall, this is where things get rough, you will need coins, committed people to do guild tasks for favor for GH upgrades.
2. In my experience, guilds that say we do PvX(include all game mods) usually do nothing or have couple of members doing particular mods by their own. My advise will be, you lead a guild, have something to offer for members, something you will enjoy running, teaching, leading, guiding.
3. A player can be in 5 different guilds, for instance I don't WvW, my guildmates do it with thiere WvW guilds. But come with me to PvP and Fractals. My guild doesn't run farming maps but I'm in a farming guild, when I need pocket change, I go with my farming guild.
4. There are WvW guilds that work together and even move servers together.

[Aldrin.7641]

Did you manage to go through with this?

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

Starting from scratch is challenging. Before you make the guild, you should think about the theme.

Think about what you like to do in Guildwars 2 and what you are good at. What you enjoy and what you would like to do together with others. Here are a couple of questions you can ask yourselves for a start:

• Are you are a typical PvE player, who likes the story and open world exploration?
• Do you like dungeons and fractals?
• Do you farm a lot?
• Do you enjoy difficult content, like T3-T4 fractals?
• Are you interested in competitive sPvP/WvWvW?
• Do you like helping people?

After answering those questions, you can easily see where the trip is going to. That will be your first puzzle-piece.

Then comes the first creative part, you need a name & a symbol. This is basically an act of creativity. You are free to ask other people for help or take inspirations from movies, series or even music-bands. Just pick a name you enjoy reading and hearing. The symbol is not the guild-insignia. It is more of the truth behind the name. What is your intention. Here are a couple of questions you can ask yourself to determine this:

• Are you looking for friends?
• Are you looking for people to have fun with?
• Do you want that people in your guild trust each other?
• Do you want to talk only about game-related things?
• Do you want to talk about game-related and RL things?
• Do you want to talk about problems of other people?

There are a lot of guilds out there which are just functional, like farming-guilds. There are also plenty of guilds which try to offer a social friendship-like environment and there are guilds which even want to create a family-like atmosphere. Each of those paths is fine.

Now you have a theme made of a

1. A game Aspect
2. A name
3. A symbol (e. g. trust, friendship, fun, or just a common interest)

When you have those three things, you can create your guild at a guild-registar. Once that is done, the fun part begins.

The most important part of a guild is a stable and reliable core. No guild out there can exist without one. A guild with just a leader and no core is a squad. It breaks apart, the instant the leader logs off. Forming the core is difficult, but it is one best experiences you will make in your life.

(the following paragraphs are my personal experience I collected over several years. I do not claim to know everything. It is just a collection of a lot of try&error results. Other people have other experiences.)

With the theme and your actual guild, you need to collect people. Advertise your guild in starter-zones and populated places like big cities or places with lots of player fluctuation. You can also try the world-boss train. You do not need a creative slogan for the start. Just say who you are [guild name], what you do [game aspect], that you are a new guild and you are looking for people to build it.

You may not get a hundred requests on the first map, you maybe need to try for some time in different places, but sooner or later, people will join you. Advertisements like this attract different people. You will get people who search for something new, people who just left their former guild for a special reason, people who are totally new to the game, veterans, people who seek for profit, people who seek power and people who want to build a guild. That is a very chaotic mix a normal leader does not want in his guild. The reason is simple, too high potential for drama. The good part is, as long as you are in the kickstart/building phase, dramas will rarely occur. If they come, people will solve them alone by just leaving your guild. If that happens, accept it and move on. The way is long, do not bother too much with the personal-component in this early state of your guild. There will be times you have to focus on social stability in your guild, but that will be later.

Your main priority is to collect people who want to be in your guild, who are willing to form and build the guild and enjoy spending time with eachother. During this phase you have to show a lot of presence and activity. The guild is too young and you do not have a core yet, so you cannot lean back.

When doing your activities [game aspect] with those people, you will soon see people who have ambitions to aid you. They help collecting people from parties/squads, ask around if certain members need help and keep the chat active - talk to new members and keep the communication at a good level. Those people will be useful. But do not be too hasty. A good leader is calm and plans ahead. Hugging the first person who shows ambitions, give you a mark of weakness and vulnerability. Do a couple of activities with your guild and also see if you get along with those people with ambitions. If you do, talk to them after the activities. This can and should be done in whispers at first, if you have more one person you can open a party and talk in the group. This is NOT the core! We are not there yet ^^.

So you talk to those people who aid you as leader and discuss. Ask them how they like the guild, if they enjoy the community. You can also talk about the activities and details. Once you are done with the basics, ask them if they want to stay in the guild and if they have and ideas to improve things. Here is one of the more critical parts. If a person openly speaks about problems you make, mistakes you make and "if I was the leader I would ..." this is a giant STOP sign. Those people just want power. Keep talking to them about the game aspect and group activities. Most of them leave quickly once they realize they cannot gain power fast enough. They move along and try again. You will lose a couple of good players, but in the long term it is worth it.

The people you are actually looking for are those who make suggestions about improvements, without blaming you for anything. They probably have ideas for events or bring up the guildhall-topic or bring a few things about their old guilds. Talking about the past is ok. We all started somewhere some time ago. We are all human beings and learn through experiences. So if someone brings in his personal experiences from other guilds, that must not be a bad thing. However if you personally feel bad about this person, do not proceed. There is no need to kick those people, maybe you just need a little more time. Just continue with the regular business.

However if you seem to notice that you and that other person are on the same wave-length, you can ask him if he wants to become an officer. Most people are shy at that point, so take your time and talk to them in a peaceful way. Do a little charming about how well they fit into the group and that they do a good job and have good ideas. If that works out, you have your first officers. Again, not everyone of those will stay in the guild, some will leave the guild, a few instantly after you promoted them. It happens, move on.

Continue your activities until you have a group of 3-5 officers you can trust. It depends a bit on the people in your guild and the activity and reliability of your officers. If they have busy real lifes with family and a tough job, more officers might be better. If you have students or people with a more relaxed life, less will do. It also depends on your personal level of activity. Personally I would not go below 3. But it is an experience-value of myself, others may suggest other borders.

After an activity with all of them, do a meeting with the group of officers. Talk about how the guild is going on right now, ask if there are any special things going which you may have missed and ask about the mood in general. Then talk about your plans and ideas, what you want the guild to become. Wait a little and ask them about their thoughts and ideas. Some will agree with your ideas, some will disagree and some will be unaware. That is normal. If there are suggestions about alternatives, listen. Maybe you made a mistake somewhere in your plan, maybe they misunderstood you in the first place. No problem, you can talk about everything. Take your time. If you have a common idea of the guild and its future, wait another day or two. Some people need a little extra time to think. If you get no problems, you reached your first goal: The core is formed.

The core is basically the spine of your guild. As long as your core is in tact, your guild will never break apart. Even if you cannot log for a week or two due to RL issues. But that means, that you have to maintain your core. Do not leave them unattended for too long and always offer an open ear for thoughts, complaints and problems. Sooner or later you will get real problems in the guild, the more social your theme is the worse it will be.

Note: Social guild sounds like a lot of fun. But it is the most difficult of them all. Choose this path with caution! Social guilds are super-sized magnets for all kinds of dramas and conflicts. There is no way to avoid that. Enjoy the peace as long as it lasts and use it to take a deep breath, you never know how long it has to last.

 

So that basically answers 1. and 2.

3. There is still a need of the community-feeling in general. Some prefer to hop between the guilds, for some people guilds are just another form of the LFG system, but there are also still many people who are looking for a community, for a WE-feeling. What path you choose is up to you. The more social you go, the more difficult it is for the leader and the officers.

4. I do not play WvWvW actively, cannot answer this.