There are all sorts of guilds across the FOE landscape. Guilds where you can do nothing. Guilds that are based around trading. Guilds that focus on GE, GBG, and/or GvG. Active guilds and inactive guilds. Guilds of one because the player has gone inactive for a spell. You name it, there’s probably a guild that exists for it. Similarly, there are good guilds that are super helpful, and there are guilds that don’t fit this criteria. If you’re lucky enough to find a guild that’s super helpful, you may then begin to wonder “How do I give back to my guild?” This is honestly a bit of an abstract concept, because the guild itself cannot give you anything per-say, it’s the players inside the guild that do the work. Still, there are things you can do that help the guild as a whole.

Aid

Aiding your guild mates frequently is one of the easiest, and best ways to give back. This is because when you aid regularly and frequently, it helps to make sure that not only is everyone operating at their highest functioning level as far as productions go, but it keeps Hall of Fames motivated. Hall of Fames specifically give back to the guild in the form of Guild Power (sometimes called crowns). Guild Power helps to level up a guild, which in turn offers more goodies and kickbacks to all current members.

Trades

Within a guild there is no FP charge for taking trades, so this is the best place to engage in trading activity to accommodate goods needs. You never want to leave yourself short, but if you have a surplus of a certain kind of good it’s always appreciated when you share by taking any fair trades that you can within the guild marketplace. You can see guild-only trades (as in trades placed by your guild mates, not trades that are hidden from the neighborhood) by selecting the appropriate checkbox in the marketplace. Guild mates need various goods for all sorts of things, so helping them get the goods they need means they can do more which in turn can help the guild. Sometimes, if you’re really flush with goods, taking unfair trades where you take the loss on the deal is beneficial as well. You need to determine this within the context of the players and the guild though, as well as your ability to help.

Treasury

Donating to the guild treasury, be it by Treasury GB (such as Obs, Arc, or Atom), special building (like Statue of Honor), or manual donation (select a good to donate yourself from your own stock), can be very helpful. Having treasury GBs means that goods from your era will be donated every time you collect from them, so be sure to login frequently if only to do your collection! When a guild needs goods for a specific era (which can happen if you have gaps in era among membership or are very active in GvG or GBG) they will often make an announcement, and then any and all goods you can help bring in for the targeted era is important. More often than not it will have to be done by manual donation in that instance, since calling for a targeted era means GBs and other similar auto-add methods aren’t enough.

Lock Threads

If you are familiar at all with a Power Arc (Arc at level 60+), then you’ve likely seen lock threads. These are threads where prepped GBs can ask for a lock on a reward spot at a specific rate. Should you be someone who holds a power arc, you should consider it a important task to take locks as frequently as you’re able. Helping mates who are still growing, regardless of if they can presently help you in the same fashion or not, is important to overall guild strength. You are only as strong as your weakest link, so helping the weakest members become strong ones benefits everyone in the end. Similarly, remember that lock threads aren’t BP Opportunity threads, you’re not taking a lock because you need BPs as a primary reason, but instead because it helps the mate requesting one to advance. Getting BPs should be secondary. Similar to this, you really shouldn’t be sniping your mates (with the definition of sniping in this instance being looking for overcooked GBs by your mates either through self-donation or swap threads where you can lock at low rates to make a profit, for the sole purpose of making a profit, regardless of how it affects your guild mates).

Offering BPs

If you’re someone who is in the position where you have FPs to spare, and are pushing your GBs pretty good, it’s always a nice action to offer reward spots on your GBs that don’t give back FPs but do give medals AND BPs at a very low rate. If you can go as low as 1 FP for the spot, that’s the best. Obviously not everyone is always in the position to do this, but when you are it can help other mates afford some very needed BPs. Consider this especially for essential GBs for young cities like LoA, CdM, CoA, Zeuz, Alcatraz, St. Marks, TOR (yes you can get them from GE but that can be slow), and Obs (especially Obs). Giving cheap BPs on all GBs is great, but the core GBs are especially helpful. Consider too that if your guild has Lock Threads you really shouldn’t be asking any guild mate to pay more than the cheapest lock offered in guild. So if there’s no lock thread cheaper than 1.85, then you should never ask a mate to just arbitrarily take a lock for anything more than that. Similarly, if the cheapest lock in a guild is 1.85, you shouldn’t expect a mate to give a spot to you at anything better. This is a symbiotic give-take relationship.

Offering Goods

Working to get GBs ahead-of-age is something that most players will want to do eventually, and while getting the BPs can be relatively simple, getting the goods might not be. If you’re higher-era than the goods a guild mate is searching for (and cannot make themselves) and have the ability to get them what they need, consider doing so. There are plenty of goods sellers out in the world, but the beauty of keeping it in the guild are good rates on said goods. The going rate for goods purchases varies from server-to-server and world-to-world, so ask around if you need to, but definitely look to offer a deep discount (or even just give them away) to help out a guild mate if you’re in a position to do so.

Participation

Every guild has different participation requirements, but making sure you’re meeting them is important. Participation requirements are in place by guild management to not only help things run like a well-oiled machine, but to help the advancement of all members of the guild. These requirements often assist in bringing in guild power, growing young mates cities, and forming bonds based around team work. Even if a guild is super chatty, you can be a silent participant. So long as you meet the requirements set forth by your guild regularly, it doesn’t matter if you say anything in the threads or not (unless a response is mandatory to a specific question or announcement).

Respect

This should be extremely obvious, but we are all human, we all make mistakes, and sometimes things get out of hand. Regardless, trying to maintain a respectful attitude when in the public spaces of the guild (as in threads that the whole guild participates in) is really important. No one likes drama, and people like the offending drama llama even less. If you’re having an issue, be it with guild management or another guild mate, it’s best to bring it up with management. Part of being guild management means they should be prepared if you have grievances with what they’re doing to listen and respond calmly to them. Your guild leadership should be setting the example, and if you’re terrified to approach them for fear they’re going to blow a gasket at you, then it might not be the best guild environment. Remember too that all this is happening via text communication with no context to who you are as a person, so try to be mindful of how your written word can be perceived, and if you’re hot under the collar it might be best to take some time to chill out before typing up an emotionally driven comment that’s going to come off in a way you didn’t intend.

Strengthen Your City

This is probably the most abstract of all the concepts, but growing strong helps you do more. No one comes into this world able to do everything at all times in a non-exhaustive manner. Every single player started in the Stone Age doing the tutorial (for every world on every server that they play in), and had to work their way up the ladder doing events, story quests, GB raising, and the likes to get where they are. Similarly, you may look up to these stronger players in your guild who are helping you out and wonder how you can do the same, and the answer lies in getting stronger. As you work to strengthen your city to match your play style, and so that you can not just meet guild requirements but instead exceed them, you should be able to give back in many of the ways listed above. There is absolutely no shame in admitting that because you’re only in EMA, lack a power arc, are only making 30 FPs a day, and are still working hard to make the goods you need (etc.); you’re not able to be a powerhouse of donations and free BPs right now. Someday you will be that person, but it’s a journey that can take months to accomplish. Patience and perseverance are key here. The goal you’re looking to achieve with your city growth is self-sufficiency when it comes to meeting the requirements 90% of the time. We all need help from time-to-time, even the most developed of players. You just don’t want to require help all of the time to do anything at all, at least not for too terribly long.

Etc…

These certainly aren’t the only ways to give back, but they’re definitely among the best ways. Since each guild is unique with their own specific requirements there’s no exact guideline as to all the ways to give back, because there’s no way to account for all the different requirements the thousands of guilds across the game might employ. If your guild has some unique requirements, then giving back by meeting them falls under the participation that was discussed above. It’s kind of a catch-all, because no two guilds are exactly the same.