WoW: Guild Advancement in Cataclysm

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Official
Guide to Guild Advancement

Guild
Advancement is one of the many new and exciting features Blizzard
announced during Blizzcon 2009. While some have already dismissed it as
a clone of the guild advancement systems already available in other
games, I have higher hopes, as Blizzard has a way of taking the best of
an idea, combining it with something new and bringing us something that
is truly exceptional.



The information we have so far is not complete, and therefore makes it
hard to determine if the guild advancement system will be good, bad, or
somewhere in between. However, looking at what we do know about it can
give us a general idea of what’s in store. Here is what we
know so far about the guild advancement system:



Guild Advancement will allow guilds to level in the same way characters
do. There will be 20 levels that a guild can progress through, with
experience being gained through guild member participation in various
guild activities. To earn experience in PvP and raids the group must
consist of at least 75% guild members. The in game guild frame will be
redone to allow for management of these changes. An achievements menu
will be added where guild achievements may be viewed.  The in
game Looking for Guild tool will also be revamped and be made to
function more like the Looking for Group tool.



Known
activities that earn your guild experience:


Individual
player’s faction reputation advancement Rated Battleground or Arena
wins Boss kills Individual
player’s profession progression

Guild experience (unlike player experience) can take the form of
currency which can be used to buy items. The items purchased with this
currency are bound to the guild, which means if you own one of these
items, and then leave the guild the item will be returned to the guild
bank.



Possible
guild bound items:

Guild standard Heirloom items Rare reagents Vanity items Guild bank tabs Guild talent respecs Profession plans

Upon gaining each level guilds will also be awarded one
talent point. This point can be used to purchase a guild-wide talent.
These talents will, instead of aiding a single player, aid the guild as
a whole. None of the guild talents will be required to kill any bosses.



Possible
guild talent abilities:

Increased benefits from
potions

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Percentage
of
boss’s gold garnished by
the guild bank (also increases the amount of gold the boss will drop,
so the gold received by players will not lessen)> Increased gold drops from
mobs Mass resurrection No reagents required for
raid buffs Raid summons

Guilds will also be granted the
ability to gain achievements for the
completion of various goals.



 Guild
achievements currently known are:

Completing a raid instance Obtaining a legendary item Killing bosses Obtaining a certain number
of members Having a Grand Master in
every profession

From the information above the Guild Advancement system will
drastically change how players view being in a guild. While most
players are in guilds, there is really no incentive to be in one, or to
remain there. The Guild Advancement system will reward players for two
very desirable modes of behavior: collaboration and loyalty.



This should drastically reduce the numbers of those (rather annoying)
players who hop from guild to guild, sucking up as much loot as
possible before ninja transferring the next day. It should also give
players the sense of being part of something bigger, therefore making
being in a guild, and striving to do things to make that guild better
more appealing as each player in the guild will be reaping the benefits.



While there is some concern that this system will in essence destroy
smaller guilds, and encourage players to seek out larger guilds,
Blizzard seems to have foreseen this. Only the top twenty achievers of
the day in a given guild will be taken into account. This will still
allow bigger guilds to benefit more, but not by nearly as much. A small
highly active guild should advance far more quickly than a slow moving
large guild (or vice versa) as long as Blizzard does things right.



This can be a slippery slope. If all players in a guild can gain the
rewards from the work of those top 20 players, then without a doubt
there will be people who take advantage of that. Players may join
guilds just to gain the benefits, without any real intentions of
participating in the work that it will take to achieve them. The
tracking feature will allow the guild to see who is participating and
who directly benefits from it, however this may not be enough to stem
the tide of freeloaders.



There is also concern that guild advancement will define exactly what a
good guild is, making it so a “good”
guild is only considered to be one that follows certain
behaviors that directly relate to PvP or PvE. This clearly leaves
out  strictly social guilds, RP guilds, and leveling guilds.



While I can see the concern I might argue that defining what a good
guild is has happened since the beginning of WoW. Raid or PvP
progression has always been the standard by which guilds are judged.
However I’m not sure if there is anything to be done about
it; how can niceness, helpfulness, or even good RP be measured? The
best that can be hoped for is a system that does not unfairly penalize
such guilds. I personally would love to see Blizzard add more options
that would allow these guilds to participate more. Perhaps something
along the lines of quest completion, or gold making?



Good or bad (hopefully good) guild advancement is coming, and it
promises to shake the very foundations of guilds as we know them. While
we may sit around and speculate, until Cataclysm and we see the guild
advancement system in action we cannot truly know if
Blizzard’s newest addition will be a success or a
failure.  Blizzard is notorious for making changes right up
until the deadline so what we know now may be vastly different from
what we actually see in game (wtb guild halls).



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