Being a guild leader is not an easy task these days. It is even more difficult when you’re just starting out. That is the basis for this episode’s question! From the submission form came this question: How do you go about building your new guild without spam? This is a wonderful way to kick this column off again as this particular issue is one that basically everyone will see at one time or another. The heart of the issue is how do you recruit for a brand new guild without spamming the public channels? What methods are available to you? Do those methods work at all? As someone who has had to recruit once or twice there are some tricks that have worked for me.
It is fairly safe to assume that if you’re kick-starting a new guild you’re not completely alone. You should have at least one or two others to help you out with your endeavor. Prior to any recruitment push, you should have a general idea of what type of guild you want to have (questing, tradeskilling, casual raidering, microcore raidering, hardcore raidering, etc). Without that knowledge you’re going to have a tough time finding the right kind of folks. You’re also going to need some basic structure if you’re doing any kind of raiding. Everyone is going to want to know how you assign loot. Take a minute and write out an 800 word document that says who you are, what you do and some of your general rules. That goes a lot further than, “raid guild, no drama.” Every guild claims to be that and 95% of those don’t actually raid and have a ton of drama.
Armed with your document of explanation you can start recruiting. A great resource available to most MMOs is the public forum. While these areas are usually flame heavy, they often have a server specific board that allows you to post a guild recruitment message. Take your document, read it yourself, spell check it, let someone else read it, spell check it, and post a thread on that forum with that information. See if there is a compilation thread with all the guilds on your server as well. Put an ad there, too. If you know of another really busy forum community for your MMO of choice do the same there. Get as many eyes on your document as you can. It will at least get you some curious tells.
Forums are a very passive way of recruiting and don’t always yield a lot of new blood. Most MMO players want to interface with a person and that is a key thing to know. Learn a few of the current dungeons that are popular and practice doing them well. Once you are trained up, start leading a group through them with two or three random invites. Your success and skill will show and you can mention at the end of the group that your guild is recruiting. Even if the players are tagged, tell them that if they have friends that are into your play style they should check you out. Have a link to that forum post handy but otherwise just be brief. Nobody wants a hard sell.
Positive encounters are the best ways to bring people on board but you can only reach so many people at a time. It is also important to build your personal image. Participate in general channel chat with useful information. If someone asks a legitimate question don’t make fun of them, give them the right answer. Avoid flame wars and derogatory comments. Create positive encounters and people will look you up to see what you’re about. Get to know other guild leaders that aren’t in your demographic. Let them know that if they have people that don’t fit but would fit your style they can refer them. Agree to do the same. Many players think they want to be one kind of MMO gamer but actually don’t. I’ve seen too many people say they want to be hardcore not understanding the time commitment. Use this to your advantage.
If you use these tools, you’ll have a slow start but as you grow your guild with more skilled, polite and motivated people the effect will snow ball. The more ambassadors you have the more potential recruits you can reach. Remember to keep members who aren’t exactly the best recruiters trained up or at least limited to do only what they do best. If you want to add a bit more credibility, go ahead and create a website based on the original document. Just remember that a complex but bad website is worse than an incredibly simple but done right one. Don’t have a half done busted site and think it will draw people in. Attention to detail is everything. Good luck recruiting!
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