Blizzard has posted an official preview of the Guild Challenges feature that will be implemented in patch 4.1. Here's the one-sentence summary: "Built into the Info panel of the guild user interface, Guild Challenges will be weekly tasks guild groups can tackle for additional guild experience, achievements, and gold."

Guild Challenges are broken into the following categories: Dungeon, Raid and Rated Battleground. There is a set number of times each challenge can be completed per week. If participating members meet all the prerequisites, a gold reward will be deposited directly in the Guild Vault. Also, Guild Challenges award guild experience above the daily cap. If your guild has already reached the level cap, you'll earn even more gold.

Keep reading after the jump for all the details.

Patch 4.1: Guild Challenges

In addition to updating Zul’Gurub and Zul’Aman for level-85 players, we're also excited about another patch 4.1 feature: Guild Challenges. Built into the Info panel of the guild user interface, Guild Challenges will be weekly tasks guild groups can tackle for additional guild experience, achievements, and gold.

This feature has been designed and implemented to be quite simple. At the top of the guild user interface Info pane, a new Guild Challenges section will be displayed and broken into three categories: Dungeons, Raids, and Rated Battlegrounds. Any guild group will qualify for Guild Challenges credit and there is a set number of times each challenge can be completed per week. There’s no need to add a quest to your Quest Log or anything of that nature. Just grab a guild group eligible for any of the challenges and go.

Completing a Guild Challenge will result in a popup to confirm credit has been awarded, similar to achievement popups (or “toasts”). The participating guild members will then earn experience for their guild. In addition, a gold reward will be deposited directly to the Guild Vault. The gold and experience rewarded varies for each challenge type, but you won’t have to worry about receiving reduced rewards if, say, you happen to be in a guild group that completes a raid or dungeon on normal difficulty. Since there is a limited number of times each challenge type can be completed per week, we want to make sure guilds don’t feel set back if a guild group of level-18 players receives credit for completing Deadmines, versus a level-85 guild group completing Heroic Deadmines. The same applies to normal and Heroic difficulty raid progression. Provided the content is level-appropriate for your guild group, you’ll earn experience and gold for your guild.

To earn Guild Dungeon Challenge credit, the 5-player party must be composed of at least 3 guild members. Raid and Rated Battleground Challenges require that 8 out of 10 players be guild members, while 20 guild members are required to earn credit for 25-player raids. To earn gold for Guild Challenge rewards, a guild must be level 5 or higher and the participating members must have earned honored reputation with the guild. For example, 3 out of 5 guild members in a 5-player party must be honored to earn gold for the guild. If those three guild members have only reached friendly reputation, they would still receive credit and earn guild experience, but the guild would not receive gold.

So, let’s say your guild has been regularly hitting the daily experience cap. You might be wondering how beneficial it’d be to do Guild Challenges. Well wonder no more, amigos: Guild Challenges award guild experience above the cap. Think of it like rested experience. The guild experience cap will extend itself relative to the guild experience earned by completing these challenges. It’s a great way to get an extra edge on your guild leveling! Not only that, if your guild reaches the level cap, continuing to partake in Guild Challenges will yield a much more substantial sum of gold deposited directly into the Guild Vault.

We’re very happy with Guild Challenges and feel that they’re a fun way to continue expanding upon all of the new guild features added in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Your feedback regarding this system is always appreciated, as you can be sure we’ll be looking for ways to beef it up in future patches.