To Guild or To Solo

Hey all;

Semi new player... only about a year or so on and off... Previous/ current MMO player of other Non-WoW MMO. As the title says.... Do I join a guild or not? What benefits are there for being in a guild in Guild Wars? No, I am not looking for handouts or freebies, I just am curious as to what is available or what reasoning there is for joining a guild.

I have seen several guilds post that they are 1000 members plus, have Vent, Guild halls, capes etc.... any info on this would be appreciated.

thanks

I think the benefit for joining a PvP guild should be obvious so I skip that one.

What's possible in a PvE guild?
A lot, faction farming, regular farming, chatting, having fun together, elite areas, hard mode, just being in a huge alliance.
And even more.

For a PvE guild I'd say you just figure out what you would like from joining a group of players and what you can offer to them.
Try to be specific in what you want and what you are looking for.

For example, me the main reasons for me to join a guild would nowadays be the possibility do do stuff with others who share the same game interests and goals as me.
The guild I would be looking for is a guild that is on the competitive side in PvE but where fun is more important then winning.
What I have to offer would be that I'm an experienced player on several professions with officers and guild leader experience in a mid-sized guild (up to 80 active members) who enjoys playing with others more then achieving individual goals.
My personal goal in game is mainly becoming a better team player, I'm already a decent team player but know improvement is possible.

And no, I'm not looking for a new guild

The Jos has already listed enough good reasons for joining a guild, but I would add that it doesn't mean you should join the first guild that comes along. For example, if you see anyone standing in Shing Jea or Kamadan spamming "join our guild, first five members become officers" (or similar) you should avoid them like the plague...the decent guilds either have their own recruiting forum (here on guru or their own website) or they recruit in outposts much further into the game.

cool name without a guild tag is kinda sexy

And an invitation to get spammed by the aforementioned desperate guilds with invites in every outpost. :P

My personal opinion is only join a guild if you want your looking for 1) PvP 2) elite area runs or 3) you want people to talk to.

Thanks for the responses people.....

I apologize for not being as clear with what I was asking. The search functions kept bringing up different unrelated topics to what I was typing in as a search or perhaps I was not using the proper terminology. The jos summed it up along the lines of what I was pretty much thinking. More or less the PVE side... The PVP side is pretty self explanitory more or less or similar to other games.

If what you are looking for is PvE I would go solo for awhile untill you figure out what type of guild you want to be in.It is not a good thing to guild hop I am leader and I don't aprove of it.