Blizzard needs to incentivize and promote guilds

Community General Discussion
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And your “facts” aren’t how all guilds work. I know many have had bad experiences and that is what needs changed.

Not all guilds struggle and the point isn’t that they’re failing but that so many people don’t want to try them. I think you’re twisting things.

And nothing being said in here is denying that.

You seem to only want to come in here and bash guilds, instead of having a constructive conversation about how to people. Which I won’t entertain further.

This I completely understand. It isn’t easy. And it does take quite a lot to lead a guild. It’s not for everyone. And not a good solution, imo.

One of the reasons this thread exists.

Communities that work are rare and far between from what I’ve noticed. And honestly communities are just cross server guilds in a way. They’re a bit of a redundancy that wasn’t executed correctly to work alongside guilds.

But this IS about communities, as well. Because we see so many people who are still pugging instead of being part of a community.

Hmm. I’m not sure how much that will help things, but it’s an interesting thought to consider in some form.

I have no idea! I apologize. LOL

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Except in my prior response I did give multiple examples of ways guilds can attract and retain members. For example, pay for their repairs and consumables is an easy first option. Guarantee that all members will get their AOTC achivements and YOU bend over backwards to work with THEIR schedule to do it. Make being part of a guild a benefit to THEM because you realize they don’t need YOU anymore.

I’m not sorry you are twisting my words to bash guilds. I’m simply stating guilds are an inherent negative to many people and no longer needed in the modern age to see/do content where before you were beholden to them and forced to kiss the ring and jump through whatever hoops they demanded or your progression hit a brick wall. I run my own teeny tiny guild. My guys know they are free to go elsewhere and I actively encourage them to do so if they feel the very little we do isn’t enough for their progression needs. I pay out of my own pocket to keep the gold stocked and repairs on full time and they all contribute and we got a guild bank stocked with all the necessary consumables. I practice what I preach.

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Nah, you don’t have to do any of that. If people enjoy the guild they will stay with the guild. All guild masters have to do is be fair to all their members, set reasonable expectations with scheduled events, and do the content they are offering to do. Paying for repairs and consumables is no easy first option unless the guild has a sure fire way to make gold. Depending on the guild they would sell guild runs for that purpose once the raid was on farm.

This, right here…facts. There are so many bad guilds out there that people are burned out on trying guilds. They would rather stay guildless, in their own private guild, or in a dead guild than try and find a new one. I all want are incentives to get people out there to give guilds another try. People really don’t need guilds but community can be a powerful motivator. Be it getting better at your spec, logging in to hang out, or trying something new in game.

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Nay, I heard it was basically useless. Blizz could stand to fix that a bit.

In the past I would go make a post on the guild recruitment forums and hope for a bite, but those almost always involved transferring servers and/or factions which I simply can’t afford these days.

I have no intention of leaving Moon Guard Alliance. Server forums as a whole are pretty dead too these days. Dunno what else I can do.

Couple with this post I made last night on another thread too, and right now I’m honestly just wondering if I have a place in this game anymore.

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Worked for me on both horde and alliance. Maybe give it a shot yourself rather than listen to naysayers.

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I mean I can see why people say that. A lot of defunct and 1man guilds are listed on there. So much garbage to sift through before you are maybe able to find a guild listing that’s active but might not even get responded to.

There has to be a better way.

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The discord works well for raiding guilds, not sure about more social ones.

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Blizzard needs to stop designing content to prop up old outdated social structures and modernize the game so it doesn’t rely on social hooks to carry its outdated design models

I will absolutely no matter how they try ever want to engage with any scheduled raiding guild.

Ranked non team based pvp modes please.

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I want a guild that’s social, inclusive and non-toxic but one that does PvE content and will help struggling players with it.

Am I just expecting too much out of a guild these days?

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That sort of guild definitely exists. It is not easy to find though. A normal/heroic guild isn’t going to give people to much trouble with struggling on mechanics or rotation. They also don’t always have someone to teach you though, might have to figure out what to do yourself.
I think the different levels of raiding and how different the difficulty is between normal, heroic, and mythic has contributed somewhat to some guilds not being particularly social. A lot of people are trying to get better at the game and get into harder content. The guilds are just a means to that. A good number of the people just trying to chill already have a bunch of friends that they play with so they may not make a point of getting to know you as well.
In some ways it is a little bit like working for a company. Many are okish to work for. You get your paycheck on time (boss kills). Your boss and coworkers aren’t too crazy, but it could definitely be better (officers and guildies). Some are ok in every area, some are really good in some areas but not in others. Some are terrible in every way. Some are pretty much exactly what you want.

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You can see how it would be tough for some people like me to find a guild though that fits for them. Not out of lack of trying to find a guild, but at this point I would rather remain guildless than be stuck with yet another ill-fitting guild, as being in a useless do-nothing guild is essentially the same as being guildless anyway. If all these perks and incentives are going to be introduced to guilds though, it definitely needs to be made easier for folks to find them.

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I don’t believe you are. When my guild was more active, that’s exactly what they were. And I know others who were like that, as well.

The issue nowadays is finding that in the environment that’s been created.

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Discord. SWTOR was mentioned as having good guild incentives. How present is Discord in SWTOR vs WoW and what kind of an impact do you think that has when so many players just go right to Discord for communication, bypassing both the in game chat and voice features offered? Wouldn’t anyone be able to just chat with anyone using a better Voice chat option within WoW? Why is Discord the go to? What does it offer that the WoW stuff doesn’t? I ask because I don’t really use Discord much but I know it offers visibility on whatever game a user is playing as an example. You know if Thallia is playing WoW or Doom Eternal for example. You don’t have that outside of WoWs voice chat so Discord itself, imo, is creating quite a unique experience verse WoW Chat and that surely has an impact of some sort on Guilds and WoW’s community overall. I think you can quite literally build a community on Discord that can travel from game to game verse what is available in game for WoW and other Blizzard titles and that probably isn’t helpful unless you are a big Discord fan. I can see why people are.

Guilds can have toxic experiences too and I think more than anything, leadership in a community is the most important factor personally. I used to be in Cryptids League and that guild, I think largely dead now, had events for everyone. Times where they guild was doing WPVP and ppl would join or BGs or whatever. Was a fun guild experience overall. Some guilds……everything is done through Discord. Wanna do X? Get on Discord. Want a better rank in guild? Join Discord….I don’t think much can be done about cliques in a community but it makes connecting much more challenging sometimes. For guilds whose focus is on using Discord, not everyone wants to deal with a 3rd party application and it takes the community out of guild imo. Sounds like I am blaming it all on Discord but that isn’t the intention. I personally think though that its impact is more significant that it gets credit for in terms of Guild community feel in WoW. I think its hear to stay given all the perks Discord appears to have so not sure that if it does have significant contribution to community in WoW that it can be undone or have the blow softened I suppose for ack of better words. Maybe……Discord is a gaming community and WoW isn’t the only game that those communities get together on.

Guild perks would be nice to see back though I agree with that. Not sure what more modern guild perks would look like but I would welcome balanced implementation. IIRC you needed guild rep to buy certain Heirlooms back when those mattered. As long as those don’t incentivize players to get in to a guild and get what they want from perks and leave.

I agree about guild recruitment UI overhaul. More than that UI needs a rework imo. I dont even look at the guild recruitment stuff tbh and when I have used it, noone responds. Mostly direct ingame invites but if I dont like the guild name…I decline anyway.

This is a pretty open ended question that will generally have quite a few perspectives that do not all mesh. There is not going to be a one size fits all. Hopefully something in between will work, whatever that may be. =)

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idk which post it was but also…

Someone mentioned ppl being put in to a guild at the beginning of making a character.

Eve Online essentially has that.

The guild you get placed in is a faction NPC guild. Players get lumped in there.

"NPC Corporations** are organizations in EVE not run by players (link removed). Players cannot freely join NPC corporations, instead, players are placed into an NPC corporation under the following conditions:

When a character is first created, they will be placed in an NPC starter corporation (which one depends on the character’s education)
When a character leaves a player-run corporation, they will be placed in a default NPC corporation (which one depends on the character’s bloodline)
*When a character joins [link removed) as an individual, they will be placed in the appropriate NPC faction warfare corporation"

Not sure I advocate for it or how good it actually is but the idea exists in other games for those interested in the idea.

IIRC it was fine. I havent played that game in a while though. Dated perspective for sure.

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Every single guild I’ve been in has a Discord server that they use. It hasn’t had any impact from what I can tell, but I do see where you’re coming from.

Anyone can chat with anyone of their friends or Discord server members with the program whenever they want. People in WoW don’t want to randomly talk to others. It’s not that type of game.

Discord has a lot of features for events, polls, bots, signups, etc. that appeal to people and WoW has none of those things or they’re extremely archaic.

I’m not really too sure. I one sense, it can bring many people together for many different reasons. It even could spawn guilds from it, if the desire of the group was there. For my guild, it’s kept us together, because now we play multiple games, so we never fell apart in WoW, because we’re always together in this sense.

But I do see where you’re going with the possibility that it might incentivize people to just be in a Discord community. Honestly, I don’t see that as an issue— so long as people are getting the community they want.

Indeed it can. I’d honestly like to see a better guild forum where leaders can talk with one another and gain help and support from one another.

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Too true. We’re not people anymore, but log numbers, scores and class/spec icons. What it feels like to me anyway.

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As a guild leader, I’m mixed on the future of guilds. 6 years ago, creating a new guild on my server after consistently disappointing experiences as an officer and raid leader in other guilds was relatively easy. I knew lotsa people and they trusted me. Bam, we had an instant guild when I announced it and we had activities, including raiding as well.

These last 2 years have been difficult for many reasons but obviously, the pandemic. People’s expectations for what the game was going to provide them in the absence of real life was , in my opinion, crazy. Suddenly people in our “no politics/controversy” guild were ignoring rules. I had to take action.

Next thing was, in the middle of CN Heroic progression, for our avowed casual guild (yes, always AotC) it was brought to my attention by officers that I needed to start benching people. What? Who cares if we don’t make AotC? The people in guild are more important! Well, that was a bad calculation, the suddenly hardcores bailed.

Then next up to bat were the people suddenly offended by the reality of discrimination and harassment in a corporate workplace. “I can’t support a company that endorses harassment!” Okay, so they all bailed. But they still buy gas, eat fast food, and all the other things that have corporate values just like Blizzard. They just choose to turn a blind eye to that? Anyways…

Alright so now it’s 9.2. I realized as all this crap was coming down in guild that what I needed was people who actually wanted to play the game. Community. Hundreds of people flocked in. Why? Cause we had activities and made no demands on them other than their time to get things done. There are hundreds if not thousands of players out there looking for this experience, which guilds used to be. Current servers are crammed full of “friends and family” and hardcore guilds but nothing in between. It’s a shame but a reality of where we are.

Solutions for guilds? IMO keep condensing servers. The proof is out there now. Players want to have choices of how to play and are willing to guild in the right situation.

Reality? Communities are the answer. No commitments, no expectations unless you commit to them. So, why doesn’t Blizz embrace their own creation? Why doesn’t Blizz allow Communities to have all the benefits of guilds? Hmmm…stay tuned, you never know.

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I suppose my perspective is that a WoW Guild…its something confined to WoW for me. I likely wont play with anyone from the guild I am in outside of WoW. Probably because I tend to be solo or just don’t have an interest in that part of it. I enjoy the small chat in game and random conversations in guilds and trade chat but I leave it all in WoW. Just how it works out for me.

I do though see plenty of random conversation in trade specifically and occasionally in guild so I think the random conversation still absolutely exists and when the topic is right it does spawn random conversation and some people do enjoy that. I think a lot of that random conversation has moved to Discord at least from my limited experience when I was raiding this expansion. That’s my perception though.

Its great though for those who benefit from playing with others through Discord so at least that portion of the playerbase benefits from that. It isn’t for everyone though.

Thanks for making the thread and creating conversation on this and trying to keep it on positive proverbial train tracks!

Oh and getting Grymes to participate and thanks for jumping in Grymes! I liked what you shared and felt it was a significant perspective on the topic personally. Good reflection of the perspective of some players.

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For sure. The funny thing is too, I actually do want to be in a guild. I’ve just been burned by them so many times that it’s made me reluctant to reach out. I feel like if I try to do that, with precisely what I’m looking for in a guild, people are just going to laugh and call me a “snowflake” or whatever.

So atm all I can really do is continue to try and have fun alone with my level 45 exp locked chromie time warlock.

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Admirable, the game becomes alot more fun (for most people) and easier when a part of an effective/social guild. Just a preface, I only read your OP before commenting, sorry if this has already been mentioned.

May I ask your thoughts on Guild Halls? Base thoughts off this skeleton:

  • WoD Garrison style instanced area/building (could even add it onto the garrisons to get people back into WoD regions).
  • Displayable guild achievement rewards like statues, plaques etc. Same style as Garrisons had, could flesh it out more with the previous garrison experience designing such things.
  • Add a button in the Guild Tab (J) that “Hearthstones” you to your Guild Hall, so no added items you need to carry.
  • Have guild members with certain professions offer unique upgrades to your guild hall (maybe engineers could build an AH, maybe herbalists could build a herb garden etc. etc.)

I know there are many issues (perceived or real, I’m unsure) with how instanced gameplay restricts certain social interaction, yet I’m just wondering your opinion on this.