Cataclysm: Guild cap revised, now 1,000 members
by Mathew McCurley 
Oct 8th 2010 at 10:00PM
While there are not a huge amount of guilds that go over the 1,000-player limit, those multitudes of players came out in anger over Blizzard's decision to set a hard cap. Now, with that cap raised, these guilds may potentially fall under the new rules, keeping their organizations intact. Hit the jump for the full announcement.
Bashiok -- Guild members capped in 4.0.1We previously announced in the Cataclysm Beta forums that we'd be enforcing a 600 guild member cap with patch 4.0.1. We've reevaluated what we believe the realms are capable of supporting and instead will be enforcing a guild member hard cap of 1,000 members. This means that guilds with more than 1,000 members will no longer be able to invite new members until they drop below the cap. For example, if a guild has 1,500 members they'll be able to continue as-is, playing and earning guild achievements for as long as they choose, through Cataclysm and beyond, but they will not be able to add new members until they fall below the 1,000 member cap. If a guild has fewer than 1,000 members, they won't be able to add members above that number.
This new guild cap is being enforced for several reasons, but they all factor into a need to control guild sizes in light of the new guild systems, including guild leveling and achievements. Previously, adding players to a guild was as simple as adding people to a chat channel. While approximately 500 members were visible in the UI, there was no real need to limit guild size. That is no longer the case. Guild leveling in Cataclysm features unified progression powered by a series of complex systems that track the contributions of all guild members. The larger the guild, the bigger the impact on these systems. We found it necessary to determine a maximum guild size to ensure continued performance now and into the future.
We want to reassure the few guilds that this does impact that they have ample time to plan and rearrange their guilds as they see fit. While this hard cap will go into effect with 4.0.1, guilds should feel safe rearranging members as necessary up to the release of Cataclysm on December 7 when the guild leveling system goes into effect. There will be no impact on guild leveling progression before then. If a guild were to disband after Cataclysm, or a group of people were to leave and start a new guild, they would lose the time and experience they previously contributed and potentially extend the amount of time it would take to regain the new guild perks.
While some players have used options including mods and custom chat channels to support large player and guild alliances that number multiple thousands, groups of that size aren't ideally suited to our design philosophy. As always, we're continually looking into adding new features to help facilitate guild management, scheduling, and player communication.
This new guild cap is being enforced for several reasons, but they all factor into a need to control guild sizes in light of the new guild systems, including guild leveling and achievements. Previously, adding players to a guild was as simple as adding people to a chat channel. While approximately 500 members were visible in the UI, there was no real need to limit guild size. That is no longer the case. Guild leveling in Cataclysm features unified progression powered by a series of complex systems that track the contributions of all guild members. The larger the guild, the bigger the impact on these systems. We found it necessary to determine a maximum guild size to ensure continued performance now and into the future.
We want to reassure the few guilds that this does impact that they have ample time to plan and rearrange their guilds as they see fit. While this hard cap will go into effect with 4.0.1, guilds should feel safe rearranging members as necessary up to the release of Cataclysm on December 7 when the guild leveling system goes into effect. There will be no impact on guild leveling progression before then. If a guild were to disband after Cataclysm, or a group of people were to leave and start a new guild, they would lose the time and experience they previously contributed and potentially extend the amount of time it would take to regain the new guild perks.
While some players have used options including mods and custom chat channels to support large player and guild alliances that number multiple thousands, groups of that size aren't ideally suited to our design philosophy. As always, we're continually looking into adding new features to help facilitate guild management, scheduling, and player communication.
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 5)
Xid Oct 9th 2010 12:45AM
So if I wanted to start a new toon (either level 1 or a DK) on Zangarmarsh to join one of the ICftB guilds, who/what should I search for and whisper in-game now?
Brett Porter Oct 9th 2010 9:47AM
Easy! Do a "/who blog" and you should get more than a few folks listed. Ask if you can be invited to the guild appropriate for your level, and please be sure to state what that level is. IIRC, the guilds are 1-19, 20-54 and 55+, plus an additional event only guild.
Sebastien of IcftB; Ardamac of WHU.
Darkdust Oct 9th 2010 1:16AM
System stability is only one of the issues here. Look at the end of their statement: "groups of that size aren't ideally suited to our design philosophy." It's also a question of social design and community, at least from Blizzard's PoV.
Otown Oct 9th 2010 1:41AM
I like this!
Constructive Criticism from a mature fan base spoke out and Blizzard responded.
Those that QQ should take this as an example.
Amaxe Oct 9th 2010 1:44AM
Recalling all the "a 600 cap is only 60 accounts with 10 alts" I do wonder if we'll see someone say "It's only 100 accounts with 10 alts"
Well It didn't affect me before, and will do so less now. So long as the new cap won't put a strain on the server I won't worry about it.
Al Oct 9th 2010 2:14AM
Yeah, I don't get that either. How many normal guilds need more than 60 people?
MasterAsh Oct 9th 2010 2:07AM
So let me get this straight: What a specific portion of the playerbase thought to only represent around 1% of the total playerbase managed to not only be heard but have action taken for them?
Wow. . .just wow.
MasterAsh Oct 9th 2010 2:09AM
Grah. . .I meant "A specific portion of the playerbase, thought to only represent around 1% of the total playerbase," managed to not only be heard by heard but managed to force change."
Al Oct 9th 2010 2:15AM
Nothing new there, just look how many times things have been screwed up to appease Arena players.
Muse Oct 9th 2010 7:57AM
Less. Assume for argument's sake that there are 20 mega-guilds with 5,000 characters, (that's 15 more than I've heard of mentioned in these blogposts) ~100,000 characters. I'm not going to go "12 million player base" because there is a massive amount of unguilded people and characters, so I will compare it to the average realm size of 10,000 active characters at the time, so 10 realms full worth of mega-guilds. WoW has about 400 western realms according to slightly outdated official data.
sullyXXX Oct 9th 2010 2:42AM
Well, as I said in the previous thread, where will it end? This still doesn't resolve all guild's problems. There are still many that are above 1000 members. If Blizz upped it to 1500, many would still not be ok. And so on. Don't get me wrong, I'm very glad some of these communities will be able to stay as they are, but will a benefit to a 1500 player community put the whole realm at risk? I hope Blizzard are sure the system can handle this.
arca Oct 9th 2010 3:12AM
It's still not enough. The cap should be 2500 to allow the massive guilds that already have a total of 1500 or higher to have space to recruit more members.
This game is an MMO which allows thousands of people to interact, maybe blizzards statistics show that there are not many guild beating the 1k cap but that doesn't mean that they wont in the future.
They are imposing an unnecessary cap for what seems to be a technical reason. If they are going to introduce a hard cap they should at least be making it decently sized. With 12 million members decently sized is not 1000.
Groth Oct 9th 2010 3:53AM
except that there are still plenty of guilds who have well over 2500 members. So blizz would have upped the cap, reduced the number of people crying over their inability to recruit any more, and achieved... not very much.
In beta there seems to be a genuine problem with guilds with populations over 1,000. Blizz have said that they're setting the cap to 1,000 because of server stability. So we either keep to that figure, or the can cave to the thousands of people in the insanely huge guilds like AIE, which are almost big enough for their own server, and everyone else on the server can put up with server crashes, bugs, high latency etc.
It's nice that they've upped it as high as they can without risking anyone's gameplay experience, but saying it doesn't go far enough isn't going to achieve anything.
Claw Oct 9th 2010 4:15AM
Easy solution: allow guilds of any size, but if you go over 1,000 members, you are no longer eligible to earn guild xp or achievements.
That way you guys who allegedly have 1,000+ friends can hang out with them in your mega-guild, without breaking the guild advancement systems that Blizzard have introduced in Cataclysm.
Brett Porter Oct 9th 2010 9:52AM
Honestly, I'm not sure where you've gotten that any of the folks (myself included, twice since I'm in two so-called mega guilds, one per faction) involved in this debate have claimed even remotely that we are friends with 1000 people.
We've never said that.
That said, we like to play with folks that are similar in play style and mind set. Don't you? And just because more folks play like me than possibly play like you, and we like to be guilded so we can chat together, does that make us any less of a good guild or good people?
I hope not, and I don't think so.
Claw Oct 9th 2010 3:46PM
No problem, Brett - my suggestion works just as well for allowing you to be guilded and chatting with 1,000+ people of similar in play style and mind set, without breaking the guild advancement systems that Blizzard have introduced in Cataclysm.
Of course, my suggestion has been downvoted into the basement, presumably by members of mega-guilds who don't like people to be reminded that the main reason they're up in arms about this change is nothing to do with friendship, play style or mind set. It's because this change is going to stop them from distorting the guild advancement mechanics beyond belief.
Comito Oct 9th 2010 4:36AM
Sounds good for those big guilds to not split and divide too much now :)
arca Oct 9th 2010 4:37AM
Easy solution: Blizzard learn how to fix bugs.
Sei Oct 9th 2010 4:57AM
Has anyone else wondered if the 99.9% was just a made up number? I mean, it's a pretty common term denoting "pretty much everyone, with a few exceptions".
Maybe 1/500 guilds are over 1k members, maybe it really is 1/1000, or maybe it's 1/10000.
I'm neutral as far as this change is concerned, I just find it interesting that 99.9% has been quoted so many times as being an absolute fact and number to be considered.
Muse Oct 9th 2010 8:00AM
Closer to 99,975%