This morning’s question works whether or not you’ve ever been in or led an MMORPG guild yourself, I think, as you can certainly see mistakes and lessons from the outside, but I led guilds for such a long time that my perspective is from the leadership angle.
Probably the biggest mistake I ever made in running guilds was thinking that it’d be feasible to set up “chapters” in different games. I understood that guilds like this existed, but at the time, I didn’t quite understand that they functioned as miniature corporations or fraternities or even franchises, largely independent and largely without the camaraderie of the social groups that we had put together, and that I would need a lot more of me than I had to spread around. Needless to say, when I tried it with my own guild, it didn’t work at all. The overall character of each group in each game wound up being too different. We worked better moving as a group, largely intact. Lesson learned. (And the guild we formed in the next MMO, after that lesson was duly learned, wound up being our best!)
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned from MMO guilds?