I have been a gamer since the age of 13 and I play a variety of games on different platforms. I started playing World of Warcraft when it was first released 9 years ago, and have been member of my guild for 7 years and the GM for just over 5 years. Although my experience is within WoW the article here can apply to any game that you play.

There are several types of guild that appear in MMO games and the most common archetypes are a social guild, leveling guild, raid guild and hardcore raid guild. As a guild leader you set the tone for what you want the guild to do, and the direction that it heads in. The decisions that you make will shape the future of the guild and what you achieve as a group, and which of the basic 4 types of guild you run.

Once you have an idea of the type of guild that you want to run its time to start looking for members, more often than not the core of a guild is formed by friends getting together with a common goal in mind. Filling up your guild can be a bit of a challenge, if you don’t have the social group to start with. WoW contains several tools to try and help you recruit, a dedicated guild finding tool as well as chat channels you can ask in, but often its word of mouth that gets your more members.

But once you have a group of members in your guild the work does not stop there especially if you are in a guild that raids. If you formed a guild with clearing end game content in mind then you would want to be there, but as the GM you have to make a lot of decisions, and probably lead the raids yourself. Organising and leading raids is a huge amount of work, and requires quite a bit of time.

As a raid leader you need to know the tactics for the encounters that you will face, as well as being able to adjust on the fly. But you also need to know the team that you are raiding with, their strengths and weaknesses. Outside of the raid itself you need to know who is attending and make sure that you have all of the specialist roles or abilities filled. It takes organisation and some dedicated time to building a good raid team.

Running a guild is not something that can easily be done alone, often you will need a group of officers or assistants to help with the running of the guild. My guild is no exception I have a group of 4 officers and a further sub officer rank to help out. How you manage the officers is up to you, but delegating some of the duties and just having a group of people around to assist you is can be a big relief.

The officers tend to be players that know a fair bit about the game, or are experts in a given class. They can help run raids or lead them if you are unavailable and help maintain guild discipline or assist in recruitment as well. Picking good officers is crucial to helping keep the guild running smoothly. You have to get on with the people you choose, and be able to trust them to do things in your place.

When you are forming a guild you need to have a rough idea of the rules and aspects that you want the guild to maintain. From social rules as simple as no swearing to managing the guild funds/bank you need to have a clear set of guidelines available. Its often better to start with basic rules and expand them as you need.

I run 2 main guidelines, don’t be mean to other people and don’t bring the guild into disrepute by being horrible to other people. In general that covers most of the stuff that can cause problems inside of the guild. There are some further requirements and rules you can add, and that I have added for my raid team as an example. Whatever rules you set, its important to make sure that you enforce them.

Sometimes there are going to be players that just don’t follow the rules, or that cross the line in the eyes of you or members of your guild. It is really important that you actually enforce the rules that you set, there can be some flexibility but once that rule is broken there is a need to step in and use some discipline. How you respond to a given situation is up to you as the GM or Officer, but doing nothing about it can result in some very bad things for you and your guild.

Having said that, most of the time, if you are careful in how you recruit and have a clearly defined policy you should not have any serious problems. Having a group of players that you can do stuff with is great and its important to be involved in everyday things as the GM, it brings you closer to your players and you get to know them better. Being around also helps them get to know you and it can really benefit the atmosphere of a guild.

As well as raids you can also run social events, that are just fun things to do, from treasure hunts to skill games. You can offer prizes if you have the funds for them or perks and benefits to the winners. Holding these events is fun and helps your members get to know each other and helps build a stronger team spirit. Knowing the people in the guild and having a good atmosphere help to keep players in the guild and involved in the game.

In summary, the key things to running a successful guild are having a clear set of goals, having clear rules and ensuring that they are maintained. But most of all MMO Games are fun, being in a guild of like minded players is great, logging in to whatever game you play and chatting to friends while you kill monsters and collect loot is what we do this for.

Whatever game you play and however large your guild is keeping things as simple as possible makes running the guild easier and more fun. There will be times where everything is not easy or simple, but stick with it, work through any difficulties and you and the guild can come out of it better than ever.

One final piece of advice, remember that what you play is a game, and supposed to be fun. Treat your players like you want to be treated and let them do the things that are fun for them, but that don't take away the enjoyment of other people. If you can do that and keep that balance in the guild, then you can have a great time running it and your players will enjoy being in your guild. At the end of the day, that's what we are all here for, to play games and have fun.