You may have noticed some shiny new locales in my screenshots as of late. That’s because I’m in a new guild horde-side. They’re 10/12, and I get to raid 3 nights per week. A nice upgrade in the raiding department over my prior situation.
That said, like any guild change, it’s an adjustment. I’ve gone from being an officer in a guild that I was in for almost two years, to being the new kid in the progression raid team in a Cataclysm-birthed guild. Easing the transition is the fact that the guild leader is my SO’s buddy from way back. So that helps. But it still takes time to get to know everyone and get a sense for the flavor of the guild. And it’s easy for a new team member to feel left out of all the inside jokes that you just had to be there to understand. And if you are a highly competitive player, used to being recognized for doing a kick-ass job, it sucks to go back to unknown status.
All this got me thinking about how you as a new guild member can best get assimilated to a new guild.
3 Ways a New Guild Member Can Get to Know the Guild
- Tag Along
When a guildie asks in G for someone to come along for a heroic, raise your hand. Even if you don’t need anything else from justice points. It’s in the 5-mans you actually have time to chit chat and get to know your fellow guildies. - Lurk on Vent
Even if you’re not the type to chit chat yourself, if you find that a number of your guildies stay logged in to Vent for hours, that may be a great way to get to know them a little better. And they don’t have to know that you’re surfing the Internet or reading blogs while you do it. ANd in fact, that may even give you some conversation fodder. - Connect via Social Media
No, I’m not talking about SPAMming folks with your get rich quick schemes. I’m talking about joining your guildies’ conversations on twitter, in the guild forums, on blogs, or even on Facebook. Pick the venues you are most comfortable with, and go raed through the past month or so of activity. Then add guildies to your connections, and say hi. I’ve been amazed at how much you can learn about your guildies just from being active on twitter.
So, what are your tips for getting to know a new guild?
In a very similar situation.
My previous guild toned down, so I transferred servers to play with a friend met via Twitter. He was GM of a guild there, but I didn’t know anyone else.
I found it quite easy to integrate with them, they’re a smallish guild which makes things easier. I resorted to the sense of humour of getting to know them, a bit of banter on vent during the first raid and it was pretty golden from there.
The only problem so far has been getting to know who are the regular raiders, and who are the people who just turn up once a week. That is coming with time, and it’s become easy to identify who the core raiders are.
Another way to connect with your guildies is to just speak up in general. Someone wants to do TB dailies? Give it a shot even if you’ve never done them (learning with someone else can help!). Someone needs a quick link to an item? Quickie search in AtlasLoot or something to find it. Just interact with your guildies and…well, make friends. Breaking the ice is sometimes a little awkward (we were all the “new kid” in school at some point, right?) but once you do it, it’s not so bad.
Dungeons, be it heroics or lowbie alt runs, are a great place to hang out and get to know people. You’ll soon learn which tank pulls like a freight train and which DPS is a pro at CC or saving the healer. Social dynamics are easy to relate to once you figure out the group dynamic.
I know what you mean!
I moved (realm transferred) from a casual guild which could never muster enough people to raid (so we’d PUG in with other groups..) to a casual guild that raids regularly regardless of the number of people online on raid night.. (6 man Lich King.. done..)
Best thing to fit in with everyone was aim for some fun achievements and chip in here and there with crafting things for people as needed. Worked a treat!
I’m kind of in this situation right now. For years I was either the officer/raid leader or the GM of the guild I resided in. I disappeared from the scene for a bit thanks to some RL aggro, and now I’ve in a new guild which I have no actual control in. It’s a bit awkward to jump back into the game in unfamiliar territory, but at the same time it’s an interesting adventure. Join in on the banter in guild chat, hop into random dungeons, or even join old raid runs certainly helps you to get to know your guild mates quite a bit, even if Vent isn’t available.
Definitely some great tips in this post!
Being helpful and friendly are the best way, I would say. If there are questions asked that you know the answers to, speak up. If someone needs an item crafted that you can make for them, make it. Someone needs help with a quest/dungeon/gear selection/deciding what to cook for dinner/whatever, jump in and do what you can.
Similarly, if you have questions or need help with something, go ahead and ask. Don’t be annoying about it, asking for things constantly, but if you need a hand with something toss it out there and see if someone bites. Know when to ask and when not to, though. For example, if everyone else is raiding on a night that you’re not, it’s probably not a good idea to ask people to run heroics with you – they’re busy, leave ’em alone.
That’s something my brother struggled with when he moved to my server. Every time he was looking for people to run heroics with him everyone was raiding. He had never been in a raiding guild before so it never occurred to him that the guild calendar would show him the nights people were likely to be raiding, and that he could pull up the guild screen to see that the other 25 people online atm were all sitting in the same raid. Once he caught onto that he felt a lot more comfortable in the guild.
I tend to be a lurker myself, but I like answering questions about specs and leveling (etc) so I chime in with those whenever I can and try to be helpful. I like to group up with people for certain things, so when people mention PvP I’m usually there unless I’m busy with something else. Someone wants to run some low level dungeons or needs a run-through? I’m there. Someone’s having trouble farming something special for an item they need crafted, I’ll give them a hand. Things like that help you build relationships with individuals who will then help you build your relationship with the guild as a whole.
Your last sentence sums up my experience in finding a good Guild. I found people I really liked from talking with them on Twitter and things just worked well with them. I jumped on their server and started a new main and it’s been fun so far!
That is exactly how I found my Alliance guild.
🙂
It does seem that if you like folks on their blog and over twitter, they are often a good fit for guildmates as well.
I am lucky to have played long enough that I can answer a lot of questions that come up. Agree that is a good way to break the ice. And totally agree with your example RE: asking for heroic runs while a raid is going on. I’ve seen that go on in a number of guilds, with the asker who’s not replied to due to the raiders not wanting to mess up or die, often getting truly upset over a snub that wasn’t intended.
I’ve definitely seen how hard it is to get to know your fellow raiders in guilds where that’s the primary shared activity. Especially when said raiders log on to raid and pretty much log off right after. Unless they have a healthy, positive guild forum, it can be really hard to get to know the folks whom you are raiding with.
The more casual guilds I have been in have been a lot easier to get to know folks for all of these reasons. In AF in particular, they know how to take down a lowbie dungeon with a vengeance!
😉
Great tips 🙂 I understand how it goes! I’ve been in my current guild for a little over a year and I think the biggest thing is to join people when they ask for guildies in chat, etc etc. Be conversational but don’t be too chatty (don’t make people feel uncomfortable by wanting to talk to them ALL the time).