Filed under: Guilds

One of the challenges of running a guild is avoiding the emotional peaks and valleys that tend to come up. In fact, one of the scariest times for a guild is when it's just accomplished something big because once the cheers stop, there's a void left and people begin to wonder what's next. It's not uncommon for a guild that's just hit an amazing goal to lose some members shortly after, and in some cases, it can actually lead to a guild withering and drying up because there's a letdown and apathy sets in.

How do you survive the dreaded plateau? Let's look at a few ways in this week's Guild Counsel!

Plenty of guilds talk the big talk and DPS the raid meters, but when the chips are down and the final call is uttered, which one guild will stand on top of the mountain of geek corpses and be proclaimed "Champion?" In most MMOs, that would be rhetorical nonsense, but not in Archlord, where guilds will compete in the first World Guild Championship to earn a $10,000 prize and the recognition of their peers.

The game's first combined server guild tournament kicks off on June 11th and features pitched PvP battles between guilds to climb the bracket and claim the big prize. All participants will be given a preset character with standard gear in order to minimize any in-game advantages.

In order to preregister for the tournament, guilds will have to complete a special in-game quest. Registration for the World Guild Championship runs from now through May 30th, with the official brackets announced a few days later on June 4th.

Archlord will be hosting special in-game events and handing out fun prizes for everyone during this time.

This past Monday marked the fifth anniversary of Scott Andrews' Officers' Quarters, a weekly column on WoW Insider that deals with guild issues in World of Warcraft. He's also the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, which is a must-read for any guild leader. It's a terrific accomplishment to keep a column going for so long, and week after week, he's provided valuable advice to reader questions on guild management.

Whether you've just heard of Officers' Quarters or you're a longtime fan, let's look at a few reasons Scott Andrews deserves a tip of the hat and a hearty salute.

"Whenever we design a new feature we always ask ourselves how it impacts our players' ability to play with their friends," ArenaNet's Eric Flannum stated about Guild Wars 2. In an interview focused on connecting players together, Flannum made it clear that the team was looking for every possible opportunity to pave the way for social hookups.

Flannum addressed the specifics of how Guild Wars 2's servers work in relation to transfers. While there is a traditional paid transfer service (which can be used only every seven days), all players will have the ability to hop over to friends' servers as a guest. Player team-ups are further made possible by the dynamic level-adjusting system that scales players down to the zone they're occupying.

This process is made easier by ArenaNet's decision to make friend lists and guilds account-wide instead of specific to a server. So while each guild has a home server, other chapters can exist elsewhere. Flannum also said that the team is carefully structuring its PvP system so that it will be free from potential abuse by server guesting.

Maybe TERA is your first MMO, maybe you want to learn about what TERA offers its guilds, or maybe you just want to see guilds defined as something other than small-scale drama generators for once. There are a lot of reasons you might want to look at TERA's new guide to guilds in the game, but whatever your motivation, the guide will provide you with all the answers you need to start guilding away with ease.

The main benefit to being in a guild in TERA are the guild quests; available all across the game, each guild quest provides players with Catharnac Awards that can be used to improve the guild's level and buy special items from vendors. You also need to be part of a level 3 guild to run for public office, which is all the more reason for politically minded players to make friends. But don't take our word for it -- after all, there's a guide to tell you all of this in detail.

One age-old debate in MMOs revolves around the buying and selling of characters, and the argument becomes especially contentious when it involves the exchange of real-life money. The members of one camp will staunchly defend the practice, saying they put the time and effort into the toons and that those characters are theirs to do with as they please. Others argue the opposite, saying that there are plenty of characters who were given help from others in leveling and acquiring gear, and it's not right to take that collective effort and market it to the highest bidder.

It's a complicated issue for sure, but it's mainly centered around one single character. But what if it involved an entire guild? That's a question that players have had to tackle recently in World of Warcraft, as the practice of buying and selling guilds has become more and more popular. Would you buy a guild if you were just starting out? And would you sell your guild if you were done with the game? As usual, there are three sides to this coin, and it's something that we might see more of in other MMOs, so let's take a look at some of the arguments both for and against in today's Guild Counsel.

When you're running a guild, there are lots of clear, right and wrong, cut and dried issues to take on. It might not be easy to carry them out, but it's pretty easy to know what the right decision is. There are some, however, that aren't so clear, and it's hard to even gauge which variables might help reveal the best solution. One of those naggingly difficult areas is knowing when to put your trust in a new member. A good recruitment policy will help filter out bad matches, but at what point do you know that a new member really is a good fit with the guild and can be trusted? As much as I'd like to just say "you'll know it when you see it" and leave it at that, I'd like to touch on a few areas that might come into play as you evaluate new members. Read on for a few ideas in this week's Guild Counsel, and add yours to the discussion below!

Guild-leading can be a very enjoyable and rewarding activity, but it's not always a walk in the park. In many of the columns here and the discussions that follow, the most common theme is how leading guilds is both the best and the toughest role in the game. When things are all falling into place and everyone's clicking, it's extremely satisfying to see it all come together. But when it's not, it can be extremely frustrating and stressful.

We've often looked at the benefits of running a guild, but in today's Guild Counsel, let's look at a few areas that can sometimes make guild leadership almost seem not worth it. Hopefully by discussing and recognizing these moments of misery, guild leaders can find some solace in knowing that they aren't alone, and members can help make life easier for their leaders.

There are some things in life that just go hand in hand, like peanut butter and jelly, Bert and Ernie, sun and sand, and guilds and embarrassing moments. In fact, one thing that makes guild life so memorable is our collection of those little screw-ups that leave us laughing and wondering what on earth someone was thinking. There are tons of things people do in game that leave them flustered (believe me, I know!), but some go down in history as classic moments of mortification. Let's take a look at a few epic embarrassments in this week's Guild Counsel.

In my regular columns at Massively, I enjoy taking a look at various topics surrounding family-friendly MMOs and common issues in guild management. So it seemed natural to take the two subjects and combine them for this week's MMO Family. Gamers are growing older, and we're seeing an increasing presence of younger players, even in the more serious "adult" games like Lord of the Rings Online and EverQuest II. For those who play MMOs with their children, it might seem reasonable to seek a guild tag for them, but that might not sit well with your guild peers.

Should kids be allowed in guilds? Are there any benefits to sharing a tag with your children, or are they better off staying unguilded?

Many moons ago when the air just started to cool from summer's heat (aka, last September), Some Assembly Required had the opportunity to talk shop with a new outfit that is developing a promising new sandbox MMORPG, Origins of Malu. And you know me: Sandbox is the magic word! As skeptical as I knew I should be, I still came away from that interview with renewed hope that a game with some of the features for player-generated content could exist again.

Back then, Burning Dog Media made the bold statement that it would absolutely release its flagship game in 2012, with a target of early 2012 to boot. But as the first quarter of the year quickly drew to a close with scant information available, it became pretty clear the game is still a ways off. In the realm of games, no news is not necessarily good news... and we definitely hit a drought in news.

Now that drought has ended. In our second exclusive interview, we spoke with Michael Dunham, Producer, Jason Mitchell, Senior Developer, and Dave Cruikshank, Art Director, to learn what's been going on behind the scenes and get the scoop on more details about those very features that have sandbox lovers salivating.

In last week's Guild Counsel, we looked at some of the qualities required of guildleaders for those who might be thinking of trying it out. But what if you're someone who's already a member of a guild? If I had a nickel for every time a guild member thought to himself, "I could do a better job," I'd be able to retire and buy a ticket to fly in space. In some cases, it's just an issue of backseat driving, but in others, there's some merit to that point of view. When is it time to step in and replace the guild leader? And if so, how do you do it without the usual Hindenburgesque drama that ensues?

Sci-fi MMO EVE Online is famed for being set in a cold, harsh universe where no player is truly safe. The line between griefing and gameplay is more subtle in EVE than in many other MMOs. Activities like scamming or Goonswarm alliance's Ice Interdiction operations could be seen as griefing in other games, but as long as it all stays in-game it's all a legitimate part of EVE's unforgiving sandbox universe and open PvP ruleset.

Yesterday we reported that Goonswarm's leader and elected CSM chairman The Mittani mistakenly crossed that all-important line during a drunken presentation at Fanfest 2012. In his talk, he gave out the name of another player and told viewers to "find him" if they wanted to make him kill himself. Today The Mittani landed following his flight home from Fanfest and reportedly was ashamed to read the transcript of what he said during his panel. He issued a full apology via the forum, describing himself as "utterly ashamed and sickened by [his] behavior."

"This has been hanging over my head since Thursday when I stumbled away from the Alliance Panel with a vague sense that I had done something horrible," he began. "Then I landed, and saw the article listing my actual quote." He told players, "It's one thing to play a villain in an online roleplaying game, but I am not that character in real life, as anyone who has met me can attest. I went way, way, /way/ past the line on Thursday night." CCP's investigation is still underway, and we'll bring you the results of that investigation as soon as we get them.
[UPDATE: This post has been updated as part of an apology for covering the story in a sensationalist manner]

The second Guild Wars 2 press beta weekend has come and gone, and Massively was there every step of the way. Stay tuned throughout the day today for even more guides, impressions, videos, and Q&As to get you ready for the highly anticipated sequel to Guild Wars.

Guild Wars 2 is on the way (when it's ready), and classic Guild Wars players probably understand that soon they'll be competing with a younger sibling -- a smarter, more attractive one who's sure to get more of mom's attention. And while we're sure that some of the more stalwart Guild Wars 2 fans are also Guild Wars players, not all veterans of the first edition are dedicated to licking up every drop of sequel info squeezed out of blogs, conventions, and betas. Those veterans might just be wondering, what exactly can Guild Wars 2 offer them, other than Hall of Monuments tie-ins? What's changed? What's the same? What will they love, what will they hate, and what could possibly make them jump ship to the new hotness?

The first and most important thing you must know is that yes, you can jump in Guild Wars 2! Seriously, though, jumping is more than just a thing you do with your spacebar when you're bored; it's a symbol of boundlessness. Guild Wars 2 itself is trying to jump a lot higher than its elder brother, and probably the essential difference between the games is that feeling that the walls have come down and gravity is letting loose. That alone should urge classic players to take a peek, but if that's not enough for you, fire up your Jeremy Soule soundtracks (yes, he's onboard for an encore!) and read on...

The Guild Counsel has explored lots of tips and advice that make running a guild more enjoyable and (hopefully!) more successful. But I'm constantly amazed at the number of players I meet in MMOs who would probably make great leaders and would probably enjoy it but don't give it a try. Making the leap from player to guild leader can be both tempting and daunting, and unfortunately, there's no easy way to tell who will make a good leader and who won't. Plenty of us have come across people who really should not have taken on the guild leader role, but for every bad guild leader, there are probably dozens of good people who could become great leaders if they chose to make the leap.

Granted, there are many who are firmly set on staying away from the role, and that's understandable, but this week's column is devoted to those who are considering stepping forward to lead but aren't sure if they have what it takes. Are you ready to run a guild? Let's find out!