Heres my story. I played at release. Had early access on day one and all that jazz. I played up until the release of he first content patch where we had to kill the trandoshan guy. Had cleared all nightmare modes before that. Well my guild quit after and we were all very close but when they all left i couldnt find myself playing anymore so i cancelled my sub and quit.

Now im thinking of coming back and starting over from scratch. Before i leveled a Marauder, Inquisitor, and a Bounty Hunter to max and raided with them all. So i may try the republic side and see how the story line flows. (loved playing empire though).

Now my question is. How strong is the community, numbers wise to be able to find a good guild to run with and raid the current content. The few weekends i messed around with the game a bit on i was only able to find guilds with 5-10 people i the guild and only like 1 - 3 people online at a time.

Any thoughts?

Heres my story. I played at release. Had early access on day one and all that jazz. I played up until the release of he first content patch where we had to kill the trandoshan guy. Had cleared all nightmare modes before that. Well my guild quit after and we were all very close but when they all left i couldnt find myself playing anymore so i cancelled my sub and quit.

 

Now im thinking of coming back and starting over from scratch. Before i leveled a Marauder, Inquisitor, and a Bounty Hunter to max and raided with them all. So i may try the republic side and see how the story line flows. (loved playing empire though).

 

Now my question is. How strong is the community, numbers wise to be able to find a good guild to run with and raid the current content w/o having to be forced to guild with? The few weekends i messed around with the game a bit on i was only able to find guilds with 5-10 people i the guild and only like 1 - 3 people online at a time.

 

Any thoughts?

So if I understand you correctly, you want to run operations with a guild (or several) but do not want to join a guild because you are afraid of joining one with too few members. On my server, The Harbinger, there are frequent ops groups forming through general chat. Some are guilds looking for fillers, some are pure PuGs. However, most of these are at best HM of the 2nd tier of operations, not the top end.

If you want to do top end raiding at this point you have a couple of options:

1) find a guild (or group) that is starting in SM and working on progression. You will progress with them. As the guild/group gears up and gets more coordinated they will work through HM and eventually NiM.

2) (and i am loathed to say it) guild hop. Find a guild that is running SM ops, run with them until you cannot get any better gear, then change guilds/groups to one running content that will get you better gear and so on until you get to the top end.

So if I understand you correctly, you want to run operations with a guild (or several) but do not want to join a guild because you are afraid of joining one with too few members. On my server, The Harbinger, there are frequent ops groups forming through general chat. Some are guilds looking for fillers, some are pure PuGs. However, most of these are at best HM of the 2nd tier of operations, not the top end.

 

If you want to do top end raiding at this point you have a couple of options:

 

1) find a guild (or group) that is starting in SM and working on progression. You will progress with them. As the guild/group gears up and gets more coordinated they will work through HM and eventually NiM.

 

2) (and i am loathed to say it) guild hop. Find a guild that is running SM ops, run with them until you cannot get any better gear, then change guilds/groups to one running content that will get you better gear and so on until you get to the top end.

Eh sorry about that i was in the middle of editing when someone came into my office and after i finished speaking to them i hit post. My post is edited now lol. I'd prefer to find a good guild with people who group and pvp together outside of raids. people who are friendly with each other for the most part.

Heres my story. I played at release. Had early access on day one and all that jazz. I played up until the release of he first content patch where we had to kill the trandoshan guy. Had cleared all nightmare modes before that. Well my guild quit after and we were all very close but when they all left i couldnt find myself playing anymore so i cancelled my sub and quit.

 

Now im thinking of coming back and starting over from scratch. Before i leveled a Marauder, Inquisitor, and a Bounty Hunter to max and raided with them all. So i may try the republic side and see how the story line flows. (loved playing empire though).

 

Now my question is. How strong is the community, numbers wise to be able to find a good guild to run with and raid the current content. The few weekends i messed around with the game a bit on i was only able to find guilds with 5-10 people i the guild and only like 1 - 3 people online at a time.

 

Any thoughts?

Check your server's Guild Recruitment subforum: http://www.swtor.com/community/forumdisplay.php?f=309 . Most of the guilds that are running Nightmare content post their information there. I can tell you that Republic's Hammer and Shadow Council of the Sith are friendly casual guilds who run the occasional raid and PvP a lot, but we aren't serious about raiding and never have done a Nightmare Operation.

i swear... the number of times this has been linked... lol

Read this

Its quite concise.

And to answer the original question, finding one isnt the difficult part. difficult part is finding one with people you fit into and runs at times that work for you. As one of the other posters suggested, look in your server forums. but tbh, if you left the game at/during explosive conflict, you have a fair bit of catching up. I'd suggest catching up first and getting the new ops down in sm before even guild shopping.

So how is the grind to gear up to be gear ready to enter the story mode raids to start?

Besides Dulfy's guide above, BioWare has an official guide at http://www.swtor.com/info/eldergame .

I did not feel like there was a grind to get gear at all. By the time I was done with my class story, I had more than enough gear to do lvl 50 story mode Operations. By the time I was done with Ilum, Makeb, the Macrobinocular, and Seeker droid stories, I only had to do a day or two of dailies and hard mode lvl 55 Flashpoints to have enough gear for lvl 55 story mode Operations.

Gear requirements:

• Lvl 50 Operations: Minimum gear I would use is to have a full set of the Makeb planetary vendor gear or higher. You can get the Planetary comms for this vendor from just doing your class story, side missions, and story mode lvl 50 Flashpoints. You can also get better lvl 50 gear by doing the Ilum story / Dailies, Belsavis Bonus Series / Dailies, Black Hole Dailies, and lvl 50 HM Flashpoints. Basically, if you feel confident doing any lvl 50 Hard Mode Flashpoint besides Lost Island with a decent team, you are ready for lvl 50 Operations.
  
• Lvl 55 Operations: From the link above:
  

  Q: WHEN AM I READY TO GROUP UP FOR OPERATIONS?
  Once you're comfortable running the Level 55 Hard Mode Flashpoints and you've acquired a few pieces of Rating 162 gear, you should be in good shape to start queuing up for Story Mode Operations

  I would say that you are ready when you have a full set of rating 156 or better gear. You can get this gear from the Makeb story, Macrobinocular and Seeker droid stories, Section X, Makeb, GSI, and CZ dailies, and lvl 55 HM Flashpoints.
  

The "grind" does come until you are trying to do Hard Mode and Nightmare Mode Operations. The only way of getting the gear for these Operations are to do lower modes of lvl 55 Operations.