Getting to Know Warhammer Guild Ranks 1-5

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Now you have a guild or you're in a guild, the first thing you might notice after hitting [G] to open your guild screen is the large XP bar. This bar fills up as the various members of your guild take action in The Old World. As it fills, you gain rewards for your guild. In this article I'll take a look at the first five rewards you get and their application on the battlefield, or at home in your capital city.

Guild Rank 1

At rank one, your reward is a guild. Congratulations. The first thing you will notice is that you now have access to the guild screen. There are five tabs, each governing a different function of the guild. You will also notice that there is a cog attached to the upper right hand corner of the window. The first tab, entitled Profile, is an introductory window to the guild. The guild leader or a guild member with the right permissions can edit most of the information on this page; you can see or set the Message Of The Day at the top (the Message Of The Day is a short piece of text that pops up for all guild members when they log in), below that you will see the guild XP bar, then there's the About Us section, below that, in the big window, is the news feed which will log calendar events like, when new members join the guild or if someone leaves the guild as well as when a guild member reaches a new career or renown rank. Lastly there is the date the guild was created, a counter displaying the collective renown of all guild members, the email address of the guild and the URL for the guild forums. Neither of the latter two sections is mandatory, but they are there if your guild has access to those supplementary utilities.

The next tab is the guild Calendar. Unsurprisingly this tab contains a calendar. Guild members with the right permissions can schedule and sign up for events. To create an event, you select your chosen date then hit the "new" button. You can enter a start and finish time for the event and it will be logged. The event will be visible to everyone in the guild.

Next is the Roster. This lists the names of everyone in the guild, their rank within the guild, their career, their career rank and the last time they were online. You can also set notes on players which can be viewed here. There are public member notes, which can be viewed by everyone and officer notes which can only be viewed by guild officers. There is a right-click drop down menu on each player's name that allows you to promote/demote them, set them as a standard bearer and various other things. At this time however the promote/demote function is broken and the text command [/guildpromote {name}] must be used. This is all there is on this screen at guild rank one, but at rank six you will also see an alliance tab at the bottom.

Next is the Standard tab. Here you can view the various standards your guild has, the guild tactics it has unlocked and the various aesthetic options for your standard.

Beside that is the Rewards tab, this tab lists all of the rewards your guild has unlocked though its guild rank and allows you to choose any new tactics and make various other decisions based on the guild rewards.

Finally, there is the cog on the upper right-hand side of the window next to the Rewards tab. This is the Permissions page and can be viewed by any guild member but only edited by the guild leader or a member with the right permissions. You can organise guild ranks here (these are the ranks of the players within the guild and not the ranks of the guild itself; confusingly they have the same name). You can also rename the default player ranks, create new ones (up to a maximum of 10 including the guild leader rank) and, of course, set permissions (permissions govern what each player rank within your guild is allowed to do, e.g. sign up for events & withdraw items from the guild bank).

Some of these functions, for example the calendar and alliance tab, will not be available to you until your guild has reached a certain rank. Fortunately most of the fundamental features are unlocked within the first 10 guild ranks and the later ones are largely bonus items and aesthetic rewards.

Guild Rank 2

At guild rank two, you will receive your guild calendar as described above. I have covered most of the functions of the calendar above. One nifty nuance of the calendar is that it will automatically adjust the timezone it displays based on the location of the character viewing it so you need not worry about the various different ones when you are setting up an event.

Guild Rank 3

At guild rank three, you gain access to the taxes and tithes mechanic. The guild tax will apply to everyone in the guild and siphon off a percentage of all the cash drops a player receives and send it to the guild bank. The guild leader can set this percentage. Tithes work in a similar way but are set by individual guild members. For example, if a guild has 2% tax but a generous player wishes to give more s/he can set their tithe to whatever percent they want and that will override the guild tax. Note, this only works if you set it to more than the current guild tax.

Guild Rank 4

At rank four your guild gains access to the first vault in the guild bank. The guild bank is located in The Soul Vault (map coordinates: 18627, 26990) in the Inevitable City and the First Bank of Altdorf (14634, 24430) in Altdorf. A guild leader can set permissions for which player ranks in the guild can access the bank to deposit and withdraw money and items, however, there is currently no bank log so it is impossible to tell who has added or removed things from the bank.

Guild Rank 5

This is a very important rank for your guild as it grants access to the guild standard and standard bearer title. There are three standards to unlock, but at this level you only receive the first; Warped Standard for Destruction and Recruit's Standard for Order. A guild standard is a banner that displays the guild's heraldry and has a number of useful functions:

• A standard bearer can carry the flag into battle. When he does so, it will convey a number of bonuses to nearby friendly players. These bonuses are determined by the tactics locked on the standard (see the tactics section below). While the standard is equipped the bearer can utilise a number of unique abilities but will have his career abilities disabled.
• A standard is required to capture a keep for your guild. If your realm has an empty keep, then you can capture it using your standard and any friendly player in the vicinity will gain the bonus your standard provides. This ability is available to all guild members with the right permissions; you do not need to be a standard bearer.
• Standards can also be placed in the ground by the standard bearer to act as a rally point. When a standard bearer does this they lose the abilities tied to the standard but regain use of their career abilities. The standard also becomes vulnerable to enemy capture.

Your guild will be granted two standard bearer titles at this rank which the guild leader can distribute as s/he sees fit amongst your guild members. Be careful though if your standard bearer is killed or you plant your standard in the ground and leave it behind, the enemy can capture it for renown. There is no penalty but you will have to buy a new one which costs upward of 2 gold. If you see a friendly guild's standard lying forgotten you can pick it up and mail it back to them.

The standard utilises a tactic system similar to the tactics available to each career. At rank five your guild will also unlock its first tactic point. You can access a complete list of these from the Standard tab on the guild page in-game and they range from stat boosts to experience and renown buffs. It is worth noting standard tactics can only be edited once every 24 hours. It is also worth noting that standards can have a PvE application to and can make dungeons runs much more smoothly.