I have been playing for years. I’ve joined several guilds but left them because they really didn’t function as expected. Yes I have heard of great guilds in the past. But the ones I’ve joined had problems in that few members where on at the same time of the day. Yes of course, it’s expected that people have things to do in RL. And time Zones effect when people might be on too. But, I mean it was rare that more then 3 or 4 people were on at any one time.
Dated guild events were largely ignored. The few people that were on occasionally were of drastically different levels which meant that questing together no one got good exp.
Some guilds that were kinda active and did some raids, the members were toxic towards each other. Kind-a painful to hear all the vitriol spewing from their mouths.
And in a few cases the guild masters ware either absent all the time or dictatorial by nature. I could go on, but. I would like to hear your experiences. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
Unless you plan to do high end raiding (mythic and the last bosses in heroic), yes, they are seemingly useless.
You might run into a guild you can make friends in, but it actually takes a bit to find a decent active guild with people you actually like.
I generally dont bother with them, I always accept an invite to one, but its rare that I find a guild that actually enhanced my wow experience. It was way back in the early days of WoW where they actually felt fun to join.
LFR, LFG, and Group Finder have made guilds a thing of the past.
Edit: They have made making friends in general a thing of the past.
I joined some guilds the last few years. I tried to stay for friends but I couldn’t stand!!! The cute-ish girls who ignored me, the cliques and guys who crushed too hard on me. I really don’t like ppl tho so prob shouldn’t listen to me.
I love to chat but meh, guilds and the high school mentality so many have are a turn off.
Guilds make an extreme difference, even if it’s a subconscious difference. Played the game since BC, had the same active, large PvP guild from BC through till end of MoP. After MoP I found myself playing more sporadically, I’d spend less hours in a row online as well. I assumed this was gameplay issues, up until about a month ago, my boyfriend and I just had our own guild for our alts, as a bank really. A month ago, we made some meme characters on Alliance and joined the first guild we got invited to. This guild (Kelloggs on Frostmourne alliance) makes the game feel like it used to. There is something different about being a part of an active, kind, very social guild. Now I’ve at least doubled my engagement time per day with this game, my alliance “meme” character is now my main and I’m having the most fun I’ve had in a long time.
I understand this is all subjective, however you asked for opinions. Gameplay hasn’t improved since I stopped playing much at the end of MoP, the only real variable has been this guild. I think the quality of the guild is also extremely important, sitting in a guild where no-one talks is just as bad as being in no guild at all for me.
Edit: As a kind of “evidence”, I got up voluntarily at 6am on a Sunday to see if my guild is doing any random BGs.
honestly, after playing for so long without a guild and finally joining one, I can say my experience is so much better, I probably got very lucky, but it’s fun logging in doing my things and having some people to talk to. It’s a big guild so I have options to do the more hardcore content eventually but you’re right that they can feel a bit useless if that’s not the case. Previous guilds I joined I had about the same experiences as you so I just quit.
I get called annoying and get kicked out usually but I’ve been casually in a guild on my druid for about 2 years now with (almost) zero issues. They are pretty open / forgiving about stuff so I enjoy my time with them, especially when they start up a game of jackbox.
Some of the reasons I’ve been kicked before have been… interesting. lol I may have called the GM of one guild uh… well some interesting choice words (I’ll leave it that way).
Every single player in the entire game has ways they can improve. Don’t call yourself bad, ever, you’ll end up believing it. Just find individual mistakes that you make, try not to make that mistake again and eventually…
I think it really depends on how much research you do when searching for a guild. For example, if you’re looking for a social guild then when you interview the guild, ask about their social calendar, and take the time to whisper members to get their take (as the GM/Officers will often puff things up a bit). If you’re looking for a raiding guild, then look at their raiding activity for the past couple of xpacs. See how many members vs pugs raid in the group. Again talk to both current and past members of the guild to get some feedback about it.
Oh yeah, there’s something else about guilds. That’s guild voice chat. Some people make these very cutesy female characters that you would imagine had cute little anime girl voices But when you actual hear them, they sound like 60 year old retired log longshoremen drinking beer and smoking cigars. Simply horrifying.
Guilds aren’t a waste of time. They’re important to the game, imo. So much so, that I created a topic to discuss what people thought would help guilds: