A great guild is one where people understand your wants and generally share them. I would not want to be in a top raid guild if they paid me to join. After I spend the day at work scripting and parsing gigabytes of logs trying to catch a trading engine bug, the VERY last thing I wanna do is examine my EQ log parses. Sure I been a raider in Luclin/PoP/GoD days, those times are long gone. If I feel like goofing around on my own, I will. If I feel like taking a break from EQ for a month, I will. A great guild in my book is one with nice relaxed mature chat, with folks who are about like myself, but generally on in sufficient numbers, so that if some if us fancy doing something more difficult, we can put a crew together. The moment someone tries to make me a 'better player' than I want to be, I'll tell them to mind their own business. If they think I am 'not pulling my weight', whatever. F1, /disband, sayonara. I am not a bloody ox.
This is one of the big reasons why guilds like RSS on Selos will not last, regardless of being on a progression server or not.
I understand that this is what you look for in a guild and respect that. Based on your description of yourself as a player, and the fact that you have no interest in raiding in a top guild, nor to apply yourself in any amount of improvement no matter how small, this entire post is not directed towards you or players like you whatsoever.
When I start to slack, which admittedly I have done, public shaming(intentional or not) motivates me lol. I will be damned if Brohg's warrior beats me on total damage during another fire clear.
I like fun people who know their and are willing to spread said around to peeps who enjoy learning new stuffs and further increasing the pawers of the guild! Seen a few who are very knowledgeable who refuse to share. Wasteful! /cut them! Seen a few who don't know much and don't care to know anything more. /cut them! uhhh I guess the above is more raid guild type stuffs.
The people.. Every guild has their clowns.. ones that make everyone giggle an laugh. Every guild has it's oh so serious players.. Every guild has it's "innuendo" guy.. or gal.. Those are norms in every guild. The leadership more then any other thing can make or break any type of guild no matter your personal perception of said guild (ie raiding, family, insert what ever) I've seen strong leadership.. I've also seen weak leadership. And I've seen leadership who rather promote people who say yes to them over actually skilled players in the guild. If your in a raid guild and pushing to be the best you can be. Why would you ever promote some 1 who is not the best an most knowledgeable in each class ? That's where I don't understand. In a family guild perhaps it's different ditto for any other type of guild. But my answer is same as others here. Pushing raids hard type of guild it's leadership. Family style of others.. it's still Leadership albeit just not as heavily and more so .. the amount of fun everyone has together.
Guild leadership is a big part. That doesn't mean that the leadership need to be an **** to get a guild to be great. What the leadership needs is standards and to up hold the standards. those standards is what players joining the guild look at and decide if it what they want or not. when those standards are not held up people move on because it not what they signed up for. in a Top raid guild the standards are you know your class, you level and max out your toon so that the guild is at it best for the "race". in a raiding guild (not top end ) the standards may be less but still at a level where those people are on the same page. Example would be maybe 50% RA, or not max aa but X amount 18-22k. Low end raid guild the standards would be you raid if you want. Boxes are ok on raid because they need toon and box are better then empty slots. Family guild often have little to no standards they just want to log in and have fun with no account ability. In any case the guild has standards, be it Raid requirement or rule on what Lang is acceptable. if you do not up hold your standards that your guild has set then people will move on. If you want to progress (i not saying be the best but just progress) then you need people that are Focused, people that can follow emote, people that are geared to not die to AE's people that have AA need to help on raids. What these numbers are depends how current of content you want to do. But you can't expect 54 heroic toons to go into TBL and win as an example. you need people to learn thier class and gear up. having a standard is not a bad thing it just says this is what we expect if you want to raid with us. if people can't meet the standards you set then drop them to FF rather then holding back 53 other people because of one bad apple. people may say the leadership is an for holding x person to the standard. but the other 53 people will respect the leadership for doing it. and that what makes running a guild a hard thing is that you have to up hold the standards even when it doesn't make you popular.
A strong and dedicated leadership helps drive the rest of the guild. If leaders aren't logging in and doing stuff the members will lose interest, stop playing or move on.
To achieve success as a guild, leadership must be effective and convincing communicators. Leadership communication is defined as inspiring and encouraging an individual or a group (or in this case, the guild) by methodical and meaningful sharing of information. Great leaders have the attitude to convince others and to make them follow the goals defined by them. Hence they have the ability to take charge, direct, encourage and stimulate others. They are results oriented and experts in controlling difficult circumstances (i.e. raids like mearatas) to help strengthen the output of the guild as a team. Imo, effective guild leadership, which is all about communicating effectively, is what makes a guild "great."
To the OP, though.... What makes a guild great is it’s member’s collective ability to farm Krono and feed their families irl from said Krono. Right, @Bahdah? <3 (You’re my boy, Blue!)
Because the best and most knowledgeable may not be able to work well with others nor have the time and patience to do so. Without those two attributes leaders are crippled. However ... I agree with this statement as long as said leadership has proven correct knowledge of game mechanics AND the strengths and weaknesses of the classes and people in the guild. Over the years several attributes of what makes a guild work have become very apparent to me. Teamwork, communication, standards, ethics, attitude (more drama and conflict happens through ego ). Guild leaders need to be able to delegate authority and responsibility to capable people then allow them to do their jobs with minimal interference. Someone used the analogy of herding cats ... my addendum to that is herding cats in a room full of rocking chairs while chasing mice and being chased by dogs.
