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Guilds: Do They Work For You?
Razeekster
Member UncommonPosts: 2,591
I've been in many guilds in mmo's and have found that most of them do nothing for me.
A lot of times the chat log is completely silent and when aksing for help from my guild I get nothing.
I never group with my guild or do anything with them.
A lof of guilds level up through players earning achievements or simply leveling up and so guilds invite as many players as they can and then don't help them at all because in al honesty they don't care as long as the guild is growing and leveling up.
I've come to the point where in most mmo's I play I don't even bother joining guilds because in the end like I said, they do nothing for me.
Now I know this isn't true for every mmo out there.
Guild Wars for instance, in my experience, has the best guilds and the players in them are usually very helpful too.
I find though in most mmo's guilds really only benifet the owner and his close friends.
This is all speculation and opinion so feel free to disagree.
Smile
Comments
I think it really depends on the game in question, and then what the player expects a guild to do for him.. Not saying you are this kind of person, but alot of people think that by joining a guild the leader and officers now are in debt to this player and should pay him, powerlevel and run thru dungeons etc..
I've usually found that joining the right guild greatly improves my gameplay.. Like in LOTRO I was getting bored and thinking of quitting, finally found the right kinship for me and it gave me many months more of enjoyable gameplay..
In older games, like UO / EQ / WOW I was so involved in my guilds that sometimes I think the reason I played them for so many years was more for the social aspect of the game rather then actually playing the game itself.
I like the current direction guilds are taking in quality games.. adding skills and boosts and just a much more detailed guild experience, rather then just a friends list basically..
I have never and will never take a random guild invite.. I usually wait until I make some friends, or play with some people a few times and get invited.. I would rather be invited because a guild needs a player of my caliber then because a guild needs an active roster. Anyway, to end I have usually found guilds preferable, and extremely useful.. But I really think it depends on what you want from a guild, I am a "helper" personality type, so even if I am a low level new member I normally make my first actions as a guildmate to help others.. Going to the extreme sometimes in helping and not really asking for much.. It usually pays off in the end I guess..
Good topic btw +1
Your mileage may vary...
If you join a guild in an established game, chances are that the majority of members are already at high levels, so your newbie character may not get much support. However, it's not always that way. I joined a max level guild in Lotro when I started playing the game 6 months ago, and I regularly get quest help from members with maxxed-out characters.
The best guild experience is probably when you start a brand new game at launch with a newly established guild group. Everyone is at the same level, and working together to build up the group.
I think guilds have gone downhill the last few years.
The only guild in a new game (well relatively speaking, game made after 2005) is in AoC, and what made the guild work there was the fact that we all worked to build our guild city, and on top on that had a great leader ( I wont say anything about the officers since I was one of the 3 we had).
Still, I think either modern games need more activeties that the guild work on together for everyones benefit, or that guild size needs to be cut down.
Many guilds just get too large and since most people just hang out with a few people they know anyways, unless they raid in which case they know 30-40 of the players in the guild. Stuff the guild do together helps forming them into actual societies were you know the others.
The guildcity really helps, but AoCs isn't far enough, I would love one where each player adopts a certain building in the city and hire in NPC, get furnitures and trophies and off course goods.
Another thing I think would work excellent would be adding blood bowl to the game with tournament between the guilds.
Classic tournaments with jousts and so on also would help, you would bet on the knights from your guild while standing and watching the thing.
A good guild leader can and will arrange some stuff as it is already but some helpful mechanics would be welcome.
I find this to be truth the more the game generates content for solo players.
I've been in some bad guilds.. like every guild I have tried in World of Warcraft. I had bad luck in that game. Even with alot of RL friends, the guilds were always full of rude, racist, obnoxious, sociopathic teenagers. In fact, it seemed almost everyone in that game was like that.
My best gaming experiences have always been in games where I found an awesome guild. EQ1, EQ2, LOTRO, Rift. In all of those games I was involved in fantastic guilds and while in some cases the games were lacking, the awesome people more than made up for it.
These MMORPGs are all about community and finding the right crew.
I did that once, was a disaster.... Something you just do one time.
I did however recruit a lot of members for my old AoC guild by putting on a show in the Tortage with my mamoth that at the time still could be summon there, and a load of fun emotes. Some worked out great actually, but 3 of 4 quit within a week anyways even though we were a helpful and social guild.
It is rather hard to join older guilds though, often do they have a way of doing stuff and ain't interesting of any new ideas, and have a establish rank order with few promotions. Many games now have guilds that is 5 years + with the same main members, I rather start a bew one or join a noob guild than one like that (unless of course I already made some friends in th old guild).
True, but just group content ain't enough either. Activities that the whole guild do together is by far the best way to get a great guild.
The fewer people you team with the less you know your guild.
When a guild grows to more than 10 members, the guild usually starts to degenerate.
In games like GW, you have to count by 4s. So you have a guild no more than 16 people the most.
In games like WoW, you count by 5s. But you should only have 15 or less members and the problem with WoW is the 25-man raid which causes a lot of the problems.
Most guild I've joined has one and the same complaints from the Guild Leader, they don't want to babysit members. A guild becomes a DayCare when there's a lot of people and the GL can no longer manage the number.
Ready for GW2!!!
So far I haven't had any luck with guilds, mass invites especially, but I keep hoping that will change. One of these years I'm going to get all social and ambitious and try founding my own guild in a beta or just after a launch, or I will if I stick around and keep playing MMOs.
*Eyes Guild Wars 2 and wonders if that might just be the game to try it in, if only because players can be members of multiple guilds, meaning some of the pressure to keep your guildmates having fun (isn't that the whole point?) is off*
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
Well i guess you just didn't pick the right guilds. the guilds/corporations i have been in were very helpful and i was helpful as well in them.
It's a matter of luck i guess.
Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.
Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.
These days it's not really surprising that the chat box is empty. Most decent guilds use ventrilo etc pretty much all the time that they play, there culd be 50 people on ventrilo and no one talking in chat. Personally i rarely even notice when someone types in chat and if i do it's usually like 20 minutes later.
I hate voice chat requirements with a passion. Outside of premade pvp and some rare pve situations it isn't necessary, and a lot of people (especially me!) find it incredibly intrusive.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
I hate voice chat requirements with a passion. Outside of premade pvp and some rare pve situations it isn't necessary, and a lot of people (especially me!) find it incredibly intrusive.
+10I hate guilds that use things like Skype.
I don't know the people in real life why would I want to create a skype account and make them a much bigger part of my life than they need to be?
I understand when people play with their friends (meaning friends as in real-life friends) they want to be able to talk to each other directly instead of messing with chat, but I guess I'm more of a cautious person.
As to joining guilds, I find that I enjoy guilds that offer bonuses such as mount speed being increased and other perks and even guild skills, but when I join a guild I join it for the social aspect and also to do dungeons and maybe even PvP with my guild.
I rarely find such a guild that does those things as a group, and it makes me wonder what's the point of having a guild with all kinds of players if you're not even going to play togther and further the social aspect that a guild is supossed to be.
I mean for goodness sakes, you have all kinds of people, why not take advantage of it?
Smile
I tend to stick to casual or semi-casual guilds. Kinda more relaxed approach there.
I avoid raid or pvp guilds, where people tend to 'push' you to get max level asap, and have rosters and all things like that.
Eventually If I want to raid, which is not so often sooner or later in game I will meet some group that need my class and / or replacement for some runs sometimes.
I don't accept blind invites for guilds or for anything for that matter including grouping, with exceptions if obviously we doing same quest, but well does not happen often atm since all mmorpg's are solo and people don't even bother to group or just openly refuse(with curses to follow sometimes...) if asked even if we obviously do same quest
If someone randomly throws me an invite to guild or instance, without speakingto me even, he / she usually end up on /ignore list anyway.
I tend to join guilds through people I get to know in a game, doing questing together or speaking while crafting / asking stuff ,etc
Unfortunatelly mmorpg's have less and less activities that need group / cooperation so less oportunities to socialize casually with people.
Instanced dungeons are exception, but people tend to jump there, don't talk muchand even when they talk it is "go faster" , "pull everything", "you noob!" , etc - not to mention that there is not much time to talk there anyway, since most people see doing instance as a task that need to be done as quickly as possible cause 17 more runs and they will have enough tokens to barter for that gloves they want
Since instant teleporting to instance and all waiting times thrown out there is no usual chit-chat during those short waiting peroids as well.
So kinda it is getting harder to get to know people in a game, well unless you respond to guild ads "looking for hunter lvl 65, good gear, raiding 3 times / week" or accepting random invites
I find guilds as an effective solution for games with antagonistic communities. However, in recent times this is depreciated especially in games with emphasis on endgame raiding. Also it seems to be getting harder and harder to find a good guild.
If I see either a requirement for voice chat or a notice to rush to level-cap to be placed in raiding que... count me out.
I don't accept random guild invites either.
I tried that a few times, and in large I found that usually the guild was basically dead or only had 5 members who were all silent.
Random invites are usually a desperate ploy to gain more members to further the guild and they invite anyone, including people who just started playing the game and will most likely quit it shortly afterwords.
Smile
Guild in MMO is one of the thing I love the most.
I remember back when I was playing Ragnarok Online, Guild were everything in this game.
I really miss how the guild system was made. Game is still running but, it went downhill.
Same thing with World of Warcraft. I loved every single guild I've been... before cataclysm. I was sure the new guild system was going to make it better.
I was wrong. Now everyone just join Huge guild max level for the guild skill and don't care about the other aspect.
Other than that, I never really found a game where the Guild system was really great. Or really gave something more than just having an addional friend list.
I really hope I can find another game where Guild really mean something.
Just one of the many reasons I quit WoW after Cataclysm.
Smile
Sadly my experiences also relate. It seems that most guilds I join seem to have a booming population when I join in, and then the next day, there is no one on. I don't know if I've just found the guilds where people don't commit to playing or what, but I have rarely ever been in a large, player involved guild.
I also think it depends on the game and its overall community. I found a really nice kinship in LotRO when I played and surprisingly a pretty nice guild in Aion when I played. Other than that, I haven't had the best luck with them.
Almost makes me weary to even bother joining guilds now a days.
Waiting for: GW2
@Kabaal --- What do you consider a "decent" guild?
I've been in (by estimate) 100+ guilds throughout my MMORPG career and cannot honestly say that any of them are or aren't decent, considering I don't know what someone else's standards for decent are.
Do you mean decent as in the guild is full of hardcore, level capped, push-to-be-the-top type of players? Raiding guilds? I personally found most if not all of my experiences in such guilds far less than fun and enjoyable.
Do you mean decent as in has a whole lot of active players in the guild at all times of the day? I found this to be a strong factor in my guild preference
Do you mean decent as in all or most of the guild members are friendly? Again, strong factor for me personally
Do you mean decent as in all or most of the guild members are "skilled" players? I found this beneficial for selfish reasons, but otherwise, nothing more than a constant pissing contest between guildies. Gets very irritating and pathetic for me, personally.
Just looking for some clarification, not a debate/fight
totally agree with this one.
Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.
Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.
I think it really depends on the player seeking guild.
You hear all of the horror stories about power-mad guild leaders, omgrude, all the others. But then you have to wonder if this person randomly selected a guild after listening to a guildspam invite in a chat channel.
Personally, of the dozen or so guilds I've been in, no real problems. But then I selected the guilds, not the other way around.
Don't be afraid to fill out an app, either.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Honestly, ones that do as much as possible together instead of being all over the place like most guilds seem to be. Most of them don't really gel.
My perspective on most decent guilds using voice comms admittedly may be a bit skewed as i've played PvP games for so many years now and it's almost essential in them, but it's much more than that as you just don't get to know your fellow players anywhere near as well via chat boxes. Afterall MMO's are social past times much as going down the pub is.
Guilds with lots of memebers online and no one talking really kills it for me. As some people have already said, the best time to get a guild is at the start of a game, so try to get into the currently recruiting communities for GW2, SWTOR (or like me: TSW) or some other game that's going to release soon.
It's the 1st time i've ever joined a pre-game guild but from the guild website & forums, i'm already starting to get to know the people i plan to play the game with.
Aside from that, spamming trade channels for "lf good active guild" doesnt seem to work from my experience. You're probably better off going to the guild recruitment forums on the games official site, as any guild going to go to the trouble of recruiting that way will more than likely be more stable than some random guild you might join in game 1 day, then the next it'll have hardly anyone online.
Blizzard has tried giving guild levels so you get perks, but i think that won't foster the feeling of a good guild, it just gets solo players to join a high level guild and never participate in any guild activities.
And remember, "A rolling stone gathers no moss."