Guild Wars 2

I’ve been thinking about starting a newbie Guild. I’m not going to list out all of my plans right now; I’ve considered a lot of the details.

My RL friends aren’t always that active, and even I can’t be online constantly. If I wanted to start an endeavour like this, what would be the most effective method of finding active players who’d want to take on the more critical roles in the Guild? Or is something like this best started solo?

Hi Icas, a good place to begin might be the Guild threads here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/guilds/guilds You can then get an idea of the things people are looking for in a guild, and what the guild-recruiters have to offer.

Good luck with your endeavours

Starting up a guild takes a lot of work, but if you can get it going, the effort is worth it. If you don’t have much experience with leading a guild, it might be better to join one for a while and see how it’s done. On the other hand, no two guilds are run the same way. Each one has its own quirks, themes, rules, etc. Take some time to look over various guild websites or even talk to other guild leaders for ideas too. I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have. Just give me a shout in game (Aria Silverfyre).

“How do I find active players who would make good officers” You have just asked the biggest/hardest question facing anyone running a guild ever.

From my time as guild Leader (many moons and games ago) You got a couple options.

Method 1: Stratification. What ya want to do is invite everyone and their sister into your guild. Get those numbers up. Advertise in the forums, in LA, everywhere. Invite random newbs in starting areas. Invite everyone you PUG with for dungeons. And then, once those numbers are high, you have a lot of people that you can look at, and pick/choose the good/active ones. Or, more accuratly, kick all the kitten and trolls that you’ve accumulated over time. Basically, the Chaff will sink to the bottom, and the cream will float to the top (if ya don’t mind me mixin’ my metaphors) This is what I see most new guilds or new guild leaders doing to get their guilds off the ground. I HATE THIS METHOD. It works. But it can lead to bad PR for your guild.

Method 2: Fascism. Run PUG dungeons/fractals. A lot. And then start singling out the good people in your PUGs and inviting them to your guild. ANd then get them to do the same. For the first month or so, your guild wont do anything together. You’ll always be split up, so you can pick out the best of the best of the best, and get them in your guild. It’s a long, slow, painful (VERY painful) process. The larger your guild gets, however, the better of an idea this becomes. “PUG-Recruitment Tuesdays!” becomes a great group activity where everyone can sit in voip and talk about how bad/good this group is, see new builds, etc. etc. This is what I’ve always used.

Method 3: In the Navy. Spam recruitment messages, but direct people to a website with some kind of competency test. Very similar to #1, but you have filters in place to get rid of the dumb people. Unfortunately, this will probably also get rid of the veterans who think this is a stupid way to run a guild. Is basically the middle ground between #1 and #2.

It sounds like you want to make something that helps newbies. You can’t do that without people FIRST. Making the guild, and building up the people to make your newbie helping thing happen, is the best idea. Before you actually start trying to help people. Get the manpower, solidify your bases, and THEN have your grand opening.

^ Coding has some really awesome advice!

For a serious dungeon guild, you ideally want The Navy/Fascism method ( nicely coined term)

If you want to have those really efficient runs where everyone has their place with total synergy, ideally go Fascism. You need the ones that will hardly ever make mistakes. If they can’t do that they won’t make the cut. Sure it’ll be slow progress but as said you get the best of the best.

A serious team will be barking out orders expected to be followed to the letter, pretty much military rule.

1. You will need to be cautious about. Sure you’ll have a large influx of numbers but if you’re getting everyone and everything you’ll be getting all sorts. Be careful with this as a guild can easily fall apart before its even started.

You’ll want to keep close watch for any signs of chaos.

Thanks for all of the feedback.

We don’t use officers of any sort except Guild Leader. Been there, done that…it just separates people. We’re all adults though, so that is probably why it works for us. Everyone is just here to have a good time, run a few groups and bs in chat and on voice.

That said…just talk to people out in the real world. Or help folks out in map chat. They are generally new and trying to figure the game out.

But don’t spam invite. Try to get a feel for the person you are helping. Just talk to them for a bit before you invite them. You may saveyourself some trouble in the future.

Raf.1078:

We don’t use officers of any sort except Guild Leader. Been there, done that…it just separates people. We’re all adults though, so that is probably why it works for us. Everyone is just here to have a good time, run a few groups and bs in chat and on voice.

That said…just talk to people out in the real world. Or help folks out in map chat. They are generally new and trying to figure the game out.

But don’t spam invite. Try to get a feel for the person you are helping. Just talk to them for a bit before you invite them. You may saveyourself some trouble in the future.

I’d rather have “Officers,” or whatever equivalent I create for my own Guild, to help with recruitment and organising events. All of the serious issues, such as major Guild decisions and the maintenance of my future Guild’s website, would be my responsibility.

It’s up to you and how you want your guild that will determine the need for officers. Don’t let anyone tell you different. I find them very useful to have around to help with running aspects of my guild. The size of your guild will also affect the need for people to help you. No one can keep a 100-200 person guild running smoothly all by themselves.

To get started, I’d suggest writing down an outline of things you do and don’t want for your guild. Once you have that very basic structure set up, you can then look for more like-minded people to join you and/or help you lead or build.