Posts with tag rating-guild-perks

Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available this spring from No Starch Press.

Last week, I reviewed the perks that provide money and convenience. Today, I'm going to talk about (and rate) the remaining perks, which I've divided into three categories: active abilities, professions and points.

Active abilities

Currently in the beta, two guild perks offer castable abilities. It's not clear yet whether everyone in the guild will gain access to these abilities, whether they will become available to a given player once a certain level of guild reputation is achieved, or whether the guild leader will be able to assign them to specific guild ranks as they do now with other actions, such as inviting new players. Time will tell.

Have Group, Will Travel Summons all raid or party members to the caster's current location. 2-hour cooldown.

This perk is, frankly, a godsend for getting raids started. No more clicking giant rocks or warlock portals over and over again! People who are lagging behind everyone else might still wind up begging for a summon, but compared to summoning 23 other people one by one, this is a walk in the park. It amazes me how many people can't be bothered to fly to a raid entrance, but that's another story ...

This ability will also be useful for bringing players together for group questing, roleplaying or world PvP.

The best part is that the summon occurs at "the caster's current location." I wonder if there will be restrictions on that. Could a Horde rogue sneak into Ironforge and summon 39 other players right where she's standing? If so, the possibilities for mayhem are endless.

5 salutes out of 5

Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available this spring from No Starch Press.

Cataclysm is finally in beta and the information floodgates have burst! One of the most interesting revelations for officers is the unveiling of guild perks -- or, at least, Blizzard's current pass on them. I'm sure that, like everything else in the beta, these perks are subject to change. We also don't know how long it takes to obtain them, but it seems like Blizzard's intention is that every guild will be able to unlock them eventually.

As you may recall, I was unhappy with Blizzard's decision to give us perks instead of talent trees. I stand behind that opinion, but there's no use in dwelling on it. So let's rate the perks! I've broken them up into five different categories: money, convenience, active abilities, professions and points. This week, I'll be talking about the first two categories. (Note that I am listing only the highest rank of each perk.)

The money perks

Cash Flow (Rank 2) Each time you loot money from an enemy, an extra 10% money is generated and deposited directly into your guild bank.

First of all, wow, that's going to be a lot of money flying into your guild bank, especially for larger guilds. If 100 players loot 100 gold from enemies, that's an extra 1,000 gold for the guild. The best part about this perk is that it is not a tax -- the money is generated by the talent, not taken out of what a player loots. The only problem here will be figuring out what to do with all that extra cash!

I never felt completely comfortable with the random cash donations that guild members would make to our bank. We couldn't have afforded to unlock all those bank slots without them, but it never felt quite right to me. As for the money that's left over after you unlock all the vaults and the money that's donated later, how do you spend that money in a way that's fair to all of your generous contributors? Hopefully, with this perk, you can tell players to keep their money. They will earn gold for the guild just by going about their business.

5 salutes out of 5