World of Warcraft guilds, sometimes a lovely source of chat, friendship, and community, can also be an easy way to get a good team together in a few seconds. At other times... well, let us just say that a lot of guilds more closely resemble a pit of constantly emerging demonic brain-eaters than what I described earlier. Seriously, that is probably why you are reading this article. Either that or you have decided to form your own guild, demonic brain-eating or not. Here are a few considerations for you, whatever your intentions regarding guilds.

First let us consider it from the point of view of a potential solo player looking for a Warcraft guild. Finding the right WoW guild is often a big decision. Many different factors can affect whether a guild is right for you, and not all of those factors are based around how good the members are, either.

Ignoring whether or not you like the members in a particular guild, does your time zone, or your time schedule, fit in with the general member base? This is a big question, as if you are only online when one other strange lurker guy is, do you really want to stay? Even if everyone else is awesome? Yeah, it could be a really good guild, but if you cannot participate with the rest of the members for one reason or another it does not really matter. Scheduling is one of the most common problems.

Another problem is if your levels do not match those of the other members, whether this be gear level or actual player level. Either one of these can separate you from guild activity. A group of really nice, but low level players simply cannot help you do that high level dungeon.

If you just want a guild for the chat, relieving the boredom of grinding perhaps, then a lot of things will not matter as much.

Beyond those problems of time-zones, level difference, and the like it's up to you to find a good group of members, avoiding earlier mentioned demonic beasts like the plague.

With that covered lets move on to guilds from the guild leader/CEO/Big Kahuna's point of view. Starting a guild is quite honestly a nightmare, often inspiring a string of headaches and leaving you wondering why it ever seemed like a good idea.

Getting members is one of your biggest problems. Many people like active and large guilds, so trying to recruit someone when the entirety of your new guild is you is very hard. An obvious solution would be to form the initial base of members from close friends, perhaps even RL (real-life,) or just long term in-game acquaintances and buddies.

Beyond recruiting and membership numbers, other issues include how your guild leadership functions, officers, class leaders, all that good stuff. Given the billions of different systems for guild running there are right now, I will leave that up to your discretion, but it is a big thing to decide and set up.

Finally, just consider whether it is truly worth it for you to attempt this endeavor. Many guilds have fallen apart before they even truly started.

Being a guild leader is a difficult and annoying job, but if you get a good guild going it is also extremely rewarding.

Good luck potential recruits and guild masters.

Dante Valentino is a veteran online gamer and has multiple high level WoW characters on several servers. For more detailed reviews of the best World of Warcraft guides available visit http://www.warcraft.weeklypwnage.com