Introduction:

Recently I wrote an article about how to build and maintain a successful guild, so this article is intended to provide the other side of the equation by discussing why guilds fail. The fact is that thousands of guilds get formed for each game, but only a small percentage ever last more than a year. By the time a guild gets to the five year mark, there is an even higher risk of that guild stagnating if it doesn't continue to rebuild itself.

A guild, to me, is the pinnacle of player organization in a game. Those players are bound by a common cause, philosophy, and share the same goals. A great guild is one that sets its own agenda, and adapts to each new game in order to achieve success. Great guilds are not born, they are made and they take work to maintain.

As I explore new games for LotD, I do a lot of reading and pay attention to the player community were we may get our potential new recruits. More often than not, I see more players who have negative opinions about guilds. When I delve further into the reason for such negativity, it often becomes a story of how these people were in bad guilds so their view of guilds is tainted. They end up with low expectations for guilds, and due to that they continue to make poor choices so they continue to end up with bad guilds.

So lets explore some of the reasons that guilds fail, and maybe your guild won't end up in the big MMO guild graveyard!

What Sort Of Guild Do You Want?

Any potential guildmaster needs to put some serious thought into the type of guild they want to create. Too often they just grab some people, create a guild tag, and worry about the rest later. If you want to have a guild that might last a while, then you have to decide what type of guild focus you want to have and what type of gamers you want to recruit.

I sort of break guilds down into three basic types:

Clan

To me a clan is just a small handful of people who know one another, and they form a small unit in a game that may share things such as a guild tag, cloak, emblem, guild hall, voice chat, etc. They don't really do much planning, and they just sort of show up and game with whoever is on. Typically they don't do much recruiting outside of personal invites, and they stay small.

Guild - Casual Focus

I think that guilds with casual focuses can do fine so long as they stay within certain parameters. Casual based guilds generally look for relaxed players who don't want to be held to a strict gaming schedule. Their members generally want to belong to a larger group so that they can achieve more notoriety and/or progress farther into a game's End Game Content.

Guild - Hardcore Focus

A guild with a hardcore focus typically does have very clear goals in mind when its created, and it tries to recruit people who have a regular gaming schedule. They work with these members to plan specific PVP or PVE schedules in order to advance as far into the End Game Content as possible, and then gain notoriety within their gaming community for their achievements.

Potential Pitfalls:

Clan:

In many of today's games its hard to progress far into the end game without a dedicated group. Many clans fail to grow enough to tackle the epic encounters, and as a result they hit a stopping point or are unable to make a real difference. They also tend to end up in alliances of other like minded groups, and those alliances are usually more trouble than they are worth.

Guild - Casual Focus

Casual focused guilds can run into many of the same problems as the Clan. However the casual guild can usually progress farther into the end game before they reach a stopping point. If they want to move beyond those points, they have to get more players, more organized, and the leadership has to do more work. Anytime a guild grows there is potential for drama, conflict, or leadership burnout. From what I've seen its usually that they grow too large to manage, or they stagnate as leaders burnout and there are not enough new leaders available to carry the load.

Guild - Hardcore Focus

Hardcore guilds have the potential to reach the end game, or blow up somewhere along the way. These types of guilds tend to die with a greater frequency than the previous two types of guilds. A hardcore guild can be so elitist that they can't attract enough people, or so rigorous that the guild becomes a second job and the members just burnout. Usually the leadership fails to see that their recruiting standards are too strict so people don't apply, or they don't know when to slow things down enough so that members don't burnout. If their members do burnout, then their inability to recruit can stagnate the guild and cause the whole thing to collapse.

Managing Guild Size: Too Small, Too Big, Or Just Right?

Regarless of the type of guild, size can certainly matter. Guilds that are too small can run into serious issues with PVE or PVP progression while guilds that are too large can become nearly impossible to coordinate. Under recruitment and over recruitment are two big things can can sink a guild in a game, or perhaps even permanently.

Common Reasons For Under Recruitment

• You underestimated the amount of concurrent people you need to progress and halted public recruitment efforts.
• Your application requirements could be too strict (i.e. applicants must be X level, Y class, and Z gear). As a game ages old players leave and new players looking for a guild might not meet those requirements, so they just go to someone else's guild.
• You fail to keep your guild in the public eye. Face it, there's thousands of guilds out there. If your members never associate with people outside the guild, then you are probably going to get passed over by guilds who do mingle with the public.
• You spam global channels with annoying advertisements! Man I hate this, and so do a lot of other people. If that's how you recruit, then you need help.

Common Issues With Over Recruitment

• Your guild leadership simply can't handle the level of organization and coordination required.
• You get swarmed with new members who need orientation, and it slows down guild progression or productivity to unacceptable levels.
• You have too many people for events, and some people have to sit around too often.
• Too many new people in a short amount of time can create personality conflicts that cause a lot of drama or other side issues.
• Your members get quest fatigue or burnout from having to do the same encounters over and over to get people geared out or get access to the next zone.

These are just a few of the issues here, but as you can see the problems associated with under recruitment or over recruitment can certainly give a guild leadership a lot of headaches.

Loot And E-Drama

I miss the old days when everyone who went on a quest got the same reward. Nowdays that doesn't happen often, and you have to run the same quests over and over again and again.

Your casual gamers complain they can't ever get the good loot because no one wants to run quests when they need them, and your hard core gamers got their loot and are trying to avoid burnout while getting the whole guild outfitted. The inevitable E-drama errupts, people get pissed off and leave or burned out and leave.

The bottom line is that many guilds don't establish good rules for raiding attendance and loot distribution. Fights over loot can litterally make or break some guilds, so its important that guild leaders establish some fair and consistent guidelines as early as possible in the guild's life. Then enforce them, and don't bend the rules for anyone.

Guild Resources

Most guilds try to put together a basic website, but many don't and just rely on the in game guild tools to support their efforts. To each his own I say, but I'd have a hard time really connecting to a guild that only had an in game presence. Having an external presence gives people a way to socialize outside of the game, and get an additional level of communication.

Inactivity

Not every guild needs to have a rigorous PVE or PVP schedule each week or month, but it does help to sort of provide direction to the guild. Otherwise people may not know when to log on for important events, and your guild could consistently find itself under manned for the desired event. Once or twice this isn't a problem, but consistent feelings that a guild isn't very active can cause members to leave for guilds that they think are more active.

Poor Leadership

Not everyone is cut out to be a leader. Some guilds promote people to leadership positions based on that person's tenure with the guild, but just because someone's been around forever doesn't mean they'll be a good leader. Other times people can get promoted to leadership too quickly, and as a result they can make some drastic mistakes or even abuse their power.

There are also issues that arise from leaders being indecisive and not wanting to make any decisions without input from the guildmaster. That's ok, but the guildmaster needs to be able to delegate and then oversee the junior leaders. Having to wait too long for decisions to be made can stagnate the guild, and eventually it can overwhelm the guildmaster that has to formally approve every action.

The final thing about poor leadership is having too many leaders.  This can create communication overlap, cause members to not know who to listen to, and eventually cost the guild a lot of productivity. Guilds should try to design their leadership and communication structure to avoid bombarding members with too many orders or directives at once. In LotD we like to do monthly or weekly news letters to members to tell them what's important for that week.

Guildmaster Goes Insane!

Believe it or not, this does happen to a lot of new guilds. The GM gets disgruntled with the way the guild is forming, it doesn't live up to his expectations, or it becomes too much work. Suddenly and without warning the GM disbands the guild, nukes the website, etc and the guild vanishes in an instant.

The moral of the story here is that junior leaders need to help share the workload so the GM doesn't explode, and the members who care about the guild should go the extra mile to help achieve the guild goals. Its hard work running a guild, and its even harder when lots of other people stand around with their hands in their pockets.

Guild Image and Dumb Guild Names

Many new guilds try to create flashy guild names. Sometimes they work out and sometimes they don't, but your guild name is the first thing that displays your guild image. If you have some goofy name, its going to be hard for members to take the guild seriously and for them to put the effort into making it a long term entity. Also not many developer studios want to recruit guilds with stupid names for their betas, and they certainly won't spotlight your guild on beta journal news that goes to the mass media.

Other things that hurt the guild image are leaders who get caught hacking, duping, or exploting (Rolling 30's from Shadowbane for example). You won't develop a good rapport with dev studios or the community if your guild is widely known as a bunch of exploiting SOB's.

So your guild image and your guild name play an important part in your ability to recruit, develop external relations, and last from game to game. Pick wisely because "GanGsTa'Z oF WaRz" probably won't last over time.

Concluding Remarks

This is not a comprehensive list, but it is meant to cover some of the things that cause young guilds to fail and they are things that I've seen time and time again over the years. Feel free to provide your input and experiences, and I'll try to update this over time.