Guild Wars 2

As there’s no subforum for guild discussion I’ll assume this is the right one to post this discussion thread in.

Guilds in GW2 are sort of an abstract concept, they come in so many different flavours that it’s hard to label any particular one as belonging to an “usual kind”.

One bit that has always particularly interested me is every guild’s rule, or lack there of, concerning representation. The game was designed so a player can be a member of 5 guilds at once but only representing one of them at any given time, presumably to have each of your starting 5 character slots in each guild. This has lead to a very diverse community in terms of guild interests, identities and so forth.
This thread was created as sort of a poll, to know if flexible guilds or guilds that require commitment are most popular choice in terms of preference by the player community.
Below I’ll provide information on what distinguishes both types of guilds and my personal stance on the matter.

Flexible guilds – These are guilds that have none to very few rules concerning their members representing them, meaning a member could rep them whenever he/she wishes or during activities with that particular guild. These have the tendency to grow more quickly in sheer amount of members but in my experience fall short when comparing the number of members who are actually actively participating in their activities.

Commited guilds – These are guilds that require their members to represent them at all times with little to no exceptions, these being usually only concerning personal bank guilds.

I absolutely lean towards commited guilds, for the single reason that I greatly value stability in whichever environment I’m inserted in. In a guild where everybody is expected to represent, one always knows that his/her acquaintances will be there when he/she logs in and not busy representing and/or running things with another guild. Making guilds that enforce strict representation rules have much more stable rosters which in turn will lead to more fellowship amongst members of that same guild. While guilds with very few to no rules concerning representation have always seemed like just another LFG chat channel or an additional farming train if you will.
Furthermore, with the introduction of the megaserver technology, one of the main reasons that drove people towards flexible guilds with sheer amounts of members was rendered mute in my opinion and this was the ability to raid major world bosses like Tequatl, Wurm, Karka Queen…

Keep in mind this is my opinion, not something to be held as rule and I’d like to know your opinion on the matter as well

Keep it clean and constructive, cheers!

Flexibility means I don’t have to beg my WvW guild to do Tequatl with me.

Separation by interests is useful. It would be even more useful if I could actually hear guildchat on all of them at the same time though.

It’s really about finding the right guild(s) for each player. I personally have two medium sized ones for the two major timezones I play in – making it a point to attend the events they run leads to the same fellowship and stability among the core, while still being welcoming to those who have more limited time to play or rep.

Add on TTS as a cross-server community that shared the same major world boss downing interest and the only thing I still lack is a regular dungeon/fractal guild, except I’ve had to open two bank guilds to offload the junk I collect, so I’m right out of guild slots.

I can see other people enjoying the freedom to join a coordinated WvW guild that does large sized fights, plus another smaller one for roamers, etc.

There are different types of guilds.

-Small guilds with family and close friends.
-All purpose medium to large guilds that do everything, are organized, do guild missions, schedule activities.
-WvW focused guilds.
- PvP focused guilds.
-And so forth.

I believe the purpose of allowing membership in multiple guilds was to allow for people to indulge in gameplay they enjoy without having to leave a guild that they have ties to and friends inside.

I am guild leader of a small friends and family guild. We don’t have rules about representation for the very fact that the members have diverse interests. We will never be large enough to do guild missions. We don’t have guild drama and running the guild doesn’t become a chore or second job. Depending on peoples work schedules, we can muster enough for a full party to do dungeons or whatever.

I like having it flexible. I think the specialized guilds, such as ours, are inherently more flexible because we realize we have a narrow purpose. I think the all purpose medium to large guilds who intend to be all things to all people are inherently restrictive on the requirement for 100% representation. I can understand why, they don’t want a member list of people who are not representing or participating in the culture of the guild.

Even though I understand why guilds require 100% reputation and why they begrudge people wanting to participate in other types of guilds, the effect on me and others like me is that I don’t join those guilds. I see the 100% rep requirement and know I can’t do that.

Personally, I wish that some of the guild features would be changed to remove the penalty and barriers of being in multiple guilds. I can think of two changes right off that would improve the multiple guild experience:

-Guild chat across all guilds you belong to.
-Influence being applied to all guilds you belong to.

As it is now, you could be doing activities with one of your guilds (the flexible one) and contributing all your influence earned to the restrictive guild because you have to rep them no matter what. That isn’t fair.

tldr; I would like changes to be made to allow both types of guilds to thrive.

I prefer flexible guilds myself. I have a small family/rl friends guild that I do PvE with, but most of them are not interested in WvW, so I need/want a WvW guild that is fine with me only repping them in WvW, while in PvE I can rep with with the friends to boost the influence etc. I guess I could use one for PvP as well, although it seems less important.

I much prefer commited guilds and I have yet to find one. It sucks when you join a guild with a concept you like pnly to find that 2/3 of the roster is commposed of rarely played alts. ( Happens alot on Tarnished Coast with Charr warbands)

I think of Flexible guilds like extended friends lists, great for grouping for specific activities (Dungeon running, World boss slaying, special events, etc.)

A very unique concept in this game, nice to have the flexibility to join up to 5 guilds.

The reality is, you cannot force anyone to represent. The worst you can do is kick them which tbh if they are not representing is no big deal.

The onus is on the guild leader to make their guild such a fun/suitable/active etc place to be the members want to represent and join in. Your guild members are your ‘customers’ and they will go wherever suits their needs the best. If you want to grow and maintain your guild that had better be you

Saying that the multi-guild system here is next to useless, When you don’t represent it has the same effect as leaving one guild and joining another. Why there’s not the ability to see the guild chats of all the guilds you belong to is beyond me.