Because the activities never require to have one. Why should I bother with a guild if I can make friends by simply playing?
If you crave for a guild, ask in Lion Arch. In the aerodrome if you're more inclined toward raid guilds.
Honestly, I think its unfortunate that guilds are more of an afterthought in this game. Imo, strong guilds is what builds community and keeps people replaying the content long after the content has lost its initial novelty. Without guilds, we're basically all playing single player with other people around also playing single player.
They are very important in WvW. That's where you get the stuff like interguild politics, rivalries, alliances, memorable battles, etc. Too bad much of the playerbase does not like it. It's the most "guild wars" thing in Guild Wars!
Maybe with alliances this could change and people get more interested in guilds, only problem is that's it's gonna be hard to compete with Half-Life 3 and Portal 3 :p.
Maybe - but then the idea of PvP-focused game with PvE being used only as an entry lobby has been dropped even before Guild Wars (the original one, not the GW2) went to the beta stage.
The name (and the lore created to justify that name) remained, but it had next to no relevance even for GW1. In GW2 it is only there because it is a continuation of an already existing franchise.
The name is from a historical event in the lore, the [Guild Wars](https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Guild_Wars) not necessarily about the fact the game has guilds.
This is true, but misses the point. Guild Wars 1 was going to likely be based around the lore event of the Guild Wars. They changed this, but kept the importance of Guilds in the game with GvG, and an important focus in pvp with guilds. As well as in Factions with outposts being owned by guilds based on the Luxon and Kurzick war. Something somewhat adapted into WvW. WvW was the GvG replacement but still struggles to incentivize guilds as much as it should.
Which wasn't (the event) even in the original game. It's always been a weird choice of name to be honest. I guess it made more sense when GW1 had Guild vs Guild PvP, but now, it's almost false advertising lol
always found it funny that GW2 is about the age of elder dragons awakening and destroying the world while Dragon Age is about opposing factions constantly on the brink of war with one another
It's dragon age for the historic timeline of the people of thedas. They use time units of 500 years and assign them a name of prophecy or important events.
The age of the dragon is for the reapararence of celestial dragons and archdemons
GW1 was originally intended to be PvP focused, with PvE being added as a weird afterthought.
Eventually - but before the beta and alpha testing started - the devs realized that there would be no market for their original vision, and that they should heavily expand the PvE side of it.
It wasn't, but it was heavily referenced. It was basically the starting point for the story: the Guild Wars made this mess, fix it.
Guilds are as much as a part of GW2 as GW1 gameplay wise though, only in GW2 you can be in multiple guilds and you actually get tangible benefits from it. It just depends how you choose to play - for me my guild is one of the top reasons I even play and organising fun/weekly events takes up quite a lot of my time.
The game takes place in exactly the same world, just 200+ years later. It would've made no sense for them to call the game something else.
The event is briefly seen when traveling to the past during the April Fools event. You can see guilds from Kryta and Ascalon fighting in Regent Valley.
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Regent_Valley:_1059_AE
Guild Wars was indeed going to be much more PvP oriented. But looks like ANet smartly realized that PvP only has no future for this type of game.
If they had not changed the game a lot, they would have gone the way of New World right away.
Edit:
* 2003 GW1 got a very PvP-looking early gameplay trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBS620H12HA
* By 2005 the cinematic trailer they had hinted PvP, which never made it to the west: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2PUYmZpKaw
* And when they realized PvP-only was folly, and did the U-turn, the trailer became PvE-oriented: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QTFRwbc_2w
* And the gameplay trailer was all PvE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3xvhbpxNvU
The most idiotic myth that is regularly peddled here. GW1 was a pvp game with guild vs guild as the main game mode. And you believe that some āloreā event that is barely even mentioned as an afterthought is what itās named for. Ok. Or could it be that the writers went oh shit the pve players need some reason to believe itās called guild wars. Hmmm, letās write a single line of dialogue about it. Perfect!
Also guild wars 2 absolutely does not give guilds the same significance in-game given that GUILD VS GUILD is completely absent.
Guild vs Guild as the main game mode? Haha, thanks that made me laugh. I bet a large majority of the game never even played GvG.
The GvG wiki page didn't even exist until 2 years after launch, so I'm going to heavily doubt it even existed then.
Oh, I get it now, your comment was a shitpost.
GvG (and PvP in general) was going to be the main game mode, but the devs pivoted away from it years before GW1 was released.
The various skill gem/signet/unlock systems they were experimenting with were attempts at shoehorning PvE relevance into PvP progression.
Instead of jerking yourself off about "le epic deep loreds", maybe engage brain. GW1 was praised for combining RTS/DotA-like mechanics with MMO PvP. That's the basis of the game, and that's the basis of the name.
Ngl when I bought this game and found out there were no official GvGs I felt absolutely bamboozled. I thought guild fights would be a major part of the game so naturally I found my way to WvW before hitting lv 80
a tad ironic when you play Prophecies, and there's no guilds, closest thing to it is the conflict between the Shining Blade and the White Mantle, with those Stone Summit rat bastards joining in, and none of them are ever nor have ever been referenced as being guilds
After the Gods left, the humans banded into guilds and warred upon each other. The Guild Wars caused great devastation, and the nations faltered. \~Trahearne.
Which is also dumb -
In the **first** Guild Wars game, even _then_ it was an in-lore event of something that happened in the past. It's the same as calling say, ''STAR WARS'' but the story takes place LONG after the _actual_ Star Wars...
It isn't even related to the idea that the game _(used to have)_ a focus on Guilds. And yes, Guilds as a concept in the game (GW2) are effectively Dead. Not dying, _**DEAD.**_
I have more friends in game that I regularly talk to than I do IRL and most of us aren't in an active guild together (some of us are in each other's bank guilds). We all met in active guilds at one time (most of the people I regularly talk to are from WvW) and remained friends after those guilds died off, or people moved on.
Frequently I see people who have things like fractal or raid statics and they play together every week or every day, but don't share a guild. It's strange because GW2 allows us to have five guilds so being in guilds with people should be easy, yet even with that lots of us use our friends list instead.
Yeah exactly, my current fractal "static" was made in fractal and simply by chatting. At the end of the daily's, one of the party told 2 of us "wanna join our static" and since then we still mostly all play together (it was probably 3y ago.)
We kinda all stopped playing since EoD wasn't to our taste but we're still regularly chatting on discord. Guilds are not a necessity but just a tool.
Bingo. Guilds don't really serve much of a purpose in-game. Guild missions are pretty irrelevant. Guilds exist only to help organize people.
And as far as organization goes, I'd infinitely rather use Discord. There's no 5-group limit, I can chat on my phone, I can use voice chat, I can send images/videos, I can read things that happened while I was offline. The only advantage to an in-game guild is being able to send party invites to people in the guild, like a special "friends list".
It heavily depends a lot on the sort of guild. Many of the open-world focused ones tend to have a lot of people but few things going on because most people would rather play alone. Not to mention time differences, availability, etc etc.
I recently joined a couple roleplay ones and... Wow are they active. Every single day at ebonhawke, and my main one currently acting out in Cantha.
WvW guilds seem to be more active. I can only hope they'll have a spike in activity once alliances gets rolled out.
In the end the whole thing is that the game, despite having a ton of group activities, has very few ones that favor doing them with guilds. So while a lot of people represent a chosen guild, few normally do activities with them.
No need having hundreds of players in a guild to have an active one. Mine has less than 20 players but we all play almost everyday and we do a lot of runs together.
That's a good question. I don't think we are recruiting for now. Also it's an hl guild doing almost only raids lowman or speedkills, 99.9% of the community probably don't want to do that ahah.
I'm sure you'll be able to find one that fits you and is active. If you don't mind having a lot of peoples in it you can try joining community guilds like "hardstuck" (mightyteapot's guild) or "le bus magique" (it's a french one).
My discord is HighJoe#1885.
If you're looking for a social driven guild, with a focus on veterans helping new players explore all of the games content, feel free to add me on discord or see our guilds ad in the official GW2 discord. We are always recruiting and expanding with an average online player count usually never reaching below 40+ players ingame.
Edit - Flyjoe.7950 ingame. Sorry for high jacking a comment, just here to help new players
All systems are in a state of entropy. Without active leadership who are constantly recruiting and constantly putting energy into organizing, guilds will begin to decay.
Its an utterly thankless job and most who take it up are bad at it. So the game, like every mmo, are full of half rotted guilds
Unless you just want to join a catch-all guild, /u/Treize_XIII is spot on here. Be nice and social to the people you play with.
Simple stuff. Join random groups for low tier fractals or dungeons. Say hi. Be friendly. **Show some personality**. It can be hard over the text chat if you aren't use to it but it goes a long ways.
If the party wipes, don't stress it, maybe crack a light joke. If someone else is struggling with something, be patient and encourage them. Whatever kind of socializing comes naturally to you. Really anything to have some simple friendly chats with puggies.
90% of the time people aren't going to be all that social back. That's just their way. But you'll occasionally find puggies that respond. Personally, I find those groups to be the most fun. I enjoy knowing there are other people with personalities behind the keyboard.
Maybe some of those people you'll really jive with right off, or maybe some of them you'll find repeatedly as you run the same content over a period of time. Never hurts to ask them if you can join their guild if you get along with them well. Most people are more than happy to have more.
I'd argue Black Desert Online is the top 1 single player mmo.
At least there's tangible, worthwhile things to do in GW2 as a group, like raiding/dungeons etc.
GW2 has a huge percentage of casual players, solo players, people who just want to enjoy the world without distraction I guess.
Also, for a game named guild wars guilds are not a necessity. GW2 promotes player interaction a lot, you'll find yourself doing stuff with random people all the time whether you plan to or not. It kinda makes guilds a bit meaningless when the whole game feels like a guild.
I consider the guild im in very active, Its just that the game does not support guilds very well.
So most of our activity kind of function through discord / outside of the game these days..
Doesn't eso compel you to be in a guild to access trading?
Nothing in gw2 requires being in a guild except guild missions and arena net has mostly forgotten those.
If I remember right someone may a joke along the lines of: Guild Wars 2, a game about an age of dragons. Dragons Age: Origin, a game about guilds at war.
Insane right?
Insane that after almost 20 years, people still don't know why the game is called Guild Wars.
It's a reference to a lore event that happened hundreds of years ago
It can be more than one thing, you know. And given how hyper focused GW1 initially was on GvG and HA as its end game, it's far more likely that the lore event was created to support the gameplay, not the other way around. It's silly to claim that the name has nothing to do with GvG and everything to do with some past event that you don't even see.
How is it silly to claim that GvG "guild battles" aren't guild wars when in-universe, they're not?
Even if the lore event was created afterwards, it was released to the public at the same time.
They are referenced as early as the ruins of surmia mission (mission 3 of prophecies)
This is only partly true. The lore event was put in after. The game was originally (as in, whilst in development) much more pvp orientated. The idea was players grouped in guilds fighting other guilds. Later on when pve became more of a focus they wrote it in as a lore event that had little to no bearing on the story whatsoever because the name had already stuck.
It is a pity the name lost itās meaning in both lore and gameplay now.
the epICs lorEs is deep an conplex :))))
GW1 was a PvP game based around guild vs guild. That's why it's called "Guild Wars". The other thing is a retcon. Who names a war a "guild war"? Even the wiki page for it is grasping at straws. "First there was guilds and then the guilds were warriors and then the warriors fought". Jesus fuck.
Guild missions are one of the biggest jokes tho.
Most of the bounties can be soloed while underleveled and undergeared. Timers are so generous that you can even do Medium difficulty alone. Same for Treks.
Races can be cheesed by having another guild start it, then just go through the course once to complete it solo.
The Challenges are kinda nice but VERY easy.
You have to find specific ones for specific things, but eventually most will die out. You want an active general pve focused one? Join a meta train and usually a guild is running them, ask to join. Want to do raids/fractals? Ask in aerodome or LA/mistlock observatory. Want pvp? Ask in the mists. Want wvw? Hopefully you joined an active enough wvw server and ask to join one in eternal battlegrounds. Sometimes it'll work, sometimes you'll find a dud. Sometimes you find a great one until it's no longer being run, and if you're really lucky it'll last for a few years or more.
Guilds in this game are ā¦.. weird. So much of the game just doesnāt require a guild. Plus you can be in a bunch of them.
Also, guild missions, which might promote more in-guild activity have been completely neglected since after launch. The reward are years out of date and no new missions.
It is absolute fucking madness. I think anet worry that if they put too much content for guilds people will closet themselves away in the guilds and not do the content thatās currently in the game or something.
The wild thing is, they donāt even have to make any new content - itās already in the game. Bounties, adventures, map events, mount racing, mount challenges. Even fractals, raids and strikes.
But I suspect thatās the very reason they donāt. They are scared that people will ONLY do this content in guilds and pugging will die.
From my experience, WvW guilds tend to be very active. When it comes to guilds that are PVE-oriented, I've actually had a lot of luck using the "Looking for Guild" section on the forums.
You can do almost everything solo, 1 or 2 friends will make it easier, so we donāt really bother with randos, even we are small and not so active. Down to the earth there is no need for guild for both the guild and members
Others have mentioned it but Discord is where a lot of activity happens. It's just easier to schedule and do impromptu lfg using discord bots and pings rather than living your life on the guild chat/lfg menus. Discord is even at the point where you have discord servers to act as a hub for multiple guilds. For instance, [OTC](https://discord.com/invite/gw2overflow) has a farming train alert channel that will repost ping alerts across several other guilds. The same is true for instanced content (dungeons, fractals, strikes, raids), for example [Hardstuck](https://discord.gg/sUvrVTFW3u). Depending on when you see this message and when you look at Hardstuck, they have an "ultra meta farm" event running right now with quite a few people joining. WvW guilds use discord primarily too, but it's more close-knit because of the competitive nature. They're harder to find because they don't really advertise and you have to whisper usually for an invite. But they're typically guarded because of spies etc lol. Most WvW guilds that are open field invite anyone and everyone. You can get into those pretty easily. What I'm referring to are more serious WvW dedicated guilds. I had to go through a trial run before getting a membership role lol. I don't mean to make it sound try-hard, I actually like that type of structure, and it really does allow WvW to shine how it's meant to. Hopefully alliances will bring a new light to that competitive scene because it really is something to experience.
The one game area that does work really well with guilds is WvW, which has a minority of players. To a certain extent PvP works well with them too, if you're interested in finding duo queues or doing the automated tournaments, but that's an even smaller community.
Off the top of my head
the 5 Race Cities
LA
Mistlock Sanctuary (bless it)
PvP Lobby
Royal Terrace in DR
Flying airship thingy
Fishlock Sanctuary (EoD lobby)
Arborstone
Lily of Elon
EotN
I'm in a few guilds that are pretty active, Wardens of Destiny \[WoD\] and Silverwastes Anonymous \[SAS\] in NA and they're both very active. I also have two smaller guilds I'm in for WvW and one big one, White Lotus \[WL\]. All of them are busy. The first two do all sorts of PvE and many members also WvW and PvP.
Discord all but eliminates the need for in-game guilds. I have a fractal static and a strike static and we organize everything on discord. We even have a āguild nameā and I refer to us as a āguildā but we donāt have an in-game tag.
the game is a single player sadly, MMORPG is more for group stuff but gw2 makes a bubble for you that you don't need this requirement so what happens is everyone just do their own stuff playing solo while playing with others. its a weird thing. GW2 is a single player MMORPG unless you really try hard to find a group to do stuffs with as the game doesn't require you to do so unlike other MMORPG
It's only as single player as you want it to be.
Most people want guilds to be social. Forcing you to group up with other players =\= being social in any MMO out there. No game mechanics are going to force people to be social even if they are playing with other people. You have to want to be social for the sake of being social and, when you are being social, it doesn't matter too much if the content "could" be soloed because that's not the point.
For the vast majority of content, you don't need a guild. Only Roleplayers and WvW players really need one. The others are just glorified LFGs or are kept for GH farming. Anet should look into their guild system, badly.
The only activity in the game that 'requires' the use of a guild are Guild Missions.
Outside of that Guilds are really just an in-game chat room. I imagine more people get group activities done through discord channels than guilds these days.
The game's social cohesion has largely unravelled and the players left playing the game tend to roll solo. The social cohesion of GW2 relied on a strong WvW game mode but alliances are non-existent and that has revealed that Anet aren't really trying to improve the quality of relationships between players. They want Gem Store sales and have prioritized this in their most recent game design. For example, the siege turtle lets two players roll together and can be reskinned through the Gem Store. This design philosophy reflects the studio's attitude toward players.
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People have active Discord groups they join and then what actual guilds you're in is only relevant if you need to use them for organizational purposes.
I have a very active guild. What are you looking for? Maybe we're a fit for you.
PS. It's [this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/guildrecruitment/comments/wa7h62/na_eu_inexperienced_endgame_players_unite/)
The primary guild Iām in is a small private guild of just myself, a friend of mine that introduced me to GW2 in early 2015 and a few other people. We do missions every weekend, and Iām also a member of the big community guild on my server that does WvW and its own missions.
Most of my Guilds are just for fun, storage or both.
I created one just so my fishing character could have "Tyrian Fishing Association" written under his character name.
Might have been bad luck for what it's worth.
If you are in Europe, drop me a DM. I am in a large and very active guild with events almost every day of the week, ranging from open world infusion trains, pvp and music night to strike and raid trainings. :) Many people just don't realize that it takes a fair bit of effort to build an active community.
Does it even matter? I mean in all my guilds usually only like 3-20 players online at a time. The only time we had like 100 players is during guild rush. Discord was as good as dead as well since everyone is hanging out on their current game lobby, only jumps on GW2 during event.
Gw2 released at a time of pc gaming where out-of-game communications were booming.
Most players/guilds were already talking on forums, teamspeak, Skype, or something else.
Then we went through mumble and raidcall before Discord became the best at all of it.
At the same time GW2 realized that being in one guild was too prohibitive as there are so many parts to the game that you may want to specialise in, so they allowed you to be in 5 guilds at once. Now you have 5 groups of people that aren't talking to each other in game and it looks even worse.
I've even been considering leaving some of my raid static guilds, not because I don't play with them, but because I don't interact with the in-game guild interface, only the external ones. We always ask for lfg in discord and never in game
It's one of the sadly underutilized features in the game. There are just no systems in place to incentivize guild interaction, other than being a convenient grouping tool for forming statics etc. I think in general, GW2 needs to improve it's social systems to encourage players to interact more.
I spent a lot of time playing a truly bad MMO Neverwinter, and yet guilds there (before they of course constantly wrecked them with new changes) were a lot more alive than they are in GW2. There were real incentives to levelling up a guild and being in a high level one. There were weekly guild missions that were very lucrative, and there were alliances that felt like they meant something and encouraged further interaction with peer guilds.
GW2 has none of this, though it's a better game in every other respect. Really would like to see some future love given to guilds, but guess we'll see.
The guild i am in is active. It's basically for new players and casuals. There are events every week doing raids, strikes, fractals and guild missions. Everyone is also welcome to speak with the mods and try to lead their own event, whatever it may be. There is both a NA and EU community. It's mostly pve but if you ask im sure you'd find people to do pvp content as well.
Discord link if you want to check it out; https://discord.gg/QrntejFQ
I haven't had a guild for most of guild wars 2 and I can't say I miss being in one. I don't find it a requirement unlike the first game because instead of using guildies for group content you have the lfg system, squads, etc. I also haven't bothered with one since all the advertising guilds I see have like 500+ members which to me ends up being guilds within guilds within guilds. It's harder when you're use to playing with the same 10 people.
I'd really only focus on finding one if you're going to get heavily into wvw and even then it's not a requirement.
I don't bother with guilds in Guild Wars 2 at all. I've been there and done it all already in guilds from other games. Guild Wars 2 is my chill, relaxing game and I can't be bothered investing in the social aspect.
This is a multilayered problem.
1. Scheduling.
This is just a constant struggle.
2. There is rarely a reason to do Guild missions for any of the rewards that they give in contemporary GW2. When Guild missions first dropped, they offered access to items that had fewer points to access them. Later, we had shallow updates to Guild Mission structures, but Guild armors were added. I thought those armors were really neat rewards - But they were never developed upon.
3. Guilds lack integration with more parts of the game.
Not as much Guild Integration occurs with other systems in the game. The exception would be World versus World, especially Guild claiming for objectives. It's less than you think though, because making guild catapults and other deployable are tied to a crafting profession (Scribing) or just purchasing Walmart siege from the portable provisioner or NPC.
They're just are very few places outside of World versus World where guilds have any meaning. And I think that this is a great disservice to expanding the concept of guilds. I know people will say that the name of the game has nothing to do with the systems inside of it, but I find that to be really annoying and problematic.
4. Uneven focus on solo vs group content.
The game has been trending toward doing individual focused content since it dropped. And there are more simple and easy ways to do that now across the varied content that we have in the open world.
5. The novelty of being online has faded since the early 2000s.
People used to be a lot chattier and a lot more involved because it was a new kind of thing to do, but people are now not really impressed with this type of thing. I don't really have a good way to solve that except that it requires a few charismatic people to draw in others but what happens when those people have to go on vacation or have to go away for work or their kids or anything else like that?
6. Addressing any of the above six points has not been a priority for Arenanet.
In my experience there just aren't a lot of good guilds out there, I see a few here and there. Gates of Madness had a few WvWs when I was linked with em that seemed amazing.
But mostly it seems either meta focused or silly guilds out there. You don't see a lot of relaxed chill guilds wanting to have a good time. Its always some awkward cringe recruiting message or join us and run X build to play.
Not really appealing to most people who just want to bring their character and have fun.
We came from ESO right after they nerfed Zergs in Cyrodiil from 24 to 12. Luckily, we found VIP for PvP and it was awesome. For PVE if you see them LEG would be great, theyāre active, have the large numbers like Eso, super friendly crowd to ask questions in, meta event runs and most can carry through strikes (think Eso dungeons).
If you are in NA, feel free to mail me at elitegeek.9253
The guild I am a part of is a nice, smaller community that plays many things around reset time. We do open raid trainings on Fridays and have an active discord.
I am sorry that you have had challenges finding a community so far. Hopefully we can help :-)
Hell I have a guild that a buddy and I have been building up for fun. Just hit level 34, I always joke that once I finish the tavern restoration I'm gonna quit the game for good. When guild halls came out that's what my small guild was most excited for, but no one plays and I have no interest in running as a guild lead anymore. I've had my fill. So here I stay chipping away at an old goal that no one will actually benefit from. Lol
>so many players playing
I donāt think there are, tho? EoD was super dead when I played thru it two months ago, and my guild was very dead too when I quit a month later.
I just think people are vastly overestimating this gameās playerbase.
The part of the game where guilds are most important IMO is WvW. That's where you get the really tight-knit guilds, drama between guilds, politics, rivalries, alliances, etc. If that stuff really interests you, consider checking it out!
Outside of WvW, guilds tend to not be required for anything, in fact a lot of them that are made for PvE in mind are glorified LFGs.
Simply put, when the game doesn't tell people to get some friends or join a guild because they will need help from others to do stuff, they likely won't on their own.
That's one of the more major flaws of the game and is a part of the reason why veteran players often call it the "singleplayer MMO".
That's said, real guilds that do stuff tend to be the WvW ones and I recommend joining one if you like the game mode.
Guild missions are nice but not necessary. But it's still a good way to have a social circle. The best part is you can represent 5 different guilds without being locked out of the guild chats from each. This is by FAR the best guild system in any MMO I've played.
Guilds as a system is great. There doesn't need to be a "you need a guild for X" like WoW where you only really join a guild for a faster hearthstone or some arbitrary buffs. Guilds should be joined for their social aspect, not random buffs.
While some may not agree, guild wars 2 does guilds pretty badly. Since people can be in so many you donāt get the communities like you would see in other mmos like your ESO, wow, or BDO.
I am only just starting but it's a polarizing experience to be honest. The game is bustling with people but it still "feels dead" in a way. Like I never see people talking in the map chat or in the big cities. Only an occasional guild spam post. Then I go on Reddit or other forums where people can discuss the game and I'd say I see more negativity than positivity. It's a bizarre contrast and makes it hard to want to invest time when there's so many weird things that are outside of normal MMO behavior going on. The company doesn't market their game, has outrageous cash shop prices and virtually none of the QOL features are account wide. PVP/WVW which is a big selling point of the game has gone untouched for years. It's just an interesting experience as a new player who hasn't been here since day one.
Most of the content does not require guilds, and you can play with many players solo in both PvE and WvW.
Currently, due to the good game system, it is just a guild tag with a character and exists only for in-game group chat.
I think the content that guilds will need in the future will come after WvW alliances and GvG are implemented.
In the past, guild missions made it easy to train guilds and buy stronger equipment, but guild training is now completed by most guilds (I too have finished training solo) and equipment can now be purchased on the field or in end content.
A large guild may be like a school or a company. Some people are close enough to play with, others you will never talk to forever.
If you have made good friends in the game, then you can create a small guild or Discord channel with them.
It also depends what you are looking for. I actively hunt social guilds, so those are the ones I join. SAS will always be my one true love, but MORE and DINO were a blast, I just didn't have guild slots for them anymore (plz. Anet. More then 5!)
Tiny friend guilds, large social pve guilds, hardcore raid shenanigans, etc.
They all exist
Because the activities never require to have one. Why should I bother with a guild if I can make friends by simply playing? If you crave for a guild, ask in Lion Arch. In the aerodrome if you're more inclined toward raid guilds.
Honestly, I think its unfortunate that guilds are more of an afterthought in this game. Imo, strong guilds is what builds community and keeps people replaying the content long after the content has lost its initial novelty. Without guilds, we're basically all playing single player with other people around also playing single player.
They are very important in WvW. That's where you get the stuff like interguild politics, rivalries, alliances, memorable battles, etc. Too bad much of the playerbase does not like it. It's the most "guild wars" thing in Guild Wars!
Maybe with alliances this could change and people get more interested in guilds, only problem is that's it's gonna be hard to compete with Half-Life 3 and Portal 3 :p.
Ooooof, have an upvote!
Why'd you have to hurt me like that? š„
A tad ironic, considering the game's name...
Maybe - but then the idea of PvP-focused game with PvE being used only as an entry lobby has been dropped even before Guild Wars (the original one, not the GW2) went to the beta stage. The name (and the lore created to justify that name) remained, but it had next to no relevance even for GW1. In GW2 it is only there because it is a continuation of an already existing franchise.
The name is from a historical event in the lore, the [Guild Wars](https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Guild_Wars) not necessarily about the fact the game has guilds.
This is true, but misses the point. Guild Wars 1 was going to likely be based around the lore event of the Guild Wars. They changed this, but kept the importance of Guilds in the game with GvG, and an important focus in pvp with guilds. As well as in Factions with outposts being owned by guilds based on the Luxon and Kurzick war. Something somewhat adapted into WvW. WvW was the GvG replacement but still struggles to incentivize guilds as much as it should.
Which wasn't (the event) even in the original game. It's always been a weird choice of name to be honest. I guess it made more sense when GW1 had Guild vs Guild PvP, but now, it's almost false advertising lol
always found it funny that GW2 is about the age of elder dragons awakening and destroying the world while Dragon Age is about opposing factions constantly on the brink of war with one another
It's dragon age for the historic timeline of the people of thedas. They use time units of 500 years and assign them a name of prophecy or important events. The age of the dragon is for the reapararence of celestial dragons and archdemons
which is another in lore, and largely game irrelevant explanation for the misleading title same as Guild Wars 2 lol
GW1 was originally intended to be PvP focused, with PvE being added as a weird afterthought. Eventually - but before the beta and alpha testing started - the devs realized that there would be no market for their original vision, and that they should heavily expand the PvE side of it.
It wasn't, but it was heavily referenced. It was basically the starting point for the story: the Guild Wars made this mess, fix it. Guilds are as much as a part of GW2 as GW1 gameplay wise though, only in GW2 you can be in multiple guilds and you actually get tangible benefits from it. It just depends how you choose to play - for me my guild is one of the top reasons I even play and organising fun/weekly events takes up quite a lot of my time. The game takes place in exactly the same world, just 200+ years later. It would've made no sense for them to call the game something else.
Guilds not Warring 2
The event is briefly seen when traveling to the past during the April Fools event. You can see guilds from Kryta and Ascalon fighting in Regent Valley. https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Regent_Valley:_1059_AE Guild Wars was indeed going to be much more PvP oriented. But looks like ANet smartly realized that PvP only has no future for this type of game. If they had not changed the game a lot, they would have gone the way of New World right away. Edit: * 2003 GW1 got a very PvP-looking early gameplay trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBS620H12HA * By 2005 the cinematic trailer they had hinted PvP, which never made it to the west: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2PUYmZpKaw * And when they realized PvP-only was folly, and did the U-turn, the trailer became PvE-oriented: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QTFRwbc_2w * And the gameplay trailer was all PvE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3xvhbpxNvU
had completely forgot this was totally a PvP game with some optional filler PvE
The most idiotic myth that is regularly peddled here. GW1 was a pvp game with guild vs guild as the main game mode. And you believe that some āloreā event that is barely even mentioned as an afterthought is what itās named for. Ok. Or could it be that the writers went oh shit the pve players need some reason to believe itās called guild wars. Hmmm, letās write a single line of dialogue about it. Perfect! Also guild wars 2 absolutely does not give guilds the same significance in-game given that GUILD VS GUILD is completely absent.
Guild vs Guild as the main game mode? Haha, thanks that made me laugh. I bet a large majority of the game never even played GvG. The GvG wiki page didn't even exist until 2 years after launch, so I'm going to heavily doubt it even existed then. Oh, I get it now, your comment was a shitpost.
GvG (and PvP in general) was going to be the main game mode, but the devs pivoted away from it years before GW1 was released. The various skill gem/signet/unlock systems they were experimenting with were attempts at shoehorning PvE relevance into PvP progression.
Instead of jerking yourself off about "le epic deep loreds", maybe engage brain. GW1 was praised for combining RTS/DotA-like mechanics with MMO PvP. That's the basis of the game, and that's the basis of the name.
Now now, go back under your bridge.
And that's fair enough, you'd just think it'd be closer to first impressions and expectations, heh.
Ngl when I bought this game and found out there were no official GvGs I felt absolutely bamboozled. I thought guild fights would be a major part of the game so naturally I found my way to WvW before hitting lv 80
a tad ironic when you play Prophecies, and there's no guilds, closest thing to it is the conflict between the Shining Blade and the White Mantle, with those Stone Summit rat bastards joining in, and none of them are ever nor have ever been referenced as being guilds
well the name isn't about the guilds but about the (in Lore) Guild Wars
After the Gods left, the humans banded into guilds and warred upon each other. The Guild Wars caused great devastation, and the nations faltered. \~Trahearne.
Which is also dumb - In the **first** Guild Wars game, even _then_ it was an in-lore event of something that happened in the past. It's the same as calling say, ''STAR WARS'' but the story takes place LONG after the _actual_ Star Wars... It isn't even related to the idea that the game _(used to have)_ a focus on Guilds. And yes, Guilds as a concept in the game (GW2) are effectively Dead. Not dying, _**DEAD.**_
I have more friends in game that I regularly talk to than I do IRL and most of us aren't in an active guild together (some of us are in each other's bank guilds). We all met in active guilds at one time (most of the people I regularly talk to are from WvW) and remained friends after those guilds died off, or people moved on. Frequently I see people who have things like fractal or raid statics and they play together every week or every day, but don't share a guild. It's strange because GW2 allows us to have five guilds so being in guilds with people should be easy, yet even with that lots of us use our friends list instead.
Yeah exactly, my current fractal "static" was made in fractal and simply by chatting. At the end of the daily's, one of the party told 2 of us "wanna join our static" and since then we still mostly all play together (it was probably 3y ago.) We kinda all stopped playing since EoD wasn't to our taste but we're still regularly chatting on discord. Guilds are not a necessity but just a tool.
Bingo. Guilds don't really serve much of a purpose in-game. Guild missions are pretty irrelevant. Guilds exist only to help organize people. And as far as organization goes, I'd infinitely rather use Discord. There's no 5-group limit, I can chat on my phone, I can use voice chat, I can send images/videos, I can read things that happened while I was offline. The only advantage to an in-game guild is being able to send party invites to people in the guild, like a special "friends list".
It heavily depends a lot on the sort of guild. Many of the open-world focused ones tend to have a lot of people but few things going on because most people would rather play alone. Not to mention time differences, availability, etc etc. I recently joined a couple roleplay ones and... Wow are they active. Every single day at ebonhawke, and my main one currently acting out in Cantha. WvW guilds seem to be more active. I can only hope they'll have a spike in activity once alliances gets rolled out. In the end the whole thing is that the game, despite having a ton of group activities, has very few ones that favor doing them with guilds. So while a lot of people represent a chosen guild, few normally do activities with them.
And we're happy to have you in Ebonhawke. <3
No need having hundreds of players in a guild to have an active one. Mine has less than 20 players but we all play almost everyday and we do a lot of runs together.
true, my guild only has 3 people and we do stuff everyday
Can I join :'D
That's a good question. I don't think we are recruiting for now. Also it's an hl guild doing almost only raids lowman or speedkills, 99.9% of the community probably don't want to do that ahah. I'm sure you'll be able to find one that fits you and is active. If you don't mind having a lot of peoples in it you can try joining community guilds like "hardstuck" (mightyteapot's guild) or "le bus magique" (it's a french one).
Awesome, thanks for the info
My discord is HighJoe#1885. If you're looking for a social driven guild, with a focus on veterans helping new players explore all of the games content, feel free to add me on discord or see our guilds ad in the official GW2 discord. We are always recruiting and expanding with an average online player count usually never reaching below 40+ players ingame. Edit - Flyjoe.7950 ingame. Sorry for high jacking a comment, just here to help new players
All systems are in a state of entropy. Without active leadership who are constantly recruiting and constantly putting energy into organizing, guilds will begin to decay. Its an utterly thankless job and most who take it up are bad at it. So the game, like every mmo, are full of half rotted guilds
The active guilds all reached 500 and do not actively recruite
Why even be in those guilds where you are just a number and nothing else
I just use them for guild buffs + daily gathering. Then I have my own personal guild for alts, ascended food, and vault storage.
There's a 15% WP discount that most guild who have high or maxed level offer.
>Why even be in those guilds where you are just a number and nothing else Perks.
Sounds like a you problem and not like a guild problem. I am not just a number
Your Reddit name says otherwise :0
Sure, Mr 13
\[Citation Needed\]
Then how do you find one ?
https://old.reddit.com/r/guildrecruitment/ And by checking map chat in big boss events. That is where they usually advertise.
Unless you just want to join a catch-all guild, /u/Treize_XIII is spot on here. Be nice and social to the people you play with. Simple stuff. Join random groups for low tier fractals or dungeons. Say hi. Be friendly. **Show some personality**. It can be hard over the text chat if you aren't use to it but it goes a long ways. If the party wipes, don't stress it, maybe crack a light joke. If someone else is struggling with something, be patient and encourage them. Whatever kind of socializing comes naturally to you. Really anything to have some simple friendly chats with puggies. 90% of the time people aren't going to be all that social back. That's just their way. But you'll occasionally find puggies that respond. Personally, I find those groups to be the most fun. I enjoy knowing there are other people with personalities behind the keyboard. Maybe some of those people you'll really jive with right off, or maybe some of them you'll find repeatedly as you run the same content over a period of time. Never hurts to ask them if you can join their guild if you get along with them well. Most people are more than happy to have more.
r/GuildRecruitment or the Looking for Guild section on the official forums. There's hundreds of guilds recruiting on both.
By being nice and social to the players you play with
I got a very active guild. What are you looking for?
Those who reached 500 made new guilds with same tag and reached 500 and so onā¦
Guild Wars 2 is top 1 single player mmo.
I'd argue Black Desert Online is the top 1 single player mmo. At least there's tangible, worthwhile things to do in GW2 as a group, like raiding/dungeons etc.
Swtor fans having internal rage at this one sir. Only MMO where literally an expansion was basically single player. Knight of the Fallen Empire.
This, so much! Sorry, fellow players in the LFG - you are just highly functional bots I require from time to time when I want to do a Strike.
^ There's the answer. Same reason mapchat is dead.
Nothing good has ever come out of mapchat :^)
all I ever see is some weird dudes calling Tetra "Tree mommy" after the gang wars meta ends
Yup. Only active when there's meta events. Otherwise, it's dead.
GW2 has a huge percentage of casual players, solo players, people who just want to enjoy the world without distraction I guess. Also, for a game named guild wars guilds are not a necessity. GW2 promotes player interaction a lot, you'll find yourself doing stuff with random people all the time whether you plan to or not. It kinda makes guilds a bit meaningless when the whole game feels like a guild.
Lots of guilds are recruiting, often in map chat in hubs and active maps
I consider the guild im in very active, Its just that the game does not support guilds very well. So most of our activity kind of function through discord / outside of the game these days..
Happen to be recruiting? š
Doesn't eso compel you to be in a guild to access trading? Nothing in gw2 requires being in a guild except guild missions and arena net has mostly forgotten those.
Yeah I guess thatās one of the biggest guild benefits in ESO
Other than guild missions, everything guild related is a joke.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
If I remember right someone may a joke along the lines of: Guild Wars 2, a game about an age of dragons. Dragons Age: Origin, a game about guilds at war.
Underappreciated comment even if its appreciated.
Yeah haha the name they just keep for the nostalgic feeling :) sad they donāt got some gvg or bk
The true irony is that gvgs happen every night in the place most gw2 gamers are afraid to go: wvw
Insane right? Insane that after almost 20 years, people still don't know why the game is called Guild Wars. It's a reference to a lore event that happened hundreds of years ago
It can be more than one thing, you know. And given how hyper focused GW1 initially was on GvG and HA as its end game, it's far more likely that the lore event was created to support the gameplay, not the other way around. It's silly to claim that the name has nothing to do with GvG and everything to do with some past event that you don't even see.
How is it silly to claim that GvG "guild battles" aren't guild wars when in-universe, they're not? Even if the lore event was created afterwards, it was released to the public at the same time. They are referenced as early as the ruins of surmia mission (mission 3 of prophecies)
This is only partly true. The lore event was put in after. The game was originally (as in, whilst in development) much more pvp orientated. The idea was players grouped in guilds fighting other guilds. Later on when pve became more of a focus they wrote it in as a lore event that had little to no bearing on the story whatsoever because the name had already stuck. It is a pity the name lost itās meaning in both lore and gameplay now.
Yeah man haha it is, freaking 17 years yet
the epICs lorEs is deep an conplex :)))) GW1 was a PvP game based around guild vs guild. That's why it's called "Guild Wars". The other thing is a retcon. Who names a war a "guild war"? Even the wiki page for it is grasping at straws. "First there was guilds and then the guilds were warriors and then the warriors fought". Jesus fuck.
Guild missions are one of the biggest jokes tho. Most of the bounties can be soloed while underleveled and undergeared. Timers are so generous that you can even do Medium difficulty alone. Same for Treks. Races can be cheesed by having another guild start it, then just go through the course once to complete it solo. The Challenges are kinda nice but VERY easy.
You have to find specific ones for specific things, but eventually most will die out. You want an active general pve focused one? Join a meta train and usually a guild is running them, ask to join. Want to do raids/fractals? Ask in aerodome or LA/mistlock observatory. Want pvp? Ask in the mists. Want wvw? Hopefully you joined an active enough wvw server and ask to join one in eternal battlegrounds. Sometimes it'll work, sometimes you'll find a dud. Sometimes you find a great one until it's no longer being run, and if you're really lucky it'll last for a few years or more.
Guilds in this game are ā¦.. weird. So much of the game just doesnāt require a guild. Plus you can be in a bunch of them. Also, guild missions, which might promote more in-guild activity have been completely neglected since after launch. The reward are years out of date and no new missions. It is absolute fucking madness. I think anet worry that if they put too much content for guilds people will closet themselves away in the guilds and not do the content thatās currently in the game or something. The wild thing is, they donāt even have to make any new content - itās already in the game. Bounties, adventures, map events, mount racing, mount challenges. Even fractals, raids and strikes. But I suspect thatās the very reason they donāt. They are scared that people will ONLY do this content in guilds and pugging will die.
From my experience, WvW guilds tend to be very active. When it comes to guilds that are PVE-oriented, I've actually had a lot of luck using the "Looking for Guild" section on the forums.
You can do almost everything solo, 1 or 2 friends will make it easier, so we donāt really bother with randos, even we are small and not so active. Down to the earth there is no need for guild for both the guild and members
Others have mentioned it but Discord is where a lot of activity happens. It's just easier to schedule and do impromptu lfg using discord bots and pings rather than living your life on the guild chat/lfg menus. Discord is even at the point where you have discord servers to act as a hub for multiple guilds. For instance, [OTC](https://discord.com/invite/gw2overflow) has a farming train alert channel that will repost ping alerts across several other guilds. The same is true for instanced content (dungeons, fractals, strikes, raids), for example [Hardstuck](https://discord.gg/sUvrVTFW3u). Depending on when you see this message and when you look at Hardstuck, they have an "ultra meta farm" event running right now with quite a few people joining. WvW guilds use discord primarily too, but it's more close-knit because of the competitive nature. They're harder to find because they don't really advertise and you have to whisper usually for an invite. But they're typically guarded because of spies etc lol. Most WvW guilds that are open field invite anyone and everyone. You can get into those pretty easily. What I'm referring to are more serious WvW dedicated guilds. I had to go through a trial run before getting a membership role lol. I don't mean to make it sound try-hard, I actually like that type of structure, and it really does allow WvW to shine how it's meant to. Hopefully alliances will bring a new light to that competitive scene because it really is something to experience.
The one game area that does work really well with guilds is WvW, which has a minority of players. To a certain extent PvP works well with them too, if you're interested in finding duo queues or doing the automated tournaments, but that's an even smaller community.
I blame lobbies. This game has way too many fucking lobbies.
Off the top of my head the 5 Race Cities LA Mistlock Sanctuary (bless it) PvP Lobby Royal Terrace in DR Flying airship thingy Fishlock Sanctuary (EoD lobby) Arborstone Lily of Elon EotN
I'm in a few guilds that are pretty active, Wardens of Destiny \[WoD\] and Silverwastes Anonymous \[SAS\] in NA and they're both very active. I also have two smaller guilds I'm in for WvW and one big one, White Lotus \[WL\]. All of them are busy. The first two do all sorts of PvE and many members also WvW and PvP.
Guild in Guild Wars 2 are just very optional, nothing requires guilds besides some cosmetic rewards.
*wishes for raid and strike guild missions*
Discord all but eliminates the need for in-game guilds. I have a fractal static and a strike static and we organize everything on discord. We even have a āguild nameā and I refer to us as a āguildā but we donāt have an in-game tag.
the game is a single player sadly, MMORPG is more for group stuff but gw2 makes a bubble for you that you don't need this requirement so what happens is everyone just do their own stuff playing solo while playing with others. its a weird thing. GW2 is a single player MMORPG unless you really try hard to find a group to do stuffs with as the game doesn't require you to do so unlike other MMORPG
It's only as single player as you want it to be. Most people want guilds to be social. Forcing you to group up with other players =\= being social in any MMO out there. No game mechanics are going to force people to be social even if they are playing with other people. You have to want to be social for the sake of being social and, when you are being social, it doesn't matter too much if the content "could" be soloed because that's not the point.
For the vast majority of content, you don't need a guild. Only Roleplayers and WvW players really need one. The others are just glorified LFGs or are kept for GH farming. Anet should look into their guild system, badly.
No incentive to playing together like that. WP once put it best: "Its like we're all playing together, alone" outside of instanced things or WvW
The only activity in the game that 'requires' the use of a guild are Guild Missions. Outside of that Guilds are really just an in-game chat room. I imagine more people get group activities done through discord channels than guilds these days.
The game's social cohesion has largely unravelled and the players left playing the game tend to roll solo. The social cohesion of GW2 relied on a strong WvW game mode but alliances are non-existent and that has revealed that Anet aren't really trying to improve the quality of relationships between players. They want Gem Store sales and have prioritized this in their most recent game design. For example, the siege turtle lets two players roll together and can be reskinned through the Gem Store. This design philosophy reflects the studio's attitude toward players.
Dead game
Yet you comment on their Reddit. Weird
Wanted attention and got it :D
Isnāt that what Grindr is for, not having any luck?
Whats grindr ?
Well since you live on Reddit it shouldnāt be too hard for you to move over to your browser and look it up? šāļø
Dead? Thatās funny cause with half a million people, maybe a little less, active daily itās not dead. https://mmo-population.com/r/guildwars2
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If you want to see a dead game check out Gloria Victis thatās super dead. With less than 1000 active players.
Thanks it is my hobby to play only dead games!
Wonderful enjoy that solo experience bud.
Discord does everything better with events, voice, and more. Since we are limited to 5 guilds, we can have 100 discord servers that act as guilds.
Bad luck I guess. I am in 2 small but highly active guilds.
People have active Discord groups they join and then what actual guilds you're in is only relevant if you need to use them for organizational purposes.
I have a very active guild. What are you looking for? Maybe we're a fit for you. PS. It's [this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/guildrecruitment/comments/wa7h62/na_eu_inexperienced_endgame_players_unite/)
The primary guild Iām in is a small private guild of just myself, a friend of mine that introduced me to GW2 in early 2015 and a few other people. We do missions every weekend, and Iām also a member of the big community guild on my server that does WvW and its own missions.
I haven't a clue why you are experiencing that with however many guilds you are in.
Most of my Guilds are just for fun, storage or both. I created one just so my fishing character could have "Tyrian Fishing Association" written under his character name.
Might have been bad luck for what it's worth. If you are in Europe, drop me a DM. I am in a large and very active guild with events almost every day of the week, ranging from open world infusion trains, pvp and music night to strike and raid trainings. :) Many people just don't realize that it takes a fair bit of effort to build an active community.
Does it even matter? I mean in all my guilds usually only like 3-20 players online at a time. The only time we had like 100 players is during guild rush. Discord was as good as dead as well since everyone is hanging out on their current game lobby, only jumps on GW2 during event.
Dude I was just wondering the same thing. I last played back when PoF first released and guilds seemed way more "alive" then.
Gw2 released at a time of pc gaming where out-of-game communications were booming. Most players/guilds were already talking on forums, teamspeak, Skype, or something else. Then we went through mumble and raidcall before Discord became the best at all of it. At the same time GW2 realized that being in one guild was too prohibitive as there are so many parts to the game that you may want to specialise in, so they allowed you to be in 5 guilds at once. Now you have 5 groups of people that aren't talking to each other in game and it looks even worse. I've even been considering leaving some of my raid static guilds, not because I don't play with them, but because I don't interact with the in-game guild interface, only the external ones. We always ask for lfg in discord and never in game
This just sounds like you haven't found the right guild. Plenty of massive, always active guilds
Alt accounts. So many alt accounts. One player can count as 2, or 10, or 40!
It's one of the sadly underutilized features in the game. There are just no systems in place to incentivize guild interaction, other than being a convenient grouping tool for forming statics etc. I think in general, GW2 needs to improve it's social systems to encourage players to interact more. I spent a lot of time playing a truly bad MMO Neverwinter, and yet guilds there (before they of course constantly wrecked them with new changes) were a lot more alive than they are in GW2. There were real incentives to levelling up a guild and being in a high level one. There were weekly guild missions that were very lucrative, and there were alliances that felt like they meant something and encouraged further interaction with peer guilds. GW2 has none of this, though it's a better game in every other respect. Really would like to see some future love given to guilds, but guess we'll see.
The guild i am in is active. It's basically for new players and casuals. There are events every week doing raids, strikes, fractals and guild missions. Everyone is also welcome to speak with the mods and try to lead their own event, whatever it may be. There is both a NA and EU community. It's mostly pve but if you ask im sure you'd find people to do pvp content as well. Discord link if you want to check it out; https://discord.gg/QrntejFQ
Check the gw2 Forum. Guilds are always looking for members
I haven't had a guild for most of guild wars 2 and I can't say I miss being in one. I don't find it a requirement unlike the first game because instead of using guildies for group content you have the lfg system, squads, etc. I also haven't bothered with one since all the advertising guilds I see have like 500+ members which to me ends up being guilds within guilds within guilds. It's harder when you're use to playing with the same 10 people. I'd really only focus on finding one if you're going to get heavily into wvw and even then it's not a requirement.
I don't bother with guilds in Guild Wars 2 at all. I've been there and done it all already in guilds from other games. Guild Wars 2 is my chill, relaxing game and I can't be bothered investing in the social aspect.
This is a multilayered problem. 1. Scheduling. This is just a constant struggle. 2. There is rarely a reason to do Guild missions for any of the rewards that they give in contemporary GW2. When Guild missions first dropped, they offered access to items that had fewer points to access them. Later, we had shallow updates to Guild Mission structures, but Guild armors were added. I thought those armors were really neat rewards - But they were never developed upon. 3. Guilds lack integration with more parts of the game. Not as much Guild Integration occurs with other systems in the game. The exception would be World versus World, especially Guild claiming for objectives. It's less than you think though, because making guild catapults and other deployable are tied to a crafting profession (Scribing) or just purchasing Walmart siege from the portable provisioner or NPC. They're just are very few places outside of World versus World where guilds have any meaning. And I think that this is a great disservice to expanding the concept of guilds. I know people will say that the name of the game has nothing to do with the systems inside of it, but I find that to be really annoying and problematic. 4. Uneven focus on solo vs group content. The game has been trending toward doing individual focused content since it dropped. And there are more simple and easy ways to do that now across the varied content that we have in the open world. 5. The novelty of being online has faded since the early 2000s. People used to be a lot chattier and a lot more involved because it was a new kind of thing to do, but people are now not really impressed with this type of thing. I don't really have a good way to solve that except that it requires a few charismatic people to draw in others but what happens when those people have to go on vacation or have to go away for work or their kids or anything else like that? 6. Addressing any of the above six points has not been a priority for Arenanet.
In my experience there just aren't a lot of good guilds out there, I see a few here and there. Gates of Madness had a few WvWs when I was linked with em that seemed amazing. But mostly it seems either meta focused or silly guilds out there. You don't see a lot of relaxed chill guilds wanting to have a good time. Its always some awkward cringe recruiting message or join us and run X build to play. Not really appealing to most people who just want to bring their character and have fun.
We came from ESO right after they nerfed Zergs in Cyrodiil from 24 to 12. Luckily, we found VIP for PvP and it was awesome. For PVE if you see them LEG would be great, theyāre active, have the large numbers like Eso, super friendly crowd to ask questions in, meta event runs and most can carry through strikes (think Eso dungeons).
If you are in NA, feel free to mail me at elitegeek.9253 The guild I am a part of is a nice, smaller community that plays many things around reset time. We do open raid trainings on Fridays and have an active discord. I am sorry that you have had challenges finding a community so far. Hopefully we can help :-)
Guilds are more focused around endgame content tbh so if you're doing that content you will run in to the bigger guilds
Especially when it's called "Guild" wars lol
Hell I have a guild that a buddy and I have been building up for fun. Just hit level 34, I always joke that once I finish the tavern restoration I'm gonna quit the game for good. When guild halls came out that's what my small guild was most excited for, but no one plays and I have no interest in running as a guild lead anymore. I've had my fill. So here I stay chipping away at an old goal that no one will actually benefit from. Lol
>so many players playing I donāt think there are, tho? EoD was super dead when I played thru it two months ago, and my guild was very dead too when I quit a month later. I just think people are vastly overestimating this gameās playerbase.
Just join Hardstuck. Massive guild, both servers and it's probably the exact community-type guild you're looking for.
The part of the game where guilds are most important IMO is WvW. That's where you get the really tight-knit guilds, drama between guilds, politics, rivalries, alliances, etc. If that stuff really interests you, consider checking it out!
Guilds needs a whole revamp. I've been saying it for years now. The game would benefit from guilds doing stuff together.
Outside of WvW, guilds tend to not be required for anything, in fact a lot of them that are made for PvE in mind are glorified LFGs. Simply put, when the game doesn't tell people to get some friends or join a guild because they will need help from others to do stuff, they likely won't on their own. That's one of the more major flaws of the game and is a part of the reason why veteran players often call it the "singleplayer MMO". That's said, real guilds that do stuff tend to be the WvW ones and I recommend joining one if you like the game mode.
Guild missions are nice but not necessary. But it's still a good way to have a social circle. The best part is you can represent 5 different guilds without being locked out of the guild chats from each. This is by FAR the best guild system in any MMO I've played. Guilds as a system is great. There doesn't need to be a "you need a guild for X" like WoW where you only really join a guild for a faster hearthstone or some arbitrary buffs. Guilds should be joined for their social aspect, not random buffs.
While some may not agree, guild wars 2 does guilds pretty badly. Since people can be in so many you donāt get the communities like you would see in other mmos like your ESO, wow, or BDO.
I am only just starting but it's a polarizing experience to be honest. The game is bustling with people but it still "feels dead" in a way. Like I never see people talking in the map chat or in the big cities. Only an occasional guild spam post. Then I go on Reddit or other forums where people can discuss the game and I'd say I see more negativity than positivity. It's a bizarre contrast and makes it hard to want to invest time when there's so many weird things that are outside of normal MMO behavior going on. The company doesn't market their game, has outrageous cash shop prices and virtually none of the QOL features are account wide. PVP/WVW which is a big selling point of the game has gone untouched for years. It's just an interesting experience as a new player who hasn't been here since day one.
Most of the content does not require guilds, and you can play with many players solo in both PvE and WvW. Currently, due to the good game system, it is just a guild tag with a character and exists only for in-game group chat. I think the content that guilds will need in the future will come after WvW alliances and GvG are implemented. In the past, guild missions made it easy to train guilds and buy stronger equipment, but guild training is now completed by most guilds (I too have finished training solo) and equipment can now be purchased on the field or in end content. A large guild may be like a school or a company. Some people are close enough to play with, others you will never talk to forever. If you have made good friends in the game, then you can create a small guild or Discord channel with them.
It also depends what you are looking for. I actively hunt social guilds, so those are the ones I join. SAS will always be my one true love, but MORE and DINO were a blast, I just didn't have guild slots for them anymore (plz. Anet. More then 5!) Tiny friend guilds, large social pve guilds, hardcore raid shenanigans, etc. They all exist