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Managing A Guild In Wow, Everquest, Shaiya, Or Any Other Mmorpg
Anyone who has had to deal with people knows how difficult it can be. Dealing with groups of people who are from different locations, different cultures, and who speak different languages adds layers of complexity and nuance that are nearly impossible to overcome. With the additional misunderstandings that come with text chat and lack of body language, tone, inflection, slang words, and the differences of types of humor that people
have, it's almost a miracle that people can agree on anything without getting their feelings hurt, feeling left out, or feeling like they're not being heard.
If you are a member of a guild, the leader of a guild, or want to start up your own guild there are a lot of things to take into consideration if you want to minimize your administrative time, maximize your guild effectiveness, and provide a safe and fun environment for your members.
Communication is the most important part of providing your members with effective leadership. There are three main ways of communicating with your members. The most important way of conveying your vision to the masses is via online forums. There are any number of free forum providers, and it's not that expensive to buy your own domain to start your guild off right - or make it distinct from the other guilds in your game - and install forum software.
The most important part of your forum is going to be your guild rules area or FAQ. Create a list of rules that you want your guild members to enforce, such as, no kill stealing, Guild practice day and time, power leveling, or raids, allowed comments - such as no racism, no swearing, etc. As people ask questions about the guild in guild chat or in your online forum, add their questions and answers to your FAQ and then point future questions or potential members to the FAQ so that they can see what you put up with and more importantly, what you don't put up with.
Consider creating subforums for announcements, group tactics, character leveling guides, trades/want ads for gear and weapons, and a private forum for guild chat.
The second way to communicate with your members is via guild chat or group chat in your specific game. There are a couple things you can do to make sure that your members know that their leader is taking an active role and is helping to ensure everyone's success. The easiest thing to do is to say hello to everyone and goodbye to everyone when you login and logoff to the game. It's most important to do this in the earlier days of your guild creation, but it's a good habit to get into no matter how old your guild is.
The third method of communication is more tech heavy - create a voice chat server using software such as Ventrilo or Teamspeak. I've had more success with Ventril, but your mileage may vary. Realtime chat helps out a lot during raids, or in games where you need to work as a unit in realtime such as Call of Duty.
As the guild leader, it is your responsibility to ensure that the rules are clear, violations are dealt with quickly and that everyone is hearing your message. Communication is the key!
About the Author
Jack Flanders
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