Not a bug: Guild UI errors with over 500 members
by Robin Torres 
Oct 3rd 2007 at 11:00AM
Most guilds don't have this problem, but if you have a guild with over 500 members, the guild UI reports incorrect information. The member status is no longer accurate with over 500 members and not all of the members appear on the roster.Blue poster Hortus says this is not a bug:
Guilds are functionally limited to 500 members.
There is no cap on the number of members in a guild so you can invite more than 500 but the UI will not support it.
This may change in the future but it is not considered a bug.
I briefly had a character on Dark Iron in the Knights of Arcadia, the first of the Penny Arcade guilds <insert fangirl noise here>. The UI issues over 500 members got so unwieldy that they split it into multiple guilds.
Do you think WoW should support the functionality of guilds over 500 members? Or do you think Blizzard's resources are better spent elsewhere?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Ahoni Oct 3rd 2007 11:18AM
Time better spent elsewhere. This affects what,
Ahoni Oct 3rd 2007 11:18AM
Sorry, truncated comment ...
Time better spent elsewhere. This affects what, less than 1 percent of the population.
Unaz Oct 3rd 2007 11:21AM
Goonsquad on Mal'ganis has been dealing with this issue since a month or so after release. They've been told multiple times by various GMs that it either was or wasn't being worked on. Or was/wasn't intended behavior. But seeing the duration that this has gone on for in addition with Blizzard going against what they've said in the past...
I'm going to go with just not a priority and they'll randomly fix it in some future patch without saying anything.
lordfrikk Oct 3rd 2007 11:27AM
Yup, I agree.
Phil Butcher Oct 3rd 2007 11:38AM
If you don't mind my asking, who was your character in KoA? I ask because I am a member.
Hagethal (Sucky Healadin) Knights of Arcadia, Dark Iron
Sylythn Oct 3rd 2007 11:41AM
Real simple solution guys - Midnight Cartel on Elune has done this as they near the cap...set up an Alt Guild. You get to keep 1 main and 1 alt in the main guild, the rest of your alts go in the alt guild. Create a joint channel and you're all done.
Robin Torres Oct 3rd 2007 11:45AM
Phil,
Peenk, 23 Gnome Warrior. I was there in the first flush of fanboys/girls. But I got eliminated from the guild after a month or so, when I went back to my main server.
Delta Oct 3rd 2007 11:48AM
We can't even break 100 yet on our guild, course most of that problem is Durotan-H is small in Horde population, so most people's characters are either guilded or alts of guilded characters.
Rodrigo Oct 3rd 2007 11:59AM
Yeap, that's really annoying. Our Alea Iacta Est guild on Earthern Ring server has over 900 players and we have this issue.
killah Oct 3rd 2007 1:24PM
The Nihilum fanclub located on Magtheridon has over 500 members aswell :D
Beo Fraser Oct 3rd 2007 12:22PM
My guild is split into two, both with over 500. We have a joint channel and have to use things like a chatmod to allow item linking and such. It's actually really big pain in the neck, especially since with /g you can press enter and automatically start typing but with a custom channel you have to do the whole /5 thing every time or risk having your guild chat info spread about your party or /say channels.
Krick Oct 3rd 2007 12:19PM
I'm a long time software developer and maybe it's not a "bug" per se, but it's certainly a design oversight that someone didn't anticipate large guilds when they were designing the UI code.
Can you say "Y2K", boys and girls?
...
Krick
http://www.tankadin.com
Memzer Oct 3rd 2007 12:25PM
This definitely sounds like a cop out. If the WoW client doesn't support more than 500 guild members then they should simply cap guilds at 500 members.
Candina@WH Oct 3rd 2007 12:43PM
re: @12
Sorry, I think that to cap it at 500, just because the UI has a design flaw limiting it to 500 would be the TRUE cop out, not the other way around.
I would expect that Blizz, in the beginning, probably had a hard time conceiving of servers with populations over 500, let alone single guilds. :-)
It is a design flaw, not a code bug. One that is a low priority fix. /shrug.
I would rather blizz fix the crashing instance and BG servers, add new content, or pretty much anything else than worry about this.
mizatt Oct 3rd 2007 12:59PM
Wow! Talk about lazy programming
rick gregory Oct 3rd 2007 1:05PM
Yeah, we run into this. It's not 500 MEMBERS BTW, it's 500 TOONS.
Think about that - if you have 100 people that's 100 toons. Add in a couple of alts, maybe a banker toon, 50 more actual members... and you will pop over 500 easily over time.
We just remove alts that haven't been played in a long time and it's OK for a bit, but this is annoying in a small way. The worst part of this is that they don't show in the Guild tab in the Social window.
Zamboni Oct 3rd 2007 1:07PM
I'd like to see them add a way to link alts to mains. I may only have a couple of active characters, but there are three times that many supporting characters stationed at banks, mailboxes and auction houses (plus a couple of dedicated miners and herbers parked around the globe). All of these could be rolled into one guild account rather than just bulking up the guild's headcount. I'm sure some of those 500-member guild would drop to half that size if inactive alts became submenus from the main character.
npm Oct 3rd 2007 1:09PM
I'd call it a bug, just like buffer overruns are a bug. Allowing something to exceed a set size and not handling the errors that occur is always a bug. Blizzard is just being disingenuous and/or lazy. :p
Armath Oct 3rd 2007 2:03PM
It's a bug. To call it anything else is to lie. Either Blizzard needs to set a guild size limit and enforce it, make the UI support match the GAME support, or just admit it's broken and they're not gonna fix it (which, to be honest, they did. Sorta. Except for the admitting fault part. Too much CYA there, Hortus. :-)
I think a better solution would be to create second level of organization above the guild level and allow only guilds to join it. This would allow more than 500 characters to be associated, would help deal with large numbers of associated characters, and would also help smaller guilds put together raids and other large-group activities.
veronica Oct 3rd 2007 4:06PM
I'm also in Alea Iacta Est on Earthen Ring, and we're had this issue forever. I'm just not sure why they can't fix it; it seems like it wouldn't be too much of a hurdle (although, I'm not exactly a programmer.)
It would solve a lot of issues for us.