The discussion of why people should join a guild has been coming up fairly regularly in both Global-1 and the Help channel. The two main arguments for joining a guild seem to be to join with a group of players who work together in the game and to get guild coins for the bonuses.
As others have pointed out, the guild market is rather limited in selection. In addition, it is more focused on lower players, which is a bit paradoxical, as the lower level people will typically have less guild coin to spend. One can hope that with the next round of selections, there will be more items available and a better selection for people at all stages of game play.
The other argument, joining with players who work together, seems to be less and less applicable. It is becoming more frequent to see people in guilds in global asking to trade resources for a quest, or even just asking for resource help. It is also common now to see people from guilds in the help channel asking basic game questions. From a low level perspective, one of the points to being in a guild is to learn from people who are at a higher stage. Many guilds also try to support the lower player when they go through the transitions where resources become very tight. If the guilds are not providing this, then one of the primary reasons for joining is absent. And the excuse that no one from the guild is online is lacking, as then the guild is not functioning to help the members.
Perhaps the guild banks will help with this, at least on the resource side, assuming that they are able to implement it and make it affordable to the level of players who would benefit the most from it. For the education side, at least one guild posts the known useful links for the online resources as part of their guild information page.
Hopefully, the people who are in guilds know why they are in one. If they are not sure, then it is likely that they should not be in one, or at least not in their current one. For those looking for a guild, a good rule of thumb in selecting one is too look in the help channel and see which guild members are asking questions and which are answering questions, and consider that when you are making your selection. For those who wish to join a guild, there is work involved, as many of them do with to get the benefits associated with completing the guild quests; however, the effort involved should be more than compensated for by the rewards of being in the group.
