The Daily Grind: How did you find your guild?

by Krystalle Voecks Apr 7th 2009 at 8:00AM

Filed under: Culture, Guilds, Opinion, The Daily Grind

Guilds, fellowships, corporations, group of rum-soaked adventurers; whatever your core gaming group decides to call itself, many of us have people that we tend to play with in our different MMOs. For example, I joined an EVE Online Corp last night that an old RL friend of mine is a director in. In my last game, a few friends started a loose group, we merged into a guild of like-minded folks we met in game which split, so then we reformed again. Before that I was in supergroups based on themes (TaxiBots, for example) with a small core group of MMO and RL friends in another, primary group. And so on, and so on, and so on. Most of the team here has had wide experiences from blind invites to guilds they'd never heard of, to joining up with other bloggers, to getting local RL friends to game with them.

This morning we thought it would be fun to ask where you picked up your core group of people you play with? Did you happen to meet them in game? Was it several games ago and you've been together ever since? Did you meet via blogs? IRC? A particular website or forum? Or were they meatspace friends first, then you started running around in MMOs together?

Tags: corp, eve-online, fellowship, friends, guild, meeting-people, supergroup, tdg, the-daily-grind

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

zerzhul said on 9:35AM 4-07-2009

My first day playing WoW, I met two guys that created characters the same place/time as me (undead starting zone). They were RL buds, and they just invited me to their group for the starting quests. We played together all day, and at the end of the day they invited me to their guild (now on Lothar US, was named something different then). It's been a wild ride of 4+ years but we still play together through all of our ups and downs. Most of the people who ended up being core members of HSR were different groups of RL friends that thought alike and had similar playstyles. I assume if another MMO comes out that really piques our interest, we will most likely stay a guild for that as well.

zerzhul said on 11:00AM 4-07-2009

damnit, I just realized that putting my guild name in brackets made it think it was an HTML tag

guild name is Hellscreams Rage on the Lothar US Server

Kelathos said on 10:22AM 4-07-2009

I was healing 5man dungeons as I leveled up in WoTLK. While doing that I met a tank who I added to my friends list. After I came back from a two month break, I asked around my friends list and viola, they were recruiting.

Keeping contacts and making a good impression can go a long way, even months down the road when you never expected to need an invite.

Aaron Cunnington said on 3:04PM 4-07-2009

My RL friend found the guild somehow. I just joined with him. Never thought we'd join a US guild being in the UK.

8bitgeorge said on 12:23PM 4-07-2009

I was in my first week playing EVE (we all know how confusing it is!) and a pretty cool guy approached me over chat due to my "correct" spelling and punctuation. Needless to say, he helped me for a couple of days before I asked him to join his corporation (turns out he was recruit hunting, a practice I've followed).

I'm still flying with the same corporation, we joined an alliance, and now we're in nullsec pewpewing. The guy who recruited me stole 2.5 billion ISK in assets 1 month after I joined; he's no longer part of the corp.

8bitgeorge said on 12:24PM 4-07-2009

Forgot to add that it's the corp's fault I'm still playing EVE.

Sharon said on 12:50PM 4-07-2009

I don't know anybody who plays MMOs irl. As a 30-something mom gamer, it's not high on the list of things my peers are into. So when I play a game, I spend time getting to know people first, and then ask people I like if their guild is recruiting. I tend to avoid leveling guilds. I also avoid guilds that take all comers. I don't accept random guild invites.

In WoW, I leveled to 55 before joining a guild, after asking someone I liked if their guild was recruiting. I ended up being in that guild for over two years. In WAR, I found my guild by watching other players and looking at which guilds were doing what I eventually aspired to do in endgame. I put in an app on their website, chatted with them in game and in vent and got the invite. It was a bit of a blind thing for me, since I didn't really know any of them beforehand and I was a bit lower level than they usually accept. I had to go out of my comfort zone to put in the app. But it's been a good fit!

bagehi said on 2:10PM 4-07-2009

What's with all the WoW? I joined my first corp in Eve a bit over a month after starting (for the second time). I joined the corp of a guy who gave me a hand in a mission. This corp merged into another corp. Some of the guys from that corp left and joined another corp and I went with them. So, basically, there are some people I have known in-game now for several years now.

Iroquois said on 2:16PM 4-07-2009

group of guys one year older than me played WoW a lot and did a lot of raiding. When i started playing, they already had about one lvl 70-80 of each class. Were were in a guild named DIX ATTACK but blizzard changed our name to Bankomes Guild which wasn't a name that made much sense. So we all left and one of the members started a new guild name Fat People Lag IRL. and there I am now.

Iroquois said on 2:18PM 4-07-2009

Oh and I played Guild Wars. I went questing with this girl for almost a whole day and I thought her guild cape was cool so i asked to join and it ended up being one ofthe best guilds ever. We didn't take anything really seriously and we did everything just for fun. It was great. the guild was The Crimson Invasion [TCI]

Thimlee said on 4:07PM 4-07-2009

I've always been in guilds mostly just with people that are decent at the game and I met them thru random grouping starting in 1999 on the single server Tibia thru today; I didn't really have a core group of guys I hopped games with until 2004 in EVE who I met thru player politic interactions. Since then we've hopped to EQ2, WoW, WAR, AoC, and a few others but we tend to bore quickly after we hit endgame and the devs haven't fleshed out that part of the game yet. We're currently holding vigils for Earthrise praying it will live up to its billing as a 3rd person shooter EVE.

Pigeon-ko said on 4:32PM 4-07-2009

In FFXI before I quit? They tossed me a Linkshell pearl when they found out I was a girl playing a galka. lulz

In EQ2? Met through a friend, who since went to 239029023 different MMOs and now doesn't bother with them anymore. The guild kept me though because they consider me a good tank. Still with them now!

In EVE? Got there via an infamous crude satire wiki. =P

Dustin said on 5:03PM 4-07-2009

It was my first day playing WoW (back before either expansion pack) and I was a couple hours into the game. I had just discovered that there were forest spiders in Elwynn Forest (i'm majorly arachnophobia) so I wasn't making much progress. Suddenly a female night elf runs up to me asking to sign her guild charter. I actually didn't know that this would make me apart of her guild when she created it. A year-ish later I stopped playing and shortly after that the guild disbanded.

Dsan said on 8:23AM 4-10-2009

I'm currently in the smegnet incorporated corporation in eve-online.
known those guys form more than a year now, and all because i was asking in the dedicated danish channel, for an interresting corp to join.

never regreted joining these guys, will prolly stick with them for a while, since they seem to be going somewhere i'd like to be later in this game.

Lateris said on 12:39AM 4-08-2009

I was looking for mods for Jedi Knight II and came across a guild that was planning to play SWG. I found their website and joined. Some of us played Earth and Beyond while SWG was in a development stage. Then after the SWG NGE the guild fell apart and I played Eve Online for a while solo which was rough but possible. Then I tried LOTRO and watched a band play in Bree. One of the players had a Sturmgrenadier tag. I remembered them as a good guild in SWG and joined up with them.

Jay said on 1:27AM 4-08-2009

I spent ages looking for the right Kin in LoTRO. Not being interested in endgame/raids I wanted a more casual kin, people I could chat to while I was doing quests at my own speed, but who would help me during the Epic story line when fellowships are needed... a kin without play requirements and most certainly one that didn't accept kids and allowed the occasional adult idea to be mentioned. (ie: not family friendly)

It took a long time but one day I bumped into the leader of a medium sized Kin (180 players) and we got on well. Joined... and well... the rest is history.

I am now an officer in it and actually get a real buzz from helping lower level kinsmen with their needs.

SeanG said on 1:36PM 4-09-2009

I met a small core of players with a similar mindset in a carebear corp in High-sec EvE while mining in a retriever. After kicking around for about a year, encountering some pirates around Arzi and getting wardec'd by greifers, a number of my corp left for other groups with me finding a receptive corp in CVA. I then dove headfirst into the deep end of PvP during the Triumvirate invasion. After a year there I had recruited most of that core from the old corp out to Providence and we're doing quite well serving the empire =)