The Future of Guilds in World of Warcraft

**Jeremiah** · 01-04-2011

World of Warcraft has seen many landmark updates over the years that have altered the landscape of the game in more than one way. When I say “landscape”, I refer to the player landscape, which is how the player community looks on each server. Some servers had more PvP and PvE focused guilds, while other servers had an overwhelming supply of raiding guilds.
The new guild system included within Cataclysm allows guilds to gain access to a wide variety of benefits that help their members level, grind out reputation, and even look a bit cooler along the way. Because these rewards are markedly difficult to get, the more rewards a guild has unlocked, the more members they will retain. We will henceforth in this analysis refer to this phenomenon as guild “holding power”.

Holding power is determined by a number of factors outside of the rewards system. Good guilds will have active officers, frequently updated calendars, a strong member base, among other contributing factors. Since all guilds do not operate in the exact same fashion, it would be arduous to dictate exactly what makes a “good guild”.

In order for a guild to unlock higher level rewards, members must contribute overall XP to the guild by completing rated battlegrounds, dungeons, or quests. Each member must individually grind to a certain reputation level with the guild to gain each reward, and they also must pay a fee of gold in order to purchase this reward from the guild rewards tab on their interface. Interestingly, while this rewards system is excellent for most guilds, certain niche guilds within the game will not gain access to these rewards, thus lowering their membership “holding power”, which is to say that the guild has less of a potential to retain members due to not having access to all of the perks that another guild of a higher level might have. When we say niche guilds, we refer almost exclusively to the Roleplaying guild. They are not an uncommon site on RP servers, and Moon Guard, one of the most active RP servers in the game, has seen a massive decrease in the density of RP guilds since the expansion launch. Roleplaying guilds are not able to level their guilds in the same capacity that another guild that wasn’t focused on RP would be able to. Since RP guilds typically spend most of their time developing stories that do not involve progressing in the game in actuality, it is sometimes difficult to motivate members of an RP guild to contribute XP the guild level. For military guilds, guild banners and guild squires might be tempting, but the actual effort it will take for them to organize their guild into an efficient leveling machine (as opposed to an RP machine) will ultimately destroy the very purpose of their guild in the first place: Roleplaying. Roleplaying guilds are exclusive to other guilds in that they focus on developing personal character and guild storyline as opposed to seeking out raid progression or higher ratings in PvP. While this playstyle will certainly suit some, RP guilds do have on average a lower level of “holding power” than other guilds with higher levels would have.

Many Roleplayers have chosen to join a raiding or PvP guild, taking their RP outside of guild bounds and into public space. The only exception to this rule of holding power would be an RP Raiding guild, or an RP PvP guild. Both of these guilds are impractical for a couple of reasons, however. RP PvP guilds were once possible, and many thrived across RP servers. An RP PvP guild dedicates itself to progressing their storyline through world PvP events like city invasions, massive skirmishes, or prisoner capture missions that span the globe. This worked in Wrath of the Lich King, since most RP PvP events were in the old world where flying mounts were impossible. Now that flying mounts have been added into the mix, RP PvP has effectively been made obsolete, since it involved organized missions on the ground. Because of the inevitability of conflict, most RP PvP events welcome non-roleplayers to participate in the battle. Since flying mounts in Azeroth are now a reality, it is nearly impossible to hold an event without a storm of Horde or Alliance players coming down upon the vent from an unexpected angle.

In regards to RP PvE or RP Raiding guilds, they usually never work. The reason for this is simply because raiding provides little to no character progression. Most roleplayers would never want to claim that they were the one to kill Arthas, for example, and roleplaying inside of a raid is distracting at best. When RP PvE guilds have to make the choice to dedicate more of their time to raiding or RP, they usually cannot easily incorporate both into the guild. RP PvP guilds focus on battling other players, so it is naturally easier to develop characters through rivalries with the opposite faction. RP PvP guilds feel more dynamic, while RP PvE guilds feel completely static and linear (isn’t this the 30th time we’ve killed Magmaw?)

Because these two exceptions to the rule are no longer viable options, it can easily be said that roleplaying guilds are effectively dead. Look forward to seeing public roleplay outside of guilds, but say goodbye to dedicated military and academy-themed RP guilds.

Tune in next time for an analysis of the future of World of Warcraft PvP guilds.

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