The Necessity of Guildsites
In today’s MMORPG world most people belong to a guild. It makes sense, after all, these games are primarily made so you don’t have to be alone anymore when completing quests and running errands. Nobody wants to be alone, right?
Now with all these guilds and MMORPGs being made, there has been an influx of guild websites, or guildsites, springing up across the intertubes. Primarily, these websites are being made via free guildsite hosters such as GuildPortal (above) and Guildsites.com for the sole purpose of giving the members of said guilds an area on the web where they can access information about their raids, members, forums, etc without actually having to log into the game. A brilliant idea, in theory, but is it actually a useful feature?
Personally, I have been in quite a few guilds over about 7 different MMORPGs, and while a lot of them had guildsites for our guild, I never used them. As far as my knowledge went, most people inside my guilds didn’t use them either. Its not that it was inconvenient to use, or that it wasn’t helpful, it’s just when I was surfing the internet, why go to a site to find out about my guild when I can just s easily log in. Perhaps it is mainly used for people while they are at work? You tell me.
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I think the main attraction for people using these services is to communicate while they’re off their home machines (at work, at someone else’s house, etc.) and aren’t able to log in to the game.
Also, many of these sites are used as planning, recruitment, collaboration, and information sharing tools. You can put up a calendar of events so people know when the raid starts… Some of the more advanced guild hosting sites even allow you to coordinate huge raids, track DKP, and even manage your guild bank. Some let you share funny screenshots.
Almost all guild hosting services have forums where you can share vast amounts of useful information with all your guild members. Imagine having to spam a Priest class guide in game every time someone new logged in and wanted to hear what you had to say? Guild websites allow these conversations to take place in a much more user-friendly environment.
Some guild hosts are free and some charge you a minimal fee. The ones that charge, are generally more advanced and well maintained. My friend runs one of the top 5 guild hosting sites in the North America. He charges for it but also spends about 12 hours per day tweaking old features and responding to user requests by adding new ones. His site is pretty much the best you’ll find out there.
I won’t shill for him on this site, but if you do some searching online and happen to stumble upon a site whose mascot is a cute orc holding a banner… well, that’s him.