Hmm...Guilds.

Ok, you guys are definently gonna hate me after this. >_< However it is crucial for me to ask this xD. What exactly do guilds do besides make an emphasis on making new friends?

if you played counterstrike or many other games its much like a clan... you can have Guild vs Guild battles... other than that its like your own clan. plus you get a nifty cape, you also have a guild hall, which is like your own little place on the map for you and your friends to meet. In the future there may or maynot be ways you can customize that guild hall

Oh thats nifty I want a cape like....immediatly.

I personally didn't want to bother with a guild until the official release of the game mostly because once the game is released, things may or may not change, things may be added that even the "leaders" of the guilds, whomever they may be, might know as much as their followers, etc. Plus it weeds out players who won't be around after the beta (even though there are few of those) and the last reason is because most guilds that around right now are newer than the players they recruit, inexperienced, and really not worth the trouble (obviously excluding the extremely well organized and hard-working guilds that do have the respect they deserve).

The guilds are like worthless said, they allow you and a group of members (or friends) hang out at a special hall, help each other gain levels, powers, abilities etc. and allow you to participate in Guild VS Guild tournaments and such, a nice feature that most MMO's don't really offer to their fullest ability.

I have found having my own small guild very helpful. I have several friends that have been playing in the Betas and having Guild Chat has been a life saver. Guild chat reaches everyone in the guild that is on-line (unless they are in a loading screen). It is nice to be able to chat with friends across time and space, and helps us coordinate finding people and getting together. Team-speak is catching on, but some members are still on dial-up and it gets a little harsh at times. I do not doubt that the bigger guilds have more strict 'chatting' expectations as not to confuse the chats with 10 different conversations, but it works very well for us.

Ahh I see, so its like a linkshell!! I play Final fantasy 11 and they have pretty much the same thing, except its sole purpose is chatbased, just so you can talk across the world to a large amount of people without dealing with individual messages! Its good to know they have that then.

I've seen a lot of people make that comparison, to a linkshell. The last game I played, the guilds were basically like a team, except they were persistant and could have lots and lots of people in them. You get your own guild chat channel (reducing the amount of chat lines in your window) and if you recruit right, you only ever hear from people you like. ^_^

Dave III