"Oboy! So Many Guilds!"

This week's blogs cover the who-why-what-where-when-how of "Rolling a New Toon" in World of Warcraft (from my point of view). Today we look at "what?" Specifically, "What" guild should your newest toon join?

Every WoW player has a different idea of what makes the perfect guild. People join guilds with high expectations, and eventually lower them as they realize there is no perfect guild.

Reason to Join a Guild			However....
1	Friends – Most guilds start with a theme. Family-friendly. Unusual sex preferences. Age-based. Hobby-based. Lore-based. "Oboy! New friends, common interests!"		People leave. You need more members. Guild recruiting is not easy, so the theme goes out the window. If anybody is even online when you are, and they're willing to chat, you're lucky.
2	Work together to achieve goals - There are raid guilds, pvp guilds, achievement guilds. Guilds are ranked by how well they do. "Oboy! I got into the top raid guild!"		Even uber guilds can fail or unravel. The guild's best raider graduates and never plays again. Guild leaders fight, divorce, etc. Everybody has a guild break-up story.
3	Get help - Recruiters stress how "helpful" the guild is in order to recruit you. "Oboy! Experienced mentors to guide me."		Mentors aren't always online when you need one. Others who also joined to 'get help' will expect you to be the helper. Awkward!
4	Share resources - Crafters need materials to create useful stuff. Gatherers bring in materials. "Oboy! Gatherers and crafters work together and everybody wins!"		Crafters waste vast amounts of materials before they can make good items. Gatherers, on the other hand, can sell what they gather and make enough to buy better stuff immediately.
5	Guild perks – Nowadays a high-level guild offers real advantages. "Oboy! Faster leveling, flying, gathering, and more!"		Someone else makes the rules, and you don't always agree. But if you leave, you lose all those sweet, sweet perks.
6	Free stuff - “Stuff” (bags,weapons, armor, enhancements) costs gold. New players start out broke. "Oboy! Free stuff!"		Nah. You really only need bags, and not right away. If a guild appeals to you and also gives you bags, great. Don't commit just for bags.
7	Guild bank – Find a great item you can't use, but low-level players can? Put it in the bank."Oboy! A well-stocked guild bank!"		Hey! That level 70 epic weapon I put in the bank was withdrawn by a level 10 rogue, who sold it at auction for 5,000 gold and then quit the guild!

If you've ever used WoW's Guild Finder tool, you know that there are too many guilds, and no easy way to find one you'll like. Blizzard doesn't let you sort for guild level, themes, keywords or “how active.” (There are a lot of dead guilds out there.)

To find a higher-level social guild with older players who will make no demands of me, I have to scroll through every dratted guild in the list and read their pitches. Which are usually bad. (Pro tip: If they say “no drama” it means there's drama. Run!)