MMORPG.com World of Warcraft Correspondent Patrick Breeden writes this look at guilds for the uninitiated WoW player.

Factions and groups have played an important role in the history of the RPG. They've been a very solid factor in this genre of gaming even back in the days of Dungeons & Dragons, and they branched into the world of videos games with titles such as Final Fantasy and Breath of Fire. Now more or less a given in the RPG gaming world, these elements have been taken even further by MMORPGs. They go by many different names throughout the various titles in the MMO world, but this entity is known by World of Warcraft players as the "guild." In this article, I will explain some elements of the guild and why it is so important to WoW players.

As I've mentioned before and countless others will mention in MMORPG-related articles, MMOs are very social-oriented games. The chance to help one another and interact is laid out in front of everyone who enters the realm of World of Warcraft, and players normally find the game far more fulfilling and entertaining when they decide to work and communicate with other players. The option to create groups, or temporary teams, is normally the solution to temporary challenges such as a difficult quest or a dungeon, but the party normally disbands leaving the players doomed to repeat the same task of finding another group later. The ultimate solution to groups and a great way to meet other players that can be befriended is the guild.

Read Looking at Guilds

In my experience in MMORPGs I have found most guilds are a repository for family members and real life friends to "use" others efforts so as to gain those items each of the "Inner Circle" need/want.  Once the circle of friends has the items/gold/influence/renown they were going after they usually tell the oouter circle members of the disolution of said guild and after the other members are kicked/join another guild or some such, the original members just start another guild.

I'm an old guy for the games of manipulation I see and very little escapes my wisdom about such things. (I'm 52) I can see where a small bunch of frat bros. or school chums all have vent as well as small LAN parties and go and get just what everyone of them needs for their toon. Meanwhile the other members of said guild are struggling scrimping and saving every copper/brass they can acquire just to go to the Auction House and hope something is there that they can afford. I been in guilds where at low levels the guild goes out of it's way to help ya level and acquire small things, but beware, when ya get to the competition levels (high ends) they (inner circle of friends) are normally busy and or want to schedule it for some other time. So IMO guilds are great as long as you know several of the guildies in Real Life and or are related...

Earl Lothar Loc'Nar

"In my experience in MMORPGs I have found most guilds are a repository for family members and real life friends to "use" others efforts so as to gain those items each of the "Inner Circle" need/want. Once the circle of friends has the items/gold/influence/renown they were going after they usually tell the oouter circle members of the disolution of said guild and after the other members are kicked/join another guild or some such, the original members just start another guild."

Sadly, I've seen that many times in many different games.
 

It's really too bad that WoW doesn't do more for guilds in game.  I mean, I see the tabards, g-banks, and really... that's about it.  There should be guild halls... places where guilds can go, meet, earn trophies to display and mark for their accomplishments as a collective,  etc.,...

The majority of things that bind/bring a guild together as community really take place outside of the game.  Guild websites/forums, Vent/Teamspeak, and raid-progress tracking sites.  WoW has the Armory, but what else does it really do for guilds?  Not very friggin much.

I'd like to see more from Blizzard for guilds in the near future. 

Stradden goes on and talks about how wonderful grouping in Wow can be. 3 people come back thinking wtf is this guy on?

You can add me to the list of people that believe guilds and grouping in wow for the most part is garbage and i use to be a officer of a top Uladar raiding guild.

Seriously does Blizzard not see this stuff or do they just turn a blind eye everytime someone doesn't agree with what they believe to be "WONDERFUL" ?

In Vanilla WoW I had a very nice guild, we raided MC and people logged in on time every raid and we had a great laugh on vent in chat and on our guild forums. We raided right up to Naxx but things when really bad when TBC came out. We started well in Karazhan but because it was 10 man and we usually went as 40 it was pretty hard to keep the friendships together.

Eventually people started not logging in, Karazhan was boring and people were quitting the guild. We played the same realm as a well known hardcore Guild and our players were simply not coming to raids because they were saved after buying items from the other guilds speed runs. Guild disbanded.

By now paid transfers was open and many migrated and joined random guilds. I was a fairly decent geared holy Paladin so I joined a good guild to do SSC with. Unfortunatly after a while the guild had crumbled, we had a roll for loot system and some people were very lucky whereas others weren't. One guy would turn up for the raid once a month and be afk and slacky and would roll 100 on an item some other guy who went to every raid had been dying for. It really was rubbish. I myself did not win a single item over a few months due to unlucky drops and rolls.

When I discovered how easy arena gear was to get I got addicted to PVP and eventually quit the PVE guild. I tried a lot of PVP guilds after that, each promised to do premade battlegrounds and only invite people will lots of resilience. Unfortunatly every single one got max 5 players wanting to join the bg at a time and they ended up being green geared alts of some sort. Very dissapointing. The guild leader always transfered leadership and left in the middle of the night.

When WOTLK hit I went back to PVE. Joined a guild and we made it to Naxx. But people were always AFK, I found myself spending most of the raid waiting for players to return to PC and then when they did another would be AFK. If we made a wipe, instead of trying again, players would leave or altF4.

Eventually guild would disband. Or disband and rename and try again. Same thing always happened. And of corse you can't go and join on the amazing guilds that does really well because you still need the gear from Naxx to be able to join or they will just laugh at your armory and flip you off lol. So I quit the game back in Naxx times never bothering to return again.

Excellent article. Very useful and helpful to  new  peeps and some of the older ones could learn a bit as well. Thanks

I'm the actual author of the article.  Sorry for the confusion.

Although I'm not an experienced year plus veteran like I'm sure many other players are, I fully believe that a good guild can make the difference between a good and bad player and even experience in WoW.  I had my moments with some bad guilds, and then I found one that was solid and stayed to watch my gear and levels soar to new heights.  I learned respectful ways to group with others, I learned tactics to complete Instances, and I believe it overall made me a far better player.

Though I admit that I do group mostly with my real life friends now, I still run with some good folks I've met in order to ensure that I have the best experience and gear for my levels so I'm prepared to be the best I can be at level 80.

Consider this my humble attempt to help other new players in finding the same experience I was lucky enough to have.

Originally posted by Cypryss

Stradden goes on and talks about how wonderful grouping in Wow can be. 3 people come back thinking wtf is this guy on?

You can add me to the list of people that believe guilds and grouping in wow for the most part is garbage and i use to be a officer of a top Uladar raiding guild.

 

Seriously does Blizzard not see this stuff or do they just turn a blind eye everytime someone doesn't agree with what they believe to be "WONDERFUL" ?

Yes it would be nice to have something more for guilds.  Not sure we will ever see that but it would be nice. It seems Blizz concentrates on PvP stuff more than PvE of late. Oh they have added some nice PvE content but just like with next patch they are adding yet another PvP area.

I don't conentrate on PvP I am a PvE player mostly. I do a bit of PvP but not much. I did arena before they changed and made it so that you have to do it all to get PvP gear which was how at one time I geared  my toon as I was on a server in a way diff time zone and was unable to raid. So when I could I transferred to a server in my time zone and began to raid.

Finding a good guild is hard and of late I have seen many guilds that were raiding picking up pug's to be able to do even 10 man.  I know summer and kids out of school is playing a big part in this but many are leaving the game due to boredom as well as issues like was mentioned about guilds. Having a good guild and peeps that work together and have fun doing it makes the game much more fun for sure.  WoW is and awesome game but like all others it is not going to please everyone.

Many had left and came back when WoTLK came out now I see the numbers slowing diminishing again. Not but so many tricks to bring peeps back. 

This article discussed more MMO group etiquette than did about guilds, maybe it should be retitled?