During the BlizzCon 2009 event a new and quite exciting system was announced – the Guild Advancement System. From what the developers shared with us, it seems that the new system will allow the guild to level in a similar way to leveling characters. There will be total of 20 levels for guild progression and the experience gained will be obtained from the top 20 players (most active players) in the guild in terms of raid bosses killing, PvP battlegrounds victories, PvP arena matches victories, professions level and skilling up and alike. The very interesting feature, at least in my eyes is the fact that Guild XP can be farther converted into some sort of currency which can be used to buy guild-bound items. Similar to the account-bound items, such items can be something similar to the heirlooms just that it can be shared with other guild members, raid materials and such.

The way the Guild XP will be earned has some rules specified, however as the expansion is still under development, a lot can change. What we know so far is that participation in boss kills and rated battlegrounds will count towards Guild XP only if at least 75% of the party is from the same guild. The individual player’s advancements such as faction reputation advancements and profession advancements will count only from a number of players and not from the entire guild as total. This will allow smaller guilds to be able to compete with larger guilds as long as they have enough very active members.

The guilds will be awarded 1 guild-talent point as the guild advanced from one level to the next one, and this point can be used to get a guild-wide talent. There is very little information available at this point about what these talents will be, but we do know that these talents will be oriented towards giving more convenience in guild events rather than individual players performance bonuses. Such guild convenience abilities that will most likely be included are mass resurrection after a wipe, reduced cost on repairs, no reagents for raid-wide buffs and similar.

There are also Guild Achievements being implemented which will be quite similar to the Individual Player’s Achievements but will be applied to the guild as a whole. Such achievements will be awarded for clearing a raid instance, having at least one person with maximum profession points in each profession and much more.

It appears that Blizzard is giving us even more reasons to join a guild and stick to it, make new friends and explore the World of Warcraft universe with them, defeat powerful bosses and train our professions in the upcoming World of Warcraft: Cataclysm expansion.