(03-20-2015, 01:02 AM)Maia Wrote: Questions like: What amenities do you offer your members? Why do you offer them? How do you go about creating said things? What are some of your important policies? What do you look for in your membership?
I've drawn on my experiences in the past, both as a leader of small to medium sized guilds, and as a member of guilds of all sizes. When Kilid and I sat down to plan out J&H, we recalled all the things we enjoyed in our time playing other MMOs, and the problems or mistakes we made as well, to avoid them this time round.
What We Offer
J&H is a small FC and wants to stay that way. I've had the most fun in smaller guilds because everyone gets a chance to pitch in, play together and develop a sense of camaraderie. I want people to feel like they're an important part of the group and that what they do with us actually matters.
We have long term plots that we weave into our events, to give a sense of progression, but it's not weighty or unwieldy. As most of our regular events involve doing X job for Y person, we wanted to have some of them tie in together rather than every single one being a one off. Say we did a job for X last week; well, now a competitor is cross with us so we'll have to deal with that. It might resolve in a matter of weeks, or we might get ideas to expand and draw it out further, depending on the feedback we get.
Open world RP is a big thing for us. Because we're a newer FC, we missed out on getting a plot and, as a result, mostly RP out in the world or openly in cities. Although we were initially disappointed about this, it's turned into a blessing in disguise as we've got quite a bit of random RP this way!
Although our focus is RP, we also have one night a week where we focus on PVE, running whatever is the most popular option at the time. We'll never be at the bleeding edge of progression but we gear up and make our way through content, having plenty of fun along the way.
From a more nuts and bolts perspective, we have:
- RP events at least once a week, if not more;
- Active, regularly updated website;
- IC linkshell for events, coordinating on the fly RP and casual chitchat RP;
- Optional Skype group for when you're not in game;
- Optional TeamSpeak server for PVE and general chat; and
- Probably some other things my caffeine-deficient mind can't recall at this precise moment...
I suppose the policy most important to me is resolving any conflicts quickly. Being a smaller guild, problems are going to impact the whole more severely than they would in a big one, so ensuring people mostly get along is a priority. Of course disagreements are inevitable and whilst we hope that they can be sorted out privately, if the leadership is required to intervene, we'll do so.
On the whole, however, we're made up of mature players (18+, although most are well into their 20s, 30s and beyond) so we trust people to respect boundaries and each other, adhere to lore, separate IC and OOC and so on. If for some reason that doesn't happen, again, we'll step in and do our best to help smooth it out.
What We Want
I suppose our ideal member works well in a team, both IC and OOC. That said, stroppy characters who complain about the ineptitude of the rest of the group can be quite hilarious as long as that IC/OOC separation is intact. They'd also have a decent sense of humour and at least tolerate our silly banter, if not join in on it. Someone who isn't afraid to jump in and get involved is a big plus too. Although I do make substantial effort to include everyone, it takes a burden off us when members actively involve themselves or even take the lead and create their own events for the rest of us to participate in.
As our IC theme involves breaking the law a lot from time to time, having a similarly flexible moral code would also be ideal, but not necessarily required. We have some characters with us now who lean more towards lawful good (whilst I'd say J&H is true neutral, or even chaotic neutral at times) and the IC conflict has been quite fun to play out.
I think that's about it. Now I'm going to get some more coffee...
