What makes a guild the best for you?

Guilds are social clubs in the game, and once you've been in one that was good for you, it's pretty hard to go back to being guildless.

So, what are some factors that make a guild "the best for you"?

Here's my general list.

1) Large and active - Since guilds are primarliy groups for talking and playing together, you'll want one with very active members, probably the more the merrier.

2) A nice guild hall - It just makes for a fun place to hang out together, and having a nice one adds prestige to your guild and aids in recruitment.

3) Well-Organized - This includes clear guidelines for promotion and behavior. A good Wiki site helps a lot here, and a website is even better.

4) Playing together - Here is where people will have strong preferences. If they like guild vs. guild Lockdown, then that might be a priority when looking for a guild. If they don't want to play with newer less capable players, then they'll want an elite-type guild. If they find over-powered parties boring and like helping newer players, then they'll want a guild that focuses on that. Or maybe they'll just want to keep it to a small amount of close friends.

5) Good Guild Master(s) - If the leadership is strong, mature, and seems to always have a good amount of in-game wealth, the guild will almost certainly prosper.

6) Personality of the guild - While they are probably some guilds you know you wouldn't enjoy being a part of, you won't really know how well a guild fits you until you've been in it.

7) Where you are as a player - After you've been around for awhile and depending on your personality, you may reach a place where you just want to be the founder and guild master of your own guild. Be warned - it's a lot tougher than it looks! But there is probably no greater reward in the game when you succeed at it.

No doubt, I'm leaving some things out that are probably important to some players and have included some things that are not important at all to others. Also, I've avoided mentioning any guilds by name, so hopefully the thread won't be about bragging about or slamming any specific guilds.
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Couldn't have said it better myself!

Eh, depends on the people and how they treat you. (and the guild name ^^)

Guilds make the game more fun in several ways.

1) It can be kinda lonely without guild chat and people to socialize with.  We make it a point to greet one another when we come in-game, and try to maintain a friendly and fun chat environment, bearing in mind that guild chat is a captive audience of young teens on up.

2) Guild provide you with a group to play with cuz solo runs can be kinda boring, and for some things, like a shadow lair or danger mission, a guild provides an easy way to find a group so you don't have to be one of those pathetic creatures who use trade chat or forums to try to find shadow lair companions.

3) We try to have some event each month, like a lottery or contest. This month it is Secret Santa, natch.

4) Well-equipped guild halls can be fun places to socialize and bond.

5) A guild web site provides a place to share screenshots, art, ideas, or other guild information.

6) For newer players who have questions about the game or still need to get through rank missons, guilds like ours that enjoy mentoring can be an invaluable aid to game enjoyment and keeping players around.

7) Ranks are a good/bad thing. It's fun to look forward to earning a promotion, but kind of a headache for Guild Masters. I use a spreadsheet to keep track of members' join and promotion dates, and can't imagine trying to stay organized without it.

Hopefully they game designers will give guilds more things that they can do together beyond the limited appeal of Guild v. Guild mini-games, but there are still a lot of ways a good guild improves the game.

the spreadsheet that guildmasters/officers can get?
or do you make your own?

I use a presentation because you still have the find option and it's like having a file to easily search for people.

I personally think you don't really need money. I look for personality at the most. As long as people follow basic rules and be happy working together, isn't that what makes a guild great? Sure, a bit of guild modifying is nice by having rental runs to keep up with the guild's needs, but a BIG GUILD doesn't always have fun if it's empty. I do value organization in a guild and Guild Master(s) with strong leadership skills. So, in my guild, (Thank-you so much for the pep talk Mawa, my guild is growing, thanks to you!) I mostly look for personality, organization, and activeness. Wealth, to me, is merely an object used to "look good" and that's fine by me, but I value one's personality. I really appreciate everyone in Lionheart before I left =) Even the ones who were sort of mean. The mean ones where like that, because of mis-communication.

I understand your pain, Mawa; keeping up with members are harder than people think. My computer's files got destroyed, so I've lost all my data. So now, I keep my members' list on a flashdrive just in case something bad happens to my laptop again.

I use an excel spreadsheet. I've sent copies in the past to Krystal and maybe another GM, but the information is getting updated everyday, so it's only good for a short time. It's not so important past the past two months since it's mainly for promotions.

You can promote by 1) tests, 2) time in the guild, 3) prestige rank, 4) quality of the personality.  We use a combination of 2, 3, and 4, although we initially used some tests, but only briefly since I didn't like them. It was mainly because the guild hadn't been around long enough to use time as a basis.

Mawashimono wrote:I use an excel spreadsheet. I've sent copies in the past to Krystal and maybe another GM, but the information is getting updated everyday, so it's only good for a short time. It's not so important past the past two months since it's mainly for promotions.

You can promote by 1) tests, 2) time in the guild, 3) prestige rank, 4) quality of the personality.  We use a combination of 2, 3, and 4, although we initially used some tests, but only briefly since I didn't like them. It was mainly because the guild hadn't been around long enough to use time as a basis.

Have you tried using Access? It's what used before my laptop got destroyed. Access is a self organizer where you can list off columns (name, guild rank, rank, join date, etc.)