Polegara asked:

What exactly contributes to guild XP at the moment?

Mumper

Guild experience can be earned in any of four ways:

1. Completing quests / daily quests that reward experience
2. Killing any dungeon / raid boss with a guild group/raid
3. Winning a rated battleground with a guild group/raid
4. Earning a guild achievement (these are nice, fat chunks of experience so they feel great when you get em)

A guild group/raid is 4/5, 8/10, 12/15 or 20/25 members of the group/raid being guild members.

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Mumper

1. GM's have no control over the guild rewards. As long as your guild has unlocked the item via the achievement and you have the required guild rep, you can purchase the item.

2. Yes, most all of the guild control functions are remaining the same. We are however introducing a new ui for guild ranks that will allow you much more control.

3. The experience cap is in place to help balance out the experience curve between large and small guilds. We tuned the cap to be be high enough that in most cases, you will never hit it. (when I say most, I mean average size guilds which make up the majority of wow's guilds)

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Mumper

A lot of the UI for the guild advancement system is in progress. The "at war" box will be removed from the guild faction at some point in the future.

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Mumper

We are doing everything in our power to make sure that the guild advancement system works for guilds of every shape and size.

I don't want to say anything without talking to our UI programmers first but I can tell you that we have discussed this limitation and what we can do about it.

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Mumper

Any quest that rewards experience to you will also reward guild experience. The amount of guild reputation earned is based on the amount of guild experience rewarded. Note that daily quests will also reward guild experience.

All guild reputation is gained as a factor of guild experience.

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the Dark Phoenix mount) reward seems a bit too ... amazing to be given out for free to anybody who joins a guild?

The Phoenix is easily one of the rarest and most desired mounts in the entire game. I know of several groups that run Tempest Keep weekly just for a minuscule chance of obtaining this thing. People on my server form groups just to pay others 200k gold if the mount drops.

Why is a near-clone of this amazing mount being given out to everybody who joins a guild that has been around for a small amount of time?

If you keep putting neat mounts like Celestial Steeds and Phoenixes available to anyone with the slightest bit of effort, then what incentive (mount-wise) is there for the majority of your playerbase to tackle challenging content? Why should I go and get the next new raid mount from doing the hardest heroic modes when I will get a significantly cooler mount by clicking "Accept" on a guild invite and waiting a few days/weeks until my reputation is high enough? For that matter, why would I bother to run any holiday content or strive for any other mounts in non-raiding areas of the game when I can just use the Dark Phoenix?

I feel that the flying mount reward for being in a guild should be more in line with the Lion mount. You see lions everywhere. Sure, the mount is neat, but it's nothing compared to the rare raid land mounts like the Amani Warbear and Invincible, or the rare holiday mounts.

Mumper

The guild rewards you guys are seeing in game are not hooked up yet. Guild rewards have 3 requirements that must be be met before you can use them. First and foremost, they must be unlocked via a guild achievement. Let's just say, that for example, you need to complete the new guild achievement "We are Legendary" in order to unlock the Dark Phoenix. That achievement requires the guild to gain access to all 6 legendary weapons currently available in the game. (note that all guild achievements start on Cataclysm launch, so anything you have now will not matter, it must be done with your guild after launch)

So, let's say that your guild get's this achievement and thereby unlocks the Dark Phoenix on the guild vendor. At this point anyone in the guild can see the item on the vendor, but they will need a specific amount of guild faction to be able to purchase it. In this case, let's say exalted. Now, once you have the guild faction, you can purchase the item for its gold price. (prices will vary based on the reward)

I am using the Dark Phoenix and the We are Legendary guild achievement as examples here but you should get the idea. Don't worry, we wont be handing out all the goodies so easily. =)

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Mumper

The heirlooms on the guild vendor are just like other heirlooms in the game except that these must be unlocked via a guild achievement and you must have the required guild faction to purchase them. After that, you can use them just like normal heirloom items.

We did have thoughts of making these items guild bound a long time ago but we came to the conclusion that that was just too limiting of a design. Imagine leaving a guild and losing all the guild rewards that you worked so hard to get? Taking items away from players is something that we would like to avoid at all costs.

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being overhauled at the moment and asked for players in the beta to be patient while the developers sort the kinks out. At the same time, some bugs were easily corrected through hotfixes. Finally, he calls upon all beta testers to give their feedback on the guild leveling process.