What is the Current State of Your Guild?

[Namesis]

Today my guild folded. Sadly i am not far behind. Bioware doesnt care so i why should i.

[BlueFromMoon]

Once a healthy community of 250 members, now 2, and almost all are talking about Elder Scroll Online.

[-Yui-]

My guild is Nocturnal on The Crucible Pits, and the overall journey of the guild is pretty interesting. I joined Nocturnal when Ruin was still alive and kicking on the server, due to the fact I couldn't stand the "zergness" of Ruin. As the population of the server gradually dwindled, Nocturnal actually grew explosively - we soon went from being the 4th biggest guild to the biggest republic guild on the server, usually having 30 at peak time by March and running 2-3 operations concurrently the day after the reset. We even started an Imperial branch of the guild just for the heck of it (called After Dark although we would give executive control of it over to some Imperial guys).

 

However, we became similar to Ruin ourselves. Half of the people in every WZ was from Nocturnal, and even without grouping up we would have 4-7 guildies in any given game. The original core members slowly grew tired of this, and we had to do something. After joking around of creating "Nocturnal Gaming" (a la Ruin Gaming), we would elect to re-roll on another server. It was Swiftsure, since it was the biggest (and still is) PvP server on the West coast (the guild was later named Noc). As most of the original members started playing over there, there was soon a mass exodus of the members who weren't invited to create a new guild.

 

Funny part is, some of us didn't move over. So now from the original Nocturnal is split into three parts: TCP Repub, TCP Imperial and Swiftsure Imperial. It's a very interesting situation, and the sad part is, most of it was caused by a desire to not quit the game, as our decision to move to Swift was mainly caused by a desire to leave the dead server.

 

We will be consolidating all three parts of the guild once transfers come, although I feel a little worried about the state of the game as a whole.

Edited May 19, 2012 by -Yui-

[Ashlian]

Mosaic is still doing good on our server and were actually about to expand to the empire side with a sister guild. The whole reason I think that its doing as well as it is might be because nobody is trying to complete the game as soon as feasibly possible. We log in just to do what we want, chat with friends, and play how we want with no restrictions. Nobody has yet to leave the guild or the game yet which I am pretty proud of.

 

IMHO, the guilds that rushed completely threw the entire content of the game as fast as they could are the ones that died and with the players in those guilds leaving the game because "there was nothing left" making the game boring. I'm not saying its BW's fault in this because it very well could have but the guilds that did this caused it to happen. I mean, what did these guilds think was going to happen when they reached the complete and utter end? As Rynoh had said, they were no longer being pushed and lost interest when there was no new content.

 

Which has happened in nearly every guild or MMO I've played for 14 years.....launch by launch and expansion by expansion. There really isn't ever going to be enough content in any expansion, let alone a launch which has, by its nature, to focus on leveling content rather than endgame, to satisfy the min-maxers who focus on endgame over journey. If I had a dollar for every guildmember I've seen gripe over the years about lack of endgame content after they've just BURNED through a new expac or a new game at launch, I'd be a rich, rich woman! There's nothing wrong at all with appreciating endgame content over getting to it, but I can't believe anyone can think that a new game would ever be able to have enough endgame content to satisfy people used to years' worth of endgame content in older games. And comparing SWTOR to a freeform sandbox style pvp game or a game like D3 that is not even close to an actual MMO just makes me laugh.....it's rather like comparing Star Wars to LoTR.....what's the point, and why would you expect them to be similar at all?

 

My guild is friends and family....it has about ten of us who log on regularly during the week and we hope to get ops going now that we all have level 50's. There are a few more people who rushed to 50 and took a hiatus who will likely be coming back. We are disappointed that server merges aren't imminent, and hope server transfers for our server are TO and not FROM. Several of us are playing D3. Several of us also play BF3, which I tend to view in the same manner....totally different games which really won't have much impact on the people who actually like SWTOR. The people who are liking D3 tend not to be liking it for remotely the same reasons any of them like SWTOR. GW2 is equally dissimilar in style.....people who like one might often not like the other. I, personally, would rather be shot than play GW, but that's due to totally hating the first one.

[Ashlian]

Ok. I have a problem with this as I hear it a lot. You are now comparing WoW from 10 years ago with SWTOR from now. When WoW was realised they were well ahead of the curve and the standards and expectations of the consumer was much lower. Any game releasing now can't use WoW on release as a benchmark as its not competing with WoW from 10 years ago, it's competing with WoW of now.

 

This means that any new game release now is in the awkward position of trying to match and possibly even improve on a WoW game with 10 years of improvement and material. SWTOR was lucky as it had the franchise, hence they could mechanically release an almost identical game that would still appeal because of the setting.

 

So, the mechanics were solid (same as wow basically), the setting rocked (everyone loves Star Wars). However, it lacked the contents. This is the issue the game is facing, all the other factors are in place and its here where the problem lies.

 

You can say 'give it a chance', but people did. That chance was called 1.2, which did deliver a little, but not up to expectations. Sadly though, people won't be as patient as they were with WoW as a) there's other games in town b) the benchmarks for comparison make SWTOR look lacking. Why should consumers remain patient when there's other games out there they can play?

 

Essentially, SWTOR is competing with WoW Cat/MoP not vanilla and those games have sooooo much more to offer. An MMO will only work when it realises that it's not going to be judged on its merits as a new game, but on its merits in relation to the current market. Until then, they'll all fail.

 

Actually....what game company can afford to spend ten, or even five years attempting to develop not just the platform and original launch content of the game, but the expansion content you seem to think players deserve to expect? That's asking for the sun, the moon and all the stars....and all it's going to do is lead to more of the "grass is always greener" syndrome, in which games don't necessarily fail, because I know a lot of people who are willing to wait for more endgame content, but it sure does lead to a lot of time spent trying to placate the unplacatable. You're essentially making the statement that NOTHING would satisfy you but the content it took ten years for a game company to create, and that's.....kind of crazy. But I suppose in a world that wants it all now now now, that's not unusual.

 

Games won't die because of that kind of attitude, but game developers will certainly need to learn to discern between the people they can actually satisfy and the ones who will never be satisfied short of a captive team of devs serving at their whim. Then we might not have ended up with the long term fix of way too many servers to solve the short term problem of long queue times. Anyone who has played MMO's for long could have predicted a sharp dropoff in subs after the first few months. The grass.....being so much greener in D3, G2, Tera, and oh heck, now in Elder Scrolls Online. Since some people found D3 and G2's grass not quite that green after all, and they have to tout any game but SWTOR.

[BlueFromMoon]

Pre-Diablo 3: 20+ people online in peak hours, regular RP, end game PVE and PVP events.

1 day after Diablo 3 release: 3 people online.

1 week after D3 release: we'll see, the guild should be back... Or so I hope.

 

You also forget free month was given on 13th on April so it expired too. They should just give more free months until they fix this game.

[Sinnyr]

I'm currently looking for a guild that is recruiting in the Kaibur Crystal server, anyone at all looking for members message me.

[Nippon]

Came to SWTOR with my SWG guild, we have all been together for a longtime and are sticking it out here until transfers. A lot of our guys left prior to 1.2, lack of social elements, a real crafting system, zero guild feature (still the same today) and poor space system was the main reason they left. The rinse repeat boredom of just constantly killing got boring fast for most,. And with no good alternate playing avenues, Like actually crafting (companion crafting is not crafting) then i believe 20% of them would have stayed.

 

Most days we have 7-10 players on all playing 2-4 alts. so classes is never an issue for us, we have issues when only 6-7 are on, Frostclaw was on of the heaviest servers at release with over 350 people at fleet any given time, but now its around 50-60, 100 maybe on a sunday.

 

Were still toughing it out, and getting things done, we certainly are not in the same boat as other servers, but merges have to happen fast.

 

Bioware claims there are 1.3 million subs, which Equates to 5000 players per server (thats right there are 260 of them) average, of which i would estimate 20% are actually actively playing...... Its Not a good thing when less than 1000 people are active on your server. And most of those have jumped servers and levelled alts elsewhere.

 

Most MMOS I have played have had a maximum of 25-30 servers.....Why Bioware made 250 is beyond me, Yes at the beginning there were loading delays. But did it warrant such a drastic reaction. Had servers been optimized correctly in the first place, caps could have been raised and at least 100 of the servers would never have had to be made.

 

There is no excuse, they had a huge beta test prior to release and should have estimated the numbers correctly, based on pre orders and logins at beta. 5000 players per server is rubbish.

 

Eve manages 200k regular subs on 1 persistent server.

Edited May 20, 2012 by Nippon

[Goretzu]

My guild - DEAD.

[Gyat]

My guild has been together for 8 yrs, started with SWG. We were a flourishing guild and had a very strong sense of community, it got to the point where people started to feel like an extended part of each others family. When SWG died most of us seperated, some went to other servers to try and create their guilds, others quit playing MMO's, others just didn't have a good feeling about TOR. Nethertheless we came to Lord Adraas, set up shop with the few that remained and we rebuilt the community, was successful. However as with Force Academy when the new MMO smell wore off and people realized that TOR was overhyped for its own good we experienced a dip--used to have about 23-30 active on a given day, now it's about 4-8 (we lost most of them around the time ME3 came out) and slowly recovering. Unfortunately some of those people that left were officers and when the original guildmaster stepped down and appointed me in his place, I was given the task of appointing new officers from a lot that I feel isn't qualified yet to be a leader for the guild.

 

Oh well it's my goal to restore that sense of community we had in SWG with the new folk. And yes I know that'll be difficult especially with the attitude of doom and gloom I've seen people with lately O.o.

Edited May 20, 2012 by Gyat

[Bannah]

My guild was just created from a bunch of people tired of playing alone without a guild from dead servers...we all rerolled together and its been a blast.....if some are off playing diablo3 we still chat and joke around on our mumble.....the game is much better now that i have a guild with people who intend to keep playing tor as their #1 game/mmo........other guilds ive been in never felt like a guild...just a bunch of people kind of there.....need to stop joining guilds with bad leaders and bad leaders need to stop trying to create guilds

 

May the Force be with us when Xfers start:D

[wOOOOt]

The largest Danish guild Semper Danica is still hanging in there, and is still active on The Red Eclipse EU which is pretty active.

 

But we started out with 270 ready and able players, and over 3 months that number dropped to 70.

We manage to keep around 70 active accounts now with the dedicated most patient members, and extra recruitment.

But its a hard fight, and we still se members stopping every week, faster than we like to take new people in.

 

We hang ind there as long as possible, but it looks like a loosing battle. 1.2 did nothing really, and some gave up hope there. Now D3 has taken some, and soon Summertime will take more, and GW2 will probably be the mmo that either kill us in SWTOR. If we survive GW2 then SWTOR stands a chance for a longer period, but it's against the odds.

 

And btw - only 3-4 people out of our 270 actually left the guild, the rest either went back to WOW which we also play, and/or signed up to join when we start up with 150+ ready for GW2.

 

Bioware failed us on this one - even though we still have some 70 playing, out of 270 its more like surviving/starving rather than having a great time in a great mmo. Such a shame, and waste of a great oppertunity and franshise.

 

Have a nice summertime!

wOOOOt

 

PS. I quit SWTOR and joined our preparing GW2 troops. The GW2 beta weekend was as much fun as all my time in SWTOR put together.

[ZaRree]

300 members, 1 active, me

[The_Real_Che]

300 members, 1 active, me

 

Sounds just like my scenario.

 

Day one was crazy with the queues, tons of people. Now, you can barely find anyone on to play with. Heroics? HA!

 

The few people I know who play have all rerolled to the fatman.

[Mawduce]

2 people at prime time. 7 people in our fleet belgoths beacon

[wolverstreets]

My guild has all of if not most of the best pvpers on my server. If pvp isn't taken care of with server mergers before Guild Wars 2 comes out, we're all making the switch. We'll probably make the switch anyway, but we've invested so much into our characters that it's a real bummer to have to do it.

[Esgard]

Well before D3 we had 25+ members online in raid times and average of 12+ during other time. Now... well now is good if we gather 8 ppl for a raid. most of the time is me and my gf plus 1 or 2 more ... and yes guys I already stop my subscription.

[Squidkidz]

I'm in a pretty much pvp-only guild that still gets pretty good attendance. Majority of us just joined the guild a month or less ago and have cleared the majority of PvE content and just decided pvp was more for us. Right now we can get about 2-3 premades goin' at peak times. Guild's pretty tight though, we all just hang out on vent and grind war hero gear/work out strats for the different wz's etc. Other than that a lot of us are grinding alts to past Chapter 2 so our mains will never be without a full sheet of buffs should we need to respawn in a wz.

 

Although I feel like the majority of us came from PvE guilds that we were interested in being a part of when the population was higher. Since the pop. is dwindling it got more and more difficult to complete ops since we were stuck with under-geared people as the core raiding crew started to slowly unsub. Those of us that are more inclined to pvp naturally sort of found a home at our guild to kind of pass the time and get geared while we wait for rated wz's to roll out.

 

<Reckless> Imp. guild on Infinite Empire.

[ShadowAxx]

- We have lost some members from grinding burn out. Some of these folks may come back after some time to chill, which kinda speaks volumes about the game, but let's not digress.

 

- We have lost some players to other games.

 

- We have had some guild in-fighting over PvE versus PvP which caused a bit of a shake out.

 

- At our peak we had a total of 250 toons or roughly 50-60 active members. Now we are down to 65 active toons and 20-30 members. Where as we used to be able to easily roll a 16 RAID, now we struggle to get 8 "geared" ducks in a row and have yet to clear EC/Denova (which is sad).

 

- We are still recruiting, either by inviting in members from other guilds which have collapsed, or by reaching out to unguilded players. Problem... it really does feel like the game is losing many higher quality players. And those good players who remain are very cynical about SW:TOR and are on much shorter "rage timers".

 

- What's our future? We are polling members regarding alternate games to play. General consensus, we care more about staying together & playing something fun, rather than necessarily continuing to play SW:TOR.

 

- We are on the The Swiftsure which has not suffered as much as some servers, but it still far below a healthy population level.

Edited May 21, 2012 by ShadowAxx

[JaeOnasi]

We're still hanging in there on Sith Wyrm with The Older Republic. We've added in some extra games, because we've found we really enjoy the people there as much as the game itself. Will we lose some to other games? Yes, undoubtedly. Do we want to stay together in this game, too? Absolutely.

 

Anyone who's 40-ish and older who finds themselves without a guild now is welcome to join us.

[Flaminica]

My guildies were a core group I've gamed with for seven or eight years. They were all hard core Star Wars geeks, most beta-tested, and we organised the guild via the forum before launch. I was reluctant to join: I'm not a SW fan and I had to be dragged along to keep the others happy.

 

Now I'm the only one left. They all got bored after a month and nerd-raged over PvP, or content, or lack of content, or gear models, or maintenance schedules or whatever rationalisation suited them. Now there's me and one guy who crept back in after a couple of months away who refuses to talk to me because I called him on his whiny rage-quit back in March.

 

Yes I'm bitter. I'm not leaving my guilds because I'm the GM now and bought two guild banks out of pocket. Oh well, back to soloing...

[Phelex]

Server: The Ebon Hawk

Guild: Dark Malice

 

We got about 156 listed members on our guild. we had 163 but we started purging [with advanced notice of at least 1 week] anything listed as 100+ days not logged on. Currently down to 156, we'll be purging more probably weekend after this one. We get around 10 to 15 active players right now off and on. I think the daily average is at least 8 right now. we keep pulling in new folks and we try to engage / help them out to keep up interest so who knows. This thread does worry me because it just shows the player base appears to be abandoning the game. Sure it is not perfect, I hope Bioware is listening or watching and trying to get to making those changes that will help keep interest. I'm planning on staying a while. I have one toon about to hit 50 and from there I will check out alts to see how the story was different. I am not a lets get to 50 ASAP kinda guy. I think that is part of the problem with the attrition. You rush to hit cap and don't stop to enjoy the content. take your time and look around. Start an alt to see how their story was different etc... by the time you get an alt or 2 part way to 50 maybe Bioware will have patched what some are whining about.

 

I think also that people are forgetting, this is Biowares FIRST MMO not their second or third. Cut them a little slack and give them a little time to try and make changes or add stuff you asked for. I think they are listening, but like any program it takes time to get things patched/added/altered. its not an over night job.

 

Anyway, Their next release is saying server transfer is going to be added. Maybe that will help for the ghosttown servers. If anyone decides they want to go to the Ebon Hawk and are actually active look Dark Malice up. We'd be happy to have some active folks to roll with.

 

Darth Dragen Evile

Co-Founder Dark Malice

[Ziso]

Doing pretty good at the moment.

 

Guild was a major player in SWG, constantly at max 500 members capacity (all online in 70 days or less) with about upto 50 on most nights.

After SWG closed we came across to Tor, got the officers in place, had early access. Have Unity (Republic) and Dark Unity (imperial) on red Eclipse server.

 

1st month (Dec-Jan)- Most finiding thier feet but some power levelled. Those who power levelled then moaned about the rest of us who have work/families/life and that they couldnt get a group for ops so quit. Alot of the officers appointed (from our experience with them in SWG) decided the game wasnt for them and left. Bad month but 1st month so we moved on.

 

2nd month (Jan-Feb)- A Consolodation month. Again lost alot of level 50's due to lack of end game content as we were all levelling up and enjoying the game/side quests/storylines so taking our time. Appointed some new officers.

 

3rd Month.Feb-Mar) Started recruiting. We didnt wish to recruit at first as we felt we couldnt offer help to players. We decided to learn the game itself first so we could then offer help and experience to newer players. Issues again with end game content as still levelling in the majority.

 

4th Month.(Mar- Apr) Now seeing major upturn. More and more online, starting to do alot more social stuff for lower levels ie datacron runs. Majority still levelling but have a really nice relaxed community feel and everyone seems to be having fun ingame. Very active.

 

5th Month (Apr-Today). As good as its been. About 250 members with upto 40 on peak times and constant level of players on at all times. Very helpfull to newer/lower level players. Now finding the turnover of players is alot lower than it was at the start. Recruiting still, more by word of mouth now as starting to get recommended in chat by some players. Its alot of work, constantly helping out other players as is the officers role but its paying off and rewarding.

Alot of us now at level 50, and learning the end game together as well as grouping for dailies etc.

Example of this weeks planned activity:

 

05/24/2012 to 05/24/2012 [EMPIRE] EV HM Run

05/25/2012 to 05/25/2012 (Rep) +10 All Stats level 50 Datacron Run

05/26/2012 to 05/26/2012 (Rep) World Boss Run Part 1

05/26/2012 to 05/26/2012 Dark Unity: Datacron Hunt on Saturday 26th May at 2pm GMT+1

05/26/2012 to 05/26/2012 [EMPIRE] Eternity Vault SM - Saturday 26th May 1900 (GMT+1)

05/26/2012 to 05/26/2012 (Rep) Taris Datacron Run Sat 26th Lunchtime

05/30/2012 to 05/30/2012 (Republic) Eternity Vault Normal Mode Wed 30th May

06/01/2012 to 06/01/2012 (Rep) Eternity Vault NM Friday 1st June 2012

 

Thats on top of dailies/general help/flashpoints etc.

Probably our best month ingame yet

[MillieTheStick]

My casual guild is down from 10-12 on primetime to...well, me, occasionally to be joined briefly by one or two others.

 

I'm expecting some to return once Diablo loses the shiny, but I'm equally sure that others are down for the count, especially as I know no few of them are looking forward to Planetside 2. Myself...well let's just say that some nights it occurs to me that I'd be gone without the support of the few roleplayers I've managed to strike up decent working relationships with.

[Jawgust]

My (imperial) guild consists of the best pvpers on the server and the only group clearing Denova hard mode. Most of them only log in Tuesday nights for two hours now. It's very disheartening. PVP is absolutely dead. We're lucking if we can get three matches, and t hey usually don't pop until around 7-8pm.