Guide & FAQ to In-Game Guild Creation

''' The technical guide to creating a guild from the bottom up. '''

This guide is created to help get you started forming your own guild for whatever intentions you may have and includes decisions that should be thought about at least once during the process. If you don’t care about politics, reputation, or friendliness, you can skip a lot of the suggestions, and go about your way.

You can also visit the Blizzard Guild Tab page for other interface descriptions & instructions. Please post any edits or additions you may have. Enjoy.

I want to create my own guild, how do I do it?
You will need five things.
 * 1) 10 un-guilded “accounts” in physical proximity of the charter holder
 * 2) A faction capital city
 * 3) 10 silver
 * 4) a bag slot
 * 5) a name for your guild.

Get the charter from the city guild master, and return it when the signatures are complete.

I want to design and wear my own tabard, what do I need?
You will need four things:
 * 1) an established guild
 * 2) 10 gold
 * 3) A faction capital city
 * 4) you need to be the official guild leader. If you don’t want to wear it, you can go to a tabard designer (usually next to the guild master) anytime and just browse though.

Purchase this from the city tabard designer (usually next to the city guild master)

How do I design my tabard?
Once you have established guild, and have 10 gold, you may purchase your guild tabard design. The guild master will let you ‘create’ a guild crest at anytime, but it will not be applicable, until purchased. Simply select the colors, icon, and borders you want, and then purchase. If you’re not sure, take screenshots of the ones you like best, and look at them later. You can also put it up to your members to design one, and then host a poll for the winner. Anytime you want to change ‘any’ element in the tabard, they will charge you 10g. Don’t forget, you will need to purchase your own tabard from a tabard vendor. 10gold does not include one. These are 90silver to 1gold depending on your reputation.

I’m clueless, how do I do all of this?
Go to a capital city, and ask a guard for the Guild Master. Follow the arrow on your map till you get there. Purchase a charter for 10 silver from the Guild Master. They’ll ask you to name your guild, and then give you the charter.

Now that I have the charter, what do I do?
You will need to get 9 other charter signatures in order to turn in the charter and create your guild. The 9 other signatures have to be unique accounts, un-guilded, and within physical proximity to yourself in the game. This means you and your 3 buddies can’t sign up all their alts to complete the charter or get signatures from people on the other half the world without going there yourself. You will need to travel to them, or have them travel to you. To get the signature, target the person who you are requesting the signature from, and then select the charter from your bag. Once they accept, their name will appear on the charter. The charter is also soul-bound, so you may not transfer it to another player.

I don’t know anyone, how do I get signatures?
This can be as easy or as hard as you make it. There is no time limit on holding the charter. Ten good tips include, but are not limited to:
 * 1) Travel to the spawn points for new players. These guys have a higher chance of being un-guilded, and are more flexible to trying something new.
 * 2) Offer incentives to sign the charter. 1 gold, a tabard, or a 10-slot bag is a lot for a level 1 toon.
 * 3) Make it clear that they do not need to stay once the guild is formed.
 * 4) Be polite and friendly. You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
 * 5) Don’t beg or spam. Be careful if you create a /macro – to only hit it once :D
 * 6) Spell correctly and use your best grammar.
 * 7) Have flight-paths so it doesn’t take so long to travel between towns.
 * 8) Ask your guilded-friends if they would create an alt to sign your charter. Once the guild is formed, they could delete them. Also know- if a toon signs a charter, then decides to delete themselves, their name will no longer be on the charter, & you will be unable to turn it in.
 * 9) If you have a goal, let them know that’s what you’re shooting for.
 * 10) If you are planning on sending personal tells, be polite, and don’t ask more than once. If they ignore you or don’t respond- they’re probably not interested. I’d say most people will ignore a /general channel message for a request like that (similar to summons), but if asked, personally, and nicely, they are more willing to accommodate if they have the time.

Some things to note before registering in your charter.
You’ve accomplished a lot of work to get those signatures. Please go over the following checklist before you register it in to- the guild master from the faction city you purchased it at.
 * 1) Check your name. Is this the name you want? Currently this is the only time you can change your guild name. Guild names can be a maximum of 24 characters in length and must be at least
 * 2) Guild names may not have three of the same letter in a row or two consecutive spaces and must conform to the naming policy, also known as the Naughty-Word- Blocker*** viewable here: Blizzard Support
 * 3) Check the spelling. Example: Please make sure that it is Ripping Rogues, and not Ripping Rouges.
 * 4) Check your capitalization. Capitalization counts as a different character. For example all of these may exist on the same server: The Knights who say Ne, The Knights Who Say Ne, The Knights Who Say NE, and so forth. Having the same name intentionally or unintentionally as someone else is rarely a good thing.
 * 5) Every name Taken? If a charter signer joins a new guild, makes a charter, or gets deleted before your guild is fully formed, it will cause this error.****
 * 6) Make sure the charter is in your main backpack, or you will not be able to turn it in. **

Great, but now how do I get rid of these people?
Well, if you feel you have to, or didn’t want to lead or manage a guild, tell everyone thanks (send them a tip if you haven’t already). If they’re not on, send them an in-game mail just to let them know why you removed them. Some may /gquit right away. The ones that you have to remove yourself, go to your guild menu. Select the player. Another window will pop up. Click Remove.

I want to create and add my own ranks. How do I do that?
Open up your Social Menu [O] and go to your guild tab. On the bottom right hand corner, click the “Guild Control” button. WoW has default ranks already in place. When you select the Rank Label pull down menu, the ranks will be listed from higher to lower. Currently, you may have up to 10 ranks in the guild, where the new members will automatically be added at Rank 1 (currently, there is no option to change that default.) All added ranks will be inserted at the bottom of the list, and cannot be reordered. To create your custom ranking list do the following;


 * 1) Create your rank list and hierarchy- See thread on how to create your guild ranks for ranks & description examples.
 * 2) Double check to make sure your ranks are in the correct order. When you promote and demote, it will follow the list. You cannot skip a level.
 * 3) Decide on which ranks you want to have which privileges. Privileges are: guild chat listen, guild chat speak, officer chat listen, officer chat speak, promote, demote, invite member, remove member, set MOTD, edit public note, view officer note, edit officer note, and modify guild info.
 * 4) Work from the top of the list down, updating/ changing the default names and privileges of the pre-existing ranks.
 * 5) Add the next rank when needed, until you are finished.
 * 6) Then go to your member list and promote or demote the members until they are in the appropriate position.

I want to update and change my guild ranks. How do I do that?
If you haven’t used up all your position slots, or want to reorder the ones you have, sadly, you pretty much have to start over. Make note of the following tips:


 * 1) Make sure you know what ranks your members have before starting. If you change the name of the rank, theirs will also be updated to that rank, but when inserting and reordering the ranks, you will have to promote or demote accordingly.
 * 2) Create your new rank list and hierarchy.
 * 3) Work from the top of the list down, updating/ changing the default names and privileges of the pre-existing ranks. It is important to update each rank one at a time, and click accept. It will not save your changes when moving to the next rank, unless you accept (for each rank.)
 * 4) If you have to move a rank when inserting a new one, and want the privileges to remain the same, make sure you know what those are.

I am having trouble with the Add (+) Delete (-) guild title feature; it is greyed out.
You can have at max 10 ranks. After that, you will no longer be able to add (+) a rank.. That would be why the + is greyed out.

When you first create a guild, there are about 4? starting ranks. You cannot remove these, only rename these and change privies. *Also, you cannot delete ranks while people are stilled ranked at that rank So you would have to demote / promote everyone to one rank if you're doing major changes.

If the rank you are trying to delete is one of the original top (4?) – or there is a member online with that rank- this would by why the (-) would be greyed out.

How do I invite, promote, demote, and kick people from the guild?
On the main guild social screen, anyone that has privileges to invite will be able to select “add member”. Members with access to promote and demote, can select a member from the guild list (they don’t have to be online). In the new box click the up arrow to promote, down to demote. If someone needs to be removed from the guild, click on their name, and select remove from guild. *Also, if you are promoting/demoting/kicking, remember to change the member status on any addons or website privies/titles you may have.

We have more than one guild leader, but can’t promote them to the position. What gives?
Currently, there is only 1 true guild leader with the power to disband the guild. You can create the same rank with same name and privileges right under guild leader, but they will not have the power to disband the guild or have access to the guild control panel. The membership at large won’t really notice, other than when listed, the names may not be alphabetical when sorted by rank. The official leader also cannot /gquit without promoting a new leader.

What other features are there?

 * Message of the day- limited to 127 characters, and is often used for information that is constantly changing, or other important info. that you want members to see w/o looking at the guild info screen.
 * General guild info -(limited to 499 characters.) Often these are used but are not limited to the following information: mission, contact info, website link, guild alliances, and guild events. Remember that there will always be some guild members who do not read either.

How do we change leadership in the guild?
There are many reasons to not want this position anymore, but not nearly as many available options. Also note, that if you delete your character that is the guild leader, your guild will automatically disband. Or, if your guild leader is MIA (missing in action), the members must petition a CM to change the leadership to another member. "You will have to wait 30 days from the last login before a new guild leader can be selected and it had to go to a Level 2." *

If you are the guild leader, you have the following choices:
 * 1) Promote another member to Guild Leader. In order to do this, the member must be online. Go to the social menu, guild tab, select the member you wish to promote, right click, and select promote to guild leader.
 * 2) No members that want or are willing to take it? Try asking in the general chat. Free guild to give away!
 * 3) No takers anywhere, or don't want to deal with it? Type /gdisband

What other useful Guild Commands are there?

 * /ginfo - Gives basic information about your guild.
 * /g - Sends a chat message to all members of your guild.
 * /o - Sends a chat message to all officers of your guild.
 * /ginvite - Invites another player to join your guild.
 * /gremove - Removes a player from your guild.
 * /gpromote - Promotes a player one rank within your guild.
 * /gdemote - Demotes a player one rank within your guild.
 * /gmotd - Sets the guild's message of the day.
 * /gquit - Removes you from your guild.
 * /groster - Gives an entire guild roster.
 * /gleader - Sets another player as the guild leader (guild leader only).
 * /gdisband - Disbands your guild (guild leader only).

How does "Officer Chat" work???
If you have officer chat "speak" priv's, you may type /o chat message here. Only those with the priv's will be able to see it. If you only have officer chat "listen" it will just show up in your chat log. The default color is a green only slightly darker than the guild chat green, so it may easily get confused :)

If you are the GM- you can set those priv's via the guild control pannel. If not, you'll just have to test by trying to type. Chances are, if you can speak- you may also listen :)

How many guilds can I be in at once?
Each character on your server (alotted 10 per server, and a total of 50, I believe) can each be in a differenent clan- even within the same server. If you are asking about character transfering, the answer is No.. If you transfered off that server, it is as if "deleting your character" from the realm & quitting that guild. I do not know of a clan- that runs across servers..... that is one big organization, and would entail having the same rules/ administration, etc.

Where can I get more information?
Look on the forums or other guild websites for ideas on developing a guild. This includes, but is not limited to: determining your rankings, writing your charter, history, and rules, how to recruit, how to create alliances, how to build your guild website, guild banking, loot and dkp rules, how to be a guild leader, how to set up your forums, hosting fun guild events, and useful guild mods. Ask questions, and have fun!

You can also visit the Blizzard Guild Tab page for other interface descriptions & instructions.

Contributors

 * Written by Ashling of Pay It Forward - Greymane Server
 * Contributing authors:
 * Pytlak of Nordrassil
 * Anaea- Aerie Peak
 * Cariel-Skywall
 * Ethel- Skywall
 * Giharn, Argent Dawn
 * Ayrial- Maelstrom
 * Evol - Akama

This guide was last updated: 5/4/07 and does not include any changes instated after the patch “Before the Storm 2.0.1”

Original Post: Guild Relations Forum