Guilds Are Still A Mess

Community General Discussion
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I’m making this thread because of the fact that the old thread barely gets any attention anymore. There’s a post once and a while, but nobody’s active, and nobody understands the concerns of the community.

Whether you’re a member of the Blizzard Community Management team or just a player who’s browsing the forums, you have a right to know that Battle for Azeroth has been the beginning of the abolition of a functioning guild system. In short, it has devolved into a lackluster system that makes it much more difficult for Guild Masters to run their guilds.

As someone who has led three guilds on two realms throughout my time playing World of Warcraft, I know what the shortcomings of the guild system and what my fellow Guild Masters, aspiring or incumbent, would like.

The Lack of Control in Battle for Azeroth

As Osiris pointed out in the original post which has gone relatively silent, the officer permissions have been watered down to an all or none type of deal, with only one checkbox being available to let someone delete messages, create/delete calendar events, notes, the message of the day, and to kick people from voice chat.

What We Need

Control was stolen from us in Battle for Azeroth, but we merely needed more additions to make guilds more appealing. Many players have spoken up about several things that an overwhelming number of players would like to see added back into the game, especially Guild Masters, including (but not limited to):

  • Longer notes, MOTDs, and information tabs
  • MORE rank permissions and ranks, not less
  • Mass-Mail for Guild Master (1-day cooldown)

Instead, we got communities, which was a waste of time, as nobody uses them. An alternative to guilds shouldn’t have even been made in the first place.

Blizzard, us Guild Masters and all others who are concerned about the social aspect of this game implore you to take these issues seriously and strengthen the guild system. Guilds are a major pillar of this game, and to see the system in such a weak state at the moment is frightening when looking to the future of what this massive multiplayer online RPG is going to end up being.

At least acknowledge that you understand our disappointment with these systems and some of the fixes you’re planning to make. If not here, then in a Q and A.

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It’s been forever without an answer for guilds, and you’re right about that other thread.

Blizzard moved it to the new forums, but didn’t save any of the likes or comments. It just faded into oblivion, slowly but surely.

We need this new guild thread. The social aspect of this game is arguably the most important, and we need to fight for it.

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Guilds? A lot of them are outright dead at worst, inactive at best compared to Legion :joy:

BFA has been a guild-killer

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This. Honestly, I’ve been running a guild for a long time, and these perms are so annoying to use. I’d just like the old system back, but bringing it into 2019 would be such a great improvement for the game.

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And we have Blizzard’s recent handling of the guild system to thank for that.

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Ya, the community feature was basically a pointless addition.
I don’t know what its goal was, but they certainly didn’t work out.

I look at this as a similar thing to the voice chat.
They, seemingly desperately, are trying to get people to avoid using discord and voice programs for a long time now, and its just never going to work, because in order to chat you have to be logged into the game, which just makes it objectively worse for actual communication.

But either way, just revert the issues with guild stuff and problem is solved.
I don’t agree that they are a “mess,” but the community feature did nothing positive for the game, and realistically removed features, so it should be undone.

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For sure. They seem to have some sort of infatuation of creating alternatives to things when 9/10 times it just doesn’t seem to work. They need to stick to making 1 good thing rather than 1,000 crappy things.

Yeah. Voice chat will never take off. I guess that’s just a “whatever” feature though that’s there if Discord breaks down. That’s a positive… I guess? xD

I still consider them a bit of a mess just because of the lack of coverage the issues that’ve been brought up have been getting by Blizzard staff. This, along with the removal of practically essential features makes the guild system worse.

What adds to it that makes it a real mess is that they’re unwilling to add any major features that will facilitate community for different aspects of the game. I wholeheartedly believe that something as simple as monthly server-specific Mythic+ competitions, raid competitions and PvP competitions would fix this, but there’s so much potential beyond that.

I’d love to see them give guild halls a try (minus auction houses so they don’t completely suck the life out of cities), 100s of new achievements, an improved guild leveling system, unique mounts, pets and toys to get, and things like that. There’s a lot of things they could add.

I am holding out hope for 9.0, as they’ve acknowledged that they’re making big leveling changes which, I assume, will come with some talent changes, as well as class changes. If we see big guild changes too, that would be amazing.

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Well I’m not surprised players universally shun the “built in” Blizzard voice chat feature… Discord and 3rd party programs like it are simply better :+1:

Also, Discord and similar 3rd party programs are truly free platforms, but anything in-game is rated “Teen” and subject to all kinds of restrictive “rules”. Personally I don’t know of a single player that uses the “built in” voice chat - everyone is on Discord though.

People like to speak their minds, and most people don’t mind a little “adult” language. That’s where programs like Discord come in - no rules, no restrictions. Hence the overwhelming popularity of stuff like Discord. Voice chat feature will probably continue to collect dust/go unused.

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Wait are you suggesting you can get reported / in trouble for speaking inappropriately in the game’s chat?
I can’t imagine that’s the case, but either way I agree with the general sentiment that its too restrictive.