How to start a guild in WoW Forever: the leader's guide

How do I start a guild in WoW Forever?

Start with your people, not the game: agree where you’ll play, find out what everyone will play, and give them one place to talk. Creating the guild in game is the easy part, and it can’t happen until launch. Everything before that is organisation, and it’s what decides your first raid.

Forever is a fresh start for everybody. It runs on the modern engine with a permanent level cap of 60, new zones, nine new dungeons and the Skyborne race, per Wowhead’s overview. There’s no realm list and no old guild to inherit. That’s an opening for a new guild and a test for an old one moving across.

If you only have an hour this week, do stages 1 and 2. The rest can follow. Our WoW Forever guild checklist is the short version of this guide.

What should a guild settle before launch?

Seven things, all doable from Discord before 4 November: ruleset, roster, Discord, recruiting, names, raid nights and addons. None of them needs anyone to be level 60.

1. Which ruleset and faction?

Forever has rulesets instead of realms. Normal, PvP and Roleplay open at launch, and Hardcore follows later in the winter. You can only group with players on your own ruleset, never with the other faction, and on the PvP ruleset an account is one faction only. Wowhead covers the details in its report on the end of realms.

A guild split across two rulesets is two guilds. Run a poll, then pin the answer. Our rulesets guide helps the guild decide, and if world PvP is the question, read PvP on WoW Forever.

2. Who will play what?

Ask every member for a main and their likely alts, by class and spec. Eight rogues and two healers is easy to fix in October and hard to fix in December. Forever adds new race and class combinations, including Paladins that can tank, so last game’s spread tells you little.

Alts matter more than usual, because Forever’s account-wide Legacy system rewards levelling several classes. Write your main and alt rule now, before the first loot argument. Our main and alt policy has a template, and the Skyborne classes post covers what the new combinations mean for a roster.

3. How should the Discord be laid out?

Give the guild a welcome channel, announcements, a roster call channel, signups, a levelling channel and an officer-only applications channel. Make the roles before launch week, when new members arrive. Our guild Discord template has categories, channels and roles you can copy.

4. How do we recruit?

Post where raiders look, with your ruleset, faction, raid nights and what you need. A raider decides in seconds, so lead with the schedule. Our recruitment guide includes a template and a list of places to post it.

5. Should we reserve names?

Name reservation runs from 27 October to 3 November for owners of an upgrade pack: up to three characters in total across all rulesets, first come, first served, per Wowhead’s reservation guide. Agree any naming theme and the guild name before the window opens. See our name reservation guide.

6. When are raid nights?

Pick them now, even though raids are weeks away. People choose a guild by its schedule. Until December, use the same nights for dungeon groups so the habit is set. Decide your signup rules at the same time: the cutoff, the reminder and how the bench works. Raid signup rules covers the three settings that matter, and the Raid-Helper alternative post compares signup bots.

7. What should be installed?

Addons, before launch evening. Forever’s engine limits what addons can see in combat, which our WoW Forever addons guide explains. If you use GuildPro, the steps are in install GuildPro for WoW Forever.

What happens on launch night?

Launch is 4 November at 3:00 p.m. PST (23:00 UTC), and the guild needs one post that says who does what. Who creates the guild in game and on which character, who sends invites, where people meet, and which channel answers questions. Ten lines in #announcements saves an hour of the same question in guild chat.

Decide in advance who your officers are, too. A guild master, a raid leader, a recruiter and someone who handles loot is a common split, and our officer roles post lays it out. The launch-night plan has a template you can post as is.

What should the guild do while levelling?

Level together where you can, run dungeons as a guild, and spread the professions. You have about five weeks between launch and the first raids.

9. Levelling and dungeons

Forever has nine new dungeons from Hall of Thanes at level 13 to Shaper’s Terrace at 60, alongside the classic ones, per Wowhead’s dungeon guide. Dungeon drops award appearances to the whole group, which makes guild runs feel generous. Run them on your raid nights. Our guild dungeons guide has the level brackets and how to organise dungeon nights.

10. Professions

Forever keeps 2 primary and 3 secondary professions with a cap of 300, adds more than 600 new recipes, and gives every profession a camp object that buffs the group. A guild needs its crafters spread before raid consumables matter. Our guild professions post has a coverage grid.

How do we get ready for the first raids?

Know which raid you’re aiming at, build the comp from your real roster, and have signups running a week before 9 December. The first raids are Barrow Deeps (10-player), Hyjal Summit (20-player) and a returning Onyxia’s Lair (40-player), per Wowhead’s raids hub. Bosses, tier sets and attunements aren’t announced yet.

A 10-player raid and a 40-player raid need very different guilds. Decide which you’re building towards, and plan a bench on top of it.

Our raid prep post has a checklist per raid, the raid comp post covers building seats and bench from your roster, and the roadmap for raid leaders covers what lands after December.

How should we hand out loot?

Pick a loot method and write it down before the first boss dies. Rolls, loot council, DKP and soft reserve all work. What breaks guilds is a rule that changes after an argument. Decide how mains and alts rank, how the bench is treated, and who makes the call. Our loot council vs DKP comparison is an honest look at each for a fresh level 60 guild.

Whatever you pick, keep a record of who got what. It’s the evidence every loot conversation needs.

How do we track attendance and post recaps?

Count attendance from who was actually in the raid, credit the bench, and post a recap after every night. Attendance decides trial periods and, in many guilds, loot priority. A raider who signed up and sat on the bench gave up the night, so the bench should count. Our attendance tracker post explains how.

Recaps are what keep people who missed the night in touch: bosses killed, wipes, loot and who was there. Officers shouldn’t have to write them by hand. See raid recaps in Discord.

What if our guild already plays another version of WoW?

Treat Forever as a second guild that shares your Discord, not as a move. Some members will play both, some will switch, and a few will stay behind. Forcing a single answer loses people on both sides.

A few things help:

• Ask, don’t assume. The roster call in stage 2 doubles as a headcount of who is actually coming to Forever.
• Keep the channels apart. Give Forever its own signups and announcements, so a raid sheet for one game never lands in the other game’s channel.
• Pick Forever officers on purpose. The people who run your current raids may not be the ones playing Forever most. Rank in one game doesn’t have to be rank in the other.
• Keep the old raid nights clear. If both games raid, put them on different nights, and say so in the welcome post.

In GuildPro, Forever becomes its own guild page under the same Discord, with its own roster, signups, loot and attendance, and its own admins. Nothing from the other game is copied across or mixed in.

What’s the full checklist?

Here is every stage as a list you can tick and paste into Discord. Your ticks save in this browser, and the button copies the list for your officers.

Where should I start today?

With stage 1. Post the ruleset and faction poll in your Discord tonight. When it closes, post the roster call. Those two answers shape everything else on this page, and both are easier in October than in November.

Then come back to this guide as each date arrives. We’ll keep it current as Blizzard announces raid details and the Hardcore date.