The Rise And Fall of Guilds

I was sitting here tonight minding my own business when I happened to notice several rather popular trolls (I prefer to think of them more as village idiots) who seemed to be bouncing from guild to guild. It got me thinking of my own situations. I have been with the same guild for nearly three years now. In WoW terms, I am an old grandpa who has been married to the same woman for fifty plus years. That is a long, long, long commitment by todays guild standards. It got me wondering what exactly do we consider a good guild? I mean some folks will go on talking about the guild as a body/soul, but who cares about all that pretty fluff? I want to know what makes a guild good?

So I thought about my own guild. We probably have around 130 individual people within our guild. That is not a lot, but it is better than most guilds. Now if we look at active players we are probably running around 30-40 folks during the course of a week. We actually have never ran a guild 25 man anything, unless you count ransacking Tarren Mill a raid? Which I have to tell you, it gets old after a while. So anyway, back to the guild. We run the usual ten man stuff, but we are never the first to run anything and we are so lazy we typically try only to clear the raid and not really try to achieve anything. Now do not get me wrong, there are some great people are geared out their.....well, you get the point right?We are currently in Ulduar like so many other guilds and we are working on the Trial of the Crusader. So you could say we are right there with most average guilds. We have been together for what seems an eternity. Some of the folks around here have been raiding together since Vanilla. I wonder though, does that constitute a good guild?

I mean, sure there are folks with shiny epics and all the latest and greatest gear, but is that really a good guild? I have read some blogs where they talk very openly about how they struggle with raiding and people leave their guilds in order to find another raiding guild, and I wonder are their guilds bad or what? You see it from some of the most famous of the bloggers to the wee little bloggers that hardly anyone reads, or at leas they think no one reads. So what is it that causes folks to run from guild to guild looking for the best guild ever? I mean if you are clearing content with your mates, then why leave them? So you can see some content before they do? It doesn't make sense to me. I guess at the end of this I can consider myself to be in a pretty good guild. We have a group of folks who have been together for a while and we are always happy to see new faces, but the best part is we experience the game together. I mean isn't that what a game is supposed to be about? Having a fun experience with your friends?

So what do you consider to be a good guild? Or even better, what is a great guild? Is it all about the achievements? Is it about trying to be the best? Is it about server firsts? Or is it about having fun and playing the game the way you want to with a group of like minded people? I hope to hear back from some of you on this?