Breakfast Topic: Guild origins

Last night in the top secret WoW Insider clubhouse, Matticus, the Double Dans and I got to talking about our guilds a little bit. The sorts of people in them, that kind of stuff. I don't remember exactly how, but eventually we came to the topic of how our various guilds got started.

Dan O'Halloran (now known as Big Dan) is still with a lot of the folks he played with back in Everquest, and many of them have been together through a number of MMOs over the years. Daniel Whitcomb (now known as Little Dan) had a guild back in Everquest as well, and while he's not in a guild with them anymore, he's still kept in touch with many of them. My guild (and Little Dan's current guild) technically didn't come from another game, but rather a large message board a lot of us have frequented for years. Bunches of us have played other games and MMOs together over the years, but ultimately that forum was the connection. We've lost some people here and there, but we've gained a lot of people as well.

Personally, I thought it was really interesting how our guilds weren't exactly something we joined recently.. We didn't get recruited into a WoW guild or start one from scratch. We've had communities we've rolled with for years already. I know that's not the case with everyone playing the game, very far from it, but I'm curious to hear from other people. How did your guild start? Have you been with it for awhile, or is it a new thing for you in WoW? Are you like Big Dan, with the same guild for years? Are you like Little Dan, in a different guild but in contact with the old one? Heck, do you know how your guild started? Are you even in a guild to begin with? Share your stories! RP guilds, feel free to share your backstory, too!