Loot, the one great equaliser. Hardcore or otherwise, you want loot. Maybe you you want loot to perform your role better, or perhaps it’s just a status symbol — either way, you really want those shiny loots.

The main reason for attending raids (after securing your position in the world rankings!) is to get loot. This isn’t a bad thing — as a guild leader you want lots of loot flowing into the guild. It’s actually your prerogative, after racing for the world rankings, to make sure loot flows quickly and easily into the guild. There’s even a phrase that defines your success which I first heard 2 or 3 years ago: Purples Per Hour (PPH). Raising the happiness of your guild might really be as simple as increasing the PPH (’Purples’ are ‘epic items’, if you are new to the WoW lingo).

This should come as no surprise, as wiping for hours and hours without any kind of reward obviously drives down the morale of your raid. Only the most hardcore and determined raids can keep up a high level of wiping for more than a few hours — it’s really just not very fun! That’s why it’s often beneficial to take a break from the wiping and head to an easier, farmed instance — to increase your PPH!

So, let’s imagine you’ve wiped for hours and hours (or even weeks and weeks!) and finally you kill the boss. Even as that wave of  elation is still riding through the raid, people are rushing forward to check what glorious little purple pixels have dropped. The most tricky problem of all rears its ugly head: 25 people have killed the boss, but only a handful will be rewarded. How do you decide who gets the loot?! This is a question that has plagued groups for as long as loot has existed. It was a problem in MUDs, Ultima Online, Asheron’s Call, EverQuest — you name any online game and there’s been issues over the distribution of loot.

Luckily, various systems have been devised to assist the fair distribution of loot, and that’s what I’m going to talk about today.

What’s the point in ‘fair’ loot distribution?

This is a valid question to ask — why should you care about how loot is distributed? Why not just /roll for everything? Damn, why not just fight each other for the loot? Survival of the fittest! (That’s how they do the loot in some single-nationality guilds!)

It should be fairly obvious why you want to use a fair loot distribution system:

• Avoid drama — Every guild’s worst nightmare, and the best way to pop the guild leader’s 3 remaining blood vessels — yes, it’s drama over loot. Giving the ‘wrong’ person an item of loot is… well… it’s not pleasant. You want to avoid it all costs!
• Keeps people happy — Following on from the previous point, a transparent loot system is incredibly important to the happiness and survival of a guild. Having a ‘fair system’ removes drama, but having a structured, transparent system, where almost everything about the loot distribution process is known by the raiders is incredibly useful.
• Loot utilisation — You want a system that makes sure every upgrade is taken. The main reason you are raiding is to gear up, to make future content easier (or to frag people faster in battlegrounds). Disenchanting items is a waste, and a good loot distribution system should try to eliminate wastage.

What is ‘fair’ distribution?

You might’ve heard me talk about it in previous articles, but one of the keys to guild leadership (or any form of leadership for that matter) is being fair. At a really basic level, this would mean that both player A and B get one item of loot. That’s fair. You buy both of your children a burger. That’s a good place to begin: ‘1 item each per raid’ is actually not a bad starting point for loot distribution! But now, imagine you’ve spent 3 weeks trying to kill a boss; Player A has been to every raid, but player B has only turned up for the first kill of the boss. Neither player has had any loot that raid — who should get an item from this fresh kill?

Now imagine another similar situation: player A wipes on a boss for weeks, but doesn’t attend the first kill of the boss. Perhaps they were late, or perhaps their internet connection failed — but they’ve put in a lot of effort, so you have to reward them somehow, right?

What is the best way to handle such situations? Well, it certainly depends on your definition of fair, but let’s look at the different kinds of loot distribution first. They break down into the following types:

• DKP-based – Originating from EverQuest (DKP stands for ‘Dragon Kill Points’), this is a system that keeps track of player attendance and loot drops, and awards differing amounts of points, depending on the variant used.
• Loot Council — This uses a council (or in some guilds just a single chairman) to decide the distribution of loot.
• Rolling and other systems — These methods normally revolve around using WoW’s built-in /roll function, generating a number between 1 and 100. Depending on the variant, it might be as simple as winning a roll, or there might be some kind of modifier applied to your roll. Other ’simple’ systems are alsoincluded  in this category; systems that keep little track of player effort or attendance, but provide quick (and quite fair) ways of distributing loot.

What is the best and ‘most fair’ system? You’ll have to read on to find out!

DKP-based loot distribution

By far the most popular system is DKP. DKP is a system where there is some kind of reward system for the effort given by a certain player. Most DKP systems reward for attendance, but there are other systems that are slightly more complex. I will talk about the kinds of DKP-based systems, and how best to use them.

Attendance-based

This is where you are awarded DKP for your raid attendance. The best (and most popular) method is time-based DKP where you are award DKP per hour, often with bonuses for attending on time, or staying until the end of the raid. Some systems just give a flat amount of DKP per raid, but these are less common (and less fair). This system can use either fixed-cost items, or allow for bidding.

Pros:

• Incredibly fair method of awarding effort and attendance (those that put the most time and effort in are inevitably rewarded).
• You can create very large incentives for attending on time, and for staying until the end (this is a huge bonus, trust me)
• Very flexible. You could also award bonus DKP for boss kills, or coming prepared to raids, etc.

Cons:

• Item pricing is very important. It is by far the most important aspect of DKP-based systems — get it wrong, and your system will be pointless. I’ll discuss item pricing later.
• New members might find it hard to ‘catch up’ with those at the top as they will always be spending DKP to gear up, while the old members already have their loot. This is a problem with all DKP systems though, but I will propose a workable solution later.
• You can’t easily ‘boost’ certain players, like your main tank (I don’t find this a problem, but some guilds might).

Loot-based (or zero-sum)

Here you are awarded DKP dependent on what loot drops — more loot drops, more DKP is awarded. If an item drops and it has a value of 25 DKP, everyone in a 25-person raid is awarded 1 DKP. The player that buys it spends 25 DKP. The total DKP in the system is still zero (and thus why these systems are called ‘zero-sum’!)

Pros:

• Less inflation than attendance-based systems (you don’t have all those wipe-raids generating DKP).
• Encourages bosses to be killed, as that’s the only thing that grants DKP!

Cons:

• There is no incentive to attend wipe raids! (The only real reason to avoid this kind of loot system).
• No way to reward players for attending raids, or staying until the end.

To bid, or not to bid?

Most WoW guilds today run attendance-based DKP. They might’ve tried other systems, but settled on an attendance-based DKP system as it is the only one that properly awards effort (and avoids the most drama). Attendance-based systems are split into two types: fixed-price and bidding.

Depending on which guild leader (or raider!) you ask, they are probably highly polarised, stating one method as far superior to the other. Bidding certainly has its place, but is incredibly hard to control (you need things like a ‘minimum price’ to make sure the system isn’t abused) and ultimately you will end up with a Killer player trying to abuse the system. Bidding systems can work, and do allow huge flexibility in awarding bonuses, but they are tricky to implement and maintain. You also have to remember that some classes have ‘unfair’ loot itemisation — a warlock might only need 20 items, but a warrior that both tanks and deals damage might need 40 items.

Because of the pain of managing a bidding system, the difficulty of keeping it fair for all classes, and the massive increase in the time spent assigning loot, I would always recommend a fixed-price loot system.

DKP bonuses… and penalties!

DKP bonuses and penalties are a sticky subject. Do you award bonus DKP for turning up early? Or do you remove DKP from someone for turning up late?  Assuming you are using an attendance-based system, you can award or deduct DKP for just about anything (and what is most effective will depend from guild to guild). The key, as always, is to be fair.

With 4 years of raid-leading experience, I would strongly recommend awarding DKP for the following:

• Turning up on time — This is a no-brainer. Award bonus DKP for people that arrive before the ‘first pull’ time. Award a disproportionate amount of DKP for attending on time. Marvel as tardy players start to turn up on time.
• Staying the full duration – Likewise, award people DKP for staying until the end of the raid. The only thing worse than starting late is someone leaving half way through the raid, leaving you without a replacement.

You could also award DKP for a first kill, or staying beyond the normal end of raid time. In general, you are trying to reward behaviour that increases your raid’s health or guild’s progress. You really do not want to deduct DKP from players — it’s better to replace them, either temporarily or permanently. I don’t want to go into the psychology of it, but let’s leave it at this: it is better to feed them the carrot than shove it up their ass.

DKP bonuses are the key to driving healthy raids and progress. They can make or break whether you start on time, or go the full duration. The number of first kills that we’ve had in the last 30 minutes of a raid is huge — if we’d started late, or ended early, we might never have got those kills!

Fixed-priced attendance-based DKP

I’ve finally arrived at the holy grail of loot distribution. You award DKP for attendance, with suitable bonuses for being prompt and staying the full duration. Only one factor remains — the most important one, really — pricing the loot.

There are many ways to price loot, but I’m going to give you the best one (which we’ve only reached after 4 years of getting it wrong in all kinds of ways). This is another ‘insider secret’ which I hope other guilds can use effectively — old guilds that have been looking for the right pricing system all these years, or new guilds that are looking at good DKP systems before they start raiding.

The Iron Edge Loot Pricing System (At least, I think we invented it)

Over the past 4 years we’ve tried just about every kind of DKP-based system, but nothing really worked until we finally discovered the best way to price items. With accurate item pricing, it just became a matter of balancing the DKP earnt per raid — much, much easier than trying to mess around with taxing and other complicated things.

It’s incredibly simple. To start with, to derive a ’slot multiplier’ (the places you can equip items), we work with Blizzard’s own stat weighting system, with some modifications by us, to take into account the value of a bow/gun to a hunter, or to a non-hunter:

• Two-hand weapon & Hunter ranged weapon = 1.5 * normal stat weighting
• Head, Chest, Legs, 1-hand weapon = normal stat weighting (1)
• Shoulder, Hands, Waist, Feet, Trinket, Hunter 2-hand weapon = 0.75 * normal stat weighting
• Wrist, Neck, Back, Finger, Off-hand/Shield = 0.50 * normal stat weighting
• Ranged, Hunter 1-hand, Libram/Idol/Totem = 0.30 * normal stat weighting

This stat-weighting system used by Blizzard is why you always hoard DKP for  head/chest items, and why you’re always bitter about spending DKP on a new libram or totem.

So with a ‘fair’ slot multiplier, we  now need a way to work out the base price for an item, compared to other items of the same kind (the price of totem A compared to totem B). We again use one of Blizzard’s built-in systems: ‘item level‘. Totem A has an item level of 200, Totem B has an item level of 213 — totem B should cost more!

The formula we apply is: (Item Level – 200) * 8 * Slot Multiplier

(200 is the ‘base’ value for the expansion — it was 100 in TBC, and now it’s 200 for WOTLK — why multiply by 8? It gives nice numbers around 100, but below 1000).

Right now it just looks like a bunch of formulae, so here are some examples.

• Belt of Hogwarts drops from Dumbledore. It has an item level of 226. Its price is (226 – 200) * 8 * 0.75 = 156 DKP.
• Gandalf’s Staff of Power drops from Sauron. It has an item level of 226. Its price is (226 – 200) * 8 * 1.5 = 312 DKP.

You can already see that the pricing looks kind of ‘fair’, with the big items costing more than the ‘less important’ armour pieces.

A good item pricing system like this is really the corner-stone of a raiding guild’s success. Please use it!

Tips & tricks for DKP-based systems

Now we have a fair way of pricing items, and a fair way to earn DKP based on your continued effort and attendance. There’s not much left to say, just a few tricks (and pitfalls) that we’ve discovered while fine-tuning our DKP system.

• A ‘zero cap’ is a very good idea — Quite an interesting idea to get your head around, but if people can’t go below zero, people are always encouraged to take loot if they are already at the bottom. This encourages people to take everything that drops, with relatively very little hoarding (only the top few players will hoard, but it’s ultimately their loss to do so — they are getting less loot!). We achieve this by resetting all players with negative DKP to zero, after updating the DKP as usual.
• Reduced DKP costs for off-spec items — This is an idea that often gets pushed around, and depending on the makeup of your guild is either frowned or smiled upon. Guilds that like to PVP a lot often like cheap/free off-spec items. We found with our zero-capped system that people at the bottom took all the off-spec items they could, while the people hoarding DKP at the top didn’t care much for off-spec items. With Blizzard’s tokenised loot system, you could start with off-spec items having the same cost, but make them free once everyone has their main-spec PVE loot.
• How much DKP to award per hour — With fixed item costs, the DKP you award per hour of raiding is the key to controlling inflation. If you find that the people at the top of the DKP list are more than 1 or 2 items ahead of the bottom, you will want to reduce DKP earnt. It’s very hard to give you a definite number to start with, but anything from around 30 to 60 DKP earnt per raid is probably ‘OK’. Play around with it until you find a number that suits your number of wipes, and Purples Per Hour (PPH)!
• A single, combined DKP system is fine — Some guilds like to run multiple DKP systems, one for each dungeon. This is bad idea. If you farm an instance, and a new dungeon comes out, your long-time raiders effectively lose their DKP that they’ve saved up. You can successfully run one DKP system for all instances — the key is managing the amount of DKP earnt per raid! We ran one DKP system for the entire Burning Crusade, with the top players never being more than 2 or 3 items above the people at zero DKP!

A brief word about loot councils and /roll systems

If you’ve made it this far, you’ve probably realised that I believe DKP systems to be the best way of distributing loot — and it is for raiding guilds. No discussion of loot distribution would be complete, however, without discussing the other two kinds of distribution: loot council and rolling/other systems.

Loot Council (or sometimes simply ‘loot chairman’)

Often also known as ‘who’s been brown-nosing the tyrant the most?’ or ‘a very quick way to develop discontent and distrust in the leadership’, a loot council uses humans to decide who gets loot. Because humans are involved in the decision-making process, this system is inevitably flawed — it is unfair. It’s all good when the main tank is being geared up first, but then things start to go wrong. One rogue is geared quickly, while the other 2 have to sit and wait for ‘their turn’. Perhaps if you’ve somehow upset the chairman, or the council, you might never get loot.

The only time this system works is when you have a leader (or council) that the guild fully supports. In theory it is the best system for quick raid progression, but it’s simply too difficult to balance over a long period of time. The only time you will see this used effectively is in the very top guilds where the focus is only on first kills, and not the gearing up process — but even then, these guilds tend to have very high churn; a constant stream of newbies is required to replace the guys that couldn’t hack waiting 6 months for their first epic item.

Rolling and other ‘casual friendly’ systems

Roll systems are great for smaller raid and dungeon groups. They are quick, they are painless and they are fair if there is little or no wiping. Roll systems fall down when you have to keep track of effort and attendance, but for raid groups where everyone is a real life friend, or the same 5/10 people are always present, /rolling is a very viable system indeed. You can make it more complex and do ‘weighted rolling’ where someone with more DKP gets a bonus to their roll (this lets new players always have a ‘chance’ of winning items), but at the end of the day you should either roll, or use DKP!

I should also mention, just quickly, systems such as ‘Suicide Kings’ and ‘Spend All’, where the system only keeps track of whether you’ve had an item recently — or not. These are glorified ‘1 item per run’ systems; take an item, and you drop down to the bottom of the list. There you must wait until everyone above you has taken an item before you can get another (you can also take items that no one wants, from the bottom — which is nice!).

Notes

I’ve skirted around topics such as taxation and ‘main tank priority’, and completely ignored some topics such as ‘gearing up alts’ and ‘upgrades should cost less’. What I’ve described here is the exact system my guild used to distribute loot through TBC (and will continue to do so through WOTLK), with no taxation, no priorities, and no reduced upgrade prices. Gearing up alts is a sticky subject, and not one I want to discuss here; focus on your main raiders for now!

DKP is definitely not an easy solution, and can require a lot of administration, but is definitely worth it in the long run. Perhaps it’s time to delegate the role of DKP officer to one of those helpful SBDs in the guild?

Resources

I’ve compiled a list of useful websites and addons for anyone trying to develop a loot system for your guild. Please let me know if I’ve missed something important from the list!

• EQDKP — The software most commonly used to track DKP. You can host it yourself, or use a site like Guildomatic if you don’t have your own website (but you might not be track DKP in the way that you wish)
• RT_Import — A modification to EQDKP that allows you to easily award DKP per hour, with start and end bonuses.
• ct_raidtracker — A useful mod for tracking the attendees of your raid — you’ll need this to import data into EQDKP.
• Suicide Kings — if you’re a casual guild leader reading this, or you simply don’t like the overhead of managing DKP, you might be interested in checking Suicide Kings out. It’s surprisingly fair!

If you have any questions about the issues or topics raised here, I’m more than happy to answer them. You can ask them in a comment, or email me using this form.

Virtual worlds like World of Warcraft have long been known to mirror certain aspects of real life. It has often been supposed that people play games like World of Warcraft exactly because of that fact; some elements are so comfortably similar to real life that it makes the gameplay experience a lot easier to adapt to.

A game that is completely foreign to gamers would have a very limited appeal. We can embrace and enjoy the known, with a small amount of unknown thrown in to spice things up. The inverse is often quite disturbing — it’s hard to enjoy ourselves if we can’t predict with some kind of certainty what our future holds.

While there are many facets of online games that I could look at, I’m going to look at one that I’m very intimate with: social and power structures. With Patch 3.1 and Ulduar fast approaching, and the promise of some taxing content, it would definitely make sense to ensure your guild is structured in a way to support strong progress and a thriving community. From guild leader through to the grunts and peons of the guild, I’ll try to break down what makes the difference between a good guild and a truly great guild.

The structure of a guild

WoW, like real life, has a very well defined social structure. While there is an over-arching hierarchy for an entire server, I’ll be focusing more on the structure inside a guild.

What real life structure does a guild most represent? A large solely owned company, or perhaps even a small autocratic country. There is often a single leader, a board of executives or advisors, department chiefs and then the workers or citizens themselves. These real life roles map perfectly to the ‘common’ ranks you will find in a guild.

The Guild Leader

Real world equivalent: Tyrant, Dictator, Monarch, Pope, President.

At the top of every guild or society you will have an ultimate leader. In rare cases this can be a title without the attached powers or responsibilities (such as a ‘token monarch’ in Britain or Sweden), but almost always this will be the the primary decision-maker in the guild. Guilds are very much like smaller autocratic states in that there are often other roles filled out — executives and advisors — but the leader always has the power to veto any decisions made, and to enact new rules (laws) as his fancy and whim dictate.

As I touched upon briefly in other articles, some guilds might have more than one leader — there might be 2, 3 or more if formed out of a group of real life friends. In almost all guilds this is a single figure, though. Many people play games like WoW for the power it gives them over other humans…!

Primary Tasks

• Decision maker — I’ve discussed it in previous articles, but the primary role of the leader is simply to make decisions. Good, bad or ugly, the decisions have to be made in a timely, and hopefully fair fashion.
• Chief justice — The guild leader plays the arbiter and justice maker in almost every argument that raises above normal every-day strife.

If you are interested in the other roles of the guild leader, just read some of my collected writings — that’s what this blog is all about!

Assistant Guild Leaders

Real world equivalent: Vice President, Home Secretary, Joint Military Chiefs, Secret Police Chief.

Behind every great leader there are great advisors. Even in fully autocratic states leaders know that they simply can’t govern an entire country (guild) on their own. They can’t keep track of everything that’s going on. They can’t keep abreast of every eventuality or developing situation; there is simply so much to do, so much going on.

While a guild, being a small subset of real life, is relatively restricted in what actually goes on, it can still be very hard for a guild leader to keep his finger in every pie. Factions might develop amongst nationalities, or perhaps a raider harbours resentment that he refuses to tell the guild leader about. This is where your assistant guild leaders — your most trusted advisors — step into the fray. They are distant enough from the leadership that they can see situations from a different angle, and discuss problems with members of the guild that the guild leader might normally have difficulties with.

Primary Tasks

• Secret police — There’s a lot of stigma attached to such a phrase, but it does best suit their role of ‘information gatherer’. Assistant leaders can get into places that the guild leader can only dream of. They can play the good cop to the guild leader’s bad cop. They are the guild’s rottweiler!
• Decision making — In the guild leader’s absence the assistant guild leader inherits the mantle of decision making. You’re not expected to be as competent as the guild leader, but they should certainly try to limit the number of people that leave the guild during their temporary reign!
• Management — It’s common for assistant guild leaders to get lumped with tasks like DKP management, or recruitment. It will vary though, from guild to guild, guild leader to guild leader, and the size of the guild.

Class/Role Officers

Real world equivalent: Department of Defence, Education Secretary, Senator.

At the bottom of the leadership pyramid we have the class and role officers. Varying form guild to guild, you might have one per class (Hunter, Priest, Warlock…), or perhaps only one per role (Damage Dealing, Healing, Tanking…) although I propose that class officers are a better way to go about it.

These are more of your ‘every day’ officers. Unlike their real-world counterparts, they will have quite limited responsibilities — their class, or role. A hunter class leader might purely be in charge of making sure hunters operate well during raids. The most an officer at this level would do would be the management of recruitment for his class. It is through close contact with class officers that a guild leader can best judge how upcoming raids might be — if there might be a shortage of players, or how recent changes made to the game might impact the guild.

Primary Tasks

• Know your class/role — It’s rather obvious, but a class or role officer must be the master of his job. He becomes the authority for a sizable fraction of the guild so he better be damn good at what he does. The class officer definitely needs be on top of all the latest developments, macros and strategies.
• The guild/raid leader’s crutch — During raids their primary role is the support of the guild or raid leader. When discussing strategies for new bosses it’s their job to suggest better methods of execution. It’s their job to say what is and is not possible for your class. Can we reach those DPS requirements? Do we have a working healing strategy? Are the tanks mitigating as much damage as possible? It is their job to support the leader’s knowledge of your class — it’s impossible for the leader to know everything, that is why he has officers!
• Recruitment — Many guilds use their class/role officers to manage recruitment. Normally this will involve the guild leader saying ‘We need more of X class!’, and the respective class leader running off to find more awesome players. As the authority of their class/role in the guild, they are obviously best suited to finding more good players!

Members/Raiders

While at the bottom of the pile, members and raiders are by no means the least important people in the guild. They make up the majority of the guild or group; they are the civilians and the soldiers. Canon fodder! A good leadership is nothing without a happy, loyal gang of followers. You can craft a fantastic DKP system and install a great forum, but without an actual group of players to do the healing, the DPSing and the tanking… you have nothing!

Luckily, a member’s list of obligations is short and sweet:

Primary Tasks

• Don’t quit – ‘Huh?’ Yeah — the worst thing you can do to a guild is quitting; either the game, or leaving to another guild (which is even worse!). A member/raider is an investment to the guild — the leadership is investing in you by gearing you up and teaching you strategies. You might feel like you own the gear on your character, but just like in real life, there’s always someone that thinks they own you. It would be like training to be a doctor in your home country, and then seeking work in another country. It is for this reason that loyalty is probably the most valued trait of for a member — of any group.
• Know your role — Your primary role in the guild is often defined by the grounds of your recruitment. If you were recruited to be a great tank, it is obviously your responsibility to become a great tank! You need to research what must be done to perform your role successfully. Members should also maintain very good communication with their class/role officer.

A real example — a successful WoW guild

Like my other articles, I am talking entirely from experience. While I do have some degree-level education on the topics of sociology, anthropology and gamer psychology I am going to stick to real, applicable proof for this example. This section is going to focus on what I have found to be workable and true in the leading, success and ongoing survival of my guild over the past 4 years.

There have been many iterations of our guild structure, but the past 2 years have seen it remain virtual static. Those same 2 years, with a combination of strong leadership, durable structure and an environment in which a community can thrive, have seen a rise from 600th to 30th in the world.

From top to bottom then:

• Guild Leaders — We run two guild leaders of equal power, much like an ancient Roman Duumvirate. Historically, one would be a military leader and the other a civic leader. The idea here is that both leaders have the power of veto — nothing can occur unless both leaders agree. This small amount of bureaucracy has saved us a lot of pain over the years. If one leader steps out of line, the other can quickly move in to rectify things. If members are afraid to talk to one leader, the other can do the listening. You would be correct in relating this as the famous ‘good cop, bad cop’ setup.
• Assistant Guild Leaders — We run three assistant guild leaders. A neat number that brings us up to a council of five, for any decisions that might impact the whole guild. Assistant guild leaders have all of the powers of a guild leader, but obviously can’t veto a guild leader’s decision. Our assistant guild leaders play advisory roles:
  • DKP Advisor — I told you DKP and loot distribution were important! One assistant guild leader focuses almost entirely on our loot distribution system, with a side-interest in making sure consumables are prepared for raids. This is the guild’s ‘economic advisor’.
  • Casual Advisor — We’re a large guild, so having someone that can keep in touch with the casual players and alert the other guild leaders about any pertinent issues is vital.
  • Political Advisor — Or as we like to call it… ’secret police’: the rottweiler of the guild. The vicious dog that tears things apart until he can see what’s within. He has a good sense of smell; very good at picking up on problems that might arise in the immediate future.
• Class Leader — 1 officer for each class in the guild. While their role might include the overall well being of his class in the guild, each of these officers are also hardcore raiders. They know their class very well, and are in charge of recruiting. They must be very active players, always looking for new and better ways to play their class, and of course keeping an eye out for possible recruits!
• Raiders — This rank is split into two: ‘pro raiders’, and just ‘raiders’. The titles are just that though — titles. If a raider maintains almost perfect attendance and is the true paragon of raiding, they can be promoted to ‘pro raider’. We try to maintain 3 or 4 raiders of each class, for per 25-man raid. I will discuss building successful raid groups in a future article!
• Member — Everyone else in the guild falls into this rank. Casual raiders, casual players, friends and family — they’re all mixed up here. Raiders that have also let their attendance drop, or can’t raid due to real life problems also find themselves at this rank.

The ranks worth noting here are the officers — guild leaders, assistants and class leaders. Every guild has the member rank (obviously!), but I’ve seen a huge variation in the actual leadership structure in guilds. Some have only 3 or 4 officers, and some have assistant class leaders, PVP officers, profession officers… sometimes as much as half the guild!

I’m not saying that they are necessarily bad structures, but they do have some inherent weaknesses that our guild structure avoids. In my previous writings you’ll note that I put a lot of emphasis on fairness and communication, and that’s what our structure provides. There’s always someone for a member or raider to talk to. There’s always someone for a class leader to talk to. And then at the top, there’s 5 people that always try to reach a consensus so that when changes are made they never have a negative impact on any aspect of the guild.

The only real weakness of our setup is that it requires a lot of good people. There’s certainly a lot of bureaucracy built into our system, which means most changes happen incredibly slowly. One of the two guild leaders can always change something quickly if there’s some urgency, though. We’ve found that ’slow and steady’ has served us well over the years. Radical leaps have normally not gone down very well and normally destabilise the core of the guild — and at the end of the day, progress in earnest, year after year, can only come with a stable guild.

Notes

The guild structure we use is actually very similar (if not identical) to the system used in the early Roman Republic: Consul -> Praetor -> Quaestor. This system is also used, albeit with different naming, in almost every republic today. The only difference we made was the dual leadership, rather than one primary leader. We felt that given the ‘egoistic escapist’ nature of online games that two leaders could keep each other balanced and focused.  Online, with very few checks and balances, the power one wields in a large guild can grow out of control; and that’s where the second leader steps in to sweep up the mess.

Something should also be said about purely autocratic, tyrannical guilds — guilds with only one real officer, with perhaps 1 or 2 of his ‘chosen’ playing minor roles in his leadership. History has shown fairly authoritatively that autocratic states rarely have much long-term stability. Guilds lead in a similar fashion normally suffer the same fate. They never quite reach the state required to drive a healthy community, and thus progress. They might do very well in the short term, with the entire guild membership unified and polarised, whipped up into a fervor behind the guild leader’s vision, but it’s very much a temporary high.

Don’t forget, power corrupts!

If you have any questions about the issues or topics raised here, I’m more than happy to answer them. You can ask them in a comment, or email me using this form.

Time and time again I see driven and excited people come together as a guild or clan, progress well but ultimately fizzle out and die.

Whether it’s because of loot drama or a tyrannical guild leader, the main thing stopping a guild from becoming successful is survival. As I’ve touched on before, World of Warcraft is an easy game. The thing holding you back from that elusive Server First is not player skills; it’s teamwork and logistics.

Now, teamwork and logistics are huge topics for another day. What I want to talk about today is something that you will need to develop and foster while your raid team or guild starts to coalesce. Alongside the implementation of a DKP system and a good raid schedule, you must also develop your community.

A good community is perhaps the main thing that holds back many new guilds. Many old guilds also take it for granted, letting it gradually waste away; a community can not be just left to hang, it must be gently cultivated, nurtured and looked after!

So, perhaps we should start with the definition of the term, and go from there:

What is a community?

A community is often defined as a group of people living in the same locality, governed by the same laws or rules. It could be as small as a group of friends that meet up at the same place and have their own ‘house rules’, or it could be as large as international ‘gaming community’ (although communities that span the globe don’t tend to have the same rules as localised ones). For the sake of this article I’m going to be talking about community sizes you often find in contemporary online games and virtual worlds; in clans, guilds and corporations.

Online communities tend to consist of 5 to 100 people. While some communities are larger, they often splinter into ‘cliques’ – groups of friends that stick very much together and don’t really add anything to the community itself. Generally, I wouldn’t recommend trying to run a online community that has more than 100 members, but if you’ve successfully grown a community and you see no reason to stop… see what you can do!

A community, then, in an online game, is a group of gamers that come together in the same place (albeit virtual, it’s still a place!) and live by the same rules, as laid down by the leader of the community (at the start, anyway!)

Creating a place for the community to exist

For an online community to come together, the members need somewhere to hang out! For an online game it’s obviously guild chat or a forum. For smaller clans it might be an IRC room, or a mailing list. As I already said, these are virtual places, but they are still places; places where thoughts and emotions can exist and run wild. A community needs a place where its members can be. It is vitally important if a thought needs sharing, or a question posed, that a place exists for that interchange.

Creating a place for the community to exist is as simple as creating a guild or chat room. A forum is also incredibly useful for the sharing of thoughts in larger communities (I’ve listed a few free forum providers at the end of this article).

The rules of the community

Once you’ve created a place, the next step is to define some common rules that everyone adheres to. I’m not talking here about draconian commandments, but I am talking about rules that add flavour, or define who you are. Perhaps a roleplaying guild might require all of its members to stay ‘in character’. Maybe you’re a player-killing clan that only has one rule: kill anything that breathes. It might just be as simple as ‘play your best and aim for server number one’.

It’s these rules that will bring your community together. Through common rites, rules and goals you will begin to trust each other; it’s only with that implicit trust and security that the community can continue its growth and become a ‘true community’.

The levels of community

M. Scott Peck was an American psychologist that had a huge body of work, but most importantly for this article, he focused a lot on communities, their characteristics, and how the phases they go through in their development.

He proposes 4 distinct stages that a community goes through (hopefully they make it to the end!):

• Pseudocommunity – As the name suggests, this isn’t really a community. Members often cover up their differences, for the sake of survival, or a common goal. This is very much a community of ’survival’; a group of players see an opportunity to improve their survival, so they group up!
• Chaos – When the psuedocommunity ultimately fails (and it will, given enough drama), the members start to go to each other for help, or guidance, or to vent their differences or grievances. This is the first stage of bonding, and trust-building! It goes beyond plain survival here — the members are trying to improve their survival!
• Emptiness – Eventually, differences are laid aside. Egos, or ego-related issues are suppressed. This is where the strong individual urges are destroyed and the community is actually born.
• True community – After making it through all of the previous stages, the members of the community are in complete empathy with one another. Arguments will arise, but they will be settled in a timely fashion without things becoming too heated. Motives are never called into question in a true community – it’s way beyond that point! – any members of the community that made it to this point are in it for the long run, perhaps until the day they die (or quit!)

These stages are very easily mapped onto online communities. Using World of Wacraft guilds as a base for the examples:

• Stage 1 – A guild forms. The leader has normally chosen a purpose for the guild’s existence, but that’s the only thing keeping the guild together. ‘A place to farm easy epics!’ or ‘Become number one on the server!’ are two common goals for a guild at this stage
• Stage 2 – It’s the guild leader’s job to get the guild to this stage as soon as possible! Stage 1 is quite destructive (and some guilds never leave it), and real progress and melding as a group can only occur once there is discourse and argument about how best to do things. Most WoW guilds that get to this stage can survive for a long time; simply getting the members to care enough and discuss issues or boss strategies is an achievement!
• Stage 3 – Once the rampant egos have been squashed, or removed, a guild might make it to this stage. This is when people start sharing real life issues and empathy starts popping up. People earnestly care for each other. It’s around this stage that people start turning up for every raid – and if they don’t, they’re very apologetic about it. Being let down by a member of the community is rare at this stage.
• Stage 4 – Often referred to as ‘spiritual community’, this is a stage that very few guilds will reach. This is where you start finishing each other’s sentences. There is an overwhelming feeling of inclusivity, commitment and consensus in a true community. A single leader also becomes less important at this stage; the community tends to govern itself through rational discussion that can only occur in a truly safe environment.

Peck defines true community with lots of shiny, happy terms, but the key values of a true community are: a safe place, a spirit (shared wisdom/love), and a place where everyone feels involved and included, without the fear that their feelings will be ignored, or attacked by other members.

Obviously, if an online community can reach the 4th and final stage, they’re going to be around for a long time, and perhaps span multiple games. The community transcends individual games; it becomes a lot more about the forum, voice coms, or even real-life meets!

Most guilds will only ever reach Stage 2 or 3 though, which is generally fine. A lot of progress will appear when people lay down their differences and egos, and focus on actually working together. If a community never progresses from Stage 1, you are in for a short, wild ride. There might be some progress, but it will be fleeting. Many flash-in-the-pan guilds recruit heavily, get bullied around by a guild leader, progress a bit, and ultimately dissipate to other guilds — these guilds serve a purpose though… they gear up people for other guilds with strong communities!

How to build a community — an example

Let me give you an example of a community that’s started from scratch. This could be a tiny fledgling guild started in The Barrens, or it could be a clan of Counter Strike players that bumped into each other in a random free-for-all game.

The first step is obviously to create a place to exist. This might be a forum, or a chat room, or just guild chat. It’s not hard to create a place! As long as the tools are there to facilitate communication, that’s all that matters. In general, though, a forum is the best solution for almost every kind of community — it allows real-time communication, and also threads of thought that can be answered at a later date. A forum also acts as a ‘group consciousness’, storing information from the past for future generations! Freedom of information is very important!

Once you have a place, you need some rules. This is the great part of online communities: your set of laws and rules can be incredibly flimsy, or very restrictive — whatever works! You might choose to have an almost non-existant rule set (our guild only has one rule, for example: ‘Don’t be an asshat’), or you might have a huge charter that lays down what you can and can’t do while in that community. I’ve seen roleplay guilds that have entire ‘rules of engagement’ laid out, that everyone must follow!

The most important thing is that these rules must be inclusive. Freedom of speech, as is the freedom of information. You are building a community not a tyranny. The members of the community must be able to speak their minds; they must be able to share their passions and concerns. It is only through concensus of opinion and inclusion that a community can grow upwards through the 4 stages!

The exception here is when someone (often the leader, although it could be by group agreement too) oversteps the line and needs correction, or removal. Racism is a common example of ‘excessive’ freedom of speech, as is misogyny in a community that includes girls. Religion might also be a sensitive subject in some cultures. Basically, any avenue of conversation that might push people out, rather than include. If a community reaches Stage 4 — true community — most codes of conduct are self-governing; it’s the early stages of a community that need the most hand-holding and guidance.

Once you have a place, and some rules, the community will begin to flourish. A little guidance might be necessary though! A community is nothing if it’s not used. What good is a forum, chat room or guild chat if no one actually uses it? I’ve seen WoW guilds with maybe 1 or 2 new forum posts every week; needless to say, their communities were incredibly weak — they just exist to raid, and never get past Stage 1.

It is someone’s (or everyone’s!) job to make sure the community grows. Encourage people to log into the forum and ask questions. Expect other people to assist you during your travels. If someone asks a question — answer it in a timely fashion!

You are trying to develop a group where everyone feels included, where you can put your entire soul into it without the fear that your investment won’t be returned. A community is only as strong as its members make it — if there is some rule, or some person (a tyrant!) that prevents people from dedicating themselves fully, your community may never get past Stage 1 or 2.

Notes

As with everything I’ve written, there’s always some exclusions or special cases that need mentioning. The common factor of Stage 3 and 4 communities is that they don’t have a tyrant leader — they have a shared leadership, with the members defining the rules and delivering justice. In fact, once a community progresses out of Stage 2, a leader might find himself with very little to do; problems seem to get solved on their own, and eventually problems just don’t arise!

Unfortunately, many online guilds tend to have tyrannical leaders. I’ve seen many guilds on the cusp of Stage 3 crushed by a tyrannical guild leader that’s afraid to lose his grip on control of the community. Some leaders are perhaps only playing to lead, rather than create a great and thriving community.

This isn’t to say that a leader has no place in Stage 3 or 4 communities! Their role tends to become more of a ’spiritual father’ (for want of a better term), guiding the community in times of unrest. As online communities are nearly always recruiting to replace quitters, it is also the leader’s job is to remove new members that don’t gel with the rest of the community; although the members themselves might force new people out, if they don’t fit.

I said I would provide a list of good, free forum providers, so here they are:

Free Forums/Guild Portals

• Guild Portal
• Guildomatic
• GamerDNA
• GuildLaunch

If on the other hand you are a smaller clan, how about getting an IRC room on QuakeNet? (It’s a very comprehensive guide!)

If you have any questions about the issues or topics raised here, I’m more than happy to answer them. You can ask them in a comment, or email me using this form.