Many large guilds have been abuzz with the guild changes in Cataclysm for over a year. With features like guild experience, leveling, reputation, currency, and more, many plus-sized guilds had a lot to look forward to.
However, Blizzard announced that a cap of 300 members would be placed on all guilds. This would preclude guilds like Alea Iacta Est (AIE), <Taint>, and Goon Squad which each have upwards of 5,000 characters, from adding new members. There was lots of discussion on the official WoW forums and the officers of these guilds met to discuss possible solutions. Blizzard announced that the cap is largely for technical reasons, but that the developers were able to raise it to 1,000. Existing guilds would keep all current characters, but be unable to add more until they fell below the cap. All characters would be eligible for guild benefits.
The Goon Squad urged members of <Taint> to send letters directly to Mike Morhaime, CEO of Blizzard, to ask him to take action in assisting the large player base that their decision affected. Many players pointed to the good press that <Taint> generates as a safe haven for LGBT players.
Well, an officer of <Taint> reports that they have been in touch with a “customer loyalty person” in the customer service department (CSR) of Blizzard over the past few weeks, and Blizzard has been very kind. The CSR reports that Mike Morhaime called together some developers and community service representatives to help find a solution. Their first action was to investigate the viability of raising the guild cap to 1,000 (which was accomplished). Secondly, the company is offering every member of every guild in The Spreading Taint a free authenticator to help compensate the time and logistical problems that they will face when Cataclysm is launched.
This only applies to current members (so don’t apply to <Taint> for a free authenticator) and is a limited-time offer. I have characters in multiple guilds of The Spreading Taint, so I will report back with good news if all goes well! I don’t know if this offer has been or will be extended to other guilds, but it is great to know that Blizzard is looking out for its community.
From what I recall, aren’t the mega-guilds already split up into smaller sub-guilds? I doubt increasing the cap would completely eliminate the need for such a thing and, thus, I’m not sure how much the expansion is really going to cause them as much grief as they claim to.
Ironic for Cataclysm, I know, but they come off as acting like the sky’s about to fall. And I could see the rest of the community thinking that giving away free stuff is showing favoritism. After all, getting hacked isn’t exclusive to large guilds, and the officers in charge probably (should) already have them.
October 27th, 2010 at 4:12 pmQuote
The Spreading Taint is divided up into subguilds. I believe AIE and Goon Squad are one guild. Taint consolidated all of their social guilds, which were divided up by level range, into one guild,, to take advantage of guild benefits. The raiding guilds exist separately and are a relatively small percentage, 4 guilds of less than 100 members each. The guild chat is linked by an addon and people generally consider all Taint guilds to be the same; the raiding guilds just want their own bank, rankings, etc.
I believe the current plan is to add new members who want in a social guild to a new guild,, and keep the 5k+ members in there.
October 27th, 2010 at 5:40 pmQuote