Building a guild from scratch

Kaunas · September 2019

Besides the trolls and elites that would say "youll spend millions of gold trying to be what every other guild has and you have nothing to offer" yes i know, thats not the question.
My question is, how viable is it to even make a new guild and try to build it from scratch. Does the community still help/allow growth of fresh guilds. For me personally i always like to experiance the game without having a head start, without getting everything on a plate, and im ready for the chalange, but im iffy about how the community takes these "plebian unknown fresh empty guilds", do *you people* look at them as a good thing that boosts the expanding community, or as a waste of time and belittle these guilds.
Honestly asking, pls dont spam trollish banter : (

Edit: thank you all for the insight. Really wasnt expecting a mature and serious reaction to such a question tbh.

GeorgeBlack · September 2019

The thing about eso is that there arent guild activities in the game. You also can go 100% alone for years and not bother joining a guild without a limitation making you feel like it's time to be part of a community.

Let me edit for more depth

1)PvE
Guilds have a capacity of 500 complete strangers who solo multiple Alts and then there is a core of 10 or so people saying where and when a Trial will take place.

Guild founders treat non core members as fillers for their runs.
Since there isnt an open world competitive element, guild leaders dont care to empower and protect members, they only care about board scores (one group competing against the server).

People looking for a guild need to feel appreciated. If they dont they leave a guild and /lf guild within a month.

2)PvP
CP, non cp
30 days, 7 days.
EP races, DC races, AD races
So many fractions.

Again ESO does not have guild activities.
There are groups of players that play organized.
The rest are randoms /lfg in zone.
PvP is so optional that you cant give your guild members a reason to go to Cyrodiil if they dont feel like it at that moment.
Why bother with a guild when you can belong in a discord group?

3)Traders

All your guild members screw you over pricing. The only one that doesnt bother is the GL. That person gives you a quota and if you dont meet it you lose your place.
You may thing that gold in made by making consumables, armor or even selling raw mats.
Nope.
A guild leader with a trader googles the price of Alloy Tempers, buys a massive portion of the server and flips the price.

You cant outbid a trader unless some people just walk away from the game.
There is already a line of wealthier players waiting for the new DLC hub.

4)What can you offer to your guild members?
Welp. A communication channel, low member cap for quality community and real interaction for PvE, let's say just enough people to be able to form 2 full raids a day.
Seek out people that want to grow together, and not solo the game.
Also if you are going to want to win campaigns in Cyrodiil find people that focus mostly on PvP and enjoy PvE.
Non of those weirdos that play half the game.
Choose an alliance and be firm with your members. Get them to buy Explorers Pack and seek out likeminded people.

Again... ESO is casual so gl making a real guild.

There arent any in this single player rpg.

RavenSworn · September 2019

I'm going to have to say this as a Co gm of my guild which I started from scratch and during the first year of playing.

Its tough and thankless. But you've gotta stick to the end, stick to your vision of your guild's purpose. Whether it's trading, or pve, or pvp, or even just general shenanigans, you have to stick to it and let it grow on its own.

My own personal experience:

I created my guild with the notion that I wanted like minded individuals who have read the Malazan book of the fallen series, be together in a single guild and basically chat about the book and how it can be translated to the game.

It didn't turn out well. I stopped playing for half a year, trying to settle rl stuff and also to get a proper mindset for the game.

However, during the course of the guild dissolution, I realised how little help I had when I was trying to level, trying to get myself back on my feet. I had joined a different guild, it was great but it still felt harder than usual. And I still had the reins of my first guild.

I wanted a niche in the guild systems, something that I can support fully, given my hours and hours of play. So I started this "Beginner friendly, casual and solo players directed, with returning veterans and help them get back to speed" guild.

Two years on, it's still going on, give and take slow times. But really, all you need to start a guild is just a vision of what you want from the guild and the players will flock, those like minded and those who feel they are able help achieve your vision.

Go for it. Don't hesitate. For all you know, you could start a guild that might be really great in the game.

EllieBlue · September 2019

Why not? Create your own community according to your vision of what that community is about. Pve or pvp or social or a little of all. People will join your guild and stay if they like it and leave if they don't. You will be creating a "home" for your members. Just remember that you are not catering to everyone, you can't. Set rules and guidelines, be prepared to change them as needed, to suit the community as your guild grows and evolve. It is a lot of work, though. A guild is only as good as it's members, is something I say to my members often. That said, how good your members are will also depends on how good and effective the leadership is. Good luck! Good members will not stay long if the leadership is not up to scratch. You don't need any gold (beside a few ks for tabard) to have a kick ass, thriving guild.

Kaunas · September 2019

Damn lads. Thanks for the advice. My thing is that, going into an old mmorpg with mostly everyone top ranked, it gets boring fast if you dont have a chalange, and ive always been a community person (despite my.. dramatic humour) and building one has this feeling of Pride and Acomplishment (not by some publisher standarts dw).

Runkorko · September 2019

Kaunas wrote: »

Besides the trolls and elites that would say "youll spend millions of gold trying to be what every other guild has and you have nothing to offer" yes i know, thats not the question.
My question is, how viable is it to even make a new guild and try to build it from scratch. Does the community still help/allow growth of fresh guilds. For me personally i always like to experiance the game without having a head start, without getting everything on a plate, and im ready for the chalange, but im iffy about how the community takes these "plebian unknown fresh empty guilds", do *you people* look at them as a good thing that boosts the expanding community, or as a waste of time and belittle these guilds.
Honestly asking, pls dont spam trollish banter : (

Make friends first, then make a guild.
If you want to create a guild only for trading and gold incoime, think you are toooo late...

Mathius_Mordred · September 2019

Yes you can, I did it in April with Skyrim Red Shirts. I have years of experience doing this in other MMOs and in STO I ran 9 guilds. I take the approach of creating a professional organisation with full out of game support, therefore we have a great website, Discord, Forum, Twitch, Facebook etc, the only one I don't bother with is Twitter. The website helps to build a closer community and with links to FB there are continual dialogues even when folks are outside of the game. We are around 250 members now, you do get a lot of new players who join, play a few days then never come back, so I clean out once a month.

At one point we had 440 members and the clearout removed 200 of them, gradually we are being left with high CP players and a few lower ranks. The guild finder is pretty useless as all guilds select all options so there is little chance you'll get found on there, but it is good for linking in chat.

Many higher CP players don't have zone chat on or ignore it, but I think if they are looking for a guild they will switch it on. You need to recruit all the time and have a great set of events, run dungeons and trials, get some experienced people in the guild, if you are really lucky you may get some people who actually want to help, although that is super rare. Be prepared for an enormous amount of work, if you want to kit out your guildhall with crafting stations, transmute etc and make it look great then be prepared to spend up to a couple of million gold and/or some crowns.

Run a weekly raffle and gain funds for the guild that way, use the guild money to bid on traders, now you can bid on up to 10 so there's a bigger chance you'll win something but you will need a larger pool of gold to do that and you need 50 people anyway to bid on a guild trader.

Take a look at what we've done if you like, it's only been 6 months but I feel we have made huge progress.

https://www.skyrimredshirts.com/

Thoragaal · September 2019

Kaunas wrote: »

Besides the trolls and elites that would say "youll spend millions of gold trying to be what every other guild has and you have nothing to offer" yes i know, thats not the question.
My question is, how viable is it to even make a new guild and try to build it from scratch. Does the community still help/allow growth of fresh guilds. For me personally i always like to experiance the game without having a head start, without getting everything on a plate, and im ready for the chalange, but im iffy about how the community takes these "plebian unknown fresh empty guilds", do *you people* look at them as a good thing that boosts the expanding community, or as a waste of time and belittle these guilds.
Honestly asking, pls dont spam trollish banter : (

Go for it.
As long as you have a clear vision and a goal that everyone within the guild can unite behind, then it's not a waste of time.
It only becomes a "waste of time" with these casual guilds.
As people get better at the game they start wanting more out of it or they grow bored. That causes the better/more experienced players to eventually leave because they feel they're being held back by the more casual approach (bad/new/inexperienced players).
So in order to not let the guild die you have to recruit more inexperienced people (since the experienced ones don't get much from the guild they have no reason to join/stay).. during that time you have someone else at the top of the "hierarchy" that slowly start feeling like they are being held back and you end up in a vicious circle of just the experienced players leaving and new ones joining.

Have a clear goal and if people can't live up to it then they should be looking for something else that suits them better.
Good luck!

FierceSam · September 2019

As a player I spent ages doing ESO solo but eventually I was tapped up by a guild and found that actually playing with other players makes the game so much more enjoyable (I know... duh). People who want to help this by running guilds should be applauded.

I think it’s totally possible to build a guild from scratch, but I think there are a few things that will help make it successful

1. Be absolutely clear what the point of your guild is - what do you want it to be/do/accomplish. Have your own identity

2. Have some kind of central ‘space’ where the guild can focus (Facebook, Discord etc) and be social/organise

3. Keep your activities simple and regular so everyone knows that Monday is farming day

4. Recruit continuously and be prepared for high player turnover

I don’t run a guild, but I do run with 4 of them and the players who run those guilds make them what they are and are all outstanding people.

I’d encourage you to go for it and good luck with your guild

Kaunas · September 2019

runkorkoeb17_ESO wrote: »

Kaunas wrote: »

Besides the trolls and elites that would say "youll spend millions of gold trying to be what every other guild has and you have nothing to offer" yes i know, thats not the question.
My question is, how viable is it to even make a new guild and try to build it from scratch. Does the community still help/allow growth of fresh guilds. For me personally i always like to experiance the game without having a head start, without getting everything on a plate, and im ready for the chalange, but im iffy about how the community takes these "plebian unknown fresh empty guilds", do *you people* look at them as a good thing that boosts the expanding community, or as a waste of time and belittle these guilds.
Honestly asking, pls dont spam trollish banter : (

Make friends first, then make a guild.
If you want to create a guild only for trading and gold incoime, think you are toooo late...

Not even looking on "profiting" off a community. Thats what i dont really like of the guild system here. I understand how important it is to have a gold sink in a mmo, but trading based guilds are.. more of a business than a community imo.

idk · September 2019

Anyone can start a guild at anytime. Success depends on how well it is lead which really start with why you want to start a guild and what your intentions are. If you are starting a guild because you think it would be cool to start and lead a guild that is probably the wrong and worst reason to do it. The best guild leaders I have known really do not want to lead a guild. Yes, I know that sounds but it is a person that actually has a knack for it and somehow just ends up in the leadership position.

Second, it helps to have a core group of people to start with. Besides the fact a guild with only one person is not much of a guild, by doing things together in game you meet others that could be prospective members. We often meet people by raiding with them.

It takes work to manage the roster. Outside of trading guilds, most guilds with near 500 members are not very good guilds as they lack leadership that can support that many people. The leaders think they are doing great because they have 500 members but most do nothing with the guild because there is not enough to keep 500 members busy. So keep that in mind.

SantieClaws · September 2019

Clan Claws. Twenty happy travellers. Regular parties, skyshard hunts, fishing and occasional movie production. One family temple, one home village, one island full of sugar.

For trading you want a large guild. We do not trade.

For fun and Khajiit mischief you are best with a small guild, bearing in mind you can only have 23 friends in even the largest home.

Decide first what you want your guild to do - what you enjoy doing - then seek others with the same idea of fun. Have a focus. Have a plan.

The five guild limit is very frustrating though. This one knows others who would like to join us but are already in five guilds. they are all welcome to our gatherings though anyway.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

dtsharples · September 2019

I don't think that anyone looks down on newer guilds at all, you just need to have the right expectations of who will join you in the beginning. People generally won't leave an established guild to join a newer one.

First and foremost, I'd say you need to decide what your guilds focus will be. Deciding this will give you something to actually recruit with.
Focus on something that you personally enjoy in game, as leading a guild can quickly become frustrating and it is generally a thankless task that you'll need to endure until things get up and running.
I'd suggest choosing between PVP / PVE / Trading to begin with.

You need to be the motivator, the recruiter, the teacher, the mediator - you need quite a bit of free time to get it started.
I'd also suggest that if you have made some friends in game, that you get them involved from the start. This will help immensely.

IMO there isn't much point in reinventing the wheel, being an older game now there are a huge amount of guilds already in existence catering to specific playstyles - if you aren't offering something specific you might find it difficult to recruit.

Once you have decided on the route your guild will take - choose a guild name that represents it well.
And make sure that your recruitment message includes all relevant info.

Are you going to be a casual social guild?
Are you going to have a specific competitive aim in mind?
What Timezone are you playing in?
Which days are you going to group up?
Will you be a faction specific guild?
Are there any entry requirements?
If a trader, what are the minimum fees?

Danikat · September 2019

I think the most important thing to consider when starting a guild (in any game, not just ESO) is what it's for: what you can offer your members and what you expect from them.

What would your guild advert look like? Why would anyone choose your guild over another one of a similar size which does the same activities? "Friendly social PvX guild playing all aspects of the game, everyone welcome" is going to struggle to get going because there will be eleventy million identical guilds for players to choose from, with almost nothing to tell them apart except maybe how the officers handle the inevitable drama, everyone will have different interests and expectations and until they get to know each other nothing to bring them together and encourage them to play as a group.

Having a more specialised guild does make it harder to find suitable members but it also means you know, and your members know as soon as they join, what they have in common and what they can expect from each other.

It sounds like you've got a good start with what you've said you're looking for - people who want to experience the game together, without a head start. Build on that and find like-minded people to join you. Just bear in mind that especially early on you'll spend a lot of time recruiting and ideally will need to also spend a lot of time getting/keeping conversations going between members and setting up guild activities, at least until your members get to know each other and start doing that themselves.

(And BTW I'm not saying all social guilds will fail, just that it's much harder to stand out and attract or keep like-minded people unless you do something special to stand out. One of my favourites was a guild that turned the typical recruitment message on it's head, saying something like "Unsociable, unfriendly, unhelpful guild - we never talk, we never play together and we already hate you. Join today!" Of course none of that was true but it stood out and will appeal to a certain kind of player. As long as it's an accurate representation of the way your guild acts something like that can be really effective.)

Eirinin · September 2019

You've gotten some amazing replies and ideas. My only addition to this conversation is how much time do you want to devote to a guild?

As someone who has been an officer/co owner for guilds in many games I was always surprised how success often meant way way more time working on guild stuff and how playing the game became secondary. That can be tough and is only countered by finding excellent co leaders/officers to share the (often thankless) work load.

tsaescishoeshiner · September 2019

FierceSam wrote: »

1. Be absolutely clear what the point of your guild is - what do you want it to be/do/accomplish. Have your own identity

2. Have some kind of central ‘space’ where the guild can focus (Facebook, Discord etc) and be social/organise

3. Keep your activities simple and regular so everyone knows that Monday is farming day

4. Recruit continuously and be prepared for high player turnover

Was going to say exactly this, but I must add: Recruit officers who do stuff. You can only run so many events, trial runs, and so on yourself.

People usually use guilds as ways to find groups to do stuff together (pledges, crafting, trials, world bosses, battlegrounds) rather than ask strangers from zone chat - even if it's not the focus of the guild. I've been in some guilds with no events, no focus, just because of having a pool of people to do stuff with (but these are also the guilds I'd soonest leave to make room for another)

If you want a sense of accomplishment, most large guilds (400+) can afford a trader without dues, and having a guild crafting hall with ALL set crafting stations is a big achievement. Having these lets your guildies not have to choose between a guild they like and a guild that has a trader (somewhat of a necessity to make money). Running trials is also a +, since pugging them can really suck

Inaya · September 2019

Eirinin wrote: »

You've gotten some amazing replies and ideas. My only addition to this conversation is how much time do you want to devote to a guild?

As someone who has been an officer/co owner for guilds in many games I was always surprised how success often meant way way more time working on guild stuff and how playing the game became secondary. That can be tough and is only countered by finding excellent co leaders/officers to share the (often thankless) work load.

So much this. A successful guild requires a lot more work than you may think even with excellent co-leaders and officers to share the work load. There are times it will require out of game work to organize an event/auction/raffle/guild activity and times you may have to log in on a day you would like to relax. As the leader people look at your performance, on line activity and overall organizational skills to gauge the stability of the guild.

Biggest advice I can give is this:
Don't make decisions when angry
Treat everyone fairly
Don't try to make everyone happy
Depend on your co-leaders and officers but always remember you can delegate authority not responsibility

It can be very rewarding if you have the time and willingness to "herd cats" but it very often is a thankless job. Don't go into it thinking you are going to be a big shot.

edited for spelling

Kaunas · September 2019

From my experiance from other games, esp one old that got a fresh server, me and my friend instantly jumped in and started building, it was simple since it was a new server. I managed the funds and trading when my friend kept the members talking and interacting. Soon enough got to top spots in leaderboards and ranks, but just because we knew what to do and how to handle the "process"
I made this topic not because im new to the whole idea, but for some reason only ESO (from my.. semi big mmo experiance) guilds stand out as being special and confined. I mean when i joined i was shocked that you can have 5 player guilds at one time lol.. never seen this before.
And from all of your posts, thanks honestly. Besides a uncalled for tbagging at molagballs and an angry random tank in a random dungeon, after 500 hours this community is *profanity* amazing.

Saucy_Jack · September 2019

I can tell you that the number of players who want to join an absurdist, tongue-in-cheek cult guild are vanishingly small. I suspect it's because players want their guilds to have "a-men-it-eez", but I've never encounted this word.

Odovacar · September 2019

I give a lot of respect to GM's who develop and sustain a healthy running guild. I'm just fine sitting at an officer rank. It almost seems like a second job to be a GM, imo.

Good advice for anyone trying to build from scratch is be active with your group. Run raffles, games, etc. Nothing is worst than never hearing from a GM or their higher ranking officers other than please donate to the GB. GL OP I hope everything works out for you!

Kaunas · September 2019

Odovacar wrote: »

I give a lot of respect to GM's who develop and sustain a healthy running guild. I'm just fine sitting at an officer rank. It almost seems like a second job to be a GM, imo.

Good advice for anyone trying to build from scratch is be active with your group. Run raffles, games, etc. Nothing is worst than never hearing from a GM or their higher ranking officers other than please donate to the GB. GL OP I hope everything works out for you!

Yyeaaah when i see every message from a gm being about bids and donations it.. i just start questioning the intentions

Thoragaal · September 2019

Kaunas wrote: »

Damn lads. Thanks for the advice. My thing is that, going into an old mmorpg with mostly everyone top ranked, it gets boring fast if you dont have a chalange, and ive always been a community person (despite my.. dramatic humour) and building one has this feeling of Pride and Acomplishment (not by some publisher standarts dw).

Believe me.. there's plenty of poorly run guilds around in ESO that's lacking a proper goal and vision.
Here's my experience of guilds in ESO (been here since beta, both pve and pvp):

90% of all guilds fall a part - A lot of people that starts a guild seem to think that running a guild is easy "just throw a bunch of like minded people together and go". These guilds usually start out strong but the leadership isn't prepared for effort required to run a guild. It quickly reaches it peak and when the momentum starts to slow down it looks like it's "failing" and the leadership gives up. Running a successful guild takes A LOT of time, effort and patience.

9% are casually run - Where people just stay for the community. They usually have lots of new players coming and also lots of people continously leaving, but a core group that's always there. These guilds never really achieve something but they are easier to manage and have been around for a long time.

1% of the guilds (probably even less) actually has a purpose - These guilds are the ones that other's "aspire" to create (but end up in the other 90%). They usually have been there for a long time, but because the leadership "knows what it's doing" then it's also difficult getting into these. They are focused on mainly one, maybe two, goals. They do it really well and they progress at their own pace. People have usually been in these guilds for a very long time and the leadership doesn't just let anybody in.

My final advice: Don't take sides in personal disputes. It's not your responsability to settle personal issues. People are adults, they can handle themselves. You will have enough to do without having to be dragged into those things, plus, if you start settling personal disputes, and you take sides, then the over arching goal might come into question by the bystanders. Your goal with the guild is your #1 priority. Keep it that way!

Dusk_Coven · September 2019

Even if you had a unique guild identity I think it would take a lot of zone spam to get the word out.
The new Guild Finder doesn't have text search, even for the guild name. So trying to find a guild that does a certain special thing (beyond the flags that all the guilds use to show up in all listing categories -- making them useless mostly) is a colossal waste of time. The chances of them noticing your guild is also next to nothing.

Once ZOS wakes up and realizes we need text search, things will be better for guilds that maintain a distinct identity.
Until that time, if you start a new guild you're just gonna look like the scores of 1-person guilds in Guild Finder who don't even have a banner. Not even sure why they bother listing themselves when they don't write anything in their description. It just forces people to waste time scrolling past them.

ZeroXFF · September 2019

I'm a co-founder of a guild that is just over a year old now. We started off with a decent number of players (10-20 or so) who had the same goals in mind. This starting "human capital" can be people from your friends list (in my case, we split off from a different guild where we weren't happy with the leadership changes).

These people at start have to be enough to fill key spots in groups for your events (trials in our case), and the rest could be filled up via zone chat. The way we recruited was, if the trials went well and/or we met someone who was good enough and had the right attitude, we offered them to join the guild. Being on voice chat was strongly encouraged during the events to actually be able to get to know the people at least a bit. Eventually we grew big enough with this strategy that even without actively recruiting people, more and more get invited by existing members.

For this to work you of course have to offer something appealing. Either make sure that people see results and/or make it so that people have fun regardless of getting results.

Also, these events have to keep happening. So unless you are willing to spend at least one evening a week until you quit the guild on a scheduled event with the guild or have officers who would willingly jump in to take over when you're busy, you will have a hard time.

EDIT: note that guild finder or zone chat spam purely for guild recruitment purposes was not necessary. In fact I think using those means makes the people who end up joining less likely to stay.

JusticeForJilarga · September 2019

This One's Khajiit Guild just hit 100 members! This One personally messaged most of the people recruited. (This One had some help)

If you want to create a Guild, create it then seek out like minded people to join.

Darkenarlol · September 2019

since you can have up to 5 guilds at the same time

nothing can stop you from trying

you'll get some extra bank space anyway

The_Art_of_Paw · September 2019

Kaunas wrote: »

how viable is it to even make a new guild and try to build it from scratch

ESO is a great environment to make any guild "viable". Among million of users, there is a good chance that if you find something fun, there will be others that do as well.

There is a huge amount of content that is fun and able to be run by as little as two people, so you can essentially build a fun place to hang out with any guild population.

Try to keep it fun for yourself, value the time members choose to contribute, hold close those that support you and try to brush off any negativity you encounter along the way. If you are having fun, then it is the right path (this is entertainment afterall)

Good luck for your journey, hope it goes well out there for you!

(p.s some of the most fun in games can be helping out startups)

kylewwefan · September 2019

There’s already well established trade guilds if making gold is your thing. Million and one social guilds, that if you take time may fit into.

The ones that people may want to be a part of in my eyes are either a hardcore PvP guild that really understands the game and can sway things in a campaign.

Or Progression trials guilds. You want to keep these small imo. At least to start out.

Here’s the thing. More stuff comes together through Discord, then actually in the game. There’s no limit to how many discord’s you can be in, but only 5 guilds.

So it makes some amount of sense to have a strong friends list, and a great discord and then save those guild spots for making gold.