Sadly well written, depressingly convincing. It’s the commitment that kills me- you don’t find out that a guild is not for you until you’re actually in it, and forget about getting to see the inside of a raid without one.

Sigh.

Now enter what they’ve talked about in Cataclysm with guild levels and progression and whatnot. They’ve already said that they have no plans to extend this to raid alliances. So we’re going to be behind other, single-guild raids in terms of the perks we can offer, because our component guilds will “level” more slowly since no one guild makes up a majority of our main 25-man raid.

We have no plans to change how we do things–we’re not going to ditch our component guilds for one mega-guild to cover the raid, because each of our various guilds are different, have different themes, different roleplay, different atmospheres in general. We’ll deal with the disadvantages. But it’s annoying to me that Blizzard is herding us toward this “guild = raid” box and ignoring smaller guilds who team together to conquer high-end content.

In any case, now imagine that your guild splits up for some reason — maybe half of them leave for Cataclysm for example, and the remnants try to keep raiding but fail miserably (this is what happened to a lot of guilds at the beginning of TBC, I’m not trying to depress you). Suddenly you have contacts scattered between wherever it is that they go to, some have left the game altogether or gone to different servers, and there’s nowhere left for you, and the guild you loved is gone.

If you had a separate social guild then you still have the people you know. If the raid guild is all you have then when raids collapse, you have nothing. And what they don’t tell you is that when you’re not in a guild, the silence is deafening. No guild chat. No nothing.

Maybe my experience is coloured by the fact that no one recruits prot warriors in their raid guilds, but I think it is more from the experience of being in guilds I loved which split up due to raid pressure. Also sometimes its nice to be in a guild with people who like you and not just because you drag their alts through instances on your tank or have the right spec for their raid.

(Also on the offchance that anyone ever makes a guild for 40+ socially unskilled female geeks, I’d like to be able to join it without caring about whether people can run out of fires!)

For my own part I must admit that I rely heavily on belonging to a guild and strong incentives for guilds to stick together. Because I DON’T know a single person in the world who plays wow from real life, I DON’T have any friends I’ve been playing with for 10 years over different games. Without my guild I would be alone and lost. That’s the harsh truth. I’m not a socializer and I’d soon quit the game since it would be barely anymore than a solo-game with some crappy chat channels as /trade to get annoyed at.

I’m actually very happy with the emphasis on guilds in Cataclysm, minimizing the risk that it all will turn into an utterly lonely experience where you pugged x-realm and never got to know anyone at all…

Guilds are actually much more likely to let an “outsider” like me come in, thanks to gear, experience, need of class etc. While social circles are very much set and almost impossible to break into for a 40+ slightly geeky and socially unskilled lady.

I also think it’s going to be important for Blizz to expand the longevity of early raid tiers in some way so that groups with mixed skill levels can still go in there and have fun without feeling like they aren’t getting any rewards.

As Spinks points out more of these structures Guilds, Alliances, Crafting societies, Pet collectors clubs whatever bind people more to the game. The more we rely on one social structure the worse it is when it fails. More ‘social structures’ = greater involvement and less players stopping playing. Blizz are missing a trick here. Guild Halls with Vendors, Trophies with listings of who won PVP or PvE victories, Portraits of past and current GM’s, RL’s, Arena Champions and so on would be rather nice as well.

IMO, allowing so many to have access to all the content without a significant investment of hard work, commitment, perserverance, dedication and skill lessens the feeling of accomplishment that you get when you down a new boss or get that new piece of gear.

Don’t get me wrong. Not having all these traits doesn’t make you a noob. There are tons of raiders out there who have two or three of these traits. Maybe a very skilled player who isn’t able to put for the time commitment or a dedicated new player who just hasn’t had the experience to gain the skill yet. There is a wide variety of guild out there with different levels of all of these traits. They can all provide enjoyable gaming experiences.

I just feel like those that are able/willing to cultivate all of these traits should be rewarded with more than a souped up version of fights we’ve already done or gear that has the same name and appearance with just a bit better stats.

I feel like we’ve sunk to a place where everyone feels like they are entitled to accessing all the content and having access to the best gear without a significant investment in the game.

Vyll

There have always been semi-casual guilds that raid 5 nights and want you available for 3. That’s not that onerous is it?

Will it no longer be possible to run a guild that way in Cataclysm?