Overhauling: GUILDS 3.0

Community General Discussion
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Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is time to take the guild system in WoW to a new level.

The WoW Community Council is currently dealing with the issue of guilds, so I think it is time for a revision of the system from my point of view.
Guild Recruitment Forums by Letholas
The In-Game Guild Finder Tool Deserves an Overhaul by Grampus

But first of all, let us ask ourselves why a revision of the guilds in WoW is even necessary and why a change could be worthwhile for the majority of players.

Guilds - A Connection for Social Interaction

Originally, guilds were programmed to gather a large number of players in one place. A group of players who experience adventures in the name of their guild, arrange to raid together and engage in emotional conversations in their free time.

While guilds in WoW Classic Vanilla were perfectly integrated into the gameplay and complemented the game happily, the game itself has gradually evolved over time, but guilds remained stuck on the original source code and slowly went out of fashion because their purpose eventually became obsolete.

Blizzard also saw the decline of guilds and took action by attempting to adapt the guild system to a modern version of WoW. And thus, it eventually led to


Guilds 2.0 - A New Era!

With Cataclysm, we got a highly modernized guild system, and it proved to be successful. In addition to the social aspects of the original guild, you could now work for the guild and be rewarded by it. Along with guild achievements, guild perks, and guild rewards, one could especially notice that guilds were more popular than ever before. Everyone wanted to be in a guild. This was initially a good step that Blizzard took.

However, it didn’t take long for the hype around the modern guild to fade away. Gradually, Blizzard removed many guild perks, such as mass teleportation or additional gold as loot, as an example, and over the expansions, Blizzard added little to no new content. As a result, the highly modernized guild system in Cataclysm was indeed a good idea, but the bad thing about it was that this idea was only good for the Cataclysm period. From Pandaria onwards, guilds became unpopular again, and the old problem returned - guilds seemed to be dying out.

The next step taken by Blizzard was to introduce special achievements and rewards exclusively for guilds, with the intention of motivating players to join a guild and earn this “special” content. However, players were not interested in this approach, and so Blizzard gave up on the guild system with Warlords of Draenor.

Guild’s today - An outdated system, so old that even Thrall was still a baby.

So now we find ourselves here, with this guild system that was developed during Cataclysm and abandoned during WoD. A system that was so butchered by Blizzard that we are left with only fragments of the “highly modern” guild system. Rewards and achievements that haven’t been updated in decades and are so uninteresting that players don’t care whether they are in a guild or not.

  • Did you know that 90% of players don’t care whether they’re in a guild or not?
  • Did you also know that there are so many guilds that, on average, only 5 players are in a guild?

Be honest, what do you estimate:
a) How many real, active guilds are on your server?
b) How many bank guilds are on your server?

And honestly, is your realization terrible?

Guilds are still a social aspect of the game that is important to Blizzard, but it seems that they are currently unsure about where to take guilds in the future. They release small updates for guilds in the hopes of bringing back the hype, but it hasn’t been very successful. Therefore, the speaker is here with some suggestions on how to revive guilds once and for all:

Let us make them bigger, better, and more exciting than ever before!

Suggestion: Guilds 3.0 - The Last Revolution!

We are starting with the bad news, which is what I am taking away from you!
Namely, I am talking about a revamp and this one resource that I am taking away will be important to successfully implement my plans.

It’s the guild reputation - you will start from 0.
And you will no longer receive guild reputation from questing.

With Guilds 3.0, you will only receive guild reputation through guild activities.
Farming guild reputation through questing promotes solo play, which is destructive to the social aspect of guilds.

The good thing is that your guild reputation will be account-wide in the future, so it doesn’t matter whether you farm it with your main DK or your Priest twink. You can now help your guild while leveling or fill in for raids with another character without worrying that your main character will be disadvantaged.

NEW: The Guild Talent Tree!

Imagine a talent tree, but instead of strengthening your character, it strengthens your guild.
Your guild leader can invest talent points into this tree, and you earn those points in the following way:

For each reputation level of each player, the guild earns one talent point.
This means that each player can contribute a total of 4 talent points to a guild.
Since reputation is account-wide, this counts per player and not per character.
Even with 10 alts in the guild, you can only contribute a maximum of 4 points to your guild.

When a character joins a guild, they start with 0 reputation. If they already have a character in the guild, the reputation will be carried over.

So, a large guild that does a lot together, in other words, an active one, will accumulate many talent points, and the guild can continue to develop. Such a guild, let’s just call it successful, will be respected and popular in the future.

From a social perspective, we can say that this guild provides a home for many players and strengthens the community by undertaking joint activities.

A small guild that does a lot together does indeed strengthen the community, but only for a small part of the players. A large guild that does nothing together provides a home for many players but does not promote the community through joint activities. We call both of these guilds “semi-successful.”

A small guild that does nothing together, including bank guilds, is considered dead. They will not make great progress in the talent tree.

Talents of the Talent Tree

As in a normal talent tree, the guild can take different paths and determine its own path in the guild talent tree. However, there will be some talents in the guild talent tree that have no max cap, so they can be chosen 1000 times or more, for example. On the other hand, successful guilds would be punished and would stop fostering the social aspect of WoW once the finish line has been reached.

First Talent - Guild Logo and Tabbard (0/3)

Since a guild group usually consists of at least 3 players, except in 2v2 Arena, and the first reputation level is quickly reached, the “Guild Tabard” talent is a good choice as the first talent.

No one knows a no-name guild, so you have to earn your guild’s reputation. By doing things together, you become someone and players start paying attention to you.

Second Talent - Choose “High Respected Faction” - “High Esteem”

Right after the first talent, the motivation to lead a successful guild begins, as these two talents reward guild activity more than just that!

-“High Respected Faction” costs 1 talent point to be skilled and can be skilled INFINITELY. The talent increases gold earned from killing enemies and completing quests by 1%.
-“High Esteem” can also be skilled infinitely and costs only 1 talent point. High Esteem increases the gold the guild receives from guild activities by 1%, and each guild member who participates in a guild activity receives 1% of the reward.

As you can see, both paths are incredibly valuable, but they differ greatly, so the first important decision comes into play here.

Third Talent - More Decisions!

  1. If the guild has skilled “High Respected Faction”, they have the option to skill the talent “Guild Profit” for an additional 10 talent points. This talent rewards each guild member with 10% of the gold earned through High Respected Faction. The payout occurs once a week at the guild bank.
    For example, if you earn a total of 2400 gold by looting and questing in a week and the guild has skilled one point into HRF, you would receive an additional 24 gold. Each guild member would receive 10% of that amount, which is 2 gold and 40 silver, at the end of the week.

  2. If the guild has skilled “High Esteem”, they have the option to skill the talent “In-demand Guild” for an additional 10 talent points.
    In-demand Guild increases your guild activities, for which you are rewarded weekly, by 1 per skill point in ‘High Esteem’. Random selection. This means you can complete more tasks and will be rewarded more often.

  3. “Guildish Tools” is the next talent that can be skilled after “High Esteem” and “High Respected Guild”.
    Guildish Tools can be skilled up to 100 times and reduces the cost of armor repairing by 1% each.

More and More talents!

Through such rewards, it remains a motivation to belong to a successful guild with each expansion.

Talents such as “Mass Teleportation,” “Additional Backpack Slots,” “Additional Experience Bonus,” and more are possible.

How to earn Guild Reputation

Guild reputation can be earned through guild activities, but no longer through solo content. For example, each guild dungeon yields 50 guild reputation, and each current guild raid boss yields 25 guild reputation.

If a guild achievement is accomplished, such as Guild Edition - Firelands, each participant receives an additional 100 guild reputation.

In addition, you will also earn recognition for your heroic deeds. For example, if you bring a legendary weapon into the guild, even if the achievement has already been completed, you will receive an additional 100 guild reputation and your name will be listed next to the achievement.

No more: No longer available items

The two pets “Deathwatch Hatching” and “Thundering Serpent Hatching” can be purchased by players whose guilds have completed the Gold Challenges as a guild in Pandaria and WoD.

If these pets were no longer obtainable, it would be unfair and disadvantageous for new guilds.

Guilds should be given the same challenge, but in a “more modern” way, so that every guild has an equal chance to unlock these pets retrospectively.

For example, by completing all current M+20 dungeons as a guild group.

Fazit

To make guilds more attractive, one must ask:
Why should I join a guild?
Why would it be better than not having one, and what sets it apart from communities?

My suggestion is one way to improve the future of guilds and keep them from dying out, of course, there are also other ways.

I hope for a good discussion.

F.A.Q.

What happens if someone leaves the guild?
A: If someone leaves the guild, their talent points will be saved and can continue to be used by the guild. When a new player joins the guild and gains reputation levels, no talent points will be available for the guild until the difference is properly balanced again.

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Agree with first half, highly disagree with last half of the post.

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Lots to unpack here. Great post overall.

Now, I’m on a very small server. So even now, we have only 5 guilds who have recorded a mythic kill in VoTI, and only 14 who have achieved AOTC. I couldn’t tell you how many “bank guilds” there are, but there are surely alot.

I’m on board so far



 but this is where you lose me.

Because to your earlier point, the average size of a guild is VERY small. So mega guilds will become even more popular - even if players don’t want to be in a mega guild - just because of the additional options that creates. I don’t mind the idea of continued progression, but I don’t think this is the way to do it.
I think a revamp of the guild achievement system would be a better method. One that doesn’t rely as much on having as many people as possible to flaunt the success of the guild.

Additionally, what happens when people leave the guild? It’s an unfortunate reality of the game, people come and go from guilds all the time. Are their talent points just lost? What happens then?

You’ve addressed this at the end with the FAQ, but I don’t think it’s a viable solution simply because it could leave new members - who had no part in old members leaving - feel they cannot contribute to the guild simply due to circumstances completely out of their control.

I think this isn’t a bad idea. However, it will lead to some massive economy issues with the options you’ve addressed. Again, causing larger guilds to just “be better” for the player to be able to earn more gold.

This one I’m on board for, hahaha

All in all, I do agree a revamp is needed and would be welcomed. However, I think the method you’ve chosen will not work for several reasons, as i’ve discussed above.

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So each server will have one or two mega guilds and there will never be any new guilds formed because nobody is going to take 1% increased gold gains over 10,000% increased gold if they want to remain competitive. Sounds like a system that will kill guilds.

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I actually read until you said 90% of players don’t care if they are in a guild or not. Unless you have actual data to back it up, it tarnishes everything else you just said.

Don’t make up data to support your arguments

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So, you’re making mega guilds the only viable option. Not a fan of the system, tbh.

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Meh. I would rather that they continue with their expansion of player connectedness and either make cross-realm guilds or add guild functions to communities. That is where things need to go.

As others have pointed out, forcing players into big guilds to have access to player power is not a good idea.

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I want to create a solo guild as a quasi-battletag to hold and mark my alts as me.

So my wishlist:

cross-faction
cross-server
self-invites
no charter signatures

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GG,guild grind for rep .Not going to work even in a guild besides there’s always a chance that person representing your guild would bring the reputation of your guild to it’s knees .

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I did exactly the same thing.

I have run the same guild since 2007. I’ve experienced the various guild interface iterations and in my opinion maintaining and running a guild is harder now than it has ever been before.

I also run a discord for guild leaders where we can discuss issues and compare notes. My own guild is probably classed as a mid-level guild - both in the content we play and the size of the guild, but I know plenty of guild leaders with varying sizes of guild from just starting up (sometimes several times!) to those who have run multiple max size guilds.

In my experience 
 it certainly isn’t 90% that don’t care whether or not they’re in a guild. You’ve only got to look at the people playing the game around you. Inevitably if the vast majority of people did not care if they were in a guild then, even taking into account those who didn’t care, but couldn’t be bothered NOT to be, a lot more would not actually BE in a guild.

I do agree with the sentiment that there is a feeling guilds have been abandoned. A lot of the guild leaders I’ve spoken to feel exactly the same way.

A lot still pine after the time when we were able to manage better which ranks were able to fulfil which roles (these days it’s primarly “is officer” or “is not”).

We have been forced to adapt, and we put up with the new settings options, mainly because there’s no alternative :stuck_out_tongue:

The guild roster itself is another issue. The “new improved” guild roster interface does not work properly. It bugs out regularly:

  • Often it reports characters online that are not.
  • Sometimes it will report characters online who can’t possibly be online, in the guild or even exist (for example I’ve seen my own alts showing as online when I’m not playing them 
 and I don’t multibox; I have seen character names that are for a character that no longer exists, or has been transferred from another realm and renamed 
 but still shows the original name and realm).
  • If someone transfers from another realm, using the “follow the guild” function, the guild roster sometimes doesn’t show them in the guild, until they log in following the transfer - even days later. (and there is also the guild bug when guilds transfer and characters can “follow the guild” over a year later, even if they weren’t in the guild when it transferred)
  • Sometimes it shows a character name 
 and no other information.
  • The old guild roster, you could sort on multiple columns - for example I sort by both rank AND alphabetically by name in order to carry out promotions - the new roster will only allow sorting by one column.
  • Any “sort” does not “stick”. Potentially randomly, or potentially whenever there is a change in a guild member status, the “sort” randomises. Meaning if you’re trying to look for a character name that is not at the start or end of the alphabet you’ll struggle to find them on the roster.

As mentioned above, the character transfer option to “follow the guild” is bugged. We transferred our guild over a year ago. We still occasionally have people - who haven’t played for well over a year, have not been in the guild for well over a year and were not even in the guild when it transferred - simply turn up in our guild roster. Fine for those members you don’t mind rejoining, but sometimes you kick someone from your guild because you don’t want them in the guild. If they can then turn up back in your guild, uninvited, potentially even with a completely different character name, that is not good for anyone.

The calendar isn’t fit for purpose.

  • The attendance list re-sorts similar to the guild roster - several times this has resulted in me either accepting or removing the wrong people from an event accidentally.
  • The mass invite literally invites everyone, even those who haven’t been confirmed as accepted to an event.
  • There is no way to see roles on an event, or sort people into them. I use an addon that provides this extra functionality, but this is something that should be in the default.
  • People who sign tentative cannot then change their status to accepted - the only way to change their status here is to remove their tentative sign-up completely and then re-sign.
  • When someone un-signs from an event, the event “disappears” off their calendar until they re-log.

The above are the basics I’d expect from a calendar. The wish list would be:

  • to be able to invite a guild member character to a guild event, similar to being able to invite a character to a normal non-guild event.
  • to be able to block “invites” to a non-guild event similar to how I can block guild invites - which would immediately remove the irritation that is the constant spam of random invites to random “buy a boost” events we get.
  • to be able to add notes to a signup, so a guild member could, for example, make a note that they may be 5 mins late; or that they could go as either a tank or a dps
  • to be able to sign up to an event using a drop-down list of your own viable characters (ie, max level ones for max level content), allowing the option to show multiple character options (for example if someone says they are happy to take either the druid tank or the paladin healer).

The guild finder is bugged and not fully fit for purpose (even more especially when cross-faction guilds are taken into account).

  • If a guildfinder application is accepted, but the applicant never accepts - it remains there forever. There should be a “timeout” on the invite so that it disappears if it isn’t used after a month, for example.
  • The sort doesn’t work correctly.
  • The last two columns of information cannot be properly used to sort anyway, as they’re actually only one column.
  • The “guild leader” on the advert in the guild finder is just the character that refreshed the advert.
  • The number of members remains static as to when the advert was refreshed.
  • The amount of text shown is not the amount of text that can be typed.

The guild vault needs a rework. In the past, it was possible to visit the Vault log in the Armories and scroll back through many weeks of vault transactions, sort and search. Now all we’ve got is a very finite in-game log that, for vault tabs that are used regularly, especially for the gold log, is virtually pointless. At the very least, the gold log should be split between incoming and outgoing gold.

Guild chat is bugged. Often it slows to a crawl, or lags, or simply stops working, as we get “disconnected from Blizzard services”.

I was hoping that, with Blizzard introducing cross-faction guilds, they would be addressing at least some of these bugs first - rather than shoe-horning something new into an already defective system - but it doesn’t seem that that is going to be the case.

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Really love a lot of the ideas in this post. I would just be wary of mentioning anything to do with gold. Once gold comes into play, you mess with the delicately balanced economy we have and it promotes degeneracy, especially with mega guilds.
Guild talent trees sound awesome, but would obviously need to be fleshed out over time.

Guilds are such an important pillar to the game and I’m glad to see more posts popping up about them. Appreciate you linking my thread about Guild Finder in the OP as well! :slight_smile:

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Part of the problem isn’t really in players’ hands, and that is that WoW rewards solo play, whether it be in LFR/LFG or other content, it’s all soloable and no reason with guild perk rewards to be in a guild unless it’s already a large fully formed guild that you somewhat socialize with but not really because having a tight knit group of 200+ people and especially 500+ just isn’t possible.

Gold should be left out of guilds entirely, guild perks like mass teleport and faster hearth are things that EVERYONE can benefit from
 and utility stuff like that that helps the entire community are what we need and encourages folks to be in a guild for practical purposes.

Also stuff like an improved guild finder and other ways to promote a guild socially, cause spamming a guild advert message or using an addon turns off more people than it gets, because nobody wants to be rando whispered or spammed with shouted messages for recruitment. But that’s how you have to try and reach folks right now and PRAY that intrusively spamming them didn’t just turn them off.

WoW in general is suffering after several heavy grind expansions, we need more folks in general in retail WoW, which would fix too many guilds and not enough members to pull in, while also fixing guilds themselves to have an in-game utilitarian purpose.

Because one thing I’ve noticed as a GM recruiter: the quantity of people available is going down, but so is the quality, unless you’re a raiding guild in which case you have people beating down your door proclaiming their Ilvl
 most people don’t engage the game past raids and M+ and this is on the onus of the folks who make the game.

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Did you know 90% of statistics like this one and the one above are just made up.

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Guilds, especially ones like social or RP guilds, also need more integration into the game via evergreen expansion features going forward: guild halls separate from player housing, ways to invite people to events and host them, etc.

This is something other MMORPGs do moderately better: they have actual places and systems in place to get socially involved with players and the developed open world.

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Thank you, Chat GPT.

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Guess i gotta join one of the mega guilds on my server if i want to play at the highest level i can. Sounds bad to me.

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At this point a Guild is just a discord in game that does only a tiny fraction of the things a discord does, while also locking you out based on your server.

It’s a collection of ideas that were really great back in 2005, but are now realized in much better ways outside of the game. Is there a way to make guilds as functional as a discord? Probably not.

And until they do, guilds are just going to remain a secondary and less effective take on discords.

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One thing WoW or any game has over Discord is just physical presence
 which most other MMOS and especially MMORPGs take advantage of, this is 2023 and WoW doesn’t even let you do the most BASIC emotes adequately that most other MMO/MMORPGs do
 like read, lean, etc


I know people reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee when FF is mentioned, and the title to the video is a bit weird (the video itself is oddly wholesome and heartwarming), but this video shows exactly how FF is just basically the WoW RP scene and a lot of stuff I see in it fairly daily
 just with better integration and facilitation.

WoW has good RP potential and potential outside of the main instance content pillars, it just doesn’t use these up to DF to their utmost potential. WORLD of Warcraft is just that, an open world, so why is the vast majority of it just not used for new content and content types? Boralus was a good example of a"breathing" living city, we could explore random houses and talk to people we usually couldn’t cause of all the doors and stuff being locked.

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You can self invite now. I just did it last week.

As guild leader, put an ad in guild finder. Log into character you want to add. Search for your guild and request invite. Log back into guild leader and accept it.

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