Warhammer Online Takes Guilds to a Whole New Level

In Warhammer, you have to be a part of a guild to get the most out of the game. Guilds level up along with the players that are a part of them, unlocking features and achievments. Among these are tax collection, guild heraldry, standard bearing, guild callendars, guild alliances, guild-only auctions, and keep control, to name a few.

It might not sound like much fun for the individual players, but tax rates and tax collection is a great way to bolster up the guild vault for use in keep maintenance and other endeavors to advance the guild. Tax is only drawn out of looted coins - not from selling items to a vendor or on the auction house, which is the bulk of a players income. Therefore, the impact of a high tax on a player isn't very signifiact, but spread out among all members it makes a huge difference.

Warhammer allows a guild of high rank to design heraldry that can be displayed on Standards and cloaks. With several hundred choices for symbols, cuts, colors, and patterns, it is very easy for each guild to have a totally unique heraldry that is easily recognizable. This can add to the guilds notoriety and publicity, setting the larger more organized and successful guilds apart from the pack. This website shows just some of the options available to guilds for their unique Heraldry.

Warhammer also introduced a unique element called Standard Bearing. The premise behind it is that, once a guild has achieved a high enough rank, that they have earned the right to display their colors, or standard, for all to see. Individuals within the guild can be assigned as standard bearers. When a standard bearer chooses to carry the standard, they lose their normal class abilities and gain a different set of abilities that only standard bearers can use, typically for the bolstering and benefit of the group or warband. As the guild rank gets higher, the standard grants more and more buffs to the players.

Another unique feature of Warhammer Online is the abilitiy of guilds to ally with eachother in an official capacity. When a guild enters an alliance, they gain access to specific alliance member ranks, a shared chat channel, and a shared calendar, and a page that details who from each guild is currently online.

You can learn more about Guild Alliances, how they work, and how to use them here.

At each Auctioneer NPC players have the ability to post their auctions so that only guild members are able to view, bid, and buy them out. While probably not the most practical of all the features in Warhammer, this certainly could be a great resource for large guilds that have filled their banks and are looking to promote moderately priced commerce amongst their members.

High ranking guilds earn the ability to take, and maintain control of, keeps. A keep is a sign of stature for a guild, in addition to being an easy location for guilds to bind to, purchase common items, and perform basic tasks. Enemy guilds can attempt to take a keep from your guild, and specific keep-related weapons and abilities are available to both sides. Keep defenders can pour hot oil over their enemies from the top of their keep while the enemy batters down the doors with large seige weapons, just to name a few of the options available.