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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsCataclysm: New 600-member hard cap imposed on guilds
by Fox Van Allen 
Oct 5th 2010 at 3:00AM
Blizzard was keenly aware of the problems that these large guilds suffered, promising earlier in the summer to address them for Cataclysm. Well, not-so-great news, members of giant mega guilds: Blizzard is effectively throwing in the towel on large guilds and imposing a hard cap of 600 members effective the moment patch 4.0.1 goes live.
While the official blue post by Mumper says this will have no effect on 99.9 percent of guilds, this move could effectively devastate the remaining 0.1 percent. The full text is available after the break.
Guild Member Caps for CataclysmWe will be introducing a new, hard cap of 600 members in a single guild for Cataclysm. This function will go live with patch 4.0.1 and is already live on the beta and PTR's.
As most of you already know, we have supported a soft cap of 500 members in a guild since World of Warcraft launched. We have allowed guilds to exceed the 500 limit up until now since being in a guild really just amounted to ranks and chat channels. With the advent of the new guild system in Cataclysm we are tracking many more things on each individual player in a guild and in order to support that, we need to limit the amount of members to a reasonable level.
The new cap of 600 members is fully supported in the new guild system and that means that everyone will be visible in the ui and able to contribute to all guild functions like experience and reputation gain. We have pulled a large number of statistics to get to the 600 member cap for guilds and we are happy to say that this value covers more than 99.9% of all the active guilds in World of Warcraft.
The small number of guilds that are over the 600 person cap will be able to keep their guilds intact (and fully supported in the new guild system), but they will not be able to add new members until they fall below the 600 member cap.
As most of you already know, we have supported a soft cap of 500 members in a guild since World of Warcraft launched. We have allowed guilds to exceed the 500 limit up until now since being in a guild really just amounted to ranks and chat channels. With the advent of the new guild system in Cataclysm we are tracking many more things on each individual player in a guild and in order to support that, we need to limit the amount of members to a reasonable level.
The new cap of 600 members is fully supported in the new guild system and that means that everyone will be visible in the ui and able to contribute to all guild functions like experience and reputation gain. We have pulled a large number of statistics to get to the 600 member cap for guilds and we are happy to say that this value covers more than 99.9% of all the active guilds in World of Warcraft.
The small number of guilds that are over the 600 person cap will be able to keep their guilds intact (and fully supported in the new guild system), but they will not be able to add new members until they fall below the 600 member cap.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 9)
Smoke353 Oct 5th 2010 3:16AM
"The small number of guilds that are over the 600 person cap will be able to keep their guilds intact (and fully supported in the new guild system), but they will not be able to add new members until they fall below the 600 member cap."
Shuckles Oct 5th 2010 3:19AM
Blizzard answered this very question in its last paragraph.
"The small number of guilds that are over the 600 person cap will be able to keep their guilds intact (and fully supported in the new guild system), but they will not be able to add new members until they fall below the 600 member cap."
So we'll see guilds like with its 1,100 members still, but don't expect it to grow anymore after the patch drops.
Slayton Oct 5th 2010 3:22AM
Ohhhh...read the last paragraph again, then you shall have the answer that you seek.
e1tiburon Oct 5th 2010 3:19AM
Jinx
Magus Oct 5th 2010 3:20AM
@Auker: "The small number of guilds that are over the 600 person cap will be able to keep their guilds intact (and fully supported in the new guild system), but they will not be able to add new members until they fall below the 600 member cap."
This also means a race-change will be the only way for Goblins/Worgen to make it into the big guilds.
Dalrint Oct 5th 2010 3:22AM
It says right there in the post that the guild will keep its members. It just can't add new members until it's below 600.
Slayton Oct 5th 2010 3:24AM
Well...by time I made an account my previous post was obsolete....sigh.
Velyndria Oct 5th 2010 3:25AM
The final paragraph of the blue post addresses that:
"The small number of guilds that are over the 600 person cap will be able to keep their guilds intact (and fully supported in the new guild system), but they will not be able to add new members until they fall below the 600 member cap."
They can keep the members they have, but they can't recruit anymore members. At least not until them are less than 600 members, total.
Hahahaha Oct 5th 2010 3:53AM
Still the most logical thing to do right now is to drop below hard cap. Mistaken or just for fun /gquit, /gkick or to protect your guild against possible hacked accounts - not talking just about stuff they could take out of gbank - amongst other reasons (I think there would be more) could result is disastrous irreversible consequences.
Murdertime Oct 5th 2010 3:57AM
I'm not sure if anyone's told you this, but the last paragraph has something about this issue.
You know.
If no one's mentioned it yet.
Rufio Oct 5th 2010 6:26AM
"The small number of guilds that are over the 600 person cap will be able to keep their guilds intact (and fully supported in the new guild system), but they will not be able to add new members until they fall below the 600 member cap."
Tri Oct 5th 2010 8:37AM
I really liked that part where they said
"The small number of guilds that are over the 600 person cap will be able to keep their guilds intact (and fully supported in the new guild system), but they will not be able to add new members until they fall below the 600 member cap."
Silversol Oct 5th 2010 9:22AM
"Guilds with over 600 members will automatically be disbanded."
ok, not really.... just thought I'd throw a curveball
Feldring Oct 5th 2010 10:12AM
"His name is Robert Paulson."
Fierna Oct 5th 2010 12:00PM
Whew... ok I feel better now with that last paragraph tucked in there. In one of the ginormous guilds and being fractured into smaller sub-guilds leads to a lot of weirdness when you rely on addons to communicate cross-guild.
BritishBulldog Oct 5th 2010 3:11AM
Not cool.
/tar AIE
/mourn
Andrew Oct 5th 2010 3:12AM
Hmm I never knew there was a "soft cap". I never knew a guild could reach 1100 either :P.
Gregg Reece Oct 5th 2010 3:43AM
"Soft cap" meant that the guild controls started screwing up and not properly displaying everyone at 500.
Faith Trust Oct 5th 2010 10:09AM
It was really more a bug than a soft cap, but soft cap sounds like you have the control.
Ash Oct 5th 2010 3:15AM
Goodbye AIE!