I've got a fairly social guild... Most of us haven't seen the inside of a 25-man (There are a few that came from other guilds that have been in them). So we tend to help each other out a lot. Doesn't help that most of us are real life friends. ^_^

The last guild I was in got to the point of some of the 70's wouldn't run ANYTHING if the person asking for help was below 65 because the 70's thought the person asking wanted 'Hand-holding'. When the person asking only needed one more person to fill out the group. I normally helped out. Mostly because the person was bringing up a main raiding toon. And I liked seeing the few 70's that were utter jackasses fume over it. (Thankfully those guys have since left the guild, some on to better things, some can't clear kara on a weekly basis)

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I always help my guild out and i Ask if anybody needs help often. But there are times where i need help to and tey are usually always ready to pay the favors back.

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I'm pretty much the only tank the guild has that's on at the prime hour. I'm guessing this question isn't directed to me.

My other guild is made of two groups: Scrubs and guildies. Guildies I'm happy to help out, to the point of rep grinding to get a faction recipe. I think you can all guess what the "RUN ME IN ARC PLZ!!!" five times a minute types get.... :)

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The attitudes of the people in the three guilds I belonged to early-on soured my opinion of them in general for the rest of my time in WoW. I had no level-capped toons, my main was the same level as many of their alts. When I, or any of the other underlings, asked for assistance for a run-through of a lower level instance, we were ignored...most of the time. Sometimes they would come flat out and say that they were too busy getting ready for a bigger raid or instance. Sometimes, if they were in the right mood, they would log onto their alts and offer anyone a run through...the catch being a run-through of what they wanted to run through, not what we wanted or needed. That is when I gave up on guilds. I was getting no help in any way from the higher level players, so I figured what was so different about going guildless? Nothing. Except that I had less drama to deal with scrolling up my chat window.

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I couldn't imagine the feeling of 'oweing' someone in a guild because they did something for you could be very healthy or productive.

As a healer that is exalted with all the instance factions and has all the loot I could possibly need (for all specs), doesn't need nethers and isn't a fan of doing heroics just for badges (22+ from doing Kara and possibly also ZA is enough for me), if I ever do an instance it's usually as a favour. I won't be the first to volunteer to help in case some other healer would actually enjoy doing it... BUT, if I do end up going so that the run can get done, I don't think in the back of my mind "they better do something for me in the future"... I consider that I've done them a favour, and would like to think that if I ever were in their position they would do the same.

It is my opinion after all, so anyone is free to disagree. But I think the healthiest environment is one where people who give out favours expect nothing in return (though there's nothing wrong with thinking it'd be nice to get something in return as long as you don't expect it as a given).

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My guild is pretty social and not very militant. That said, one of the posters above mentioned the "RUN ME NAO PLZ" type... Those guys get booted, flat-out. I figure, if you can't respect your guildmates enough to even try to type in English... As a result, we have a much older guild playerbase and just about zero drama. In my guild, if there's more than one high-level on, they are often climbing over each other to help out others. It's just how we are.

We don't allow begging for gold (insta-boot) and we don't allow selling. I've given numerous blues to guildmates because I knew they could use them. Our guild is just much more helpful and friendly than a lot of others seem to be.

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When I finally aquiesed and rerolled horde side, my freind who wanted me there ran me through anything I needed on his main, or the alt he was leveling. ANd if I need help with something, and a guildee offers, I fully expect to return the favor in some way; it may not even be to help him.

I'm sure I'm the only non-officer in my guild who contributes anything to the guild bank, someone will get quite far with Aldor.

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If you're not prepared to help others out, don't expect to recieve any help either.

Actually, never expect to get help. Ever. Each time you do recieve it, see it as a blessing.

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I generally give more help than I receive.

Many many people have helped me get BT attuned, and obtain the gear necessary to survive in that place. I could never repay them, so I repay others... pay it forward so to speak.

There's not much else left for me to do in the game but help lower levels or under-geared people to improve their characters. I try to run Kara every week, and ZA. I generally answer LFG requests for group quests if I'm in the area. I settle PVP disputes for 70 allys picking on lowbies. ;-)

But then you run into people who only want to take advantage of you.

Frequently.

And then you see what people are really like.

Case in point:

A while back I helped some Alliance re-rolls on my server to get their Horde characters a major head-start on our server (Skullcrusher).

There were about 5 people who all knew eachother IRL, who I invited to my ALT guild. I was leveling alts in my spare time.

Sometimes I would duck out of raids to level alts, if I didn't feel like the stress of raiding that night. My guild knew many of my alts but not all of them, so I could have some personal time -- you know how it is.

At first I kept my main a secret, but in time I felt I could trust them with my alt names, because they seemed really nice.

They all graciously accepted my kindness and pretended to appreciate it.

But they were taking me for a ride.

I started to notice that guild donations were greatly lower than officer withdrawls, so I closed the bank temporarily to see if anyone would donate anything of value. Two of the four people gquit almost immediately!

Knowing that these people were using me, I kicked the rest of them and completely culled the guild. They took me for about 600g which isn't really that much in the grand scheme of things, but still pretty significant.

Knowing how much I had helped them, most people would have simply tipped their hats at that point and said, adios.

Not these people!! They opened a forum topic and accused me of being a gbank ninja!

Worse, they published all my ALT names so now I can't duck out of raids on those toons anymore. :(

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=3773333938&sid=1

After this fiasco, I still help people on my server, but I don't give them anything other than my time.

Bloodchills, 70 Warlock Horde, Skullcrusher

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I was healing an instance where it was all guild members but one pickup mage. My guild leader didn't like how the mage was talking in the chat so he told me to let him die.

I didn't really want to but I didn't want to piss off the guild leader (he's a personal friend).

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The issue with helping people with content you have advanced past, is how much time you have to meet your own goals. I have goals I want to achieve in my playtime, I don't play purely for the social aspect (I don't need to pay $15 a month to hang out with people). So I help others either when they have helped me in the past, or I have filled my goals for that day.

For the past three weeks I have been gearing up my mage to ensure that my raid spot is solid, and so have had little time to help others out. Today I ran some alts through WC because I have reached my goal and didn't feel like working on my pally.

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I'm in a guild with a bunch of friends from college who are almost never on except for our weekend raids. We're in a larger guild alliance though where I have some good friends. It's a sign of friendship to be fair with each other. I'll do an enchant or cut a jem any time someone asks, assuming I'm available (their mats, of course), and know that they'll do the same. A tank friend of mine runs instances with me that I know he doesn't really need, so I do anything I can to help him when he asks. People who are just takers stop getting my help pretty fast, because who wants to be taken advantage of?

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I personally hate low-level "run-throughs". I think people asking for them are being selfish and unthinking. Look at it this way, you ask for someone to give up an hour or more of their play time so your low-level character can acquire equipment or recipes they'll be replacing with something better in a few days. It makes absolutely no sense to me.

Find a group the appropriate level for the instance and run it. It is more fun that way for everyone. In general, that's how I like to play this game. Do things where everyone has an invested interest. Then no one feels taken advantage of.

It was my experience that we had the same people always asking for run-throughs over and over. And they were people that rarely returned favors. Selfish bastards.

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