How I See It: What a Guild is all About
Edited and Published by: Magi
Let's face it: many Guilds are very impersonal. I was once in a Guild with so many people that I did not have the desire to count. I really only knew about two or three of them. People were joining and leaving all the time, and I rarely noticed. We never had Guild Battles, and no one seemed to actually want to play with the guild members. But what is the point of a Guild in which there is no communication among the members?
Think about it: what is a Guild? A Guild is a group of players with a common banner. They wear the same cape. They can meet in their own private Guild Hall. Everyone can see the name of a person's Guild as soon as they see a person. Don't you think these Guilds ought to be a bunch of friends? What good does it do when you are in a group of friends who do not bother to help each other out? It is so much better to know that your Guild is full of people you can count on. They should be the people who will be there when you need help.
However, this is a two-way thing. You must also devote to helping out the rest of the Guild just as they would help you out. Usually the best help you can provide is to give them advice, tag along with them on a mission that perhaps you have already competed, help them to find any materials they may need for their new armor, and so forth. I realize this may be obvious stuff, but obvious as it is, many people don't seem to care.
Many of the things a Guild should be thinking about can be accomplished by "walking a mile in someone else's shoes". It does not take much away from a person's precious time just to help out a member of the Guild. Any person would wish the same thing for himself: to have a bunch of friends around when he needs them. Many people will help you, if you only help them.
Now for the impersonal Guilds: of course everyone wants a Guild full of people, and nothing is wrong with a lot of people until there are so many that no one cares to help anymore. It is a sort of "find someone else" attitude. Also, many times the members do not know half of the people in their Guild when there are too many. Thus, I call it the "impersonal" Guild. "Too many people" is not the only problem with an impersonal Guild. Another common problem is about material. When you are recruiting for your Guild, and a person only wishes to know if you have a cool cape and a cool Guild Hall, you can bet that they do not care much about the people in it. But when a person asks about the people in the Guild first, that person is much more likely to be friendly and helpful.
In one of these impersonal Guilds, a guild announcement would seem almost pointless. What would they announce? No one would care to know if one of the members has left, or if a new one has joined. What if they announced a time that the Guild should meet for battle? Even with those who show up, there may be too many, or too little, because for one, you never know who really reads the announcement, or when they are available, and rarely they would have another way to contact them, like email. Secondly, in my opinion, the members would not care much to battle with the Guild. If they wanted to PvP, they could go to any ordinary arena. If their Guild is impersonal, they will not care whether they are battling with their Guild, or with any random team.
The whole point of this piece is for people to realize that recruiting for their Guild should not be based on recruiting as many people as you can get, or the highest level player you can get. It is about the entire outcome of what you want your Guild to be.
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