Breakfast Topic: Guild origins
by Alex Ziebart 
Dec 29th 2008 at 8:00AM
Last night in the top secret WoW Insider clubhouse, Matticus, the Double Dans and I got to talking about our guilds a little bit. The sorts of people in them, that kind of stuff. I don't remember exactly how, but eventually we came to the topic of how our various guilds got started.Dan O'Halloran (now known as Big Dan) is still with a lot of the folks he played with back in Everquest, and many of them have been together through a number of MMOs over the years. Daniel Whitcomb (now known as Little Dan) had a guild back in Everquest as well, and while he's not in a guild with them anymore, he's still kept in touch with many of them. My guild (and Little Dan's current guild) technically didn't come from another game, but rather a large message board a lot of us have frequented for years. Bunches of us have played other games and MMOs together over the years, but ultimately that forum was the connection. We've lost some people here and there, but we've gained a lot of people as well.
Personally, I thought it was really interesting how our guilds weren't exactly something we joined recently.. We didn't get recruited into a WoW guild or start one from scratch. We've had communities we've rolled with for years already. I know that's not the case with everyone playing the game, very far from it, but I'm curious to hear from other people. How did your guild start? Have you been with it for awhile, or is it a new thing for you in WoW? Are you like Big Dan, with the same guild for years? Are you like Little Dan, in a different guild but in contact with the old one? Heck, do you know how your guild started? Are you even in a guild to begin with? Share your stories! RP guilds, feel free to share your backstory, too!
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Guilds, Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Aybara Dec 29th 2008 8:18AM
The guild i'm with - Brotherhood of Steel on Arathor EU - www.brotherhoodofsteel.eu (Shameless Plug) has been going for almost 4 years - I joined them in early 2006 and went from a semi active member to officer & class leader.
It always made me chuckle when my hardcore raiding stepsister would change guilds more times than underpants because of loot drama etc. Whenever we had drama we chopped it off at the head - now we're running steady in the third version of the game!
ZuWho Dec 29th 2008 8:19AM
Shortly after BC came out, there was a gap in the guild market for a leveling guild for all the new players on the servers, naturaly 3 brothers and three level 35 people they walked past in Stormwind (Including me) diceded to form the greatest leveling guild on the server at the time! Amazingly it worked, but then we started raiding the the raod became noticibly more bumpy after that, and during raiding we realized we may need to start looking into guild alliences or posibly mergers.
We had some luck there as on the night of wrath's launch we merged with what is know to be the oldest guild on the server which dates way back into everquest days.
It's weird looking at the two oragins of the guild now, the older guild has a rampant history of big chunks of the guild falling off and forming other guilds, and we where just the latest in a long history of merges.
And yes ^^ I have composed an RP lore for bouth guilds ^^
NoTomorrow Dec 29th 2008 8:20AM
I have absolutely no idea about how my guild came around. I just recenty transferred to the server (to play with friends from real life), and I just joined pretty much the first one that asked me to. The people are great, and they are hoping to become a raising guild when we get more members, so I am hoping that goes well.
lamby Dec 29th 2008 8:45AM
The guild i'm in is currently quite a small guild (http://www.velocitygaming.co.uk) formed from a bunch or real life friends and some people that use the same messsage board we've frequented since we were at university.
To be honest, the guild has a funny feel, as most of us seem to prefer solo play, being in a guild at the moment just keeps the in game chatter relevant and provides bank slots for all the crap you aquire.
Big Al Dec 29th 2008 8:50AM
My guild,The Fist of The Alliance on Rivendare, basically started and thrived because of the name. One of my guildies was lvl 10 in Stormwind and he was actually asking trade chat for a good guild. My night elf saw a human, who turned out to be the second-in-command. So now were a all around guild w/ a bunch of guys swearing :) even though our guild leader is...a girl!
Justin Dec 29th 2008 8:59AM
I'm in Owns the Sheep on realm Thunderhorn. We started as a group of friends from a message board community, www.systemwars2.com (you'll actually find the official WoW thread there with guys from Thunderhorn, as well as guys that play on other realms). We started in the twilight era of WoW and we've always been small. I think at our largest we may have had 10 unique members, though we're down to 6 currently active members, and only 3-4 of us play more than 2-3 nights a week.
If anyone on Thunderhorn is interested in a very casual and friendly guild atmosphere, we're always open for new members. :)
Fevirus Dec 29th 2008 9:03AM
My guild "Bite Size" on Ysera was made as a joke guild with an IRL buddy of mine, it was to be a goofy gnome guild to just mess around on and we started meeting some pretty cool people. We were put together shortly after the release of the original Naxxramas. Later my friend left the beloved Alliance to play on the Horde side and i was appointed GM.
More and more great people started to join our motley crew and we stepped into raiding. As BC approuched i stepped down as GM and apointed one of our more "knowledgible" members to lead us.
BC came with yet another good friend taking the lead and shaping us to nuke t4 content and make decent progression into t5 content.
Now with Wrath we have cleared Naxx and are making our progress into the remaining content.
Long story short, we are one of the oldest active guilds on Ysera and will remain so for a long time. We are a very tight knit group of people from all over the world that have been playing together for a few years now, some know each other IRL, some have flown across oceans and states to meet each other (a couple has actual gone as far as getting married from meeting each other in game). Good times and many more to come : )
Craz Dec 29th 2008 9:10AM
Hell Inc on Hellscream was formed during beta of Asherons Call 1 by Hellhawk. Yeah, thats a lot of Hell. I joined when the game (AC) went live on 11/3/99. There is a core of us that have been together since. Some of our members still actually play AC1. I can't figure out why. We have guild interests in AC1, the now defunct AC2, Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Xbox Live and obviously WOW.
wiseguy272 Dec 29th 2008 9:10AM
My girlfriend and I made a guild just for the bank. She has a habit of keeping EVERYTHING. So we have two tabs full of pretty much all her stuff. And her personal bank is full too. I won't even get started on her alts...
Heilig Dec 29th 2008 9:15AM
This begs the question: Why no WoW Insider guild?
I know, It Came From The Blog. Bu that's more of a super-casual, let's all get together and do stuff for holiday events guild.
Why not a real, Progression focused WoW Insider raid guild?
Garloff Dec 30th 2008 4:54AM
My Guild got started only a little over a year ago. Mainly so that myself and my family can play together. Being in different parts of the US, it was the easiest way to interact with each other.
Unholy Confessions sports just close family and closer friends.
D Dec 29th 2008 9:49AM
My guild is a tiny one comprised of RL friends, family and co-workers. Most of us are new-ish to the game so we missed all the Burning Crusade raid content -- and now we're looking forward to getting to 80 so we can 5-man them to see all the content. It's no hurry -- we all love the journey.
Proud2bawesome Dec 29th 2008 9:53AM
well my first ever raiding guild was when i first hit 70 in TBC and the guild i joined was mayhem on H-Aggramar US, the GM was just a lousy and hateful person. until one day, some officers gquit, and they started their own guild Rejects to make a ironic statement, and so they became the rejects (of mayhem). just recently we change the guild name to The Remnent
Kassaria Dec 29th 2008 10:01AM
I created a guild over 2 years ago on the Moon Guard Server, called Shining Vanguard. We have a mix of RL friends and friends that we met playing WOW. Our guild is known for being fair, fun and drama-free, though we don't RP (it's an RP Server), we find lots of ways to give back to the guildies with events like raffles, guild rewards, etc. This is what makes logging on and playing WOW more enjoyable.
tomzzzzzz Dec 29th 2008 10:03AM
well my guild right now is great devilz rejectz on a hordie guild on shadowsong we have 5 to 7 lvl 80s but we are getting more everyday or so we are not a raiding guild more of other guildies know other people in high raid guilds you can tag along
when i had a gnome lock i played on this guild also with like 400 60s and it was a great guild with gold flying around always someone near by to help you it was great. the other day i wanted to see if i had any gold on my character i could shoot over through booty bay to my hordie. when i looked to see of the guild had dropped me they had not but all those lvl 60s some 70s had either not been on for 1 or 2 years or just there i looked to see who was recently on it was 2 months ago from the lvl 2 guild leader. i think its kind of sad that all these great players and this awsome guild just went away some how
NoTomorrow Dec 29th 2008 10:38AM
/run on sentences
Benadict Dec 29th 2008 10:04AM
My guild started in an old MMO called Earth and Beyond. The guild was called Armageddon It On. When that game folded we all went to City of Heros where we had a guild called Second Armageddon. We went to Wow shortly after it started and began our WOW guild on Aggramar called Final Armageddon. IIRC our guild birthday is Jan. 22 2005. So we are nearly 4 years old now. The core of the guild is still the old W&B members though we have, obviously, expanded a lot from that core.
Syzyrgy Dec 29th 2008 10:19AM
Our small guild was started by our guild master Vyktorea as a means to welcome educators into the world of MMORPG's. Educators have come to the guild through Second Life, Twitter, Blogs, and RL. Together we explore the game, the social dynamics, the educational implications and possibilities, as well as occasionally just ranting to each other about education in general in guild chat.
Cognitive Dissonance on Sisters of Elune is definitely a learning experience for us all! http://cognitivedissonance.guildportal.com
mageofthesands Dec 29th 2008 10:11AM
My guild, The Amazon Basin, started from a comment in the diabloii.net Amazon Strategy forum back in late July of 2000. The comment was "someone should start an Amazon-only guild so we can all play together." The Basin has attracted many mature members over the years (Arena.Net put our number at over 10,000 a few years back) and have expanded into many games.
Gimmlette Dec 29th 2008 1:43PM
The first guild I joined shortly after I started playing in 2006, had been founded that August by a couple of friends tired of not getting help from higher levels when needed. I was in Loch Modan trying to kill kobolds and ran into a gnome who was in this guild. He talked about how nice everyone was and how they helped everyone so I joined.
It was a great group of people for awhile. But there was some drama in the officer rank. Being an outsider, I didn't hear most of the story until way later but it did trickle down to people in the guild becoming suspicious of one another. Combine that with an inability to get people motivated to help one another get Kara keys and guild progression slowly ground to a halt. The GL then proposed a merger with another guild and, for about 6 weeks, progression improved.
At that point, GL suffered major computer problems and had to quit the game for a time. He didn't transfer the leadership so there was no way to deal with the bank or promotions or other things he had under his control. Members from the merged guild quit. I was an officer at this point and wound up being blamed for the guild fracturing.
Miserably unhappy, I was talking with another guild member who encouraged me to leave and form my own guild. I tried to salvage things by putting together a joint run with another guild but, although the other guild showed up in huge numbers, my guild did not. When asked why, people said they just didn't care anymore. That was enough for me and I left to form Spectacular Death.
In the year since we've been in existence, I've been almost everywhere the original guild wouldn't have been able to take me. A few of the friends I met in the first guild are in my guild but most are new faces. It's sometimes scary how many people like the idea behind the guild and I worry that I'm not living up to the billing. But when we can get 20-odd people to come out for a guild event and people keep joining, I guess I'm doing something right.