What makes a good guild?

Did you know I am doing blog entries on request? I do, it's just that I rarely get any requests. :) Alcaras from subcreation.net writes:

Hi Tobold,

I run my own gaming blog over at subcreation.net. I've also had my share of guild drama (I used to be in a high-end raiding guild, Nurfed) and have seen guilds evolve and change over time.

I'm curious as to your opinions on what it takes to found a good guild. I've recently written up a charter for a Guild Wars guild I've started, with these seven points:
(taken from here)

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The Jade Sea Pirates is a PvP guild that is focused on having fun in a mature and intelligent environment. Members log on, group with guildmates, and enjoy the exciting and strategic nature of Guild Wars PvP, be it in Alliance Battles, Guild Vs. Guild, Hall of Heroes or Team Arena. The focus of the guild is on PvP.

We recruit members based maturity, intelligence and skill.

The Seven Tenants of The Jade Sea Pirates
1. Be intelligent -- ask questions to gain understanding; better to ask and learn than to not ask and never know.
2. Be mature -- act in a respectful and civil manner, towards guildmates and towards others. Do not taunt opponents, even if they taunt you.
3. Look forward -- do not despair over a loss; instead, focus on analyzing it to better understand and improve your gameplay.
4. Lift others up -- encourage and motivate your guildmates -- do not assign blame for losses and liberally share credit for victories. Do not criticize, instead offer suggestions as to how to improve.
5. Communicate -- If you have an idea for a strategy, say it. Don't assume others know something if you have never told them. Make sure everyone is on the same page before attempting a strategy. Be creative in strategizing and disciplined in execution.
6. Be friendly -- Be a nice person. Be helpful. Offer advice and support to your fellow guildmates. Help each other out.
7. Have fun -- Enjoy yourself. If you're playing a game, you should be having fun. This is not a job, this is a game. This is not saying that you should goof off while everyone else is focused on winning the battle; rather, it is to say that you should be having fun being focused on winning the battle.

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I'd love to see a blog entry with your thoughts on what makes a successful guild.

Cheers,

Alcaras
subcreation.net

I don't think creating a successful guild is as easy as setting up good rules. The problem is that a guild has two major purposes, which aren't necessarily always compatible:

1) Trust and friendship. You want to log on into the game, and find the guild chat full of people you consider friends, who are nice and friendly, how joke with you when you are in a good mood, and pick you up when you are in a bad mood.

2) Mutual help. You want to form groups, from 2-man teams to 40-man raid groups, with your guild mates to overcome the challenges of the game which can't be beaten solo. You want the people you group with to be guild mates, because of all of the advantages of playing repeatedly with the same people: You know how competent they are, and you can work out a system for fair loot distribution over longer periods of time with them.

Now I'm not saying that you can't have both, friendship and shared success in the game. But there are factors that make it difficult. For example friendship is obviously easier to achieve in a smaller group, while getting 40 people for a raid together on a regular basis obviously requires a much larger group.

Both friendship and shared success are aided by playing together as often as possible. There are many obstacles to that. One is that different people have different play schedules. That is especially bad on games with international servers, where time zone differences makes playing together impossible. But even if everybody is in the same time zone, different work schedules and family time can make playing together difficult. Another big obstacle to playing together is different goals and play styles. If part of your guild wants to do PvP, part wants to go raiding, and a third part prefers playing in small groups, getting everybody to achieve their personal goals while playing together is complicated, if not impossible.

Thus the Jade Pirate's "the focus of the guild is on PvP" is a good thing, much better than just the non-descriptive "guild that is focused on having fun in a mature and intelligent environment". Nobody believes of himself that he is immature, unintelligent, and pursueing game goals that aren't fun.

But this again shows how difficult it is to get the friendly part and the efficient part of a guild united. Recruitment for a guild is very difficult. The guy who was so very nice turns out to not play very often, and having different game goals than the others. The guy who got invited for being such an excellent PvP player or raid leader turns out to have no patience at all for people playing less well. Conflicts often arise long after people have been granted full member status, and it is hard to kick them out again. People, games, and guilds evolve with time, so even if you are pleased with your guild now, it isn't given that the guild will still be around in a year.

I think if you want to found a "good guild" it is important to be very focused on what the main purpose of the guild is. It is a lot easier to run a guild when everybody in the guild has the same goals in game, and expects the same things from the guild. That might exclude otherwise very nice or very competent people from being recruited, but it is better to stay focused on one goal than to pursue many different goals and never reach any of them.