Is Your Guild Jealous? Let's talk about stones and being stoned :/

I would just ask the game doesn't become TOO guild focused.

I am not interested in joining guilds - especially not ones that want to enforce some kind of schedule or behavior rules on the toons.

I play this game to escape real life obligations, not to get additional ones

 

The entire game can be played single player offline, single player online, or friends only.

I don't think there will be any real requirement of guild membership.

 

I would just ask the game doesn't become TOO guild focused.

I am not interested in joining guilds - especially not ones that want to enforce some kind of schedule or behavior rules on the toons.

I play this game to escape real life obligations, not to get additional ones

I agree with you enderandrew, the game hasn't any requirement to be in any guild, yet tradyblix does make a very valid point here that reflects good concerns of "How Jealous or Controlling is Your Guild" or any Guild...
and Sir tradyblix also points out another great concern that I interpret as any question that will make our game impossible to complete without being in a guild. Thus Guild's (though the more people the more powerful) should not be a prerequisite for being able to complete all non-guild specific quests.

The fact is that Guilds are very powerful once they can achieve working or saying things together. Let's say for instance that some Guild with many members were to begin stating the same things together here in our forums in an attempt to forward their privet agenda. that could become a very loud combined voice for any individual to ever be heard over without coming under attack of shear numbers of vocal harmonized guild members, which would not provide a good reflection of any real truth by poll, on any issue.

The other issue that Sir tradyblix avidly points out is a real heads up for anyone who hasn't had an unexpected upset by the overly controlling hidden nature of some domineering Guild Master.
Guild Masters and any Guild's Leadership can leave anyone high and dry loosing all the effort that the player has placed into them. They can suddenly change the Guild's rules "or take you to war", when all you wanted to do was PvE and have something collective that everyone had pitched in on. Sudden changes in philosophy can hurt, both in your time spent as well as any $ you may have invested thinking that your Current Guild Contract was as good as the day that you joined.
It's a shame when that happens, because I know of no way and nothing that could ever stop any Guild Master from doing so.
I'm one that doesn't want to have to carry around a Guild Law Book or a Lawyer just to be in one, because the moment you do something you thought was OK but the Guild 's Master "thinks" that it wasn't... "it's too late for any Guild Lawyer at that point and he/she could just touch the Stone and your not just history, it's as if you were never even there, or worse, you have many friends now that are restricted from contacting you or are frowned on for doing so"
It happens... and Sir tradyblix makes a very valid point!

So I would say that it is a good thing if SotA doesn't become too Guild focused
So, "How Jealous is Your Guild?"...
Thanks Sir tradyblix
~Time Lord~









X

 

Yeah but Guilds != Play modes.

I want to play some in all of these modes, but like Time Lord points out, I've seen that kind of behavior develop before in other MMOs and it's not something I personally enjoy, so, while I expect Guilds will become powerful and influence the game, I would hope it doesn't become a requirement to join.

 

one side note: Yes on making guilds actually require effort, BUT making them to expensive might put pre-launch established guilds in a way to dominant position. It would be bad fr the game if new people are discouraged from forming guilds because of prohibitive "costs". There has to be some balance

 

Great Point, Indeed it would Sir Dhimmi ! and I totally agree with you!

That's why I think maybe there should be some sort of Quest needing to be done and "not some cost in $ or ingame gold" because fellowships are something that needs only some form of "right of passage quest" that would take maybe as many as 5 founding members to go though before they could buy a Guild Stone.
Such a "In Search of Guild Quest" could even contain enough gold going through it to pay for such a Stone, yet also be styled to provide the questions that each guild needs to know as a sort of tip of how sacred to it's members a Guild Stone can be.

Anyone here have something we may be missing in all of this?
Or maybe add in support or conjecture?

I think it's an important needing many player's input on the issue before any discussion may go off to the Dev+ threads where anyone without such access will not have the ability to see it develop more there.

So Please feel very free to express your views and "Chime In"!
These are very much "your future guilds we're talking about here in this thread" !
~Time Lord~

 

good idea, they could even expand it so that every guild can establish a specific guild quest for new members. i think it would be beneficial for both parties

 

Thank You Sir Dhimmi

Joining members after the guild is established;
I was actually thinking that for members joining after the fact, that they would have to complete a similar quest that would involve 4 other members of the guild they wished to join into. That way it stays sort of a 5 person quest, yet also demonstrates to the joining member how important or special having friends or guild mates truly is. But this also makes it a more serious thing for the guild to decide to go through the troubles of having to join in the quest ....maybe the group could have 2-3 members per however many joining mates ratio... or even just one member who is their sponsor along with them leading the quest

What do you think?
~TL~

 

exactly what i meant . you can even reverse it an have 4 aspiring guildies + an sponsor doing the quest. that way the bonding starts from the beginning

 

I was betaing DnL and they had some great guild ideas (that never actualized). One was that guilds could buy guild NPCs for their hall that would stand outside and new recruits could ask them to join. The recruit would then be given a series of quests that could include talking to guild officers, asking/answering questions and/or harvesting/crafting/killing things. If the recruit did all of this, their application to join was passed to guild leadership via the NPC automated system. Since the guild could define the questions, quests etc. this seemed like an interesting prospect. Now, unfortunately, it never came to pass. But here in SotA we have some opportunities that we have not seen before. I am not in favor of automated guilding, but I do like the idea of standard quests to join a guild. Nothing radical, but something to show you are willing to game together. Then again, if a guild accepts anyone whether they are actually willing to game together or not, they will pay the price for indiscriminate guilding. Those organizations never last.

I also am in favor of some price to pay to start a guild, but where to set it at? As Dhimmi says, too much and it become prohibitive for new guilds and too little it is but a token and pointless.

I am in favor of quests, but not requiring officers and leaders to go through it a zillion times. I have always been in favor of new guildies having a sponsor, this would be a great place for the sponsor to go through the quest with them. (even if it was 1 sponsor to 4 recruits)

However, I do wish to raise a counter argument: many guild invites happen after hours of adventuring together. The person is already well known to other members of the guild. There should be a way to override this guild recruit quest. Heck what if a person accidentally quits guild, or goodness forbid, there is a glitch and members get kicked. (I've seen it before, and since I was guild leader and knew full well I did not kick them, when the message came through that I did, it was a surprise. The bug got fixed. But let's not have these members run the quest again.)

While there may be some specifics to hammer out, I think we are on the right path.

 

I enjoyed both of these perspectives that both Dhimmi and Jivalax Azon raise here,

And also caused a concern in the loss of the "Flash PvP Guild style", which is one hero starting it, then others rally to his battle standard in a very quick fashion.
I particularly liked the idea of the Guild NPC's and do agree that the Guild's GM should not be the only boring burden carrier. I like the idea of PvE Guild Masters having a choice in the setting of fixed (jealous) or setting their guild to open multi-guild. Yet when I think of these options for the originator GM of the PvE guild, when I think of the open side of choice, I would also like an option for the GM to be able to set only specific guilds as being in there multi guild setting...as well as an option to have it purely open to include all guilds.
But in regard to PvP Guilds, such options of inclusion, exclusion, allied as well as specific could be good options for them to be able to set and enjoy, yet it doesn't mean they have to use them... just as with any guild, I believe in options and there availability to be used for whatever purpose suits them.

Dose all this get messy? ... "maybe", but that's all a part of choice and a much more pliable multi useful tool for any Guild master's pocket to decide to use, or not to use.
Freedom of Choice is never a bad thing for everyone
Great Ideas and Feed Back. I think it's the different perspectives that help pave the way for any player's ideas to get anywhere and I'm looking forward to have a few more come from the contemplation.
~Time Lord~