Former Guild Master Makes Millions with Skills He Learned Running His Guild

If you've ever played World of Warcraft (or any MMO for that matter), and found yourself commanding legions of gear hungry raiders as a guild master, you likely know that it's a lot of freaking work. Some of you may have even considered adding the role to your resume once or twice, though ultimately deciding against it due to the shear nerd factor and stigma attached.

Well, you may want to reconsider that after reading this.

[Faelan]

Running a guild in World of Warcraft?

Gah...

Unless we're talking a pure RP/social guild or something, I would refuse to do it even if it was a good friend begging me to take over a guild. The intense raid, gear and achievement focus in WoW combined with the kind of people playing the game just makes it frustrating at best.

I've witnessed first hand in WoW how guild drama over raiding can ruin real life friendships and send the guild master into a depression. That's where I draw the line. When people have friendships go down in flames and their mental state of mind threatened over virtual stuff and achievements, I'm out.

So I take my hat off to those who can successfully run big raiding guilds in WoW without having their lives suffer as a result.

As for other MMOs, I have often toyed with the idea of running a guild of my own and I did, for a while, run a city back in pre-NGE SWG. It's just that I burn out too quickly these days for that to become a reality and it's quite a commitment if you want to be even half serious about it.

Should I somehow manage to get past that hurdle though and obtain the motivation needed, WoW would still be a no go for me due to the community and competitive gear centric end game. It just seems to bring the worst out in most people.

[Ironfungus]

It's really only an issue of finding the right people to recruit in your Guild.

[Faelan]

Oh, I agree...

But you make it sound all too simple. In reality, it's a very frustrating one since the "signal-to-noise" ratio is much worse in WoW than most other MMOs. Add to that the fact that you're competing against a billion other guilds trying to do the same thing and you're in for a tough time.

To make matters worse, drop below the critical mass of members needed to keep the raid machine running and watch the cascade failure unfold as people leave left and right for guilds that offer a better chance for shiny loot. That's when the guild master and officers become desperate and start inviting the wrong people to fill out the ranks.

Yeah... seen it happen too many times in WoW. Only once was I in a guild that can be considered a successful raiding guild and I ended up leaving because the whole thing ran like an army boot camp. Sh!t got done, that's for sure, but at the end of the day it felt like that was the only reason people were there and listening to the raid leader acting like a drill sergeant got old real quick.

Heh...

But I bet that same raid leader would make a fine boss in real life and earn some money in the process, so it's still good for something :)

[CrzyFooL]

If people put the amount of effort into real life that they put in to World of Warcraft, they'd all be rich.

[Sandwich Bender]

If I put the amount of effort I put into everything that's not work into work, I'd be rich.