Like all guilds we use our bank a lot and like to save for the extra bays. To raise funds for the bank what we do is have a monthly guild lottery. We have donatons by members, usually cartel store/pack items and have 5 prizes per faction and each month have a lottery. How we do it is: 1. Entry fee 20k. Only a maximum of 2 characters per person allowed to enter per faction. This is so a newer player with only 1-2 characters has same chance as someone with 8 characters. Also 20k fee means its affordable by all. 2. Members make the 20k donation per character to guild bank. Guild leader and anyone else he adds permissions to can see guild ledger and see which characters have added funds. Of course you can only see the previous and past weeks entries so we tend to open Lotteries on a Thursday and have closing date the following Friday. As free to play members cannot use guild bank unless they purchase the unlock, if they wish to enter they simply let the person who is running the lottery know and a COD for 20k will be sent to them, and their name written down for entry. Then the COD 20k is added to bank. 3. I bought some cheap chips off amazon, numbered 401-500. I made a spreadsheet with faction and numbers 401-500 on so can print off and use for lottery. On the day of the draw, I check the ledger on guild bank (remember you need permissions for this if not guild leader) and every character who entered 20k as a payment I wrote their name next to a number on the spreadsheet. (remember FTP players names already on it after I sent them a COD for 20k). 4. After recording all names, on both factions, one spreadsheet for Empire, one for Republic, I then emptied the chips into a bowl and make the draw. of course I may only have 55 entries and so assigned numbers 401-456 so if I draw say number 476 I ignore it and keep drawing till I get one with a name allocation. I also do the draw live on teamspeak with other players in guild so they can hear. Ours is a large guild so we tend to get between 35 and 55 entries per faction each month and at 20k each that raises between 700k and 1 million credits per faction each month for the guild bank. Hope this helps

Our guild has been around since 2005 and came here at launch. We announced a few weeks ago to members that come 15th December we are withdrawing from Tor (wanted to give ample notice so those who wish to remain can start another guild, which I am happy to say they have as we continued to let them use our forums to do such a thing) and will seek a new 2nd game (Lotro being our 1st) to eventually replace it. Now, please don't get me wrong, as a solo game there is nothing much wrong with Tor from level 1 to 50, the story when levelling are fantastic and I enjoyed them but for us personally its a case of guild/community over gameplay so my top 5 may be a little different to most and probably our reasons why we are leaving have no Barings on the majority of your players. 1. Below Basic Guild tools. Biggest 3 gripes: 1st of all the dreadful cap of 500 characters per guild in a game you can have 13 characters per server. We have been on at Bioware, via representatives on these forums and customer service for 15 months now and you have been aware of this issue since shortly after launch but still no fix. Why not 500 legacy names, or why even a cap in the first place. Even with inactive member removals we are always hitting cap and we don't even spam recruitment on planets/fleet, just our message on server forums. 2nd- Awful message of the day system. Not improved since day 1. 3rd No ingame calendar. Not a breaker for us as we use our website for event planning and signups but it should be a basic feature as not all guilds have a website. Last year in 2012 Bioware said guilds would get a lot of love this year. Where is it? its almost November and we have only had 1 XP boost which would not be in a guild leaders top 30 requests if asked what he wanted and a rehash of it later on. 2. No Community feel No place to call home, cantina's you cant do anything in but use a jukebox (how long have people been asking for Pazaak in cantinas), nothing. We have come up with our own weekly guild events ie whole planet cron runs which we took all levels of players, Achievement and Codex runs, Horrible fashion contests etc but would be nice to have a little bit of support ingame. Pod racing around Tatooine could be an example. Put a race droid somewhere out of the way, instanced to allow guilds to plan more activities. No Multi passenger vehicles (in SWG it was great if we were doing a group event to go to the group in a 8 seater vehicle, really added to the feel of the game/event). 3. Starting to feel like a cartel store with a game attached to it, not the other way round. A lot of features we have asked for, ie barbershop being a good example you have added but only via cartel where a fair idea would have been to let a player change his appearance for in game coins but only having the choices he had at selecting a character screen, and adding additional features to that via cartel. But greed meant all of its cartel. Collections were a nice idea but I gave up on it shortly after due to the quickness in which you brought out new packs. Without spending £1000's its impossible to get the collections. We have the trading card game in SWG, sort of similar to cartel packs but at least there it was a new pack every 6 months or so, not every 3 weeks. 4.Crafting. very basic. very annoying. I want grade 4 underworld metal, oh look I don't have a single mission for it. never mind, ill try grade 3, oh look no missions for it. I stopped crafting a long time ago and now just sell my monthly cartel pack (from free coins) for credits. 5.Others- Loading screen times, lack of item customization (why cant you add a colour crystal to a vehicle to change skin etc), lack of bug fix's (people have been asking for about 15 months to have a fix for fleet datacron so they know they have it, and also after getting the 2 Makeb crons I have 69/69 but codex shows 67/69). We have given Tor our very best shot, stayed 2 years and had fun and helped hundreds of players but simply put we finally ran out of patience with the lack of guild love from Bioware. Every update we scrolled through the notes hoping to find something for guilds but have now decided to move on. You wont struggle for players as although the game has the highest number of turnover on players leaving we have ever seen, there are always new players to replace them, but the game feels like it could be an Xbox game, not a mmorpg for us so we leave thanking you for the 2 years we have had here and wish you the best in the future, but we shall be elsewhere not in Tor

For me personally, a game needs to have a good community feel to it. I have been Deputy Leader of our guild since 2005 and in SWG quite a few people played, not because of the game, but because of the friends they had made over the years in it. Also I love running events so for me the game needs to have the ability for me to run events, even if we make our own. We were spoilt in Galaxies but here we have just about managed with cron runs, codex runs etc. But Guild/community features is the first thing I look at in a game.

As others have said, its best to check your server forum thread then guild recruitment thread in that forum. There you can read about guilds, their gamestyle ie PvP, PvE, casual, hardcore raiding and find one that suits your game style and needs. There are plenty of guilds out there that are very new player and returning player friendly and more than happy to help get you up to speed. For most it does not matter if a player is level 1 or 55, subbed or free to play, 1st day vet or new player or returning player so I am sure after reading your server forum thread you will find a good home in Tor

Do not join a guild advertising on fleet etc. Have a read of the server forums and the recruitment forums on them, as a lot of guilds post here and you can read and find one that suits your gameplay style. Most of the members who joined us done so via our thread on the server forums and they tended to fit right in due to us being what they were after in a guild so a good fit from the start so the threads are defintly worth a little time reading.

We just ran out of patience and announced on Sunday night that as of 15th December 2013 we are withdrawing our guild from Tor due to the severe lack of guild love and social aspects of the game. We have given members who wish to stay (probably about half of our 143 unique accounts) 2 months notice so we can help them set up in other guilds if needed and they have full access still of our website and teamspeak to post/chat about alternatives, with a thread up already of other guilds and who has gone to them so friends can stay together. Its a shame but despite trying over 2 years with content 6 days a week inc cron runs, social events and Ops we are constantly having issues with the pathetic character cap of 500 and a lack of other tools (we are lucky in that we have website/TS but others guilds don't have that) We have been on about the lack of guild features since 3 months into the game but been met by silence so now we will concentrate fully on our other game and look at upcoming alternatives for us which are a better fit to us than Tor (The Repopulation looks decent). We founded as a guild in 2005 and this is the first time we have ever chosen to leave a game. Hopefully in a few years it may be more community based with plenty of guild features but for now its goodbye

Yesterday Unity (Rep) and Dark Unity (Empire), on Red Eclipse has announced that as of 15th December we are removing our guild from Tor. All recruitment is suspended and we have given those members who wish to remain 2 months notice so there is no rush for them to find an alternative guild and they still have use of our TS and forums to aid that help till 15th December. We simply have got fed up with the lack of love ingame for guilds, notably the 500 cap issue which we have been on at Bioware for since 3 months into the game. This year we were told last year was the year guilds would get some love and nothing has improved so we are removing ourselves from Tor and will concentrate on Unity in Lotro till a new suitable 2nd game for us becomes available (The Repopulation an early runner).

Can you please try and add a solution a lot of larger guilds are having with the 500 character cap in one of these upcoming updates. You have been aware of the issue from 3 months in based on my conversations with varios bioware people off these forums, and we still have issues with is. Change it to 5000 or 500 legacy names, anything really. You have various class's and encourage players to have numerous characters yet handicap guilds with this cap. we have been here since early access, never spam recruitment, only recruit off forums, remove inactive members and we have had a freeze on recruitment for 7 weeks now till numbers drop. Please see the thread on my signature as its affecting lots of guilds. We were told last year guilds would have lots of love in 2013. Where is it?

if there is something you really really want, sell the packs unopened and buy the item outright. I sold my free pack the other month for 300k and bought one of the speeders I liked the look for off GTN for 150k. I don't bother opening the packs anymore as: 1) rare resources are anything but rare. I usually add them to the other 100-200 of the same material you can get from a companion mission. 2) Too much crap like jawagrams 3) Most orange armor and weapons can be got from GTN a week after release for pennies

Bump incase anyone from Bioware actually reads these threads

They honestly either do not understand guilds or do not give a crap about guilds. Only one of those options can apply to the absolute pathetic guild tools we have ingame coming up to 2 years since launch. Our guild founded in 2005 in SWG and in 2009 branched into Lotro (still there). When SWG closed we came here as a guild on early access and have been here since. We are not interested in being the biggest guild etc and only recruit off our server forum thread, never spam general chat and we also have major major issues with the 500 cap on characters. You can see the link in my signature for a 9 page thread on it and nothing has been done. At this moment we have our 4th recruitment freeze in the last 6 months as we are full. We remove inactive members on a weekly basis but we still struggle. When we do our weekly planet datacron run and ask in general chat if anyone wishes to come along, its horrible after the run when some ask to join us as they enjoyed the run and being in a group, we have to tell them we cant recruit at the moment and they can apply but will be on a waiting list. They knew 3 months in about the cap issue and here we are, nothing has been done to resolve it. They encourage players to have multiple characters and try all the stories but handicap guilds with the cap. They said last year that guilds would get a lot of love this year. WHERE IS IT? 1 XP boost which would not be in a guild masters top 50 requests if asked what they wanted and a rehash of it later on. Is this the love they talked about? We have a dreadful message of the day system where you can hardly post anything due to character restrictions. We have no guild email 19 months into the game. No calendar (god knows how guilds without websites manage) and more. They simply do not see larger guilds as an asset, who provide weekly content that keeps members happy and subscribed. At the time of writing we have 143 unique accounts in the guild and I cant see us lasting in Tor past Xmas as we have zero faith in Bioware to provide us with the tools we need to evolve and grow as a guild

They have zero interest in guilds which is why there is no guild content after 18 months. 2 Xp boosts- that's it and if you asked guild leaders what they would like the boosts would not be in a top 50 requests. No guild email, no ships, no calendar, dreadful message of the day system, guild cap issues with 500 characters (pathetically low when you can have 12 alts per server per player). We are in lotro also and they once had issues with 500 characters per guild and simply added a 0 to make it 5000. Why not here? or why not 500 legacy names not characters? Think it will be a very very long time till you see any content such as guild ships

We recently held a "We find your lack of fashion disturbing" contest where players had to wear the most awful looking outfit possible which was good fun. http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a85/ziso/Screenshot_2013-08-10_19_35_02_132268_zps7229d924.jpg http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a85/ziso/Screenshot_2013-08-10_19_47_23_254657_zpsd2906a75.jpg http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a85/ziso/Screenshot_2013-08-10_19_39_25_430327_zps4bad2247.jpg We used to do server events all the time in SWG and were known for our events but Tor is a very unsocial game and a lack of tools here makes it a lot harder to do events. We run codex and achievement runs in guild, datacron runs and have put on server motor shows (cancelled due to zero interest) and a pet show (tiny turnout) so I just don't think the majority of the player base wants these sort of events here.

Just sell the packs/hypercrates unopened and buy the items you want from the money you make I don't open packs any more as: Rare Crafting materials- These are not what I consider rare. These can be got with any companion missions. Tier 6 like Mol Stabilisers, Alien Cubes etc were rare. these by large are common. Rare would be drops from Ops etc. MY monthly pack yesterday I had rainbow gemstones. Ill add those to the other 200 or so I have from basic missions. 2 Rare items in a pack- Please. So rare in 2 weeks you can get the so called rare for 100 credits on the GTN as hundreds of these rare items flood the GTN. Companion gift- Wow. From a previous pack I wanted a vehicle. Minute chance of getting it from a pack so sold my pack for 280k and bought the vehicle for 125k.

Something for guilds. Perhaps a fix to 500 characters limit, perhaps a revamp of the awful message of the day system, perhaps inter faction guild chat, perhaps a guild email or calendar. Just want the basics most other games get by default

Check your server forum and guild recruitment as many guilds post there and you should be able to find one that suits your gameplay. Guild run end game content is best way forward I find as we cover all Ops over a 4 week schedule so plenty there for experienced members and those new to 55 and new to Ops and guilds run groups tend to be more fun, better organised and no rage quitters

in Star Wars Galaxies we had a representative for (on top of class's), space (Piloting), crafting (each craft had its own representative), Politician (Mayors/Cities), Beast Master, Entertainers so guess we could have crafting and space here. Just feel sorry for the person who gets the "guild" representative as it will be a lonely role with no feedback, no updates and no love given to their representative field

Nothing for guilds again I see. so much for the comment end of last year that this year guilds would see a lot of love. rest of the game= Quite good. guild features and tools=shamefull.

Guilds... This still makes me sad. Pushing two years now without a significant update to guild content. No guild progression, quests, housing, banners/emblems, calenders or even mass messaging. To me, this is and was crucial to the games success. At this point, there is no excuse not to have updated your guilds. They are what drive the game forward and you need to give them the tools to engage their members. To be honest this is the biggest gripe for me ingame. we are a large guild, 8 years + old as a guild and thank god we have teamspeak and a website to organise events. Last year we were told guilds would have a lot of love this year but where is it? 8 months in and 1 x XP boost (which would not be in the top 50 requests by guild leaders) and a rehash of it to 10%. The same pathetic message of the day since day 1, no email, no inter faction chat, no guild ship, nothing at all aimed at guilds. I can honestly say one of the reasons we are still here is down to a lack of an alternative at the moment as myself and the other leaders do not think Bioware will ever grasp and understand guilds. we now joke about them. I mean they have known about the cap issue for 15+ months and encourage members to try each class meaning you can fill up a guild with just 40 people and yet nothing is done about it. They don't seem to realise a good guild helps subscription retention. We put on 6 events a week for all levels, members are very happy and keep paying and playing but we feel we are getting nothing back. If there was a suitable alternate to Tor we would probably move, but the fact is for us at the moment there is not one so we put up with it. We are keeping an eye on some of the 2014 ones coming out though with EQ Next showing promise with housing, cities, sandbox but then again a lot of games deceive to flatter when launch is so so long away so no idea what the future holds for us but Tor should not take us and (as at tonight 142 unique paid subs) for granted and show guilds some deserved respect.

Motor Vehicle Show Wed 7th August 2013 7.30PM (Uk BST) Lower Promenade on Nar Shaddaa Empire and Republic Event All levels welcome A chance to come along and show off your vehicles. See Rare vehicles, vehicles from Ops, collections and more. See vehicles up close and personal not just off the little picture on GTN. See what vehicles are out there and ask where you can get them. Hope to see you all there Ziso Unity Guild (Rep), Dark Unity (Empire)

Don't feel you need to level more before you join a guild Rintoki. Lots of guild, ours included, do plenty of content for all levels so as you level you can take part in any events you wish to also for a break from levelling. Example is planet datacron runs where we take all levels as our 50-55s can protect, Wed and Sat night social events such as codex and achievement runs, pazaak card games, World Boss runs and more. tonight we just ran a Coruscant achievement collections run. Then on both Empire and Rep we do Ops on Sun, Tue and Thur nights. Same Op on same night on both factions and we are very new to ops friendly for you to try out your characters as we are not a hardcore guild at all, and see Ops as fun content and if you make an error then you make an error, everyone dusts themselves down and retry. And of course a lot of guilds have those nice 10% Xp and Reputation bonus's also now

Hi Rinkoti. Have a read about us at http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=539671 as we almost sound ideal for you. I say almost in that as a guild we don't do any organised PvP, we are purely PvE but if members wish to do PvP then of course they are entitled to. We do content 6 nights of the week including 3 nights a week which are open to all levels as we do a lot of social content such as Achievement runs, pazaak nights, codex nights, World Boss runs on our non op nights and we also do a weekly planet datacron run in which we take all levels of players as we can protect lower levels. Then when you come to do Ops, we encourage members into taking their 1st steps in them with us, and we are very casual in our approach, there will be no yelling if you make errors etc as we are all there to live and learn Thanks Ziso

Its not just guild ships, there is zero love in this game for guilds. 1 Update a 5% Xp bonus for members which if you asked guild leaders what they would like to see would not be in a top 50, and 1 re-hash of the same item to 10% is all we have had in 17 months. Thank god we have a guild website as no mail, pathetic message of the day system, 500 character cap issue and more but its something we have learnt to live with and cant see any more guild love in the foreseeable future

We try and fit in as much of the content as possible for our members and with us not being a hardcore raiding guild but doing Ops alot more casually we are ideal for players levelling and then being here for them to take their first steps into end game content. We run the Same Operation on both factions at the same time and we base our schedule over 4 weeks in order for us to get in as much as possible. WEEK 1: Tuesday - Optional Toborros Courtyard followed by Terror From Beyond or Scum and Villainy Story Mode Wednesday - Imperial Social Event Thursday - Explosive Conflict Hard Mode Friday - Datacron Run Saturday - Republic Social Event and/or World Boss Run Sunday - Toborros Courtyard followed by Terror From Beyond or Scum and Villainy Story Mode (Opposite of Tuesday) Monday - Free Night / Single Op Mop-up if required WEEK 2: Tuesday - Terror From Beyond Hard Mode Wednesday - Republic Social Event Thursday - Optional Toborros Courtyard followed by Terror From Beyond or Scum and Villainy Story Mode Friday - Datacron Run Saturday - Imperial Social Event and/or World Boss Run Sunday - Toborros Courtyard followed by Terror From Beyond or Scum and Villainy Story Mode (Opposite of Thursday) Monday - Free Night / Single Op Mop-up if required WEEK 3: Tuesday - Optional Toborros Courtyard followed by Terror From Beyond or Scum and Villainy Story Mode Wednesday - Imperial Social Event Thursday - Explosive Conflict Nightmare Mode Friday - Datacron Run Saturday - Republic Social Event and/or World Boss Run Sunday - Toborros Courtyard followed by Terror From Beyond or Scum and Villainy Story Mode (Opposite of Tuesday) Monday - Free Night / Single Op Mop-up if required WEEK 4: Tuesday - Scum and Villainy Hard Mode Wednesday - Republic Social Event Thursday - Optional Toborros Courtyard followed by Terror From Beyond or Scum and Villainy Story Mode Friday - Datacron Run Saturday - Imperial Social Event and/or World Boss Run Sunday - Toborros Courtyard followed by Terror From Beyond or Scum and Villainy Story Mode (Opposite of Thursday) Monday - Free Night / Single Op Mop-up if required We Like the social content as much as Ops and the Wednesday and Saturday Social content can be anything. From Flashpoint runs, Achievement Runs on Planets, Codex Runs, Pazaak card nights, World Boss Runs and more so these along with our datacron runs (in which we take all level of players as we can protect on higher level planets) mean that we have content 3 nights a week for every level of player and content 6 nights a week for level 55's.

I am sure you can change the armouring's, mods, enhancements inside the armour you get from the cartel store so as you level you can replace the items inside them with higher level mods etc so can wear it for as long as you want. I have the Sith raiding suit on one of my characters and at level 43 now I have level 41-43 mods,enhancements and armouring inside it so it still does the job for me