Guild Wars 2

As the title says :) I’m just wondering, because our guild is tiny, and we’d really like a bigger pool of people to do fractals, dungeons, and wvw with, and hopefully eventually if we have enough people, we’d like to do guild missions :)

The problem is that it’s hard to make friends on GW2, and, that everyone seems to already be in a guild, and if you’re in a big guild, why the hell would you want to join a tiny guild that can’t even get commendations? :(

I’m a member of a rather large guild that do events most nights a week (and spontaneously as well), there’s really nothing that prevents you from doing them open to the public.

For example, dungeon runs. Pick one of the less traveled dungeon paths and announce that on a set day and time you’ll do a guided run trough that one (for example, Arah story mode for those that want to finish their personal story), get someone that knows the dungeon well, get everyone interested in voice chat if you have it or temporary guild invites, form as many groups as people you have (it’s good to have a guild member leading each group), then everyone goes into the dungeon while the leader explains what to do on each section, and encourage people to wait for the rest of the groups to catch up and give sugestion and the like, be sure to tell them you’ll be doing things like that regularly and that they’re welcome to stay if they like the genetal atmosphere of the guild.

You can do the same for guild missions, jumping puzzles (guiding people trough them and portaling when you can), zone zergs (get everyone together, pick a zone and get trough all the hearts, vistas, POIs, skill points and so on) and stuff like that. Also you can get other random events. For example, my guild has done naked newbie races where you create a new char of a specific race and the have to get from a point to another (given right before the race start) without using WP (unless you died), with prices for first places and stuff like that.

You can advertise events you’re planning to do on the forums, on map chat on LA, and on places like reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/guildwars2 http://www.reddit.com/r/GuildMissions

Don’t worry about becoming a bigger guild. From my experience the guild missions are a waste of time and influence. There is barely anything the commendations can get you that you cant get anywhere else so those aren’t needed. Also there are a lot of players out there that prefer small guilds because in the big guilds they are basically lost in the crowd.

For recruiting I just PM anyone thats not representing. there are still a lot fo them even in the big servers. To keep players in your guild I recommend not forcing them to rep your guild 100%. Leaders who force their members to rep the guild 100% of the time are just a**holes.

Be sure to advertise on how fluffy your fox is.

I’m currently between guilds and prolly going to orientate myself on a new guild in one or two weeks.

I do not go for the hardest spammer in mapchat. It can even have negative effect. There is one guild on my server that is always covering other peoples advert in mapchat (so guild A sets an ad-text in chat and within a second that guild set their ad-text). The guild that does that is too agressive in my opinion and I will never join that one.

I am planning on looking in here on the guild advertising section. I will likely go for a guild that has a forum/website, where atleast part of the forum is open. This way I can have a good impression what the atmoshpere is and what makes them a real guild and more then just a chatchannel.

So for me, to join a guild, an advert in the guildsection of this forum and a forum/website is important.

Small guilds can have a big advantage simply cause they are more build around friends. In big guilds I often had the feeling to be a number.

Because you can be in multiple guilds and sometimes it’s nice to be in one small enough that you can actually get to know people?

I’m only in one guild and it goes between about 50 and 100 people with about 10 who are regularly active and in chat. We’ve got all the missions and most of the other upgrades unlocked but for me the main appeal is having people to talk to and do random content with.

As for recruiting I’d recommend a topic in the guilds forum here and encouraging all your members, not just those with permission to recruit, to look out for potential new members.

Also IMO one big problem both for guilds trying to recruit and players trying to find a guild is that so many say the exact same things when recruiting that there’s no way to choose between them. I’m sure your members are friendly and helpful, are online at pretty much any time and do a bit of everything in game. But if you say that you’re not really telling potential members anything.

It’s much better to be specific about things like peak times for your members to be on, whether you have any scheduled activities and when you schedule them, any rules and requirements for membership and anything you do or have done that might make you stand out. Have you ever taken Stonemist Castle yourself? Do you do dungeon speed clears and have any of your members ever created or improved builds for it? Alternatively do you do casual dungeon runs that are open even to people who have never done one before? What level Fractals do you typically do? Are you willing to help new players move up the levels or do you want people who can jump right in to the upper end? Do you give out free cookies every Wednesday?

You can say literally anything (as long as it’s true) but you really need to make your guild stand out from the crowd.

tips I have used for recruitment:
find your server’s forum. every server out there has one. post on it. keep it updated.
make a facebook entity for your guild. a lot of people use it, and its an easy way to stay in touch.
come up with a short paragraph on what your guild is, does, and has to offer. go to each zone in the game and put the message up once for each zone. you will generate interest.
do events and invite the public. put out boost flags so people can see your symbol and form a relationship. try to pick a populated area (Lions Arch) or where they are needed (currently: along the Frostgorge champ farm or wherever Scarlet is attacking that moment)
make an entry on the guild recruitment section on this forum. keep it updated.

Thanks a bunch, people Solid advice.

To help with narrowing down a summary of your guild, it might also help to consider what sort of people you’re looking for and what you want the focus to be. Do you want to do sPvP, PvE content (map clearing, meta events), Dungeons/Fractals, RP, WvsW, a mix of all of the above? What do you want from your members? Do you want something close-knit where everyone gets to know each other almost like family or do you want something else where you have a lot of members to do things with but maybe not so close?

Definitely make a post here in the Guild Recruiting area and also on a few other sites. Personally, I’m against spamming map chat to recruit. I believe that the quality of the members outweighs the quantity. Those that come by word of mouth or by doing the search themselves via posted guild listings tend to work out better (usually, but there are exceptions of course). Other than that, be patient. It will take some time to get things going, but once you do, it’ll be good.

AriaSilverfyre.8702:

Definitely make a post here in the Guild Recruiting area and also on a few other sites. Personally, I’m against spamming map chat to recruit. I believe that the quality of the members outweighs the quantity. Those that come by word of mouth or by doing the search themselves via posted guild listings tend to work out better (usually, but there are exceptions of course). Other than that, be patient. It will take some time to get things going, but once you do, it’ll be good.

Agreed. I always found it strange in GW1 that I could never find a guild that had any real sense of community, or where I could get to be friends with the members. Eventually it occurred to me that the problem was I was just joining whatever guild happened to be spamming map chat when I was looking for one and what I got by doing that was a bunch of people in exactly the same situation – people who took the first guild that came along and had no real connection to it or anyone in it.

With GW2 I did the exact opposite – I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted from a guild and then went looking through adverts on forums and fan sites until I found one that fit. I checked out their forum to see what kind of people they were and then applied to join. A year on I’m still here and I’ve never regretted it, I’ve made some really good friends through this guild.

The best advertisement for a guild is the people in it . Nothing you say in an advertisement can replace your members personalities. If you do advertise do it lightly highlighting the main function or functions of your guild