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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 7 of 9)
C4G Oct 5th 2010 9:50AM
Not cool Blizzard...not cool. Hard cap for larger guilds will force them to either banish alts or create a separate "sister" guild (possibly for alts...not a huge deal but still....). Not cool.
dave313 Oct 5th 2010 9:58AM
This seems to go against what Blizzard wanted to do, in creating a "social network" built around all their games. Forcing the hand to limit guilds to 600 members is anti-social networking.
bossborot Oct 5th 2010 10:05AM
I take issue with this. All it takes is 60 members with 9 alts each... Seriously, fix something with the need account for alts in a guild before adding a hardcap. It's not like they can all be on at once.
ScytheNoire Oct 5th 2010 10:05AM
This is bullshit. Because they are too stupid to fix the problem with the 500 soft cap bug, they are going to screw over a lot of players. Every guild I've been in since the launch of WoW has had more than 500 characters. And keep in mind, this is characters, not players. Characters, meaning screw alt's, because that takes up another valuable spot.
Giant WTF with this one.
CyberNigma Oct 5th 2010 10:09AM
I think this has more to do with the new guild leveling benefits being introduced in Cataclysm.
There's a real advantage for casuals to join a large guild that does nothing in itself but provide guild perks. The more people in the guild, the faster it will level and the more perks there will be. It's definitely an advantage to leave 1 player guilds and join non-committal guilds for this very reason.
They probably don't want this to happen as it's not their vision of how it should be. 600 is still quite a lot of players though.
I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with it - just pointing out a possible reason for this. I know I've seen talk on several realms about people considering building super guilds for this very reason, with no requirements except to be a member thereby adding to the guild's leveling machine.
Bouncing Gnome Oct 5th 2010 12:14PM
Correct me if this quote is wrong, but "The top 20 earners in the guild each week will have their contributions turned into XP."
So the actual size of the guild isn't really an issue, yes?
bongato Oct 5th 2010 12:25PM
It's correct, however they rescinded it and decided instead to merely cap the amount of XP that could be earned in a day.
As for the larger discussion, seriously, how many of you have actually had experiences with a guild of over 500 members *in person*? In all my years of playing, I've only ever seen 1, and that was only over 500 for a month or so (and had at least 100 afk people that the guild never bothered to kick).
Yes it'll affect a small proportion of guilds out there, and I do agree with an above poster they should have been given more time to adapt, but realistically speaking it's only a very small proportion of people. For those it will affect, people will adapt. Life moves on.
Hob Oct 5th 2010 12:54PM
@bouncing gnome
Actually, it is an issue. If you have a guild with only 20 members, then the contributions of every single member is critical to leveling the guild. In contrast, a guild of 2000 members has much greater potential for success.
I see it in term of PvP (since that's basically what guild leveling is, PvP versus other guilds; compare with "auction house PvP").
In a 3v3 arena team, every player has to be at the top of their game for the team to succeed. Lag, a new spec, a brief disconnect can ruin everything for the team. In Wintergrasp, however, you can have a so-so team and still win.
CyberNigma Oct 5th 2010 1:54PM
There's no need to manage a guild founded for that purpose. Literally it's just a collective. You don't even have to talk to anyone. It would not harm anyone if half the guild was inactive since the guild itself doesn't do anything but become a receptacle for XP.
Just like people that sign their own toons and alts to a guild with nobody else in it - it's a placeholder. Instead of doing that (to stop blind invites among other things) just join a super guild and collect the benefits. The more people in the guild the better the chances the guild will reach that xp cap every day. You could even leave guild chat off for that matter. There are obviously things that you won't get like guild achieves, but you probably weren't looking for those anyway.
With 1000+ members there's a good chance that you'll get some anyway just by pugging. I do remember some large guilds where it was common to end up pugging with guildies you did not know.
I'm guessing Blizz does not want this to happen. Like I said, just speculating. It's a pretty good guess though.
Even if it was only the top 20, the more people you have the better the chances of reaching a cap or maximizing what your highest 20 can bring in, assuming they are not interesting in guild raid progression.
styopa Oct 5th 2010 10:30AM
Hyperbole makes me sad...The summary was needless histrionics.
"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. "
Saying that this would 'devastate' the 0.1% of guilds is misusing the word devastate.
It's not autokicking members. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that of the 0.1% of guilds over 600 members, kicking the bank alts out of the guild and kicking (for example) leveling toons below lvl 60 will cut their numbers by 50% or more. The only reason to keep minor-league toons in the guild was to be able to see in guildchat if something was going on that I guess you can do now with the blizzard friend-thing I don't use, anyway?
RebelY Oct 5th 2010 10:36AM
I'm in the Spreading Taint. We have over 5000 toons in guild and probably 2k unique members. Guess we're gone. I feel a little sad about that.
Aruhgulah Oct 5th 2010 11:35AM
How can you be "gone"? Nothing's happening to your existing members. Read the last paragraph of the article, as so many others have said.
All it means for you is that you can't invite more members. and if you're over 5k already, jeez -- why do you need more?
Alexandra Oct 5th 2010 1:59PM
@aruhgulah:
Because new members find us, old members who've been removed for inactivity come back, our raid guilds' membership fluctuate and may end up shunting multiple members back into the main guild... we're not looking to gobble up new members to show off how big we are, we're trying to build a community.
Artificial Oct 5th 2010 5:02PM
"...we're trying to build a community."
This is still entirely possible. Online communities predate WoW. There's nothing provided by the WoW guild interface that is in any way essential to building a community in WoW.
Matthew Oct 5th 2010 9:09PM
heya - is that the lgbt horde guild on proudmoore?
RebelY Oct 5th 2010 11:40PM
Sorry you feel that way, Artificial. I guess, in your opinion, the only reason a guild exists in WoW is as some means to an end; I would presume raiding? Forget the social aspects. I suppose guild only chat has no way to build a community n
Darkseid Oct 5th 2010 10:41AM
I've said here many times before that I don't understand Blizzards sudden interest in guilds. I don't agree with their "rewards" for being in guilds and don't think anyone should have to be a member of a guild just to have a chance at those rewards.
That being said, there are/were a lot of people who were happy about the new interest Blizz has taken in guilds.
Well...
You have to take the good with the bad. From what the blue post says, this was put into place to facilitate the tracking of guild stats and achievements. Well, thats the price that has to be paid for these new features.
Amaxe Oct 5th 2010 10:48AM
Interesting. I'm unlikely to come remotely near this cap, but it does seem to have some ramifications.
I'm wondering if we will we see huge guilds trimming the less productive members?
Aruhgulah Oct 5th 2010 11:37AM
I was thinking the same thing. By imposing the cap, Blizz may be freeing up people for those of us in smaller guilds who need members.
Amaxe Oct 5th 2010 12:09PM
Interesting idea. I never considered the issue of there being shortages