Guild structure and warfare

I have been thinking of different things to help move PVP along in the world that would allow those who opt out of PVP to remain safe ish. Also, a few ideas of guild structures and how they can be used to help build larger guilds. I know that some of these ideas are probably already in the game, but I just wanted to cover all bases.

Guilds:

With the creation of guilds, I think it would be great to have both sub-guilds and guild alliances. Sub-guilds would allow for smaller guilds to be absorbed by larger ones, but still maintain their identity. This would allow smaller guilds to acquire more talent, numbers and resources and allow larger guilds to gain additional manpower. Alliances would also have the same benefits, but would have a different effect when it came to guild wars. For example, if a sub-guild went to war with another guild, everyone in the sub-guild would be at war with the other guild, but not the guild it is subordinate to or its alliance. Now, if the commanding guild went to war with another guild, then all its sub-guilds would also be at war, but not its alliance. When an alliance goes to war, all members go to war or they are removed from the alliance. This would cause all members of the guilds and their subs to go to war for the alliance or leave it. There could also be different types of alliances. There could be defensive alliances, offensive alliances or both. There could also be a system in the alliance mechanics that could be a voting system for what guild is in charge, or maybe rotation after a month or so, or even who created the alliance is the permanent controller. Also implemented could be a stat menu of how many wars, who was at war and who was in the alliance during the wars. This would help to establish a "loyalty" counter for when guilds kicked from the alliance wish to come back.

Guild warfare:

You could allow every town to have a guild control its seat of power. This could be different from the mayor or owner of the town. At first, all offices would be purchased for gold, but then would have to be defended from conquest of warring guilds. If enough of these small town seats of power were controlled in a given area or "province", then the guild could apply for a capital controlling seat in the larger towns. The larger town would then only be able to be conquered if the outlying smaller towns were taken first. The progress and control of guild conquest could also be displayed on the travel map by areas of contention, peaceful areas and recently taken places, with the guild's name and crest displayed. As incentive for guilds to take control of towns or capitals, certain rewards can be given to the holders of the towns. This could be additional resources or maybe a reduction of taxes for houses to guild members. This in turn could cause rival guilds to have their property taxes go up as a result. This aspect could help spur the unity of guild members staying in the same town as well as adjusting the housing market, as guilds will pay more to move into a town with guildmates and cheaper taxes, while rival guilds will try and sell houses and move out, reducing the housing prices. Warfare would also go hand in hand with town improvements.

Town Improvements:

Town improvements could be anything from roads that improve trade and travel speeds to guard houses that spawn roving sentries. These too would also have to be taxed because roads would have to be maintained and guards have to be paid. This would also help a smaller guild from getting whooped right away and from a conquering guild. Examples of building improvements could be: Towers, walls (stone, wooden, brick), guard houses, gate houses, bowyer, stables and ballista yard. Some of these structure are probably already implemented into the game, so they could also be upgraded to allow for guards to utilize them in times of war. These structures could also act as contention points int he town. So say if a warring guild came and captured the bowyer, they would no longer spawn units for the defending town, and after a while, could spawn units for enemy. This would help give strategy to taking over towns and give it a little more dynamic. Mayors can also improve the town infrastructor, but they would do so for an economic stand point (Upgraded structures sell better equipment and have more money on hand to buy goods, etc) Lastly, with town improvements, this gives way to siege equipment.

Siege Equipment:

I was reading posts that this was already in the works, but with the guild warfare system it gives it purpose.

Ways to Avoid All The Chaos:

o Don't join a warring guild, sub-guild or alliance
o Don't have your guild be subordinate to a warring guild or alliance
o Don't have your guild take over a contention point (Town, village or city capital).

I love the work you guys are doing and I look forward to jumping in and exploring the world.

 

Welcome jhugg!

 

Guild controlled towns is an interesting idea. Good post.

I guess I'd prefer a game that had factions that could control towns, vs. individual guilds. This way guilds in a faction can all work together to contribute for their faction together. If it is guilds trying to control towns, for me it feels like it has less game meaning and maybe more personal guild meaning for doing that, unless it is somehow tied to game lore. Perhaps one idea to go about this is to have 'NPC Houses' that guilds in game can sign up to be members of. And then guilds of a certain House can compete to control different towns. This is another way to enable guilds to team up more easily. Another take on it at least.

 

I can agree to that as well. There were order and chaos giulds in ultima online, so why not here? If there were factions in the came, who is to say that the guilds don't comprise them and take the place of an alliance in my example. Edit: I was just thinking because this is a player run community and player driven game, why not have the players make the factions aka alliances aka guilds.

 

I like this. Guild warfare, and politics... Guilds interacting with villages, towns and cities. It'd give us a good reason to defend the towns from sieges & other threats. Maybe even from other guilds

 

My thoughts exactly. As a mayor improves the town, it would make more enticing for guilds to come in a build or conquer. Guilds can provide protection to the town from NPCs as well. There is so much potential to what can be done here.

 

That all sounds great and interesting to play. My only sticking point is Player owned cities, as most of these are run for a guild by the guild what would happen if they lost control as the guild but the owner could just refuse to let them use the city of the disposed guild .

 

I agree, and think the faction idea would be best, as Guilds come and go as we all seen in many games, and many only have few people in them anyways especially if they are new. Factions all the way!!!

 

This would be part of the risk vs reward system in the game. I know it sounds heartless to allow other guilds to swoop up and take what another guild accomplished in the town, but it would be more realistic to life. Also, a guild does not have to participate in the PVP for towns if they don't want to. By taking control of a town is when the guild becomes a target for conquest.

As far as Factions vs Guilds, I think in this instance Factions and Guilds can almost be used interchangeably, as guild could make up factions. Also, one of the reasons to have sub-guilds is to help elevate guilds to higher power. Sub-guilds would give the guilds they are subordinate to more man power and allow them to grow larger. Factions would essentially be the same thing in that many guilds (and lone wolf adventurers) would join to form a larger organization. The only difference between the two would be who creates the guilds (players) and factions (Devs). While Dev factions would be more controllable, allowing the players the option to create the stage of warfare themselves would be more rewarding to each particular group. Although, there could be a nice hybrid system where there are already established factions, and players could also strike out on their own and create their own factions. The benefit of having a faction of your own is the flexibility to organize it how the players see fit. The cons would be that because they are their own faction, they would have to play politics with all the current factions or be crushed by all of them at the same time. This tread was not originally posted to have a debate of Guilds vs. Factions, but more of how to implement large scale organized PVP. Everything that I said above about guilds can be used interchangeably with faction for the most part. If it comes down to it, we can always debate as which is better (Faction, Guild or hybrid) later on down the road.

 

my problem with factions has been that it often feels like i can either join these nazi's or those nazi's, either way, i'm not interested in being a nazi!

 

Moonshadow packs his bags and moves to Switzerland.

 

Pathological-alpha game players play games as fascists since the early days. Or didn't you know that? But anyways, I agree with you. Got enough rl issues don't need some wannabe ordering me around in a "guild" lol.

 

Perfectly understandable to not want to get bossed around by some jerk that places guild warfare as his top priority in life. I am not saying that those people are or are not in factions or are or are not in guilds. The basic thing about that is to just not be a part of the guild/faction. Guilds SHOULD be a group of people who are like minded and work towards a common goal. People in the guild SHOULD treat each other with respect. If that doesn't happen I feel it is the failure of leadership in the guild. Most of the times factions are just people thrown into the mix, and there is a lot less comradery and cohesion in its structure, if there is any structure at all. This is why I was proposing guilds to have ownership over towns and cities because there would be that sense of common goals.
The reason for sub-guilds is so that smaller guilds can fall under the protection of larger ones, yet still have their own identity and close knit ties that caused them to form a guild in the first place. Another reason for sub-guilding can be a form of structure for the larger guild. The sub-guilds can be the miners, crafters, farmers and PVE/PVP members of the guild. Factions can be built up like guilds with structure and comradery. It just has to be implemented right in the game. Say if a faction is comprised of several guilds. The guilds can vote on which guilds to join or leave the faction. Factions can vote on which guild is in charge and who fills certain rolls in the faction. These can also be options for guilds as well, by voting who is in charge of the guild. This can even go further with guilds and factions owning property other than the capital of the town/village/city. This can be done by having a guild house that is owned and maintained by the guild, instead of a single individual. The downside of this however, would be if the taxes for the guild house were not paid, then it would just be destroyed instead of going into someones bank.

 

While I see the point of the above post, I feel that it would detract from the accomplishments the guilds would have from warfare. Say if a town would never let a certain guild come just because they didn't like them. It would give less incentive for PVP because what would be the point of trying to capture a town if they could never control it do do anything with it. There would be no benefit to attacking other that a kudos and high five. Maybe something can be worked out with the town owner that the rent paid for the upkeep goes to or partially goes to the owner. This would then give mayors incentive to bring in guilds. The tax can be on a sliding scale so that if the owner didn't like the guild or it was in a great spot they could charge more. Also, guilds on good terms can be charged less. The no matter what when the dust clears the owner still get a a piece, and the guilds still get their warfare.

 

This is why I was suggesting having a sliding taxable system in order for you to "motivate" unwanted riffraff from your town. If to say that no matter what a guild did, they couldn't contend for control of a town would just break the system of what I am suggesting and ideas and conversation about the topic should just end now. I mean, how would you feel if you were playing the board game risk and you needed one more territory to get the continental bonus, all the while there is some person standing there saying, "Uhh sorry, I bought that territory and you can't ever use it.".
However, another idea could be that a town owner could allow certain guilds to own property in a certain town, and thus make it harder to be taken over because of say fortifications that could be erected. Then if a guild comes by and conquers the town, the town owner can disable that guild from building in the town unless tribute was paid and what not. This would essentially cause the other structures to degrade and collapse over time, making it easier for other guilds to come in and take it over or the original guild to take it back. This would in turn make it harder for the unwanted guild to maintain a presence, and might cause them to abandon their hold on the area because of the lack of resources. This isn't to say that the guild members couldn't buy houses in the area, but just the guild structures around the contention points on the map.
With guilds fighting for control of a town, the real point is to promote PVP and to try and build another activity in the game. I am not suggesting that guilds literally take over a town and reduces the town owner to just a figure head. No, in fact I feel that the town owner should have a huge amount of control over the town, as they own it. I am more thinking of a separate area of the town, say the government section that was talked about in the in the six month progress video: (take a look at 2:00). This is obviously a large area, but this could be considered a "province capital" or some huge achievement to capture. I suggest that there are certain contention points on the map that need to be controlled for the guild to take control of the area, once they control a few small towns, then they can move onto a larger town that is like a controlling area. Once they control a few of those, they can fight for the capital. Town owners can play an important role in guild PVP by either helping them, (allowing them to build structures in the town) or hurting them (higher taxes for control of the contention point, no building allowed to be built, guards can be hostile to them, etc) I understand people pay X, Y, and Z for the game even before it has come out, and for that I thank everyone because you helping to fund something that I am looking forward to play. I am trying to help the Devs in my own way by offering ideas about guild warfare, and yes push my own agenda what I think would be fun for PVP.
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No I don't own a POT. Did you read the rest of my post? You seem pretty focused on "my town, my rules", which I don't blame you. Taking away your power as an owner is not what I am trying to do. May I suggest that only certain towns in the game can be contested. These towns are owned by people who buy them with game currency instead of through founder rewards. Or, if they are bought through founder rewards, they have to abide by the rules laid out by the guild warfare system. The reason for this would be that the POT would have extra income from warring guilds, but they run the risk of having an unwanted guild presence. A non contested town can be owned and allow the owner to do as they please, but they wont have the same amount of growth because all the taxes would be placed on the owner. (and maybe the townsfolk if they implement that too.)