Guild Leader Giving Thanks

So, I’ve ragged on Blizzard a fair bit as of late.  Probably for the last month or so, on a number of topics.  It wasn’t that I was anti-Blizzard or anything, the negative just always seem to be what inspired my writing or thoughts for the day.  So I’m quite happy to be able to say something good about the company (aside from the great thoughts I’ve heard from others regarding the expansion thus far).

Since Patch 5.0, our little social guild has gone up five levels.  By little, I mean we have basically seven people being anything resembling active.  That’s better than half a level a person and in a couple of cases these are a result of characters that aren’t even close to 80, let alone 90 (by the way a shout out to Grexinimi, our first capped member).  Why is this happening?

Because Blizzard did the right thing.

When guild levels and rewards were introduced, they were a great idea.  From the get go, absolutely brilliant.  However, if you were a small guild you basically got crapped on or forced to expand if you wanted anything worthwhile.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m one of the people who thinks a lot of things are handed over way too easily in the game, but this was the opposite.

Sure, with some 85’s you could actually crank off the guild experience at a decent pace and contribute to the overall success.  If you had alts of lower level, you didn’t really want to touch them though.  A dozen quests post-80 did more for the guild than if you went 1-79.  Why?  I have no idea.

Fast forward to the current system where basically all quests reward the same amount of rep and contribute nearly equally to the leveling of the guild itself.  That is how it should be.  A character who puts in fifty levels with a guild should be Exalted with them.  Much more so than the 85-90 character, in my humble opinion.

This gives small guilds some of the benefits from actually being a guild.  They’ll get to the heirloom cloaks at level 10, the chance for more skill points and even the Dark Phoenix pet and mount.  There are still somethings that a small guild won’t obtain and that’s because they are achievement rewards.  I have no problem with that in the slightest.  That’s where balance comes into play and is properly implemented.

So, from the leader of a small guild, I wanted to thank Blizzard for this change.  The members are proud we’re gaining levels (when there were times it seemed like the Guild XP bar wasn’t moving) and some of the rewards that come with that.  Even included a little is better than not at all.