Interested to see what people think regarding this.

 

For the most part I'm talking about PvE (since I don't dabble in PvP), there seem to be a large excess of guilds on this server, at least Republic side anyway (again can't say regarding Imperial), the majority being smaller guilds with rather limited progress. For example I can sit on the fleet right now and count a minimum of 20 guilds, with a maximum of perhaps 40 or 50, a lot of them being very specialized (i.e. more localized guilds of certain countries) or very diverse - ones open to everything, all levels, PvP and PvE that have a rather mixed reputation because of this.

 

Why is this? Generally when starting a guild I'd say it's like starting a business, look for a gap in the market, a unique niche that the guild can fill at least. Either way this is meant to be a fairly open minded discussion but I find the situation rather bizarre (and not just a little frustrating, being part of a said "smaller guild") as you simply end up with a ton of guilds all trying to recruit, competing with one another and hindering one anothers progress.

 

Edit: On a related note, if any small-to-medium sized Republic PvE guilds are interested in merging with an equally sized, friendly guild (Carbonite) please /w Yúme (often on Ikertaku) or myself (Ellynia)

Edited March 6, 2013 by Ellynia

My offer to help you guys out still stands. We had your issues as well when we formed the guild and it is a shame that such nice people cannot enjoy the game. We are working on a third progression team to cover content and we do lack some people (their playtime is exactly like yours and in conflict with ours because oftentimes during the weekend we are out in the real world). If need be, you can complete your team with some crazy rebels. We got plenty of good people and have extensive raiding experience. We can provide input on all the operations and also in the new one that is coming . We dabbled with it on the PTS as well .

 

If you have any questions or want some more information, you can find me on :

 

I'risa/Allegra/Cleio/Stracciattela.

Poor Irisa has had some hard times :< But he is a really nice guy <3

Heh I was talking to you yesterday about this same time as I was posting this I'risa! Your offer has been the subject of a lot of discussion with the officers - I personally am quite in favour of the offer - but the problem is the the size of the guild; regarding members we would be bringing our numbers have changed from what we quoted to you when you first presented the offer (down to about 15 than our former total of 115). The points of debate were along these lines - we'd be carried (essentially) though a fair amount of content, though if we'd be contributing to your third (I think you said?) raid team that might be less of an issue.

 

Also of discussion were raid times/days, guild identity (name, primarily) and the size of the merge - bringing so few players across makes it less of a merge and more of an integration of a small part of our guild. I believe what our GM and other officers initially had in mind with the merging idea was more for another small, failing guild of good people to come to us and give new life to both of the guilds - one of the lesser known guilds like ours! However we definitely keep your offer in mind, but at the end of the day it's down to essentially an officer vote, at the moment things are looking up a little for the guild (some promising new recruits) so we're not quite ready to "abandon ship" as it were. Out of interest to bring to potential future discussions, would social (slow leveling, but lovely, long-time guild members) players also have a place in the merge? Also if we aren't to merge and do make our way to becoming a bigger guild, would RD be interesting in a guild alliance of sorts - like an affiliation, supporting and helping eachother whenever the other has need, I know in the short-term this seems very one-sided but for example in 2.0 when progress is reset we would be in more of a position to be of assistance to RD. Either way I hope there will be a beautiful future between our two guilds.

 

As a note I don't speak for all of Carbonite nor all of the officer team! I'm pretty much just surmising the apparent opinions of the others and myself, I'm sure if I've incorrectly portrayed the opinion of Yume or our other officers they will not hesitate to jump in here and add on to what I've said .

Edited March 7, 2013 by Ellynia

I agree theres way too many PVE guilds on this server, especialy the Rep side. In WZ I hardly ever see a full 4 man premade its always 2's or 3's max, and this is probably because only few people in PVE guilds enjoy PVP.

Well reading this, every guild has this issue on TOFN we (FF) are the hard core aspect of this sever in pve 16 man, still have issues with recruitment there are some 8 man guilds that have more members then us....how ever we go for skill level not sheer numbers so if you have players who are dedicated / highly skilled and u want to join a guild that will push you to your limits / char limits! We are always a possible location to absorb players from or smaller guilds. we are truly an international guild how ever we all speak English on mumble.

I created my own guild (called Clan Forever Alone ) for two reasons:

 

- I needed a place where I could centralize my gathered materials for all my alts. I'm also a collector of adaptive armour. For that reason, my maxed out inventory is starting to get full.

 

- I am a casual. I only play on Wednesday evening and Saturday during the day. This makes it hard for me to be part of a raiding or RW core. Besides that, I don't want to be in a guild created by someone who has no idea what a guild is for. I can screw that up myself

 

But, as it turns out, I need 12 members in my guild and 600 000 credits to open a guild bank, so my endeavor was kind of fruitless... so if anyone wants to adopt this lone ranger, or temporarily help out by becoming a part of my guild on Saturday, so I can create my bank, I'll be very grateful

 

I am a decent player and I sing during Operations!

Guild merging only happens when a guild gets too small to do what it likes to do, it doesn't happen because other people reckon they should.

 

Had to do it a few times, not always for the better but we're good right now.

 

Have a lot of active members although that's not the same as raiding members and still not the same as NiM raiding members.

 

But we all get to do what we like doing

I agree theres way too many PVE guilds on this server, especialy the Rep side. In WZ I hardly ever see a full 4 man premade its always 2's or 3's max, and this is probably because only few people in PVE guilds enjoy PVP.

 

Also in progression guilds PvP comes second and sometimes people are worn out and not in the mood for PvP after/pre raids.

 

The more guilds there is the better, players will have more choices.

Interested to see what people think regarding this.

 

Why is this? Generally when starting a guild I'd say it's like starting a business, look for a gap in the market, a unique niche that the guild can fill at least. Either way this is meant to be a fairly open minded discussion but I find the situation rather bizarre (and not just a little frustrating, being part of a said "smaller guild") as you simply end up with a ton of guilds all trying to recruit, competing with one another and hindering one anothers progress.

 

Hi there!!

 

In my hummble opinion (and talking about guilds), I think smaller means quality, I prefer to be in a guild, like mine, with 10 friends, than in a bigger guild with 100 strangers.

 

I think it's not about the "progress" or "comptetition", it's about to be in the place you feel confortable, and of course depends a lot of your time, interests, etc.

 

Do I want to be in a hardcore PvP guild? (since I enjoy the PvP) of course! But I can't for a lot of reasons, like I don't have the same time I had at my early 20's, atm 35 and running a law firm took a lot of time, etc.

 

For example in SWG (my firts MMO) I was part of one of the biggest guild in server (TRON), but that game was so different.

 

With the group finder, even for the operations, basically you don't need to be part of a big guild to achive progress in your character, get gear, earn rewards, etc., probably this is the reason because there's a lot of small guilds and with that, more options to find a guild who suit your needs in game.

 

Kind regards.

r ember the game is changing i wont spoil it for those not on the pts , but there are some fundamental changes to gearing system. Guilds will become more and more important.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=606882

It's Natural selection.

 

Good Guilds grow and keep attracting new members, because they have good reputations and manage to progress.

Smaller, less well organised guilds will eventually dissolve. Members will leave and Guilds disband.

 

This game is relatively young.

 

Floor Inspectors is endgame Full Progression, however we only sport around 70 members of which only 20 are online every night actively. However our community is strong, personal, fun and skilled, yet open to everyone.

 

We're growing every day.. and people adapt our mindset etc.

 

My personal experience over the years is that "Guild Mergers" are usualy the start of the end.

If 2 equal sized guilds join, they will both compete for control eventually..... and it will break the Guild.

This is the reason we only accept smaller groups or individual members into our guild. They will be absorbed into the whole and add to our Guild rather than divide it.

 

I like the diversity.. there is still lots of opportunity to grow as a Guild in our community.

Allow me to disagree on some of what you say, Saga is a one of the most successful guilds on the server, when it comes to 8man content I would say the most successful guld right now and we only have about 16-20 members in total. There is no need to continue growing as a guild in terms of members, we recruit when we need to and are very careful when we accept new members.

 

But when it comes to guild mergers and stuff like that, I agree, that is normally the real beginning of the end, unless the leaders of the guilds can work together in a good and healthy way.

we also would never merge with any other guild , we would only absorb guilds members.

Many guilds like to keep it small (pvp guilds usualy) we have been discussing this in Harbinger and what we have noticed is that Big guilds usually have alot of drama regarding raidspots or RWZ spots, i have been in one of these guilds and it works fine as long as you keep the guild semi casual but when you move to the hardcore part ppl want to keep their raiding / RWZ spot to do progress and you also get more progress by having the same good ppl in 1 team.

Many guilds like to keep it small (pvp guilds usualy) we have been discussing this in Harbinger and what we have noticed is that Big guilds usually have alot of drama regarding raidspots or RWZ spots, i have been in one of these guilds and it works fine as long as you keep the guild semi casual but when you move to the hardcore part ppl want to keep their raiding / RWZ spot to do progress and you also get more progress by having the same good ppl in 1 team.

 

So true.

I'm not sure if I agree fully on the idea of mergers being "the beginning of the end", it really depends on the mindset of the two guilds and what is agreed between them. For example some very clear things need to be who will be leading, in my opinion the guild that merges into the other one (i.e. their members come to the other guild) will probably not have as much weight in decisions as the other guild. For example, I would expect that the Guild Master of the guild that will come will become an officer - the other officers of that guild may or may not also become officers, it's up to the GMs as to what they decide together. While I don't see too many problems regarding leadership I think those things have to be fully discussed prior to the merge, as importing a whole new set of officers into a guild may cause unrest as the other guild does not know these people nor know if they are reliable, know their stuff etc. so you have to know the people you are merging with well, maybe run some trial raids of the two guilds together prior to merging, get to know what the others are like and see if the personalities of the two guilds mesh pleasantly of if their attitudes and aims are different; through this you can tell if a merger would be a success or if it will end in a big flop.

 

Smaller guilds I agree often have a lot of benefits in the quality not quantity factor but at the end of the day the ideal is always to have a couple more people than you need in raids - remember that in non-hardcore guilds people will not be able to attend every day of the week so you need people there on "backup", a prospect nobody really likes, but still better than ending up 2 people short on a raid and having to PuG others. Another factor is your objectives as a guild, for example a lot of guilds like to add to their progression with 16M raiding, but at the transition between 8M and 16M you will have a situation where you don't have enough for 16M and you have a lot of people being left out of the 8M teams.

 

A way to avoid drama over raidspots is to have a system such as raid sign-ups on the website (first come first serve priority), which though you will always end up with those disappointed that they can't come, it also keeps it fair for everyone - depending on how organized your guild is you can also have a rotation so that those that always come to raids can alternate each raid with those that don't. You could also have a need-assessment, is it a progress raid? Then bring the best geared and most knowledgeable of tactics. Is it a farm raid? Bring those that need the gear.

Edited March 9, 2013 by Ellynia

Diversity is fun

 

I'm in a Rep guild with 8 people and we're quite happy to be a little family. We clear all content and farm every week. If we need to do 8+ content we get together with other guilds for mutual cooperation and that's a fun way to meet people and make new friends. Doesn't mean we want to abide by other peoples guild-styles though and merge/join with them

1 server - 2 guilds

 

Team Jacob and Team Edward

 

Was trying to coin the concept in /gen earlier today. It wasnt greeted welll.

that's a fun way to meet people and make new friends

 

That's the spirit.

Sometimes the worst problem of some small guilds is their excessive "xenophobia".

(Derived of course from the plague of MMOs WoW, but this is another matter for discussion).

Edited March 10, 2013 by Fearine

Diversity is fun

 

I'm in a Rep guild with 8 people and we're quite happy to be a little family.

 

Same here, but in an Imperial guild, I think is the good part of a small guild, less drama (since we created, only had one small problem) and it feels like you said, be part of a little family

 

Kind regards!

I can not say for PvE, but for PvP is actually is not enough guilds.

 

People in brand named guilds just gather everything for:

 

a) have good players in a guild and keep them benched to prevent them to play in other rwz teams

b) bragging like we have X he is bestXeu

c) just for da lulz inviting alts of reps in imps or vice versa to have smooth teatalks in voice comm

 

This turn ToFN in swamp, when people think they are growing, but in reality skill is lowering, cause good players who potentially can form a bunch of new rwz teams and start a competition are stacked and benched in a few guilds, not playing rwz.

I can not say for PvE, but for PvP is actually is not enough guilds.

 

People in brand named guilds just gather everything for:

 

a) have good players in a guild and keep them benched to prevent them to play in other rwz teams

b) bragging like we have X he is bestXeu

c) just for da lulz inviting alts of reps in imps or vice versa to have smooth teatalks in voice comm

 

This turn ToFN in swamp, when people think they are growing, but in reality skill is lowering, cause good players who potentially can form a bunch of new rwz teams and start a competition are stacked and benched in a few guilds, not playing rwz.

 

I think i know which guild you are referring to

Founding new guilds is fun. One of the few things keeping the experience fresh. (At least for the ones like me that gets bored of anything quite easily.)