What factors come into play when chosing a realm to play on?

In order to decide which realm I'd like to start the guild on I need to answer a few questions first.  I've done some research on the web and found various reasons for playing on particular servers.  The main reasons people choose the realm they play on are as follows:

• They know people who play on said realm, usually being either friends, family, or both.

•  The server is in the same time zone they want to play in or even located in the same city they're in.

•  The realm has a population they like, whether it be low, medium, or high.  Realm population can effect how long you have to wait for battlegrounds, instances, or queuing to log into the server.

•  The realm has a really cool name.  This is probably the least important thing, but at the same time, its what guides a lot of noobs to pick a realm.  I admit that its what guided me when I first started playing.  

•  The server has a good, fair, or poor economy.  This factor can be very important.  While you don't want to pay 20 gold for a low level green item, it can benefit you if you are the seller of the items. 

•  How is the community on the realm?  Is it drama-prone with constant bickering in trade chat?  Is the trade chat filled with references to all things "anal"?  Does the server have a cool vibe of helpful and kind people?  How is the QQ on the realm?  

•  What type of realm is it?  Normal?  PVP?  RP?  A mix?  This is another basic area that highly influences one's choice in server.

•  As mentioned above briefly, queues also influence a players choice of realm.  Do they have to wait a long time to get into a Battleground, Instance, Raid, etc.?  Are there enough players around their level to group with for harder quests?

•  Success in both raid progression as well as PVP progress are also a factor for some players.  Have the guilds on the server progressed through the deepest, darkest, and nastiest raids?  Do the Horde or Alliance constantly win in Wintergrasp or other Battlegrounds?

•  Does the Battlegroup the realm belongs to have a good reputation for hardcore raiding, PVP, or positive people?

•  Are there a lot of noobs or lower level characters?  (After all, a person with a level 50 character can still have no clue how to play the character).  This can be good and bad, it all depends on perspective.  Do you want to help teach and mentor new players in the game?  Would you rather only play with people who know their characters inside and out?  

•  Each different type of server also has its own issues.  For PVP: How nasty is the ganking, camping, and so on?  For RP: Are there a lot of guilds and players that actually roleplay or is it an aside?

•  How are the other guilds on the server?  Are they elitist and arrogant?  Are they made up of a rude bunch of brats?  Or are they easy-going, helpful, nice, and respectful of everyone?

•  One might also want to know how many guilds on the realm are recruiting and what kind of guilds are recruiting.  

•  Are there a large number of people complaining about lag, constant resets, login queues and other technical problems? Some realms just aren't as stable as others.

•  Players might also be interested in how old the server is.  Older realms might just have more experienced players. 

• Another thing players might want to look at is how mature the server is.  Some say PVP realms attract rambunctious younger players, while RP realms attract more quiet and mature players.   

Whether these points factor into a persons decision on which realm to pick or not will vary from player to player.  There are lots of players who value a realm with high raid progression and care less about the average age or maturity of players.  Its going to be different for everyone.  The key is to find people who have similar needs in order to make the guild work.

Looking over the list, I can come to a basic conclusion of what sort of things I'm looking for in a realm and then go from there.  Knowing people on the server whether it be family or friends will not effect my decision.  When I first started playing it did because I had family and friends playing on certain servers.  I even bought the European version so that I could play on the EU realms with some of my European friends.  But now my closest friend is probably going to quit WoW when Cataclysm comes out and I'd rather not play the game with family anymore (too much drama... perhaps a story for another time).  I have other friends who play on various other servers, but my hope is to recruit them to the guild and persuade them to at least make an alt to play in the guild.  My hope is to make some new friends with the new guild, so I'm not depending on my other friends.

The server timezone and location don't really mean a lot to me either.  I'm fairly flexable when it comes to timezones.  I'm in Edmonton, which is in the mountain standard timezone.  While I think it would be cool to meet and play with some others from the same city, its not a high priority.  With that being said, I do plan to advertise the guild to people in some facebook groups and one of those groups is specifically for my city.

Realm population is one factor I am considering.  I'd rather not the start the guild on a full, high, or low populated realm.  Full or highly populated servers often mean waiting in queue to just log into the realm.  I'm looking for a medium to high population which will weigh more on the Horde side.  Most of the realms I've been interested in for this guild have around 60 percent Horde, which is fine with me. 

The realm name really has no influence in what realm I pick now even though it was probably one of the main things I was interested in when I first started playing the game.  I would also find myself picking random realms with the odd technique of closing my eyes and then picking whichever realm my cursor stopped on.  Kind of a goofy way to pick a server, but it worked for me at the time. 

The economy of a realm does carry some weight for me, personally.  I like to use the AH to its full extent.  I like to be able to buy low and sell high.  Its always nice to have some money in your pocket for goodies like mounts, vanity pets, and gear.  While economy is important to me, I don't focus on it too much simply because the economy of a realm can go in waves just like it does in the real world.  By the way, I thought I'd mention that economics aren't all that interesting to me in real life. Its odd that I'm fascinated by the economics in the game though.

Community is a huge factor in my decision.  I don't want to play on a realm that constantly has people bickering, making fun of others, being judgmental of others, complaining, or making up childish jokes about all things "anal".  Besides being more of a boob chick than an ass chick, I find respect and maturity to be very important to me.  I can't stand ignorance and while there will likely be some of that on every realm out there, I'd prefer to be on a realm where its minimal.  People saying things like "That's so gay," or being racist and/or prejudice in anyway make me want to stay away.  The "ignore" function can come in handy when necessary.  I really want to be part of a community that helps one another and not only respects one another but also understands the meaning of common courtesy.  Call me an idealist but its what I want.  To quote John Lennon, "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one."  :)

A Battlegroup's reputation, a realm's raid progression, or how bad-ass their realm is for PVP, really have no influence on my decision.  These things simply aren't important to me probably because my game play doesn't focus on any one of these factors.  As for there being a large amount of noobs on the server, I'm perfectly fine with that.  While noobs can sometimes be an annoyance, one has to remember that they were once a noob as well.  Part of me likes to mentor and help out new players while I also want times to just solo and not have to worry about showing a noob how to do something.  I think its the difference between teaching someone to be independent or dependent on you.

I usually pick normal PVE realms to play on.  When I was a noob, I tried playing on a PVP server and during one of the world holiday events a high level player ganked me and I was only level 7.  After killing me the first time, the high level player camped and waited for me to respawn, then when I did, he killed me again.  It was very frustrating.  I have more experience now in the game but even so, I still carry that memory in the back of my head that makes me want to avoid PVP servers.

For Demoniac, I want to be able to make alliances with other guilds on the server.  Therefore, it is very important to me what kind of guilds are on the realm.  I think it would be ideal to group up with another guild for things like instances, raids, etc. to help each other out.  I would rather not be around guilds who think they're all that and a bag of chips.  Arrogance and Elitism are complete turn-offs for me.  I've been on a realm (Khaz Modan) where there were some very arrogant players who were constantly criticizing other guilds in trade.  I want no part of that.

With all these things in mind, I need to determine which realm fits closest with my needs. 

Preparation, Preparation, Preparation

Before I can even begin to form a new guild, I need to evaluate my reasons for doing so.  I've been doing a lot of research and as a result, I've come across some very helpful advice and information regarding guilds.  I'm using the Build Your Own Guild From the Ground Up articles by Sydera from the World of Matticus blog as a main basis for my building a guild preparation.  The first part of that article asks 4 basic questions that everyone who wants to start a guild, should answer first: What kind of guild do I want to be in?  How much work can I put into it?  Do I know people who can help me?  Why do I want to be a GM?

What kind of guild do I want to be in?

The first section goes on to ask, "How much do you play? What kind of hours do you want to put in raiding? How much say do you want to have in guild decisions? What kind of attitude do you want your guild to have?"  And I'm going to add one more question, "What do I want from the guild?"

Right now I'm not playing at all because my subscription is up and I have no money to buy a game card right now.  However, if I remain unemployed, I'll have more than enough time to play once I'm able to get the game card.  More likely though is that I will at the very least be part-time employed, which means I will have to balance my game time between work, fiancee time, house time, and other things (including meals, etc.).  Realistically, I will likely spend around 2-4 hours playing the game each day.  Apart from that, I would make sure I devoted at least 1-2 hours to guild stuff, whether that be website management, posting on forums, guild meetings, dealing with guildie issues, etc.  I think this question carries into the next section, so I'm going to leave it at that for now.

The question of raiding is somewhat of a sticky issue for me.  I have a fiancee and as such I can't spend too much time raiding.  Preferably, I'd like to spend, at the most, four hours for a raid once a week.  I don't want to devote too much time to raiding for a couple of reasons.  One, like I said before, I have a fiancee and while she doesn't prohibit me from playing the game or raiding, I can tell it bothers her if I spend too much time raiding or playing and not enough time with her.  The second reason is simply that there are so many other aspects of the game that I love and actually like more than raiding.  I don't want to be in a guild that requires me to raid any amount of time.  I want the freedom to enjoy the environment, to level, to pvp every once and a while, or even just to chat with friends/guildies.

As part of a council (you'll need to read the third section to find out more about that), I would be one of a group of people making the guild decisions.  If necessary, votes could be held between the council and maybe, eventually, even between the membership.  I do want to be part of the guild decisions, not for egotistical reasons, but because I have a certain vision for the guild.  That's the whole purpose of me doing this.

The attitude I want the guild to have is a relaxed one.  WoW is a game and I've had times where this has been forgotten.  I've been pressured to raid when I didn't want to and I believe that's so wrong.  As a game, it should be fun... and frankly, fun should be the most important part of the game.  In my opinion, hardcore guilds are not fun.  I know there are people who, for them, raiding is the best and funnest part of the game.  This is not true for me.  So basically, I want a guild that's relaxed and casual.  Which leads me to my last point for this section.

What do I want from the guild?  Before I can answer this completely, I need to refer you to where I first got this question from, the blog Pugnacious Priest.  I came across this question as part of my research from their article Guild Audit - and Guild Loyalty.  I found myself agreeing with pretty much everything Pugnacious was saying.  "Maturity, experience, understanding, patience, support,  advice, fun, adaptability, companionship – Dedication." 

I do want a more mature guild.  All too often I used to find myself babysitting kids 14 and under instead of enjoying the game.  Now please understand I have nothing against young people and part of me would like to be a mentor to these adolescent players and I also appreciate the fact that there are some teenagers who are mature for their age.  Even with those things in mind, I think it would still be best to be a part of an 18+ guild.  Experience for me isn't as important for the guild in general.  Don't get me wrong, a certain amount of experienced members have an essential part of a guild and when it comes to raiding experience plays an important part as well.  All that being said, I would be perfectly fine having some less experienced members as part of the guild who the more experienced players could mentor.  As far as I'm concerned, even though I've been playing since December 2005, I still have a lot to learn about the game and would assume others do as well.   

Companionship is perhaps one of the most important things I want in a guild.  Its important to have people who have the same goals and enjoy the same things.  This is true in both real life and in the game.  And for me, having in game companions also leads to the possibility of having those people eventually becoming friends.  To me the ideal guild is like a family.  I do realize and strongly believe that real life comes first, but at the same time I also believe that just because I've met someone online instead of in person, it doesn't make them any less important.  In fact, I've met my best friends online, including my fiancee.  When I was younger I always had trouble from my biological family because they did not value the friends I had met online, they were simply referred to as "internet people," like they were lepers or something.  

How much work can I put into it?

I do realize that the amount of time I would need to put into the guild will differ from the time when it begins to the time when things like the guild charter, website, etc. are complete.  The World of Matticus mentions spending around 15 hours per week on getting a new guild established.  I believe I can accomplish this, even if I am working full time.  I've setup guilds before, writing guild charters, setting up the website, recruiting, and all the other things required to get a new guild going... and I did that by myself too.  I'm not too worried about this as a result.   

Do I know people who can help me?

I know lots of people who play WoW, yet there is only really one I know well enough that I know I could trust her as someone who could help me with a guild.  And while I may ask her to be a part of this, at the same time I know she has many other commitments and has actually said she might not even buy the new expansion.  I don't want her to feel pressured to help me out.  With that in mind, what I want to do is set up a council type leadership where I'm not the only leader.  I know guilds are like this generally already, having guild leaders and their officers to help them lead.  But that's not what I'm talking about.  I want to be a GM but not the only GM.  I want a group of five or more people who are each considered equal leaders of the guild.  I've even heard the idea of having a different person in that council be GM for a certain period of time and then switch it off to the next council member.  I think this might help with things like GM burn outs and getting bored of the same thing.  Therefore, I would have to do a search for officers for this council first before recruiting to the guild.  I would also have to build a relationship with these people and feel like I can trust them.

Why do I want to be a GM?

I have asked this question of myself many times before and always come to the same conclusion.  I have a vision for what I believe would make a great, fun guild.  It may be selfish to an extent, but I want to see the guild grow and flourish in that vision.  However, I want this for not only myself, but also for the entire guild as a whole.  I want everyone in the guild feel satisfaction for having the guild reach the potential we all believe it can reach.  I want to experience this with other people who share the same vision.