Yes, that’s right: I play a massively multiplayer online (MMO) strategy game outside of work, and after a year of successfully running my guild – and growing it from 5 to 68 players – I thought I’d share what I’ve learned…

Text messaging can be effective communication

The MMO I play doesn’t have any voice or video communication, so we rely on text and in-app translations for anyone who doesn’t speak English. At first it was really difficult to only communicate with text and typing, but the more I practiced the more I realised this was another skill to learn – the skill of being precise, clear, accurate and succinct in live text chat. Also, emojis are super helpful for conveying tone because humour can so easily be misunderstood as rudeness!

Clarity around expectations, roles and responsibilities is crucial

I started the guild when I started playing the game, and I didn’t set any rules or expectations. I ran the guild on vibes, if you will. Which was fine when I only had 5 people in the guild… but became chaos as we approached 15+ members. I quickly created an inner circle of the most active players, and had hundreds of text conversations with each of them to get their opinions to define the guild code, responsibilities per each role rank, and our approach to all the different game events. This wasn’t easy, but now we’re well over 60+ players and everyone is clear on the expectations – which means we have very little drama and many happy players!

If you don’t hold people accountable, you undermine trust with the rest of the team

This one was the toughest lesson to learn.

Sadly, someone I initially considered a valued member of the guild became salty and began to act out by sending rude messages to other members, and then starting to refuse to take part in certain events that I expected everyone to participate in. I tried to talk to the person 121 to understand what was going on to cause the change, and to support them to help them return to their status as a valued and respected member of the guild. Sadly, that just wasn’t happening – and after a few weeks people started to quit the guild over this player’s behaviour. That’s when I did the tough thing: I gave them two clear warnings and then kicked them from the guild when they didn’t change their ways.

But then something interesting happened: I received floods of messages from guild members thanking me for doing that, and some of the players who quit chose to return.

After that experience I updated the guild code to be more explicit about expectations (with no detail too tiny!), and now I give warnings much more quickly. The outcome has been a happy, thriving guild with nearly 6 months without any major incidents.

Collaboration is key

This is something I say all the time, but it’s so much more evident in the MMO world.

In my guild that’s 60+ players who each have their own opinion on which events we should take part in, what the expectation for those events should be, and so on. And I balance that with what’s possible – who’s based in what time zones, who enjoys what events, and the fact that (for some of us!) real life must come before game life, so I want to offer that flexibility.

But I still value every voice in my guild, and I work with my members to understand their opinions and find solutions to help us achieve the highest points possible with what the players are able to give at that moment. This approach has helped us win multiple events and even progress to higher event tiers.

Have delegates who can hold the line when you’re not around

Gameplay is possible 24/7 and my guild has over 60 players spread across eight different time zones – so it’s quite literally impossible for me to be awake AND online constantly all the time to manage what’s happening in real time.

And that’s where my delegates help me out.

I have five delegate leaders in five different time zones, and between us I’m able to have a leader online at just about any given moment. And while I’m the one who calls the final shots and deals with anything particularly sticky, these guys help manage the front lines when issues or questions arise – but it’s also important that I back up their decisions so as to not undermine the rest of the guild’s trust in their leadership.

Creating the right environments helps people thrive

As helpful as it’s been to have clearly communicated expectations, creating the right environment has helped my players achieve personal best scores and succeed in events. This looks different for different events, and also looks different for each player who wants to get a promotion to be a delegate leader.

For some events this might look like curating the quests my delegate leaders and I make available for the guild – so that we’re nudging people to achieve a higher score than they might have chosen for themselves – and sometimes it looks like cheerleading to keep the energy high when we’re the underdog.

And with people, each person who wanted that promotion has required a different development plan – for some it’s helping them develop clear & precise communication, for others it’s been challenging them to think about the impact of decisions on others in the guild.

Integrity – not real names – helps build connections

For anyone uninitiated in the world of MMOs: yes, you read that right. In online gaming it’s common to use an alias and never know someone’s real name, age, location or occupation. Because what matters is the game, the skill you bring to your game play, and the trust you build through integrity.

OK sure, I got to know someone only by the name Lord Beanz (with a z) and someone else as Abby because their game name was DowntonAbby (without the e in Abbey, presumably because DowntonAbbey was already taken) – but these players are skilled, friendly, consistent in approach and trustworthy. So I’m grateful to have them in my guild and know what little about their offline life that they’re willing to share.

As for my game name? That’s one secret I’ll never tell…You know you love me. XOXO, Gamer Girl