How to Manage a Guild in World of Warcraft

As a guild leader of one of the biggest and most succesful guilds on my realm, this article is made for the guild leader that is ready to lead a guild of any type, however I do have the most experience with both casual and progression raid guilds.

Guild Type

Before you can really get your guild going succesfully, you're going to need to establish what type of guild you would really like to create. There are a wide variety of types of guilds, and each one is quite obviously going to be different based on its members and the way things are done. Are you interested in creating a progression raid guild, a casual raid guild, a player versus player guild, or a leveling guild? While there are still other categories of guilds, these are by far the most common categories of guilds, and these are the types of guilds I will do my best to cover in this article. Player versus player guilds are quite easy to manage and don't require much further description.

Raiding Guilds

If you're interested in being the guild master of a raiding guild, you've got a lot on your hands. As easy as it may seem to run a raiding guild, it's a lot more work than you could ever imagine. My first recommendation if you're going to start either a casual or a progression raiding guild, is to get a few people that will be your officers in the guild, and that will help you make guild decisions, run loot, lead raids, and run a guild website or other things. For more information on raiding guild websites, view my article concerning this topic. Once you have the proper management selected, you're going to need to determine the focus of the guild. Are you going to run a casual raiding guild, more focused on getting your best friends in the raids you're doing? Or are you more interested in progressing through end-game content rapidly, with the guild's progression being the primary focus of the raids. Please note that it is nearly impossible to have both; If you're running a casual raiding guild you won't make the same progression, and if you're running a progression raid guild you're going to need to take cuts and sometimes leave people out of raids that aren't ready or geared.

Loot System

Different guilds are going to need different loot systems, and these are going to be based on how casual the guild is, how many players you take into raids on a regular basis, and how strict the raid settings will be. In my honest opinion, loot council is one of the best systems for getting out loot to the people who need and deserve it. Loot council works by giving members of the guild permission to distritbute loot based on raid attendance, and who in the guild needs the loot based on their performance. Take note that often the main tanks and healers get gear first with this system. DKP is another system that works well for raiding guilds with a strong foundation. DKP, or Dragon Kill Points are awarded to members of the raid for raiding. These can be awarded by killing bosses to everyone in the raid, time spent raiding with the guild, or direct attendance, or a combination of all three. DKP will be spent on loot through a few different bidding and silent bidding systems which are determined by the DKP leader. Please note that DKP takes a lot of time for the person managing it, and often makes things a bit more complicated, however this system will work well for the guilds that are already established with their core players, and loot has never been an issue. Another really good way to do loot for new guilds is to just /roll on mainspec, highest roll gets the piece of gear. Realize that each system for loot has its flaws, and that there is no one system that is going to work for all people. You probably will have complaints from players when they don't get loot. These players need to realize they're not getting loot for a reason, and if complaints keep coming, they're not even worth keeping around.

Guild Expansion

If you're finding yourself short members, or people just aren't pulling their weight, you may have the need to recruit more people into the guild. There are several ways to do this, and my personal favorite way is to just group with people interested in joining the guild (heroics are good for this) and give them a shot. If I'm able to get these players in vent, that makes this process even easier. Other ways to get people for the guild are to make a "guild spam" macro that allows you to talk in trade or guild recruitment channel with messages like " is recruiting such and such players, these are our raid times, PST this person for more information". One other way is to create a guild application on your website, and have players apply to this before they are to join the guild.

Mandatory Requirements for Raids

Players in your guild are going to need to know that there are mandatory requirements for any given raid. There are gear standards, there are minimum dps requirements, tanks need to know how and where to tank, and healers need to be pulling their own weight and know their assignments. If people aren't pulling their weight, you need to set some sort of bar; Sometimes you can't make everyone happy. Replace, or even PuG people that aren't pulling their weight, and they'll either correct it, or you can find someone to replace them when they leave.

Maintaining a Succesful Guild

To keep the guild progressing and expanding, try to keep things constant. If you can keep raid times the same from week to week, players are much more likely to understand that sense of order and stick around. Keep an updated guild website, and talk with players on vent often; This will also keep guild organization and keep players in touch. Most of all, love your guild and your guildies, and things will fall into place.