Why Guilds Fall Apart

[Hades-LotD]

This is the follow up article to Building and Maintaining A Successful Guild.

Part Two: Why Guilds Fall Apart

Enjoy!

[Esraymuk]

A good article as always;

One thing I strongly agree with is poor promotion of officers, where either there are too many officers or the ones picked arn't right for the job. Nothing worse than for members to see an officer who does absolutely nothing but still keeps his job; very demoralising.

Another thing is ridiculous rank structures. Some new guilds try to start off with 20 ranks, where they havn't even got enough people to fill 3 ranks' worth.

[Eurydice]

Two things:

1. You missed one of the big reasons I've seen guilds go to hell time and time again, although I thought you were about to touch on it in your E-drama section--romantic relationships gone sour. The horror, the horror... Maybe you've been lucky enough to avoid this one!

2. I'm astonished by this:

If you have some goofy name, its going to be hard for members to take the guild seriously and for them to put the effort into making it a long term entity. Also not many developer studios want to recruit guilds with stupid names for their betas, and they certainly won't spotlight your guild on beta journal news that goes to the mass media.

I've experienced the exact opposite, in all my gaming years. Again, perhaps it depends on what kind of games you play, or what you consider "goofy" or "stupid." I'd love to hear some of your examples (I bet there are some gems). I view guilds with suspicion if they have a name that sounds like they take themselves too seriously. For me it all depends on whether the name is clever or not.

[Abdo]

Originally Posted by Eurydice

Two things:
2. I'm astonished by this:
I've experienced the exact opposite, in all my gaming years. Again, perhaps it depends on what kind of games you play, or what you consider "goofy" or "stupid." I'd love to hear some of your examples (I bet there are some gems). I view guilds with suspicion if they have a name that sounds like they take themselves too seriously. For me it all depends on whether the name is clever or not.

When they talk about guilds with silly names they mean any guild named by rickysaho97 or people like him. If a group of friends have an inside joke which they incorporated into the guild name then it would probably still command the loyalty of its members as well or better then a guild with a non-nonsense name.

[Hades-LotD]

Be sure to vote for the article if you liked it.

But yeah the poster above was right. You should pick your guild name based on the type of player you want to attract and the type of game you play. In some games, goofy guild names are the norm but they don't always last beyond that game.

Thanks for the comments!

[WNxLithiumLT]

Originally Posted by Esraymuk

A good article as always;

One thing I strongly agree with is poor promotion of officers, where either there are too many officers or the ones picked arn't right for the job. Nothing worse than for members to see an officer who does absolutely nothing but still keeps his job; very demoralising.

Another thing is ridiculous rank structures. Some new guilds try to start off with 20 ranks, where they havn't even got enough people to fill 3 ranks' worth.

Agreed. The worst thing a starting guild can do is promote a billion different people for a billion different things. When this happens, it usually becomes an exercise of promoting friends rather than those that have shown true devotion and responsibility. Not only that, but with so many ranks and guild leaders, the positions start to bear no meaning. It's like a rare coin. If everyone had one, it wouldn't be special and certainly would be worthless. The same rings true for leadership positions. To put this in perspective, I'm a member of the Warrior Nation gaming community. Warrior Nation has over 4,300 members in total (around 2,500 active in the last 30 days.), but only has an admin team of about 40. This certainly makes becoming an admin more meaningful, but also gives much more responsibilities to those positions.

[andrewjay]

I put a lot of time and effort into my guild name. After about the first 10 rejects, I decided on the DeathDealers... It is an army thing... I don't take the funny ones seriously...plus all the elite raiding guilds have well thought out, or cool names.

[stunt]

All I have to say is I have a guild that is 32 months old with 80 people and it has stayed together because we don't recruit, we get people that we play with not just random spaz kids that want free crap.

[Drunkenfairy]

Really great article, and I agree on most points. These are definitely the guild killers I’ve seen.

1. Lack of Leadership - GM burns out, wears out, quits unexpectedly, and there isn't anyone to fill the void. Yes, the officers should be doing a lot of the daily maintenance and able to make decisions, but your GM is your figurehead, your rallying point. This person sets the tone and morale level for the guild.

2. Differing goals - If there is no guild communication, if no one uses the guild forums, if there are no semi-regular meetings to help the guild communicate and discuss goals it doesn't take long to fracture.

3. Drama queens - Fastest guild killer. Most people play to have fun. No one wants to listen to a complainer or whiner when they are trying to relax and have a good time.

Being a Guild Master or an Officer can be a very rewarding, and a very stress-inducing thing. You have to remember that it’s not your job to make people enjoy playing the game. It’s your job to provide a Social Environment that hopefully your members enjoy and that matches with a majority of the guilds gaming goals. From personal experience, learning to not take everyone’s happiness or displeasure personally is one of the hardest things about being an officer.

[Hades-LotD]

Make sure you guys vote for the articles to keep them in the most popular area where they are easy to find:>