The 5 man Guild.. And how to stop it.

@Red: The cape really isn't terribly functional in GvG, is it? How often do you refer to cape design, rather than dots on the radar, during GvG? Why do you need it in GvG? And whatever reason you give, please know, I'll counter with the exact same answer in PvE.... Unless there is some kind of cape targeting mechanism of which I'm blissfully unaware, not having done tons of GvG myself.

Worthless? We were having a civil discussion here... Tell the people who are HAPPY in their little guilds, that they are worthless.

YES it's annoying when people falsely advertise their guild for recruitment purposes.

YES it's annoying to see spam of any kind in town, including "first 30 to join become officers" spam.

I'll agree with you there.

But in the end it's none of my business how anyone else conducts their guild. And it's none of yours.

Once more, this time with feeling, and I'd really appreciate if any of you who wish to curtail the formation of small guilds, would answer please: The people who are spamming in town for you to join their little "worthless" guild. Do you want them in YOUR guild?

Because if not, and it doesn't sound like you do, you are being hypocritical. Give me a good reason they should not go off and form their own so you don't have to play with them.

I just wonder why some people feel like everyone else has to play the way they do, or they are "worthless" or "not playing the game's original intended way." Makes no sense whatsoever.

As long as the small guilds are okay with being small. I knew when I started a guild that it would end up being nothing more than a spot for my friends and family to be. I figure I'll negate this by joining an alliance of other small-ish guilds. I do however recommend to anyone wanting to start a guild and have it actually be big, to just go *join a large guild* because the game is flooded with guilds.

And I'll start buying copies of the game and giving it to friends next.

You sound very bitter Age, I am sorry but maybe your having a problem keeping members is the leadership and not the people who join. People will be people and some will guild hop others will come and go, like in real life. And Yes I know how it feels to take time, energy, effort and caring to help someone who then just leaves... When that happens I wish them the best of luck and will even help them with their new guild.
You also might want to make sure someone is suited for your guild before you let them join, get to know them a little, learn how they play instead of just accepting anyone... and I am sorry friends list talking is just silly Guild Chat is the way to go. Please dont make your problem of keeping members my problem by boosting the cost... Dont pass the buck... it seems to be an internal problem, one you should look at personally not pass the buck and blame the price and small guilds for a problem you would have if the small guilds were around or not. I think your guild needs a change in leadership and in the way conducts itself not a change in the price of Guild halls or a change in the game.

Hmm.

I've read this entire thread, & I'm still not sure what the problem is.

Small guilds are bad because they spam in towns? No, size of guild has nothing to do with the frequency of recruitment spam.

Small guilds are bad because you can't find a GvG team? I'm afraid that I'm completely missing the point, here. Anyone want to have mercy on a PvE-only player & explain why someone else's guild would have an impact on your GvG team?

Small guilds are bad because people leave your guild to start their own small guild? Get over it. People come & go... & as has already been said, if someone wants to leave, you're better off with them gone. For those who are bitter because people leave their guild after you've spent the time & effort to help them, I wonder that you don't seem to think it worth your time to help anybody who isn't a guildmate.

For the record, I'm the leader of a 3-man guild (would've been almost 5, but one guy recently left to start his own guild after having been in ours for a week ;} ), & paying 20k to start the guild wouldn't have deterred me in the slightest (I mean, come on... that's only a little more than one piece of prestige armor).

@Lord Bishop Stone

Clearly, you are missing the point all together. It's not the leadership of the guild at all, it's all about how it's luck if your guild grows or not. As I'v stated before, In other games, I'v watched my clans/ guilds/ groups/ whatever you call it flower after recruiting about 10 people. I allow anyone to join and see if they can get merged into the guild. Sometimes this works out,sometimes it doesn't. In this game alone, because of low costs, I have seen so many guilds be created and then die in about 3 weeks simply because they can't find people

I have talked to alot of people who have moved onto guildwars, so far, It's always the same. The guild they joine died, they tried looking for one and they were always samll guilds that would die within 2 weeks and they got sick of it. I always offer mine and they said they would but rather not be bothered anymore

I can think offhand of alot of GREAT guild leaders but just couldn't find the people. They just couldn't recruit "properly" and people left because of "inactivity"



If you did read the threat, you would have seen how it hurts playablity. (There is quite abit so maybe you did and it just misread it). The problem, in my view, is that there are alot of 5 man guilds who want to go GvsG, but can't seem to get the people. Say these teams merged so they could go GvsG, that would incress the ladder, how it stands now, I say there is about 500 teams in GvsG (activly playing). If the smaller guilds,who wanted to do GvsG,could find the people. The ladder would be incressed and massivly improve.

Now, I saw something about the capes and how does it help with GvsG. Sometimes I just don't have time to look at the radar (Really.) And just do a quick overcast for anything white, if I see white covered with a bunch of other color. I'll go in and send in a furry of arrows. :-P, Yes, this could be applyed to PvsE, but in PvsE, you should be stickin together anyways. In GvsG, I'v see groups split up into two, even in FvsF, sometimes I'm completely away from my group,scouting. :-P So there.

I wish my title would go up per word instead of by post. :-P I feel I always write alot. J/K LOL

I'm at a point where I just don't care for the invites spammed in town, it's like WTS/WTB crap in local channel, I just don't care anymore because it's ALWAYS going to be done. Maybe it's also because I'm in a stable guild, or maybe because I did the same and it taught me not to do it again.

Anyways, when joining a guild, one should ask questions, and not be afraid to reject the offer if the guild doesn't suit you. If the recruiter is lying, then just leave... yes it's deceiving, annoying, but move on.

I don't think this is a matter of us missing your point, so much as your failing to convey what your point actually is.

If guild growth is "about luck", as you say, then increasing the cost of starting a guild won't make any difference at all.

Honestly, I think that anyone who would be discouraged by not being able to find like-minded guild-members in 2 or 3 weeks is just ill-suited for guild leadership. You can't start a guild & expect it to be instantly successful.

If the guild leaders you know were truly great, then they'd be able to recruit "properly", wouldn't they?

Also, after reading I always offer mine and they said they would but rather not be bothered anymore, I find myself wondering if your issue with small guilds isn't at least partially fueled by ego. People won't join your guild because they've been burned by guilds before, therefore the guilds that burned them are the reason that your guild isn't as large as you might like, therefore small guilds are Teh Suck & should be abolished (or at least be made more expensive).

Yes, I am assuming quite a bit, there, but I think you have to admit that my assertions aren't entirely groundless given the way this thread has been going.

Okay. Now please 'splain to me how PvE guilds impact any of this... or are you saying that ANet should somehow implement a system of filtering PvE-only guilds from PvP-only guilds & only charge extra for PvP-only guilds so that your GvG ladder could be improved? And if that were the case, what would become of guilds that do both PvE & PvP?

Lord, Simply I think you just wanted to start a flame war, I'm not going to post after this. So far, everyone has respected everyone else, and has read thur the posts. You simply are just bringing old subjects again,presenting them almost as new evdiance to a trail. Clearly, you feel hurt, probley because your guild is PvsE with only 5 people in it. I explained my point a few times already, and yes, it did take time but everyone was coming to understand it slowly, even my idea changed and morphed to try and find a middle ground everyone could be happy.

You assumed alot, you also tried to attack me personlly, saying that this whole thing was fed by my ego. As I said before, I wouldn't mind taking my guild and merging with another.

Bravo on ruining the tread

Well, now, this ^^ is intriguing.

It’s almost like you’re saying, “I wish it wasn’t so easy for ME to have formed my guild, because I didn’t think it would be this hard to recruit regular players. I wish I knew about the difficulties or had 8 people ready to go ahead of time so I wouldn’t have wasted time and energy.”

That puts a whole different light on the subject, if you ask me. Because it shifts focus from: “those people shouldn’t be allowed to form a guild easily, but I should!” to: “actually, this includes me.” I wasn’t getting that from the previous 3 pages lol. I apologize for not understanding.

There is a thread on guru for guilds looking to merge. From one glance at one page in there, it appears that there are lots of guilds that might fit with your goals.

Now. Hypothetical time. For some reason, suddenly, 2 years into GW, they impose a 20k fee on guild creation. And someone has earned that 20k (via PvE, of all things! They didn’t even earn it thru GvG! :P) and feels like they could lead well. Maybe they have only 3-5 members to begin with, and once they start the guild they see how difficult it is to recruit (still, because the price hasn’t changed anything)… I suspect there would be more recruitment spam in towns than before. Not only that, but people would be less willing to merge with another guild in order to grow. Why? Because someone has invested 20k, not 100g, and it hurts a lot more to give up on a 20k guild than a 100g guild.

Anyway.

I still feel that a solitary player, a husband and wife, 3 friends, conjoined twins, whoever, ought to be able to form a guild and have a guild hall and cape and grow or not grow as they see fit, whether they do GvG or PvE or RA or HA or farming or whatever they like. They will never join your guild or get on the ladder anyway, so allow them the luxuries of the gh, guild chat, designing a pretty cape. (I can say this, because if someone had told me GW was mainly PvP, I'd never have played at all, never have contributed to your guild or the ladder...)

We went through a pseudo-merge in fall of 2005. ("Pseudo,” because not all the members of the other guild came over; the leader and officers and a member or two.) It was a fairly smooth transition I think, the other leader became an automatic officer in ours, and it went off fairly well. So it can work. Good luck!

Was nice talking with you in-game, Red.

Are you talking to me? I hope not for I never started a flame war nor have I attacked you personally and never mentioned anything about ego. I did say that if a guild has problems keeping members maybe they should look into their leadership, their way of conducting affiars of the guild etc etc dont just pass the buck and blame small guilds for your recruitment problems. I did say to Age that she seemed very bitter about members coming and going but that is about as personal as I got.
I was a leader of a large guild (around 70 members)we had people that guild hopped and others that came to the guild begged, borrowed and then left after they got what they wanted but thats part of life thats part of the game. I gave it up, though still good friends with the guild, I left for personal reasons that have nothing to do with the game itself, to make a small guild of just 3 close friends we mainly do PvE and AB, and sometimes with few friends from my old guild we will do GvG HoA etc. I hate spammers as much as anyone but much like TV commericals they are a part of the game and you have to learn to tune it all out. But please explain to me where I started a flame war or insulted you and attacked you personally, If I you can show me this I shall write a personal apology to you if not then please do not make false claims about me and please dont pass the buck again stating that I ruined this thread... Thank you and enjoy the game.

You keep talking about yourself as a GvG player etc.
Who are 'Warriors Of The Llama' WTF? who has heard of this guild- they are not even top1000 (i just checked the ladder). No good GvG guild i know of is 30-40 members like you have been saying (or if they are they have a core team etc and the others are friends/ha'ers/pve etc).
You say PvE is popular among some people etc. Until very recently almost all top GvG players were heavily into PvE. Before the new armour creation and prevetion of armour swapping a PvP character was a disadvantage in PvP. Now most top players still use PvE characters with perfect kit in rare skins etc - they clearly PvE a lot to have this kind of kit.
You really don't know what you are talking about. You are using this thread as an attempt to make yourself look like you are a GvG player. Please close this thread. It is irrelevent. Your argument is nothing to do with 5 man guilds. You are just raging at spammers and trying to make youself look like a decent GvG player - keep dreaming.

Lord, I like to apolgize, it wasn't you but AetherBunny who made the rude comment. Your not to blame. (It was pointed out by a guildmate of mine) Again,Lord. Your not the one to blame

one thing i'd like to say is there are a lot of useless guilds out there. when there are a total of 20 ppl in guild, and all are offline but the leader and the leader wants to leave, many don't simply disband the guild but they make someone else the leader and ditch the guild. That leaves a bunch of guilds lying around................

not much of a problem but just something i wanted to point out =]

It's all good Red Stromhawk and ty for clearing it up. Enjoy the game and good luck with your guild.

Okay, I think I might understand how you feel that smaller guilds can effect your GvG. (Correct me if I'm wrong).

You think that PvE/Small guilds damage yuor GvG because they could possibly fill in with henchies/heroes??? Damaging your guild ladder?

And as for filtering out immaturity for Guilds to be solely for PvP, i think that this is ridiculous. I was in a relatively small guild for 5 months or so. We all became extremely close and had a laugh, but it wasn't immaturely. It was harmless fun between each other, small guilds tend to keep to themselves, as mine did. We had a small group of friends who we did PvE&PvP With, but we had no need to bother others and we caused no harm.

I just cant figure out why you want these smaller guilds abolished. Generally the nuisance smaller guilds, are guilds that have just been formed & are scraping for members to give them a kick start. (as my guild was when I started it)

~Ember;;Let me know if im close at all, its puzzling me!!

I'll support the OP's suggestion to up the ante for creating a guild. Back in the day, you couldn't touch a Celestial Sig for under 100k. I'd up that, make it 500k to get a Sigil, period. I mean what, you've seen these Halls,...you using slave labor er sumthin? Some of them even have seafront properties and yachts.

But on a more serious note, the 5-man guild is a plague, a plague I say. I'm stuck in one for reasons described earlier in this thread, and I'm loyal to a fault. We were an Alliance with only a couple of active members in each guild that all hung out on Vent together, and a couple of months ago I began to sell the idea of giving it all up to join a larger, more active pve guild, if for nothing more than to be able to create an 8-man DoA party by ourselves. After awhile, my idea finaly took hold on the Alliance and the leader, until one day I log on to find that everyone had left their secondary accts in the officer's and leader's positions,....to create a new guild.

Now we have an 8-man guild,.... well, it's progress I guess.

There's just a surprising number of people out there that wanna be the leader, or an officer, and they're not giving that up for any reason.

Meh, I don't mean to sound negative about it, just an observation. If one out of 5 people is a control freak (and I think that's a viable number), then if Sigils are cheap, you're going to have a bunch of 5-man guilds.

I'd make Sigils cost in excess of 700P. It's only monopoly money, right?

Well, I think this has gotten off track a bit- the OP wasn't talking about upping the price of the sigil for the guild hall- he wants the 100g to start a guild to be raised significantly.

I don't blame people for being confused though- I still don't understand how other players being in a small guild affects any other guild? This discussion has been generally thoughtful and nicely stated, but it seems to have gotten to the "we'll have to agree to disagree" point.

Many, many GW players are happy in one-person guilds, 5 or 6 member guilds, or in no guild at all. I venture to guess that the majority of those players are PvE mainly. These people have no impact at all on your goal of wanting more people in your guild to play GvG. None. So why should your goal impact them?

I would like to have a few more members in my guild, but I don't think that stopping others from starting a guild because they don't have the funds is going to make them join me. Or if it does, then they will probably be leaving as soon as they have the money.

It's frustrating to have members leave- for any reason- and if it's just to start a new guild that can be hurtful. But ultimately, your guild is going to grow and thrive because of the people in it, not the ones that aren't.

No I am just fustrated maybe at the wrong ppl maybe anet should of looked at wht clans were all about first small clans or large clans don't work period.I work on a clan site it was formerlly called StarTrek Clan Directory that is right.The thing about small guilds is a good size of them the Leader has no idea on how to play the game and this is were you get bad players from.I have had leavers ask me for help afterwards i told how to it bit after 2 or 3 pms I just said it is up to you now as they had help from a 10 guild Alliance.

I am, the Leader of my Guild not just an Officer or Member and i don't not show por leadership however I maybe to nice to kick those who have been offline for 1 week.It is what happens when you get old.I would still like to see a rank and rating for my guild.Anet could care less of the small 5 man guild all they care about is the ladder guilds.I am willing to merge but they join mine as I won't join theirs no matter how big it is compared to mine.Mine is a beta guild and to many have died already.

Well, what an interesting thread. I will admit, it would be nice if there were more large guilds, however I don't really see that happening.

I have been playing Guild Wars for about 17 months. For the first 10 or so, I was the leader of my own guild. My membership never broke 15. But the few that did play alot ended up being good friends, so i purged and was a leader of a 5 man guild for some time.

Of course, over time people leave one game for another, and eventually I was the only active person in my guild. Even though I had invested about 150k into my guild, I decided to move on. I joined [Wave], whose leader was an ex-guildie of mine that I had taught from when she was on her first char as a lvl 13 warrior, and brought her up to a great player. It was on joining her big guild that i realiesed she had become a very stuck up person, attributing all her success to herself, and and some of the biggest @holes in her guild that i ever had the displeasure to talk to. I left after about 30 min.
I then moved around a bit, and joined [Zen], which is a member of the [Sins] alliance, which owns HzH. One of their officers had wanted me for quite some time, and so I joined.

There were a few nice people, but I would say out of the 30+ people I meet in this alliance, only 3 were decent people. I jumped in and out, and eventually left when they changed priorities, and went from a AB heavy alliance to the entire alliance FFFing 10 hrs a day. The nice players turned into @holes when they got rich, and I left

I am now in a 6 man guild, with 3 other active members. We AB several times a week, and it is the best guild I have ever been in. I suppose my point is that most of the rich people/large guilds just arent very friendly, very demanding, and have lots of rules. Small guilds are very laid back, so even though I play about 30+ hrs a week, I have no intention of ever joining/making a big guild, because I dont want to be that type of person. It is this same reason that I will never get FoW armor, even though I have had the money several times before, because most people I know with FoW armor aren't nice people.

Big guilds and lots of money change people, even in this game. Hanging out with newbies in ascalon and Abing (when the wait is good) is much more fun than HA/RA/TA/GvG/FoW/UW/DoA, at least in my opinion, which is why I never do any of those things.

I don't get the OP's point. If you don't like small guilds don't join them. Find a big one and stick with it. I'm in LaZy, GotW LaZy, and it was confirmed about an hour ago, that we were the largest megaguild(multiple guilds with the same tag in the same alliance) and it's perfect.

If you are happy with the way your guild is, then its a successful one.

As long you're happy, then don't give a hoot what other people think.

IMO, it is important I remember that I am playing Guild Wars for myself and no one else. If I just can't find anyone who DOES play with the same ideals as me. It's not my problem and it shouldnt be one for them. We are people programmed to think for ourselves. Otherwise, we'd be robots hoping our energy dies quick.

I don't care what or who you are. We all have our own purpose when it comes to joining a guild, making one and just paying real money to play Guild Wars.

If you feel that a player is worthless because they won't agree with your geek-a-zoid politics or overfill their plate with Guild Wars time, for you, by kurzick faction farming to keep a town to help maintain your make believe identity, etc, then whatever you keep yourself over swamped in GW, must mean you're real life must be that empty.

If you got no desire to be a part of someone's guild and are going to curse them (by making an overuse of the term spam) at players for trying to recruit, get bent. Move on. (Maybe adopt a pet that might like you back, for once.)

You wish you could tell these bitter players to mind their own business, but more than likely they don't have one to mind.

The only time Guild Wars should be treated like a job is if you are getting paid for really well. Well enough to atleast pay for a cell phone bill, rent and hours at the gym to lose the cellulite on one's ass for sitting on them for playing Guild Wars all day.

AMEN!!!

Oh, good job: start a thread that's almost guaranteed to be contentious, and then take your proverbial ball & go to your proverbial home when people ask you to clarify your statements.

If everybody respected everyone else, this thread would never have existed. Neither you nor anybody else have made any sort of coherent argument supporting the premise that 5-man guilds are bad & should be stopped, or why (assuming premise 1 is true), raising the price for starting a guild would solve the perceived problem. Thus, the fact that this thread was started seems disrespectful to those who happen to be in 5-man guilds.

I brought up old subjects because I was still unclear about them... I still am. I've yet to see the questions I asked answered to my satisfaction. Maybe I'm just being obtuse, but I assure you that I'm asking these questions because I sincerely don't understand, not because I "want to start a flame war" (trust me, if I wanted to start a flame war, you'd know it ;} ).


No, not hurt... merely confused.

PvE, yes, but currently only 3 people in it (unless my RL friend who just bought Proph finally accepted the invite I sent last night... in which case it's a 4-man guild). ^_^

I see that you're in Canada, so I apologize if English is your second language, but I'm afraid that you really have done a rather poor job of explaining your position in this thread. Even after re-reading it, it seems as though your problem isn't with small guilds per se, but with people who spam in towns & people who leave your guild or won't join it to begin with. Your real issue, though, seems to be caught up in GvG (you even went so far as to say that you believe guilds should only exist to play GvG), which doesn't explain why you're against small PvE guilds who don't have any interest in ever playing PvP... nor have you addressed the fact that raising the cost of starting a guild wouldn't do anything to stop small guilds from being formed.

BTW, your suggestion of raising the startup cost & making the cape & invites free wouldn't work. If invites were free, the people who are currently spamming in towns would switch to sending invites to everybody they saw pass through the town in which they were encamped.

Yes, I assumed a lot (I said as much, myself), but I didn't mean that as a personal attack. I was merely making an observation, and couched the issue of your ego as speculation, not fact.

You may have said it before, but you didn't say it in this thread.

Aw... this thread didn't need any ruining. ^_^

QFT, it didn't.

I think this is bull..... I have a 4 man guild, so..... you have to start somewhere isn't it
I have cape, hall (missing 2 npc's) paid with my own (farmed) money, not yours
BTW I am recruiting, but it's hard to find dutch speaking ppl that are mature.... and you know why, because the world of GW is so big

Thread has run its course I think.