Advantage of joining/creating a guild vs. playing alone?

[Bigred775]

Hey guys, I'm a new player to WoW. I know guilds are a big part of the game, especially late game, but as someone without many friends playing, is it worth it to join a guild? Are there any advantages?

[Gorsameth]

Social interaction if you care about such things.
Outside of raids and end game (high Mythic+) dungeons. No, there is no need and no real advantage.

[Aoyi]

Really, its up to you. Joining a guild can be nice for socializing with some other players and can make getting into group content much easier. Nothing about the game really requires a guild with LFG, but I think you’ll have a better time overall in finding some more consistent raiding or Pvp teams. Joining a particularly large guild will help in finding people that might be interested in doing any type of content you’re into. My guild has over 900 players and there are raids going on every day as well as a whole bunch of other activities. Try it out. If you don’t like it, you can drop the guild at any time to find another you might fit with better.

[Nathasil]

One personal benefit not elaborated enough so far is fixed schedule vs free pugging. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. You do not have to be in a guild to find a fixed schedule raid/M+/PvP team...but it usually just comes with it.

Fixed schedule has a lot of really great advantages. The best being that there usually is a lot less time standing around looking for replacements when both of your tanks left the group after one wipe. You will not spend 10 minutes standing around looking at the wall, just because your PUG does not have a lock. You know when your raid starts and when it ends. With very little wait-times and chance for complete failure.

Pugging stuff, it can always happen that your group dissolves, because half the group really only needed the third boss and did of course not tell the leader. There are tools to improve your chance in finding better PUGs...but those usually require you to clear content in the first two weeks after patch, because if you don't, you will yourself be filtered out by those exact same tools. The great advantage is that you can start looking for a group to do stuff whenever you want, obviously.

Another important aspect of it, at least for me, is long time motivation and investment.

When i'm playing only for my own character progression/entertainment i usually hit the wall after a patch quite quickly. You can clear stuff quickly with PUGs if you feel like it...and then? I find it difficult to keep engaged in this situation.
If you are clearing stuff as a guild (or any kind of fixed) group you progress together. You learn the fights together, you advance your gear together. This usually takes a LOT longer than just progressing your own character, if you are an able, active player...but it keeps you in the game longer and - depending heavily on your personal attitude towards the game and other players - you may end up enjoying your time a lot more.

I feel like this last point is the most important and biggest difference. But it is obviously very subjective. There are a lot of people who have their lives filled up with social contacts and simply don't want to bother with it in the game...and that's totally fine.

[Gaidax]

They're not really a bit part anymore. They used to be though. You'd join a guild for two reasons:
- You want to raid Mythic. You need to be in guild for that. All other raid difficulties (and M+) are easy to pug, but mythic raiding requires a guild
- You want to play with socially compatible people. When you pug with random players, sometimes you find real idiots. Guilds are usually careful about these things and guild members are often nicer to each others (it's a generalization of course, there are bad guilds as well).

And that's about it. There's no other benefits for joining a guild.

This is nonsense.

There are a lot of advantages to joining the guild - for example joining guild that is doing heroic raiding (likely have requirements at the floor too) is also an easy ticket to alt raids, M+ dungeon runs and most importantly valuable info.

There are like 3 months to new expansion and this is a perfect time to hop onto some semi-casual guild to get accustomed with the game, mechanics and how dungeons and raids work outside queue ones, so that when expansion launches and gear resets it would be possible to hop to a bit more serious guild.

Mythic guilds are out of question unless as social somehow, then it could be great, but semi-casual heroic ones are pretty good and a realistic bid for new guy.

[MoanaLisa]

If you can find a guild that is a good fit for what you like to do in the game it is absolutely something you should do. The game is better and more fun when you are social in it.

However it is not required and finding a guild that is both active and in line with what you are doing as a new player can be difficult. I would keep an eye open on guild postings and over at the Blizzard site check out the specific forum for the realm you belong to and see if there's anything there for you. It wouldn't hurt to leave a post there saying that you are a new player and might be looking for a social guild or whatever you're interested in.

Best of luck.

[kamuimac]

One personal benefit not elaborated enough so far is fixed schedule vs free pugging. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. You do not have to be in a guild to find a fixed schedule raid/M+/PvP team...but it usually just comes with it.

Fixed schedule has a lot of really great advantages. The best being that there usually is a lot less time standing around looking for replacements when both of your tanks left the group after one wipe. You will not spend 10 minutes standing around looking at the wall, just because your PUG does not have a lock. You know when your raid starts and when it ends. With very little wait-times and chance for complete failure.

.

fixed schedules have also ton of disadvantages for anyone older then teens in high school . they may be fun if you are lonely and dont have social interactions outside of wow but they also have ton of detriments if you have active life.

thats why so many people choose not to be part of guilds - because they value life outside of game much more then the one in game,

wow is not a game that would be appealing to young people (below 20) - most of people who play this game are vetarans who at some point played stopped and come back to game. thats why guilds are completly outdated archaic concept that doesnt suit people 30+ with happy life and relationships.

[Gaidax]

What info does guilds provide that wowhead and icy-veins don't?

For starters wowhead and icy-veins (albeit it's shit) themselves. Or you think every bloody person in the world comes with innate knowledge of that and more importantly what to look for?

[melodramocracy]

Guild advantages - if you find the right crew, tons of laughs to be had, no more worries about the idiocy that permeates group finder.

Disadvantage - you'll wind up playing on some sort of schedule most likely, which can get fatiguing over a long enough haul. Pros vastly outweigh the cons on this one.

[SirCowdog]

10% mount speed.
15 minute hearth instead of 30.
Guild banner for extra experience every so often.

Other than that not a hell of a lot. And even those perks are mostly covered by higher level abilities from you class or character.

[Elfezen]

The acctual useful things that guilds offer are extra mounts, pets, epic shirt & tabard and other types of loot together with perks like faster mount speed and hearthstone. For instanced content you dont need guild anymore since you can queue for everything in the automated system including raids. But the bad thing with guilds is that if you dont own it at some point you might get kicked for inactivity or other reasons, so i would suggest to make your own guild and add all your alts to it.