Guild Wars 2

i know iknow i set myself up with that Topic Title, but i implore you to sit bac ka second read and think before lighting a fire under my behind.

I ask this cause over past few months ive noticed somehting about the “be in 4 guilds at once thing”.

1. all guilds offer the same thing some a touch clower then others cause of guild size and influence gaining abilities.
2. guild jumpers are even more prevelent now then ever – no sense of im in this guild because .. (insert reason)
3. when and why do you represent and why off other servers where guild can dang near do nothing for you.

there may be more questions then this but these are top 3 that “jump” into my mind as i sit here thinking baout it. Now time for me to ask you to pause before responding … think about it and do the math.

A.) how many members in your guild.
B.) how many active
C.) how many represent

im shure if you kick everyone from guild that does not represent in a 2 day time, then kick everyone who hasnt been active for say a week that your guild numbers wont be as high as people want to believe let alone kicking anyone on other server who doesnt benifit home servers guild.

so my question “Topic Title” stands is there a commmunity? im shure Anet thought hmmm bring whole community together let them be in multiple guilds. BUT do they see guild chats of all guild, do they see what leaders and members alike offer at any given time (remember: dont bash me without thinking here — cause if u rep 1 guild u cannot see anything going on in others.) so community is not brought together infact the way i see it community is so divided, no “guild pride”, no great burning desire to be in a specific guild because they do (insert gaming time you enjoy). Granted i know world is to immense to limit what a guild of 200+ can do, but anyone under a hundred that looks at there numbers cant afford to try and try to do all at once --- if they dont people rep other guilds and they basically lost to them.

p.s. for the guild leaders reading this also discount your friends that have gamed with you for 1+yrs and were willing to play/move to new game with you cause those area given!

thank you and i hope the bashing isnt to harsh and people can prove without a sliver of doubt there is actually community.

im a casual.
but i like my guild because;
-the leaders are hardcore players that take care of stuff and organize wvw events.
-they are french canadians
-i often run dungeon with them and its much better than pugs usually, there is a sense of friendhip because its a guildmate, you want to be nice to them, you care more than pugs even if there is no reason to but to make friends.
-the guild chat, obviously youll start to recognize some names eventually and its kind of cool.

I’m only in one guild and I love it. We also have a TS server which I belive helps quite alot to bring the people together. So on to your questions.
A. 44
B. About 15-20 online each evening and I’m quite sure I’ve seen at least 80% of them online the last few days.
C. All represents except for maybe one or two that only does not represent when they’re playing on an alt.

I don’t think guilds as they stand forge much of a community at all. I’ve given up trying to recruit people as everyone I invite seem to be already in several other guilds and getting them to represent yours (if they don’t do it willingly) forces you to have those awkward chats with them asking why they aren’t.
I’ve invited many people over the months and some represent me initially, but next day I would notice they don’t any more. Then I have quite a few members that I think haven’t logged in since first month of GW2 but I can’t be sure because there’s nothing to tell me when they’ve online last and each time game updates, it wipes all the details of the members activity.
So yea, guilds are bit of a mess imo the way they are designed, they do not foster loyalty or long term friendships.
I know there are big guilds out there, those that migrated from gw1 and other games and have brought many members with them. They’re probably the only ones that are doing any good.
I think new guilds, those created since the game launch have a tough time keeping their members and if they do manage to keep them, getting them represent you is even tougher.

yeah i saw i did a few typos on my post … lol i apologize but point still remains.

also something thought of people complain about not having alliances yet … guess what you do 4 guilds x 500 members = 2000 allies …. say minus 5/10 for your officers/leaders gw1 only had what 1000 ? spread over 10 guilds still not an answer forthat atleast they had alliance chats

It’s why I always say up front that we are a full representation requirement guild before inviting anyone and that we want them on our server to do events with. I’ve also kicked 100 inactives over the past month. I’m not unreasonable about it I always talk to people about it if they don’t represent.

I’ve read many posts of people being hateful or complaining towards leaders who insist on full representation labelling them all sorts of derogatory comments without taking a moment to realize they are trying to do the best to keep their community strong (not all sure but a lot).

Sure you could say ‘People should stay on their own merit’ but unless you say up front as such and it’s a general agreement as a guild it won’t be clear to those who join. It has to be stated or people simply won’t represent.

I’ve had a lot of complaints also about kicking inactives but there’s no point in being in the guild if you barely represent or rarely play the game. You don’t contribute anything to the community that way you only contribute to what you want for yourself which is fine as the game supports this kind of gameplay but it doesn’t help the guilds as a whole as a community.

There needs to be more support for guilds who want to build a solid community though, more reasons to stay in the same one. Maybe a reward for members who stay representing the same guild over longer period of times with an increase in reward till you’ve reached certain amount of hours played and spend representing the same guild where there is a monthly reward cap. Kind of like a guild monthly and dailies but with increasing rewards the further you move up the tiers.

I hope the upcoming guild missions and at some point guild halls will help towards this. I think Anet needs to remember that people get bored with the game if they don’t have the friends and community that is solid to play with no matter how good the game is. It’s how other MMO’s have been so successful for so long. Not because the game is fun so much as it’s about community.

Guild Wars 2 is fun for longer than other MMO’s on it’s own merits, now it just needs the community support to last even longer.

I’m no longer in guilds.
The last two I had either were based in other countries, which that was a shame I liked them, or had zero activity to begin with.

Of course to put context into this I did join small guilds (less than 20 people).
Whenever I joined I represented constantly and happily dumped my Influence earned into those guilds.

Here’s the thing for me about alliances. My guild is small, 40ish people. The officers have been running the guild for close to 10 years, and the guild has moved through a few games in that time.

Now that we’re older and busier with real life, none of us want to run the 400+ person mega guild that we assembled in GW1, but…. when running an alliance, we could ally with like minded guilds, and have access to alliance chat. It let us build a larger community without disrupting our own community. If an ally guild was disruptive or a poor fit, they often left on their own, or were kicked as needed.

I’ve encountered other guilds when I PUG dungeons that are similar to my own. We chat for a while, they extend an invite to join their guild but I have no intention of leaving mine….. merging guilds is a risky proposition as we’re both invested in our guilds, and standing down from one to represent in another doesn’t accomplish what you’d get out of being able to be active in an alliance where you could interact with both guilds at the same time.

For me, Alliances aren’t about building a bigger guild, but about linking communities into a larger community. An alliance of 10 small guilds is often times more active than a single guild ten times the size….. food for thought.

My guild has a couple of alliances, one with a PvX guild like ours and one WvW guild. We basically share social events with the PvX guild twice a week. That way we have more active events and can talk with some different people for a while.

Then if people want to do WvW they can tag along with the WvW guild on their teamspeak etc. while still keeping our tag up. It works very well

We had about 125 members in our guild on FA. I would say about 40-50 of them are active (logging on at least weekly) and 80% of them represent a majority of the time.

We had a GW1 alliance we tried re-creating in GW2. Because of the limitations, we compromised by consolidating guilds and by having a few officers and members from each guild become members in the other guild. These people will jump back and forth between guilds to round out groups for dungeons, wvw, fotm, etc. We also share Vent and TS. It’s the best method we could come up with but doesn’t facilitate communication like the alliance system did.

My guild is a small one . Not even 40 members, only around 35. But usually about half the ppl I have are on at any given time. I’m a advocate for the small guild perspective it, imo, fosters a greater sense of friendship with ppl. Not that I don’t still get recruits but it’s through a getting to know the person method. As such I usually manage 1 or 2 new members a month.
We don’t really focus on things like WvW or PvP, but we are working on being expert dungeoneers (spelling). Just about everyone represents as well but I dont make it a priority. They come and go as they please really. As for alliances and such I am friends with another guild so we enjoy playing with each other but thats about it. Geuss i should should say what server we’re on, it’s Borlis Pass. We also have a vent server.

Well, as a guild leader of ~35 people, I find it very hard to attract new members en masse. People are very skeptical of why they should join your guild and usually they assume you just want their influence contribution.

I have since given up on inviting new blood. I gave everyone the power to invite and promote up to their tier, but few are recruiting.

At the core, we have a 10+ group of old friends from our bigger GW1 guild (100+) which I led back in the days (many didn’t buy GW2 or have given up on gaming), so i just enjoy the company of my friends. I admit, we do have a few new friends that have stuck with the guild, not because of what we do, but because we get along very well.

Growing the guild has become too much of a hassle because of non-representation, people that go inactive for months, etc.

I wish we had the option to set the guild on “always represent”, so that peeps who don’t want to represent, might as well leave.

PS: I forgot to say it’d be nice to have the ‘Guesting’ feature for guilds, to allow people to have a sense of what the guild is like without having to commit. Or just people who want to join for a few days to do events together. We have a guild forum and a Steam group that are about 5 years old now, so I do provide the means for people to stay in touch outside of GW.

Exactly my point all guilds can and eventually will offer same things minus the choice on a voice over program i.e. ventrilo,TS, mumble whatever floats there boat. but what really sets each apart … i mean some said they have a community from years of gaming and there ideals are theres on what they want so on and so forth … but if i can be in 4 guilds that means nothing ( hate to say that cause i agree with differences in ideals)

The most people seem to look at is what can you offer me, what will you do for me, and what will you give me …. this has never created a community ( well ok lets be real any mmo is a “community” but not one where people stick together, enjoy time spent or create that ok game is now boring to me but im a log in just to talk with guild/friends.

i think if Anet wants to fix this do away with being in 4 guilds i mean really make up your minds right? that will start people in forming those communities. i think someone said it in a previous post offer guild monthlies dungeons in full guild groups, # of events in guild groups, wvw in full guild groups etc etc to help guild build and not just be “influence” banks set up to appease the do this for me type people who dont want to give somethign back.

oh well thats my rant yeah ? decent use of my free will and i guess hopefully being one of those “do for me’s” type people is short lived, but i miss the communities of the mmo’s atleast you knew where you stood.