Guild Talents are gone
The guild talents are gone and your guild now gets extra bonuses depending on its level. There are 25 levels and each level will automatically reward with more cool stuff. The leveling process remains unchanged and your guild will gain experience through PvP, Dungeon and Raid progression, questing, etc ...

Guild currency has also been removed and rewards will just be "unlocked" after you reach a specific level or complete a guild achievement. Once a reward is unlocked, members will be able to purchase it with gold. Some of the rewards include guild tabards, mounts, heirlooms, and it looks like you will finally be able to have a guild tabard on your mount. (Just like the Argent Tournament banners)

New members of a guild won't be able to buy everything directly, they will have to contribute to the progression of the guild before they can access the top rewards. Each time a player helps towards the leveling he will gain reputation with the guild, the best rewards will require players to be exalted with their guild before they can buy it.

Guild leveling will remain in Cataclysm, but guild talents and currency have been scrapped. Happily, that doesn't mean that rewards and achievements have gone with them. Overall, it seems they simplified the new guild system without removing the promised benefits. Here is a breakdown of what the new guild system will entail:

Guild leveling

Guilds will gain experience when their members participate in the following:

* rated battleground wins
* dungeon or raid boss kills
* completing quests
* unlocking guild achievements

Max level will be 25 and each time a guild levels, it will automatically get perks. Previously these perks would be chosen with talents.

Guild rewards

Rewards will be unlocked when guilds earn achievements. Once unlocked, guild members can purchase them with gold as long as they have the appropriate Guild Reputation. The original plan was that guild currency would be used to purchase rewards. The rewards will include:

* mounts with flags that display the guild tabard emblem
* heirlooms
* tabards


Guild reputation

You will gain reputation with your guild the same way you help the guild level. The reputation is per character and not account-wide. Gkicks and gquits do not wipe your reputation right away, just in case it was a joke. But it's not clear if there is a finite window where afterward the rep will be cleared.

Guild achievements

Guild achievements are by guild, not by member. So if all members that earned a guild achievement leave the guild, the guild will still retain the achievement. However, the members who earned it will be memorialized in the achievement when viewing it. Raid achievements don't have to be earned by groups made up of only guildies. But you have to have at least 7 guildies in 10-man achievements and 20 guildies in 25-man achievements. There will be realm firsts for guild achievements just like there are for individuals.

Guild UI

The Guild window is being completely overhauled. It will include upcoming events, the guild experience bar, your rep with the guild, latest guild news (generated by Blizzard) and stickies of major accomplishments (also generated by Blizzard). The roster will include professions next to member names. Clicking on them will show what recipes the member has and can be viewed whether the member is on or offline. Personally, I am hoping that the roster will no longer bug out when the guild is larger than 500 members, but there is no specific indication that this is the case.

Overall, it seems that the loss of the talents and currency doesn't affect the new guild system much at all. Guilds will still level, receive rewards and perks and gain achievements. The new system will still be great for raiding guilds as well as PvP-heavy guilds and the more casual ones.

I'm a little sad. I liked the thought of being able to pick out special stuffs.

Guilds aren't a new feature for WoW, and we are really sensitive about imposing any kind of structure on them that might make you feel like you aren't supposed to stay with your current guildies any longer. To that end, there were flaws with guild talents that we didn't like.

Guilds are, for the most part, groups of friends. We don't want features to drive wedges between them. We don't want you to guild hop looking for the talents that suit you best; we want you to play (or in many cases keep playing) with your friends. With a talent tree, guilds would naturally have different talent trees, which creates a reason to bail or guild hop that doesn't exist today. If you didn't like the direction the guild was taking (for example, you were a PvP guy with a GM focused on raid-progression) you might feel like you should leave. That can happen today of course, but you can also stay in a PvE guild just because you like the members even if you don't participate in the same content because you're not losing out on inherent guild benefits.

Furthermore, we felt like the decision-making, for many guilds, would be up to a relatively few people, possibly as few as the guild master. Talent trees work for classes because the decision is up to you. We didn't want to create the risk of drama over choosing those talents or even not being consulted in choosing them.

Another advantage of the perks system is that it's easily expandable. If we want to add new levels and / or perks in later patches or expansions, we can, without having to rejuggle a talent tree.

.....


But why would that be fun? Let's walk through it for a bit. Do you think it would be fun to try and recruit new members because you chose the "right" talent build? Do you think it would be fun to try and argue with your members about what the right talents were to take? Do you think it would be fun to feel like you should leave your guild because they took a lot of talents that didn't affect your play style? Those were all the problems we ran into as we started implementing things. Instead of the feature being exciting, it was causing a lot of anxiety for everyone here who was in a guild. Guilds are supposed to be about friends -- not min maxxing guild benefits. There are plenty other aspects of the game where you can min-max.

Guild Talents "removal"
The only difference in the way we are handling the guild talents is it will be possible to get all of them instead of having one person in your guild pick and choose which ones you got. The feature has always focused on leveling your guild to unlock new perks. In fact, you're getting more perks this way than you would have if the decisions had been exclusive. (Source)

I understand not giving the GM all the power, but having a group customization would be fun.
But why would that be fun? Let's walk through it for a bit. Do you think it would be fun to try and recruit new members because you chose the "right" talent build? Do you think it would be fun to try and argue with your members about what the right talents were to take? Do you think it would be fun to feel like you should leave your guild because they took a lot of talents that didn't affect your play style? Those were all the problems we ran into as we started implementing things. Instead of the feature being exciting, it was causing a lot of anxiety for everyone here who was in a guild. Guilds are supposed to be about friends -- not min maxxing guild benefits. There are plenty other aspects of the game where you can min-max. (Source)

Guild Perks and Items rewards
There are two categories of rewards. The perks are things earned by the guild. If you join a high-level guild, you get those benefits immediately and you lose them if you bail on the guild. They are passive bonuses and a couple of spells, not items. Separately, there are also items you can purchase. The items are yours to keep even if you leave the guild. In order to discourage guild hopping, you have to make some kind of investment in the guild. But you can still choose to leave if in the future you just find that you'd rather be with someone else. (Source)

Guild Leveling
There are many ways to earn guild levels. We want to make sure nearly every existing guild has a shot at them all. The only question will be how fast you level. (Source)

While guild talents may have been scrapped in Cataclysm, the bonuses you would have gotten from them appear to have survived the culling fairly intact -- as of this beta build, guild perks (as they're called) are active and awesome. This list is by no means exhaustive, as chances are good there'll be plenty more in the game.

The full list is after the cut, but here are a few to whet your appetite:

* Guild Mail: In-game mail sent between guild members now arrives instantly.
* Cash Flow (Rank 1): Each time you loot money from an enemy, an extra 5% money is generated and deposited directly into your guild bank.
* Cash Flow (Rank 2): Each time you loot money from an enemy, an extra 10% money is generated and deposited directly into your guild bank.
* Reinforce (Rank 1): Items take 5% less durability loss when you die.
* Reinforce (Rank 2): Items take 10% less durability loss when you die.
* Hasty Hearth: Reduces the cooldown on your Hearthstone by 15 minutes.
* Chug-A-Lug (Rank 1): The duration of buffs from all guild cauldrons and feasts is increased by 50%.
* Chug-A-Lug (Rank 2): The duration of buffs from all guild cauldrons and feasts is increased by 100%.
* Working Overtime: Increases the chance to gain a skill increase on tradeskills by 10%.
* The Quick and the Dead: Increases health and mana gained when resurrected by a guild member by 50% and increases movement speed while dead by 100%. Does not function in combat or while in a Battleground or Arena.
* Guild Mail: In-game mail sent between guild members now arrives instantly.
* Everyone's A Hero (Rank 1): Increases Heroism points gained by 5%.
* Everyone's A Hero (Rank 2): Increases Heroism points gained by 10%.
* Mobile Banking: Summons your guild bank. 1 hour cooldown.
* Honorable Mention (Rank 1): Increases Honor points gained by 5%.
* Honorable Mention (Rank 2): Increases Honor points gained by 10%.
* Bartering (Rank 1): Reduces the price of items from all vendors by 5%.
* Bartering (Rank 2): Reduces the price of items from all vendors by 10%.
* Bountiful Bags: Increases the quantity of materials gained from Mining, Skinning, Herbalism, and Disenchanting by 15%.
* Have Group, Will Travel: Summons all raid or party members to the caster's current location. 2 hour cooldown.
* Mass Resurrection: Brings all dead party and raid members back to life with 35 health and 35 mana. Cannot be cast when in combat. No cooldown.

Guild Perks
It won't be required or forced in my opinion. Larger guilds right now already enjoy a variety of advantages in getting groups together and such. So while the new system may encourage players to take part in guilds, it can be avoided if wanted.

I have a pvp guild that is very small (about 10 members). Will it be theoretically possible to earn all the guild perks, even if we dont raid at all?
I can't say anything is final right now, but the idea (last I heard) is that there would be multiple ways to level the guild - it just may take longer for a smaller one. As expected though, we hope to do some testing on this once things are ready in the beta to get a better feel for what works and what doesn't.

Small guilds disadvantaged by guild perks?
In my experience the people who like to focus on smaller guilds don't really care what the other larger guilds are doing as they are happily doing their own thing. It also sounds like you don't fully understand the guild system and we'll have more details to help you out when we are farther along in the beta. (Source)

"Balancing" Guild Perks
I'm sure we'll be playing around with it a fair amount in the beta. We don't want it to be a mega penalty to lose the rep to where players stay in a guild they don't like - but at the same time a lot of these changes are meant to encourage guilds as a whole so we don't want it to be extremely trivial to gain the reputation to where players give no thought to guild hopping (like now). We know this may shake things up for some players but we feel it will be a better result for the game as a whole to have a stronger setup for guilds. (Source)

Impact of Guild Perks on the game
We care about all of our players. We consider many different factors before implementing new systems especially when they may affect a lot of our players. That said, we do have to design and implement what we feel is best for the game. As a random example off the top of my head, players tend to dislike nerfs, but if one class is ahead of others we will nerf that one class and not buff 9 others.

A lot of players are also afraid of change. Before they even test things out or while it's in an early stage, they will declare the world has imploded. (See talent tree changes.) None of this means we don't care about our players. We understand that things will get shaken up, this won't be the first time gets shaken up and it won't be last, but we still need to design things the way we feel they are best for the game. Players can either choose to try it out or avoid it in favor of their own style.

There may be an impact on the economy, there may be an impact on recruiting, there may be an impact on guild sizes - but the end result is likely to be very positive on the game. We aren't designing it to cripple solo players and I haven't seen anybody provide a valid example of this so far. We have made a lot of changes recently to help support both smaller and larger guilds and want players to feel special for being part of a cool guild in this multiplayer game. We are looking forward to testing this feature with the thousands and thousands of players who are (and will be) in the beta and make it the best it possibly can be for as many of our players as possible.