I completely disagree with Lisa.

"If you're so averse to social interaction that this is difficult for you to swallow, you should probably rethink your decision to belong to a guild or even to play a social game."

Seriously?!?! You really typed some crap like that out as advice to people? Seriously???

People are different, accept it. Some people are social butterflies, and others are more 'keep to themselves'. And for some people, like myself, common social niceties are not only unneccesary, but kind of insulting. I mean do you really NEED to say something just because I sneeze? I don't think so. Should you have to send out gratz for an achievement you know nothing about, to a player you don't even know, just becuase its considered 'required'? Thats ridiculous. What is the point? So you can pretend that everyone loves, likes, or even respects everyone else in the guild. Silly. Childish.

Think about this...what means more to you, the gratz from someone who actually knows you and knows how hard you worked for whatever you just achieved, or the gratz from someone who doesn't even know you, or may not even like you. And you know they are only saying it because its mandated?

And one other thing that I have to address from that ridiculous quote from Lisa.

PEOPLE DON'T JOIN LARGE GUILDS FOR SOCIAL INTERACTION.

Or at least not like they used to. When was the last time you saw people form a large guild, just because they want to hang out in game with 300-500 other buddies? That kind of thing is reserved for the small social guilds that rare get larger than 20 members or so. Players join large guilds for Perks, Raiding, or Recognition. And in that atmosphere, many are there for their own reasons and have no interest or inclination to engage in "common social niceties". And for the most part, as long as they keep doing their part, most guild management don't care. You start trying to force these players to love everyone in the guild, and they next thing you'll be doing is giving out advice on what to do with a guild thats falling apart.

@Darkseid
You can't deny that the whole point of an mmo is social interaction; players coming together to ineract/socialize while playing a game.
Why else would you pay a subscription when you could easily drop a one time payment for a solo gaming experience.
Are niceties required? No.
Should they be? No.
Are you a jerk if you act like one? My money is on probably...

That's a straw man, Darkseid. Lisa's point was that if you want your guild to be more sociable, you need to act more sociably yourself.

I understand that a big social guild can get spammy if people get too effusive (I'm in one myself). But do you really, REALLY, get insulted if a guildie says "hello" when you log on?

I agree with both of you, but @Darkseid: you can do without the histrionics.

I agree. You can't force social interaction. Frankly, I could give a rats arse who says 'grats' and who doesn't. Do I like some acknowledgement when I get something cool? Sure. Who doesn't. I run a small social guild as well and it amuses me to no end that probably half my guildies are fairly 'quiet' people. Most of my officers are the ones that drive social interactions but when I am not on I have heard it is fairly quiet. Since the looking for dungeon feature came out we have expanded probably 200%. Many of the players who request to join say they want a social/friendly guild yet this doesn't always materialize in guild chatter. It's ok. It's there if you want it. Most nights we have lots of fun talk. Sometimes if people are running dungeons or questing hard, it can be quiet. That being said, I am the type of player that will stop what I am doing, if soloing to say grats or respond to a question/comment. However, If I am questing with a group or in a dungeon, my full attention needs to be directed towards that group. I also suck at typing and playing and have died/drowned doing both :p