Merging Guilds - What to Look Out For

So you spent the past eight months building a guild up. You recruited, you worked on gearing people and helping them level. And despite everyone being mostly content, you still lack in a few areas you wish your guild would strive in. Maybe the people who are online at 2:00am are finding they have no one to play with in the guild because there are only a few people on. Perhaps you wanted to be a casual raiding guild and you are not progressing any farther than you were four months ago. Or maybe all the officers just gave up all together and losing members.

Well has the thought ever crossed your mind to merge guilds? The thought can be a scary thing and there are two ways to go about this. You can either:

Have another guild merge with you: Post an ad up on the forums that you are interested in a guild merge. You can keep your guild name, tabard, website, you just absorb all their people. Your rules apply to the new people just like the members you have now.

Merge with another guild: You are absorbed into someone else's guild. You take on their name, their website, and their rules. You still get to play with your friends since the merge means two (or more) guilds forming into one, but will have some new leadership.

Either way can have its benefits and drawbacks. But there are a few things to keep in mind when merging.

1) Who is the GM? This is important thing to find out. When the guilds merge is the GM of the guild who is absorbing you, or your own guild keeping the same GM or is a new one going to step up to represent both sides. Normally in this situation however, the GM does stay GM of the guild people are merging into.

2) Who will be officers? This is another important question. If you are merging with another guild are they even going to let any of your current officers stay officers during the move or is everyone going to be a regular member. Know what you want and ask this question. When I merged my guild with a larger raiding guild, they allowed the GM and the Co-GM to be an officer in their guild straight up.

3) Remove unwanted members before the merge takes place. So you have a couple initiates you aren't sure you want to keep in your guild and make a member. Before the merge, it is best to kick them. Otherwise they are going to be begging for an invite from the new guild. If they do end up getting an invite they may poorly represent your guild and you have to end up kicking him anyway. Leave the stress behind, it's time for a fresh start.

4) Ask about the guild rules. Make sure your guild rules match up similarly to the guild rules your guild has, or is trying to enforce. Mix-matched guild merge could cause a lot of drama if rules conflicted.

5) Find out who is invited first. Is the other guild willing to take ALL of your members, even the level 20s you invited to your guild because it's one of the raider's brothers. Do they let your alts come? Do they let people who have toons in split guilds come? The problem I faced was that I did not find every single detail about who was allowed to come. I had a few members who were in my guild because they were real life friends to others in the guild, but their raiding main was in another guild. When word got out, the officers started discussion about kicking them. I was never informed this was one of their rules, and a question I wish I had asked. Make sure to find out if they are willing to invite only the raiders, or both the non-raiders and raiders.

6) Avoid a hostile takeover. If you are finding the other officers of the guild you are merging into are very dominate and making you feel like an outcast long after the merge, there is a chance they are not looking at you as an officer like them. Some guilds do take over other guilds with the intention of getting a high amount of recruitment, but aren't willing to share the leadership. Be watchful if they start kicking your non-raiding members or your low level toons you were promised you could bring in. Overtime all your members from your previous guild should be looked at as a member of the new guild. They should not be labeled as, "Oh that's one of those people from the merger." Also be watchful if your members are not getting fair treatment on invites to raids. If they constantly are inviting their old standing members and only picking your old guild members as fill ins for their runs, it could be another sign of a hostile takeover.

7) Decide a specific amount of time you are allowed to invite members from your guild. A week or two is long enough. You cannot allow stragglers poking their head into the new merged guild months later. Give your guild members a week heads up before the invites begin and when they do try to get in as many as possible before the doors are closed. Anyone who gets upset and /gquits at this point should also not get an invite a week later after they realized the merged guild is awesome. Leave drama behind.

If the merge is a success you should be able to see members from both guilds meshing as a team and not getting segregated. Find out what their invite system is like, and see if it is accurately implemented so that everyone is getting a fair chance at runs. Hopefully you will get a nice turn out in numbers.

The great thing about merging guild is that it can relieve some stress you had with your old guild because there are other willing officers (hopefully since you agreed to merge with them) to get stuff done. Ask to see their website and see if they got their stuff together or not.

Another great thing about merging guilds is that you can still be with all your friends in your previous guild, and yet accomplish more. It is a great feeling to be able to log out and not feel bad you weren't online helping for a raid because there are lots of people to do it now instead of your small group. The game is meant to be fun. It doesn't have to feel like a full time job. Bad things can happen when merging guilds take place if you merge with the wrong people. But a good merge can bring the fun back into the game.