How many times have you changed guilds?

My current guild SoF is my third guild, I've been in it for 10 months, and I don't see me changing again any time soon. A nice bunch, good balance of both PvE and PvP activities, well organized, with the necessary size and persistence to survive a crisis.

Before SoF I had joined two smaller guilds. Both were people that I had PUG'ed with and who asked me to join. But the guilds were small, not well established (no website, forum, voicecom, etc.) and folded due to inactivity.

Once, first guild I was in was a 4-man guild or something which broke appart in two weeks, then I joined the Defenders of the Blackblade [DotB]. A simple funloving non demanding friendly casual PvE guild.

Been in several guilds, but never for long. I'm too much of a rogue, and if the "leadership" of a guild starts to demand things, i go.

I've been in a grand total of 2.

The first; Dark Alliances Of Ascalon [DAOA] (Wow, I can't believe I actually remember that :P) was my first guild, and was actually going alright. It got a bit boring after a while because no one was really on at the same time or talking to each other. I left after about 8 months and made my own guild (Guild of Eternal Moonlight [GoEM]). We have 11 members, 2 officers, and me!

Never. I made this guild for my gaming clan, and its been here since the beginning. Can't say I care that its not involved in the so called ladder portion of the game, nor do I care if we have faction or hall runs. we have done all of them from time to time when it peaks someones interest, but in reality it was made for a group of Friends to find each other easily online.

And now that it is also a fully equipped town, so much the better...

Now alliances We have changed several times. But the guild is and always will be here as it is. I maintain the leadership even if it is just me, just for that reason. We have had a maxed out guild to a low of around 12 players. Currently we have about 30, Of that we have 8 regular active players in the guild, and 5 more simi regular. And that is all we need... So Were happy with what we got. those that are not join guilds in the alliance with other ambitions. Some farm UW non-stop, some do running, some do Halls, and some do alliance farming... all in all its a good alliance what we got now, cause everyone can do something, and find people to play with at all times...

That's what was the coolest thing on the alliance system...

I started with my own guild, but was having problems finding decent players. After a couple of months I ran into an officer of The Tyrian Templars during missions. We did a couple of missions together and after having a laugh or two, I decided to merge my guild with theirs. Soon after me, a couple of other regular PvE players that played a lot with TTT, merged as well with the guild. I quickly rised in the ranks and became an Officer. At the peak, TTT consisted of 50+ members, sadly only 15-20 were really active (50+ hrs a week). Sadly a bunch of people split from TTT to create a PvP guild. This downsized TTT to about 20 people, and the 'regulars' split about 50-50 between the two guilds. Hence I am playing in two guilds at the moment.

We do missions together at a daily base within TTT, I have a preference for the harder ones. Also SF, Tombs, Titan Quests, UW and FoW, Deep and Warren is included.
With OSeT I frequently play in HA, GvG.
Then there is a regular Luxon guild I sometimes get invited in, just to farm some Luxon points in AB.

I rather have the guilds back together, but I dont see it happening anytime soon.

A LOT when I first started...but in the past 6 months or so...I'm thinkin' 4, 3 of which I joined after leaving the other one...they didn't work out...I'm back in the 4th one

Once. Guild wars was my first online game, so I had no prior experience of clans or guilds or whatever you want to call them. Anyway, I first played GW down an internet cafe, at the reccomendation of a then member of staff who is a personal friend of mine. Anyhow, cut a long story short, I was enamoured with the game and to make things easy, he suggested I join the internet cafe's guild, Chronos Terror (CT.)

In the first few months of the game, things went well for us. Although there were a lot of immature kids in the guild, it didn't bother me a huge amount and soon, After learning about the officer system, I asked my friend if he would promote me, so that I could assist in recruitment for the guild. In retrospect, that was a huge mistake on my part - he accepted, and soon, every single one of the kids in the guild wanted to be an officer. At any given time, we had about 5 officers: Me, another friend of mine and 2 or 3 of the kids.

Things started to go wrong when I noticed that the kids were kicking random people from the guild for no apparent reason, so I took up the matter, with our leader. Sure enough, he then proceeded to demote the offenders, but his mistake was leaving one other kid in a position of command. That kid then proceeded to re-promote the 2 who had been disciplined. What happened next, is something, I'd rather not care to remember. Having been re-promoted, one of those kids then proceeded to kick every non officer in the guild. Then, he left, without so much as a word. The guild basically fell apart after that - we kicked the remaining officers and tried to start fresh, but it didn't work out.

At this point, our leader wasn't playing very much, so I decided to do what's best by me and flew the coop, joining my current guild, Freedom Fanatical Scots (FFS,) a guild created by a friend I have grouped with ever since I got to Kryta for the 1st time, back in July last year. I've never once thought about leaving this guild, even if it can be a little boring at times. It's a guild that's been to hell and back and survived to tell the tale. I even brought on board a few of the old CT members after a while and despite 2 mass walkouts by players that in the first instance, wanted to take up PvP, failed, lost interest and left GW for the most part, or in the second instance, one of their circle fell out with our guild leader, who is known for being quite stubborn.

Despite this, there's still a core of about 5 or 6 players in the guild that play regularly, out of 19 members, not counting second or third accounts. And lets be honest, isnt 5 or 6 all you'll ever need? (Especially since we have a few good allies in our small time alliance who are always up for a laugh. - you guys wont read this, cause I'm the only one of us that reads or posts on GWG, but you know who you are anyway!)

EDIT - just took a look at that... thats impossible to read as it is, so I've changed the paragraphing. There, thats more reasonable.

Only changed once.

Started out playing in a guild with UT clanmembers who started playing it as well.
Then lots of others joined and eventually i changed from officer to leader due to the current leader losing interest.
Internal conflict arose and the guild was slowly falling apart. It' still active but only one or two from the original list remain.
By that time i had made a lot of friends that i frequently teamed up with to go FoW'ing who then formed CIXL
When i eventually left my first guild i joined CIXL and am still there amongst all friends.
Officer in current guild and well respected member if i can say that from myself.

I was in about 6 guilds i think

1. Knights of the Necrotyr - mostly Pve and very unexperienced, as was i.
2. The Praetorians - Guild full of immature kids.
3. Madrad Clan - My first real guild, all nice & mature ppl. But lack of PvP made me leave.
4. Gods Fear Us - My own guild, created with a good friend. Was mainly GvG and topped around rank 400. Fell apart due to unactivity.
5. The carpetmunchers - Pure GvG/HA guild. Topped at rank 209 previous season. Left because of argument with guildleader, some other players left for the same reason as i recall.
6. Union, Friendship & Order - Pve based guild in which im currently in. Established by a good friend of mine, very helpfull and friendly guild.

I play the game for 1 year and 2 months and I've just left from my second guild...

The reason i left from both guilds was identical...the pvp syndrom

Well, I am a hardcore pve player, so when the guild leader decided to split the guild in 2 "sub-guilds" one for pvp members and the other for pve members, i disagreed and i decided to leave since i didn't like to cause more trouble...

Guild for me means, friends, chatting, fun in general...if you split the guild and you are forced to lose half of your friends then i see no reason to be in that guild...

I really cannot understand how this kind of split helps the guild improve its rank...my current experience (9mil+ ) shows that this kind of actions cause the guild to disappear from the face of gw...

Not once. My guild formed on another online game, moved here, and my guess is, we will still be together when ANet has long stopped supporting GW.

- Xeeron

I was in 4 I think.

Nocturi Legion, my first one where a lot of great things happened. I got kicked from it for issues with the leader, lots of people were sad to see me go, but I wanted to and didnt' want to leave as to not make people sad.

Created my own guild, forgot the name to it..left that after I found a forum one.

Was in the DB for a tiny bit, my ego was to big for it and well left before bad things happened.

Then found my current guild, been in for about 9 or so months now.

3 guilds in 11 months.

First guild was awesome, but an officer went crazy and promoted a bunch while kicking most out of the guild, was in a month.

Second guild was great, friendly, helpful, but the guild kinda fell apart, as the leader wanted to do pvp and he made his own guild, others were left in charge, including myself and it just fell apart, ppl that were once very active, suddenly disappear (going inactive, still on my friends list and havent seen them on in a looooooong time ), was in about 4 months.

Third Guild, the one I am in now is pretty good, alot of friendly, helpful people, alot of the members from the second guild are in this one (it's pretty much pve only, except for a few of us that do RA/TA/HA).

I really hate guild hopping, I eat frogs for breakfast .

1, and i've been around since launch

I've just been in the one guild that I currently colead and helped create with my fiance. SSW is more PvE based although a few of use do a little bit of PvP. We've had a lot people join and then leave because we didn't a million faction or we didn't GvG. We currently have about 20 members, most of which I've actually played with at one time or another. A lot of the members are inactive (probably because they have lives outside the game and that's perfectly fine) but most of the officers as well as us co-leaders are on on a daily basis. Like any guild we have our talkative days and our quiet days and a lot of the guys harrass each other like they are long lost brothers. Sometimes it can get irksome, but hey its all in good fun and everyone knows if they have an issue with something to just speak up (and they do). Sometimes I feel closer to my guildies than I do with my flesh and blood family, its sad but my guild is closer nit than my real family has ever been.

I'm on my 6th guild. First guild I was in it was basically a blind invite in post-Sear Ascalon. They wanted to GvG...but didn't know how.

I moved to my second guild after farming several times with one of the officers in SF (back in the gear exploit days). PvE and very loosy goosy, they folded in with another guild soon after. I stayed until a few months after Factions release, where the poor PvE play of the next chapter pushed me out.

They emailed me back in a month later for AB. They wanted to own a town. I got into the PvP side of the game more heavily after that (before then PvP had been fame farming grind to emote in HA). The harder I get into it, the sooner I realised that I was in the wrong guild for what I wanted to do. Others did too and the guild eventually split.

I was recruited into a faction farmer guild and spent a month running AB every day I played. Growing more competitive I was scalped by an officer of an alliance and began working for them to hold a certain town. But that alliance crumbled a a few months ago and I left due to inactivity.

I went back into HA, slowing beginning to lose interest again when I was recruited out of a team by a Christian alliance. Due to a misrepresentation of their playstyle (I'm done with hardcore faction farming tyvm; I came to HA) I was happy to be scalped out of that guild shortly before the 6v6 HA weekend to end where I am now.

More focused on GvG, the guild I am now is is small and fun. We PvP more often than other guilds I've been in; players are of a high caliber and I feel useful while I'm having fun (instead of being useful and then going elsewhere when I want to "play"). Being from a PvE background sometimes I have to groan at some of the decisions these guys make while they're running missions, but player quality quickly overcomes lack of mission memorization.

3

first one everyone went inactive
2nd i was in for a long time, but decided it wasnt for me
3rd my current and best of then all lol

I have changed guilds 12-14 times, i have lost count along the way, the reason are many and varried but here are a few reasons, Players left to go play starcraft(again), husbend and wife, one of which was guild leader split destroying the guild and inactivity.

I started playing first week after the game's release? How many guilds I've bene in... hm, let's count...

1. The Broken Blades (I think?) [??] - Don't really remember it at all. It was a guild founded by a guy from Wizards of the Coast boards. Stayed for a couple weeks, then left with a couple members to start my own guild because this one folded for the most part.

2. Team Source [SPAM] - Another "forum crowd", except from a different board. Most people were still going through the campaign for the first time and after only a week or so, I ran into a bunch of friendly people from a bigger guild doing underworld and we merged with them.

3. Chaos Horde [CH] - The first guild that I stayed in for a while. Learned most of my stuff here, PvE-wise, dabbled in PvP casually. The guild was pretty big (~50 people?) and not very cohesive, as such. So, eventually it started dying due to inactivity. I figured this would be a good time to quit the game, for some reason.

4. The Simic Combine [TSC] - I came back after a couple months (nov '05) and found out that most of my old friends from previous guilds didn't have a good home. So I started TSC. The guild had grown to be quite large and we mostly did GvG, but never got really good at it because the build we ran was "grab 8 that's not completely retarded and go" Then the guild slowly started dying due to inactivity (again) and I really didn't have the will to fix anything because I lost interest in crappy GvG teams and started doing HA.

5. Moonlit Haven [MH] - a RL friend of mine who played HA, started a tombs guild from his friendlist. A friendlist is fine for pugging, but when you put it together in a guild, for some reason it doesn't work so well. I stayed there for about 3 weeks and the guild didn't exist much longer, either...

6. The Legend of Pi [Pi] - I joined their group once because they needed a pug and shortly after joined the guild. They were just starting out HA and so was I, basically, so we were on the same ground. Along the way, we lost all the PvE people, picked up a very few HA'ers and remained a focused HA guild until recently. A couple seasons ago we began playing GvG seriously, then the 6v6 nerf kicked us out of tombs altogether, so now we're a GvG guild I guess.

I also tried to join a couple guilds after I came back to the game (between CH and TSC) but didn't stay in any for more than a few hours - simply didn't like the crowd. So I would count that as 5 changes the entire time, since the game came out.

7 times.

First guild -can't remember the name- was pretty fun, totally random though, did GvG with them and other stuff, but I didn't join that until I got to the desert. I became inactive for 4 months and the guild was pretty much dead when I returned.

Second guild was with a mate I've played diablo with, he told me he had made some friends and asked me to join it. Unfortunately his mate and his mate's friends became inactive a few weeks later, resulting in a search for a guild.

Joined a pvp Guild, but that didn't last more then a few weeks as I didn't like the persons in it, nor the discussions about why I was busy with something else.

I was guildless for a long time again, chatting with people in Fishermans Haven, getting to know some of them and in time I joined a small Guild with only 2 others in it.... then my brother got GW as well.

So he joined my guild, then the leader left, leaving just 3 of us. I had already been talking and playing with members of DotB, they seemed like a decent bunch of people (and they are), so me and my bro joined that Guild.

I had great fun in DotB, and the alliance that was formed when Factions came out. I think I was in it for over 6 months before I left it to get into some more pvp (100% pve guild didn't suit me after some time). Still feel bad that I just decided to leave without telling anyone......

Joined AnSy (alliance guild), but it had way to much E-drama at the time. The day 6 officers decided to leave I decided I had enough drama for some time and formed my own personal 1 man guild!

Which lasted about 3 weeks.... then I started recruiting... 20 members now, 12 log in daily and we do lots of stuff together

Basically I'm hoping to get the same community feeling I had in DotB in a mixed pve/pvp guild, one hell of a task, but ... go Void!

Just two - Edrama between BF officer and GF leader within the first month or so = OMG RUN AWAY!!!

So me, my husband, brother, and two recruits we had managed for our first guild followed us to MEEP and that's been that! Our guilds anniversary is the same as the NF release ^_^!

3 guilds in 15 months.

The first one died, all the officers left etc.
Second one was finnish only,but they didn't have any activities/mature players so I quit.
I've been in my third guild for about 6 months now. And I'm not sure how long this guild will live.

I've been in about 10 guilds, two that I really liked, but people started to leave, etc. I would get invited to guilds that promised to be active but turned out to be something else entirely. One had most of its members in Europe and that did not work out at all. Fun guys though.

My biggest issue is time zones. Being on the west coast and getting told that GvG practice is at 8 PM Eastern makes it a little tough.

I am in a big guild now, just starting to get a feel for the members, I like being a part of something that is really big as our guild is the head of a ten guild alliance.

I read this thread with a lot of interest.

We are a large PvE guild and most of the members have stayed with us a long time and hence our size.

The pupose of the guild is to be fun, and helpful. We really push "Play with Guild Mates" a large amount. That may not be for you, but we DO clearly explain this in recruiting.

We use this simplified guild expectations in talking to new prospects:
"All members must stay active, never beg and always try to team with guild/alliance members"
We also point out that registration on the guild site is required, and answer questions. This often takes 20 -60 mins per prospect and many are turned away as they don't seem like a good fit and would likely be unhappy.

Now, all that said...

It is frustrating when someone joins the guild and quits in the first 24 hours for no apparent reason. This has become ever more common recently.
The officers want to KNOW if someone is unhappy, or see's a problem.
The guilds are largely a refelection of it's members. If you join a guild, be active! If you just go off solo, you should probably be playing a FPS.

We try our best, and I am sure most established guilds do.
I don't have all the answers and there has to be a ceratin level of realistic expectation.

If you sign on at 3:00 am and want a guild 8 man team with Naphui... chances are, its not going to happen.

This is a real helpful thread to all Guild Leaders
Its good to know WHY people leave (guild hop), but it shows we must stay diligent in screening ppl, make sure they know WHAT your guild/alliance really is all about and what is expected of them before sending invite.
Even then Ive seen a huge leap in guild hopping recently. Dont get too deperessed , most everyone is seeing it.

I do ask 'Members" to please speak up in your guild, dont just quit, and quit and quit from one guild to another. GLs will never know why they lost another member or what YOU need to make the game better for you.

Just some feedback from the GL perspective

Never. Been leader, playing for 16 months+ and learned this: You Get More when you Give.

No beggers pls k thx lawl

6 guilds in 16 months. Leader of 3 of them, but various reasons I had to give them up. And when it comes down to it I don't have the time, or the dedicated officers to be a good leader. I ended up in DgnE and really am quite happy there. There is usually a couple who want to hoh, deep, uw, fow, ab, etc.

Kailin Aer you've pretty much hit the nail on the head!

Sometimes school and work or life or PC crash of dewm happens so we let our members stay on the list of inactive for a month, if they don't log on its the boot! If they come back and want back in no biggie we are always happy to take them back. We used to not care about inactivity but with more and more members pouring in we had to =/ This included some of my brother's friends and while its unpleasant to kick them its for the good of the guild in the long run. And yeah you REALLY need to speak to your GL or one of the officers if you have a problem, we can't make it better for you or other prospects if we don't know what the issue is.

I've been in 2 guilds in the past 17 months. One was a guild I had joined with a coworker. He didn't want it to grow and I did, so I split off and started my own guild last April and we've been growing since then. Since I'm the guild leader, guild hopping really wasn't an option for me.

Still with my original one - The Eyes of Texas [BEVO].

Hard to leave a guild with such an awesome name.

I have been in 4 guilds.
The first one was pretty stupid, I joined them when I first started playing and had no clue whatsoever. The where all further in the game, so I never could play with them ,and they didn't even know that you can get to your guildhall by that button in the guild menu...at least they didn't tell me.
The second one was a guild mostly of people I know in real life. Quite nice, but they became more and more inactiv over time, and then they had a big fight with my boyfriend an he left, so I followed shortly.
The third was I guild I found in a forum. They seemed nice at first, but when I joined I found out they where narrow-minded and old- fashioned. They kicked me, because I defended someone with a name they thought immoral.
Now I'm in a two man guild with my boyfriend.

Been in the same one since launch.

I've been in guilds since release. I joined 3 over the first 2 weeks of the game, then found my guild I've been with for 16-17 months now.

I have changed guild for about 3 times. I begin with a very friendly and nice guild. We did alot of missions and quests as a team and help each other out alot. But them the guild went inactive for a long time. Than I moved on to another guild that a online friend created. After a while, the guild sorta dissappear. Than i went into another guild for about 7 months (same thing like the first guild: very friendly, helpful and do alot things together). Finally i got into Rare after going around guildless for few days.

This is my third guild.

I've gone through 3 myself. The first I stayed with for 6+ months, and they were good, but then the leader left, and the guildmates started leaving. the second guild I was an officer in, and tried helping others when I could, but they kicked me from being an officer for being away (on a business trip) for 5 days. I left shortly after that. I joined a 3rd guild for the Kurzick factor, but the guild got small and their alliances were completely immature.

Now, I am freelancing it for now. As the original OP said, I'm looking for that perfect balance of fun, active guild that has a serious, PvP section to it. My other requirement is that it be a mature guild (tired of dealing with a bunch of 12 year olds in these guilds).

Time zones- absolutely! I welcome practice GvG and getting together as a group, but I mainly play at 9PM PST (after the kids are asleep) and as such, it is very hard to get together with players on the East Coast or even Midwest.

3 guilds.

The first one was a PvE guild, and really great. The people were helpful and fun, and we a had good time while it lasted. Then the leader went to join her husband in WoW land, and it just wasn't the same without her there. Eventually I left, and ran into some other former members later on who said it slowly fell apart.

The second was a PvP focused guild, who said they did PvE, but didn't really. The leader wanted to get on the GvG ladder, and had somewhat of a bootcamp alpha-male mentality. The internal politics and power tripping bothered me from the start, but I liked a couple of the members a lot and gave it a go. Then I made a mistake by posting a link here on guru to an excellent oline GW comic one of the members did, because it was so cool and I thought it would help attract attention since they were actively recruiting. I got dressed down pretty hard by the guild officers and certain members for jeopardizing their privacy, disrespecting the unspoken rules, stepping beyond my station... it reminded me of being back in high school. So I just left.

The third was my own guild-of-one, setup for the Factions preview event so I could join Alliance Battles, and to avoid the onslaught of invitations that hit after Factions came out. I still have the guild, but rarely use that character account anymore, except for farming. Too many players found out that I was a woman and just wouldn't stop hitting on me. Almost every time I logged on there would immediately be a ping from one of several creepy guys who had me on their Friends list (wish Ignore would remove you from someone's list), and this one kept pressuring me to join his guild, and simply wouldn't take NO for an answer. It got to where I was avoiding logging on so much, that I just bought a second account and mostly use that now with male characters.

This time around I've been remarkably guildless the entire time, without a single serious Guild invite, just the ocassional "wanna join my guild?" whispers from total strangers. It's certainly a different experience when the players think you're male.

SMS is my 5th guild (4 if you don't count reforms)

I was in some lame ascalon tab recruiting guild (ahhh, back in the day, lots guildless). I sorta stopped playing May > December. Then I went on, everyone inactive for months, so I left. General Typhus contacted me, and I joined his guild, Soldiers of Entropy. A lot of crap happened between there, and the reform, to Guillotine Tactics [GanK]. Stayed with them all the way until the core officers and leaders went out and bought WoW. I soon left with a guildie, and she made a crazy guild. I soon left that and applied for SMS. SMS is fairly insane.

Wanna join my guild? lol, just kidding...

Honestly, I can imagine your story is far more common than ppl think and very frustrating.
I have been extremely fortunate to have a great lady as my XO for a long time and one of our favorite allies is also run by a lady.

Keep the faith, we arent all creeps

most of the guild are used to having the ladies around in game and in AB, so call us for a guest invite anytime...
well, unless you are Luxon :0 lol