How to find a guild

Hey, it happens. All of a sudden you’re without a guild.

I’ve been playing this game close to two years and I’m on my third guild. No drama, no guild meltdown, just life. My first guild had a couple officers leave due to personal issues, which resulted in several sub-segments of the guild forming their own new guilds. My second guild saw several of it’s officers leave to start a more hardcore raiding guild, which resulted in a mass exodus. There were no hard feelings either time, just time to move on.

My second guild breaking up happened early fall 2007. I say it broke up, which isn’t really true. Once the officers left, then the second wave left to either join the new raiding guild or move on. The guild (which was once 500+ strong), dwindled down to around 50 or so folks with only a handful of 70s. I ended up leaving the guild to go solo for a while. I had some personal issues going on and wasn’t playing much anyway.

Fast forward to early 2008 and I was ready to get back into the game. I really needed a guild, having fallen so far behind in so little time. People talk about how quickly players eat up new content, but I think the reverse is also true. You can take just a couple months off from this game and really fall far behind. So I started the process of looking around for a guild. I really wanted to find a good guild that fit my play-style, my play times, and had the kind of attitude that matched mine. I wrote briefly on this topic before and got a lot of great comments. At that time, I promised to make this topic into an overall guide and here it is.

Obviously, there is no right or wrong way to find a new guild, and this writeup simply reflects my experiences. Use your own best judgement as to what works for you or not. If I’ve missed anything or you would like to add to what I’ve laid out here, leave me a comment and I’ll consider including it.

Ground Zero - Get your house in order

Okay, if you’re not level 70 or not looking for a raiding guild then you can probably move on to Step 1. If you are a level 70 and you are looking for a raiding guild then this step is a must. Also, even if you don’t fit one of those two categories, this step probably still has some good advice.

First of all - do an inventory on your gear and make sure you understand where you are. Is your gear appropriate for your class? Are you under-geared? What about gems and enchants? If you’re looking to get into a raiding guild and hit SSC, but you are missing enchants and you have inappropriate gear - then you most likely will be turned down. Just make sure what you have is a fit for what you are looking for and be prepared to talk about your upgrade plans.

I’m gonna assume you know your class and role and are proficient. If not, be realistic about the type of guild you are looking for.

Make sure your talent spec makes sense. If you’re not sure on this one, there are plenty of resources out there to point you in the right direction. Need more help? Trying searching for some bloggers within your class. The WoW community is rich with insightful and helpful bloggers of every make, model and color.

Lastly - grow up! Of course I don’t mean you, but there are lots of, forgive the language, asshats out there. If you are one of them, then you can probaby stop reading right now. My guess is you bounce from guild to guild every month or so, and are fine with that. If that isn’t you, then here’s my simple suggestions:

• If you are a fan of leet-speak, instant message shorthand or swearing, stop. Now. Most organized, well run, mature guilds will not accept applications written this way. Correct grammar, along with the ability to communicate effectively in the language of your server, is generally a good thing.
• Learn to show a little humility. You may think you are Elune’s gift to raiding, but believe me you are not the only good player in the game. If you come off as overly arrogant, then what that tells the guild you are applying to is that you are simply out for yourself. Not only will you probably leave as soon as you get what you want if not before, but odds are you won’t be stepping up to help others in the guild. This is another sure way to get your application rejected (from the good guilds at least).
• Be realistic in your expectations. It’s okay to convey what you are looking for in a guild in no uncertain terms. Just realize that are not going to be the only person with expectations.

Before anyone gets their shorts in a bunch and comments to tell me I’m discriminating against younger players, let me stop you right there. I’ve grouped with players in their young teens as well as grandma’s and grandpa’s. Believe me that maturity is not limited to older players. Likewise, age appears to be no remedy for stupidity.

Step 1 - What are you looking for?

Okay, okay. You’re chomping at the bit to get started and I’m asking you some lame question like “what are you looking for”? What gives?

Well, if you’re reading this guide, then you are either without a guild or you are in one that isn’t a good fit for some reason. Before you get involved with another guild that potentially isn’t a fit either, take a little time to figure out what you are looking for and what would make you love your new guild. For some folks this would be a casual play attitude, for others it would be raiding every night of the week. Unless you have a good idea of what you are looking for, how will you know when you find it?

Here’s some of the things I thought about:

• PvP, PvE, simple instance help, or Raiding?
• Am I looking to be a guild officer or not?
• How often do I want to raid, and what nights?
• What am I willing to offer the guild?
• What do I want out of the guild?

This doesn’t have to be a science project, and you should probably know most of this already. However, our gameplay and our expectations do sometimes change over time. Taking a few minutes to make sure you understand (and can communicate) what you are looking for in a guild will not only help you find a guild that fits you, but should help make the application process smoother.

Step 2 - Do some research

Okay, you know what you’re looking for but how do you find it?

Unfortunately, there are no simple solutions here. However, there are some tools to help you develop a list of candidates.

1. Wow Forums - I tend to avoid the WoW forums like I would a black cat infected with rabies covered by fleas carrying The Plague. Seriously. However, by way of comment in my previous article, Graylo recommended the realm forums as a reasonable place to start your search. The forums offer you a couple places to start your search. The general Guild Recruitment forum is a place where any guild from any server can post messages. What may be a better option are the realm forums that Graylo mentioned. The realm forums are broken up by battlegroup, so start on this page, organized by battlegroup. (There’s even a handy guide if you don’t know what battlegroup you are in). Again relying on Graylo since I haven’t used these forum - he mentioned they are a good place to research a guild’s reputation also.
2. WoW Justu - WoW Jutsu is a site that ranks guilds based on their raid progression. It can be very helpful in tracking down guilds on your particular server that match the area of progression you are looking for. Don’t rely on this site for specifics however. There are many aspects to how the site runs and collects data that you should take into account. For instance, if a guild progresses through Gruul’s Lair, then all their raiding members leave, they will still show Gruul’s as their current progression level. Also, I’ve heard from a number of people, that the farther down a guild is on the progression list, the less frequent their stats are updated. Finally, if a guild isn’t currently raiding, or just started Karazhan, they might not even be on this site. Don’t write this site off though. The guild I eventually joined I found on this site and their progression level was accurately stated.
3. Guild Cafe - Guild Cafe is a social networking site for gamers. While not specifically stated, the site seems to be particularly focuses on RPG games, with MMORPG games and WoW in particular, being well represented. In addition to offering some fun goodies (like the gaming personality test), I did find some guilds on this site advertising for new members. It’s been a while, but if I remember correctly, they were even organized by server, making it pretty easy to find them. You may not find your new guild on this site, but if you are a hardcore gamer, you may end up liking the community aspect of this site. (Guild Cafe also offers free, although ad-sponsored, online guild homes. I haven’t tried the service, but it includes raid scheduling).
4. You can also keep your eyes open in game for potentials. Have the good players in your PUGs consistently been from one or two guilds? Did someone help you on a quest (what guild were they from)? Sometimes you just seem to see a particular guild everywhere. Bigger isn’t always better, but if they are always everywhere you are, maybe you have similar goals.

Step 3 - Narrow the field

Now that you have a “short list”, you can start some specific action to either weed the list further, or build the case in support of others. Again, there are no simple shortcuts here, but some of the actions I took were:

• Do a search to see if the guild has a website. Guild websites are treasure troves for things like conduct rules, raid schedules, DKP systems, etc. If their application is posted, take a look at it and see what kinds of questions they ask. If their forums are open, there are great for giving you a real glimpse at what their members are like. Forums tend to be more informal and frequented by the most active guild members. Also, make sure their site has a means to schedule raids that makes sense to you.
• Look up the guild in The Armory. It’s all basic information, but you can get current class and race breakdowns, along with an idea of how big the guild is and how they are geared.
• Ask around. If you’ve got a lot of in-game friends, ask them if they’ve heard anything about any of the guilds on your list.

That’s all I have for this step. When I was looking for a guild, the best resource I came across were guild websites. They were very helpful in both taking prospects off the list and helping identify the ones that had real promise.

Step 4 - Quest (Daily) “Make Some Contacts”

At this point, you may be ready to apply to a guild. You’ve seen everything you need to see. If that’s the case - great! You may skip this step, but please read the next step before applying.

If you’re still not sure you’ve picked that one special guild, hopefully you’ve at least narrowed the list down to 2 or 3 candidates. At this point, you’ve got to leave the research laboratory and get out there in the field.

Keep your eyes peeled for members of the guilds you have in mind while you’re playing. When you see one, invite them to quest with you. Maybe you catch them getting ready to do a daily and you offer to help them (the escort daily in Skettis is perfect for this). Strike up a conversation with them and get a sense for what they are like. Ask a few questions about their guild and whether they like it or not. Just be sure to keep in mind this is just one opinion, so don’t put too much weight into it for good or bad.

You might even ask who the most active officers are for the guild. Check and see if any of them are online. If so, whisper them and see if they are open to talking for a minute or two. I did this with one guild officer and simply said I had done some research on their guild and it looked like a potential fit for what I was looking for and just wanted to ask a few questions. Guild officers love this as most players simply apply to the guild and consider the guild lucky to have them.

If you get an officer in a conversation, what you ask them has to be relevant to you. For me, I was looking for a raiding guild, but could only commit to couple nights. So I wanted to understand if that level of committment would exclude me from raiding. These interactions are also great for getting a simple read on the maturity level and personality of the guild. Again, this is just one person, but it is often the guild officers who set the overall tone for the entire guild.

Step 5 - Make it official

Okay, you’ve narrowed down the field and found a good candidate that fits your criteria, fits your progression level if you’re a raider, and seems to have a complimentary attitude to yours. Time to apply.

Notice I said “a” good candidate. Don’t apply to more than one guild at once; it’s simply bad form. As Graylo also commented in my first article: “Most guild officers I know tend to look at the other guilds forums, and may have played with members of the other guild. Seeing that you have apps at a lot of guilds can hurt you even if they are closed. No guild wants a guild hopper and no guild wants to be used as a stepping stone. App to one guild. Give it a week. If nothing happens look for your next opportunity.”

As you fill out the application, it might be a good time to go back to Ground Zero and review the basics there. Okay you’re busy and in a hurry, what were those basics? Write in full sentences, using proper grammar and spelling words in their entirety. Remember that a little humility never hurt anyone. Also remember you are not the only one in the guild - a few sentences about how you can help guild members will go a long way.

Step 6 - Success! Or not…

If you’ve followed the steps I’ve outlined your application should be met with approval and you will soon be told “invite incoming” followed by that familiar stream of green messages in your chat box. Welcome!

If not, don’t be discouraged. Just like real life, some relationships are just not to be. Dust yourself off and try to figure out what went wrong. Head back to Step 3 or 4 and start all over again. There are plenty of guilds out there and one of them is bound to be a fit for you.

I suppose the other option is to start your own guild. I have never started a guild and really don’t have the desire to, but it might be the right answer for you. Play with a bunch of real life friends and you all get along great? Why not start your own guild? Have tons of players on your friends list and a lot of them are un-guilded? Why not start your own guild? Not at endgame yet and think it would be a fun experiment starting a guild? Go for it? One of the things I love about this game is the endless opportunities it offers. Starting a guild is not one I’m interested in taking advantage of, but it might be a perfect fit for you.

Wrapping up

I hope you have found this little guide helpful. Please feel free to comment and add to it as makes sense. There is a great sense of community amongst the WoW bloggers (and readers) and I look forward to making this writeup even better with your additions.

I’ve had the good fortune to be part of now three great guilds. I’ve found all of them to be helpful, fun and dedicated to getting better. If you currently don’t have a guild, or are in one that just doesn’t feel right, start working through this guide today. I’m confident there is a guild for you out there - you just have to find them.