Set up your WoW Forever guild in 10 minutes: Discord bot, addon and leave

WoW Forever launches on November 4, 2026, at 3:00 p.m. PST, and the first raids open on December 9, according to Blizzard's What's Next panel recap. Most of the guild setup work does not need the game client at all. You can finish it this week and spend launch night inviting people instead of configuring tools.

This guide covers the four pieces most WoW Forever guilds set up first in GuildManager: the guild itself, the Discord bot, the addon, and leave of absence. Everything below is on the Free plan unless we say otherwise.

Minutes 0 to 3: create the guild

Sign in with Discord and create a guild. Choose WoW Forever as the game.

The guided setup asks a few questions about how your guild plays, then picks tools from your answers. You can turn any of them off later in Settings → Modules. It also asks when your guild raids, which recruits see on your guild page in their own time zone.

Set your ruleset in the guild settings. Forever replaces realms with rulesets, and the public guild finder filters by Normal, PvP and Roleplaying, so a listed ruleset saves you from applicants who cannot group with you.

Minutes 3 to 5: connect the Discord bot

The guided setup's next step is Connect your Discord server. If you skip it, the same step lives under Settings → Discord.

1. Invite the bot to your server.
2. Pick the channels. GuildManager posts events, loot and applications, each to its own channel.
3. On the last step, post your guild's invite link to Discord. Anyone who opens it can apply, and you decide who gets in.

From then on, members can sign up from the raid post and use slash commands for the things they check every week: /attendance, /roll, /loa, /lfg and /reservations. Officers send news with /announce. All of these work on Free.

Core adds scheduled reminder pings, direct-message reminders to members who have not answered, Discord role sync, and the commands for Core modules such as /auction, /rewards, /wishlist and /apply. The Discord bot page lists what each plan includes.

Minutes 5 to 8: install the desktop app and the addon

The GuildManager addon records your raids in game and shows soft reserves on item tooltips. You install it from the desktop app, not from a ZIP file, so your copy always matches the app that syncs it.

1. Install the GuildManager desktop app for Windows or macOS and sign in with Discord.
2. Open the menu, choose In-game addon, and click Install addon.
3. Once you can log in to WoW Forever, type /reload, then /gm to open the addon.

The addon never connects to the internet. WoW only writes addon data when the game saves, on logout or reload, and the desktop app reads that saved file and carries it to GuildManager. Type /gm sync to save right away.

Two things the addon gives you on Free:

• Roster sync. An officer who can manage members publishes the in-game guild roster through the app, and the app republishes it after every save. Levels and classes stay current without a Battle.net link. See roster management.
• Raid logs. The addon records who was in the raid and for how long, every pull and kill, every drop and every roll. Logs from several officers merge into one raid report on the activity. See the attendance tracker.

Ask every officer who might lead a raid to install the app before December 9. You cannot publish a roster or log a raid before launch, but the installation itself does not need the game running.

Minutes 8 to 10: turn on leave of absence

Raid planning goes wrong when officers find out on raid night that a tank is on holiday. Leave of absence is a Free module.

1. Open the leave of absence settings and choose whether leave needs officer approval.
2. Set limits on how often and how long members can be away, whether past dates are allowed, and which reasons members can pick.
3. Tell members to use /loa create with dates and a reason before they go.

Officers review requests with /loa list, approve them or reject them with a reason, and can create leave for another member. Members can also request and follow their leave from the desktop app. Approved leave shows up when you plan raids. On Core, a guild setting decides whether approved leave counts in attendance analytics. The absence management page has the full list of rules.

Your first raid

With ten minutes spent, you can create your first activity. Barrow Deeps (10 players) and Hyjal Summit (20 players) are already set up with Blizzard's announced sizes. Set the time and role targets, post it to Discord, and members sign up from the message, the web or the desktop app.

One-off raids are on Free. Weekly recurring raids, templates and reminders need Core. If your raid uses soft reserves, attach a reservation list when you create the raid. Read raid signups and soft reserves for the details.

What to leave for later

You do not need everything on day one. These can wait until your roster settles:

• A loot system. Do pick it before the first boss dies. Our DKP vs soft reserve vs loot council guide compares the three in GuildManager.
• Officer roles. Free guilds use the default roles. Custom roles from templates, such as Loot Manager or Recruiter, are part of Core. See role permissions.
• Party plans. Saving a 10-player or 20-player layout as a reusable plan is part of Core. Our raid roster by class guide covers what to plan for.

Related guides

• WoW Forever launch-week checklist for guild officers
• WoW Forever raid sizes and roster planning
• The GuildManager addon for WoW Forever
• WoW Forever guild tools

Sources

Checked October 26, 2026.

• World of Warcraft: Forever What's Next panel recap. Blizzard. Launch time, December 9 raid unlock, Barrow Deeps (10) and Hyjal Summit (20).
• World of Warcraft: Forever Deep Dive panel recap. Blizzard. Rulesets instead of realms.
• GuildManager features and plans as described on the pricing page and the WoW Forever feature pages.