We 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.

---

Q u o t e:
How about 1000 ACCOUNTS instead of characters?

---

The impact of data is from individual characters contributing to a guilds leveling progression, not accounts, or individual people behind the characters. Each character adds to the strain of the system and thus the stability of the service and realm.

---

Q u o t e:
You know Blizz, I understand you won't change your mind on this thing, so I am going to throw in my hat to the "PLEASE give us a guild alliance chat" pile.


Goon Squad will bow down to whatever guild size requirement you give us, but I think everyone would appreciate it if you guys fixed the global chat channels or added some new "guild alliance" chat channel type deal where Guild Masters can link up their guild chats or join a global channel that can be effectively moderated to keep away non-members, or hell, be restricted to just members from the linked guilds.

THANKS IN ADVANCE

---

Totally, and the last sentence was sort of saying it without saying it sentiment that we hope to add features like this in the future.

---

Q u o t e:


So... All the problems occur in guilds that are over 1000. Ok but we are allowed to keep the guild size we have as long as we can maintain it without adding any new members, and we are fully supported in the new guild system into cata and as long as we are that size. Wait, what? Forgive me for being confused but this post says that it is difficult for the game to support that many people in a guild, but that the game will support that many people in the guild... I don't understand how thats possible, or how it fixes any of the problems. Either we break the system OR we are supported in the system, it can't be both.

---

The main factor is that, with the new guild leveling features, and enhanced guild interface and character tracking, we are unable to continue allowing guilds of that size to form. We suspect these new features would almost encourage larger guilds to form, which as stated in our post, sort of goes against our philosophy for guilds being a tight-knit, relatively small group of players.

If you maintain a guild of that size though currently, you'll be grandfathered in and allowed to remain over the 1,000-member cap. You just won't be able to invite new players or add people who have left, or been kicked from, the guild until you're below the cap.

---

Q u o t e:
I miss the days when Blizzard was about providing quality for all of their loyal customers rather than taking calculated risks.

---

The guilds that fall above the 1000 member mark are less than one-thousandth of one percent of all guilds. However, their impact on the service could be such that it reduces the performance of the service and affects not even just people on their realms, but potentially their entire battle group.

It would be incorrect to say that this new cap on guild size isn't about providing quality for our loyal customers. (At least not 99.999% of them.)

This thread seems to have taken a turn to arguing over the legitimacy of these large guilds and that's not only unwelcome, but off-topic. We're imposing a new restriction on guild members, and we hope that the guilds that fall above it are able to make adjustments quickly and easily. Good luck.