#guild-community *sigh*

This thread isn’t meant to suggest any course of action or change but is rather a retrospective about the history of #guild-community, which, for the record, should not be confused with #guild-recruitment, a channel I personally hold in much higher regard.

Anyway, let’s talk about this weird little corner of the Discord that’s caused more drama than most alliances ever did.

Once upon a time, guilds had their own channels, their own Discords, their own backrooms where actual conversations happened. Alliances were formed, enemies were negotiated with, all behind closed doors. And it worked. Leaders knew each other. If something needed to be discussed, it was. No public drama, no peanut gallery. Peaceful. Predictable.

Then #guild-community dropped (originally #guild-politics)



It was like the devs said, “Let’s give the most dramatic sub-community in Wynncraft a live stage,” and then threw in a weapon emoji just in case things weren’t obvious enough.

No actual politics ever happened. It was obviously just a shit show from the start.

The worst part is that the guild community already had a reputation for being toxic, but before, it was mostly anecdotal or speculative, something you heard if you ran into the wrong person at Detlas. Now, it’s incredibly public, and unfortunately, it’s a lot of players’ first interaction with guilds.

Back in the old alliance chats, there was actual moderation. People could be muted, kicked, banned — whatever needed to happen. But since this is on the main Wynncraft Discord, actual guilds have no control over it. And of course, it’s probably the channel that requires the most moderation... and poorly moderated at that.

Likewise, one random player says something unhinged, and suddenly their entire guild is under the microscope. Like, “Oh wow, so this is what [GUILD NAME] is like?”
No, man. That’s just a level 52 player who rejoined Wynncraft last week. He doesn’t even have perms.



Anyway, it really comes down to two unfortunate facts. First, guild politics and relations have somehow become more stagnant since the creation of this channel — which is honestly impressive, considering the whole point of the channel was probably to encourage interaction. Great success.

Second, it’s hard not to look at the channel and think the entire guild community is just a bunch of toxic memers. I’ve been out of the loop, but I’d like to believe it’s just a few loud players skewing the image. Regardless, this channel does a fantastic job of making the community look like a disaster.

But then again, #guild-community is going nowhere given:



It’s a mess where random people get a public platform and, whether they want to or not, end up representing the entire community due to the channel’s faulty association. But oh well, thanks for reading this unnecessary deep dive.

Spoiler: Disclaimer

This thread is not to be taken ultra serious, obviously some of the things outlined are correlated to but not directly caused by the creation of #guild-community. Also, Salted's quote is OBVIOUSLY sarcastic, I just thought it was funny so don't take it seriously lol.

 

I definitely agree the chat is very unmoderated. However, the main issue is people use it to target other players and tease them as a way of manufacturing drama and thus attention for their guilds (clout-chasing), resulting in bullying-like effects. Which is part of the reason I do not engage in the chat. All I can tell you is the only solution mods found for me when a player was harassing me there was to avoid using that channel.

Also, yeah, you're just gonna get gaslight by players that think there's no issue with the channel and you're the issue cos that's how toxic they are lol. Remember? I've told ya before anything you say that is serious will be targeted. That's how stan culture is, unfortunately. They will take you unserious and use it as a way to toy with you.

 

I mean it was never gonna be used for actual politics and that's alright, but I think the fact that there's fewer alliances and diplomacy going on is more owed to the change of war system.

That said, if it's just going to stay a scarcely moderated channel for shitposting we could at least remove the guild association because there's none of that in there lol

 

You don't have to force yourself to become part of the guild community. It requires only two clicks to mute the channel and even less to never click on it again. I however think the channel is a great reflection of modern politics and it always humors me to join in on the lively discussions going on there.

 

Cool thread but gcomm is funnier in its current garbage state

 

Completely unserious but whoaaah someone posting on guild forums?!?!

 

As the undisputed KING of guild comm, I can say that I enjoyed this post, thank you!

 

The whole point is this channel isn’t the guild community and doesn’t really represent it. The guild community existed long before this channel—I was part of it for over six years before this channel was created. You are right that no one has to join or even look at the channel, and I agree with Cath that it probably shouldn’t be officially tied to guilds.

You saying “you don’t have to force yourself to be part of the guild community” as if participation in this channel signals membership just proves my point: this channel has unfairly become the face of the guild community, when it’s really just a noisy group chat. Being in that channel isn’t what makes you part of the guild community—it precedes it altogether

 

Outcasting players is a form of bullying, you know? If he feels like partaking in the community but doesn't feels like putting up with getting dragged for bringing up issues, he should be able to and allowed to express that. At the very least, your solution is a non-solution.

 

While yes, expressing is fine, what’s happening is that a change was suggested and the general gcomm response is disinterest in any change. As the majority(or at least those that are vocally expressing an opinion in gcomm/this thread) do not wish to change, it wouldn’t be fair to make a change.

 

That is fair but I will reiterate that while I do make a retrospective about the channel I do not actually make any real proposition as to what to do with the channel, as stated in the first phrase of this thread. I make no suggestion to remove it especially, though I do out of my own entertainment for my own purposes toy with some of the ideas in the comments.



In fact, rather than an actual structural change to the channel, it would rather be my hope that people may contemplate my thoughts which I shared here and perhaps reflect on their own representation of our community. My intent is to provoke thought and reflection on an individual basis rather than an actual physical change.

 

Oops, didn’t mean to phrase it that way, but your intent of making this absolutely implies that you want something to be done while the general opinion is fine as is.
It did provoke reflection in me, and honestly current gcomm is fine. It’s not excessively toxic and despite its notoriety it’s actually very tame. I personally didn’t feel like it was necessarily worse than #wynncraft, and if anything the most toxic channel in wynncraft discord is constructive feedback.

there’s really no need to change gcomm. Gcomm is it’s own sub-community if the bigger guild community and this little sub-community is doing perfectly fine.

 

Well one thing is for sure - I'm staying FAR THE HELL away from the cesspool that the channel is, and while I have had some interactions in there, I've ceased any further interactions as well, and I'm just gonna do my own thing on the other channels, especially since I don't want to be causing drama elsewhere, and I'm not going to go any further on such.

I'm not sure what the heck happens in gcomm, but whatever happens is not something I want to get involved in, unless it means I'm being targeted for whatever reason, which is unlikely, but possible, and as such - I'm ceasing any interactions with gcomm, and I aim to stand by such as a result

 

It’s completely pointless and meaningless to start discussions concerning guilds or the guild community in 2025.

I have a really strong theory that Salted does not care about guilds and he has 0 idea why the most active players of the guild community loved guilds so much and why did they spent so much their free time on guilds. Salted does not know why people like/liked guilds, the communities, alliances, wars etc. He just can’t relate. Also, guilds don’t really make money for wynncraft, so from an economic standpoint it just doesn’t worth the work for them. Originally guilds were added to the game to function as bigger, permanent parties and people like Salted still think guilds are just bigger parties in a game. (No, guilds are way more than that, but I don’t have the time to explain that to the owner of wynncraft.)
That’s why guilds and the guild community will never get the update and the care we deserve because they still think of guilds as just “bigger permanent parties to play the game together” and if they had the chance they would remove them from the game.

 

I do believe Salted & friends know what makes the guild community tick, the rework we got was a reasonable appeal in terms of fun prestige unlocks, actual in-game benefits (which ppl had been crying for for years) and a less 1-dimensional war system. Sure there are plenty of issues w it, but the reason we never saw a major follow-up on that or get more QOL attention imo is just because guilds are inherently niche.
Sure you could argue that they are niche *because* they don't get that attention, but economically it just makes more sense to focus on the broader gameplay elements that will have an impact on the average player whether they engage w endgame guild content or not.