Guilds

The idea at it's core is great, but perhaps the actual benefits could be rethought. The idea of having something solid for the guild to work towards really does appeal to me.

 

Ya I like the idea, the only thing that is keeping me back is the limitation on guild size per level. A guild at level 1 with only 50 members and then having 250 just doing nothing and waiting to be back in the guild. All your other members just sitting there waiting to be involved isn't ideal for any guild already established.

Increasing the size of a guild hall per level would be fine.

 

I think we need another strategy for SotA, perhaps organisations or companies as well as guilds. Say I want to live in the Phoenix Republic, work in a New Britannia Press office in PaxLair and do my radio sets in Radio City. For fun I'll also be helping build mazes with my 4B friends. This gives me 4 non-aligned groups that I want to communicate with, probably with only a small overlap of people.me
So which guild do I choose?
Can I have different ranks in different guilds?
Can I even join multiple guilds?
Or can we change the guild paradigm entirely from what has been done before, the way combat has been changed from what has been done before?

Guilds were originally made for merchants and craftsmen for mutual protection and aid. They were there to establish a basic set of standards, so that a journeyman craftsman would be guaranteed to be able to produce goods of a certain quality, and as such guild-made craftables would fetch higher prices. Apprentices would sign on as they would get an education from the guild in exchange for their labour. Modern RPG guilds seem to have little in common with the original guilds, is my point, so why not move to a less restrictive system?

 

There is a thread on that somewhere but i can't find it. Basic gist was multi guild membership bad, system for alliances, nations and an accompanying chat system good. ^.^

 

I don't agree that the Development team has to add things to the game to support rewards ect for a guild. This is not that type of game. The main structure will be put in place and as in UO the Players/Guild Members then run the show.
Leveling of any kind is not suppose to be a key component of this game even though it is showing that way in pre alpha for testing purposes.

Take us back to the fun days of guilds. I remember in Defenders of Virtue we had a chest at the
guild house for our small guild fees and then we had guild events like hiring an NPC to protect on a journey, 1 NPC to 4 people, and whoever could keep him/her alive to the final destination won the cash. Very fun with the NPC running off screaming "I'm gonna die, please help me" every second. UO did not have to support our fun, just the game already had those tools, not necessarily for that, but we found them to make it happen.

While I do appreciate the hard work and great ideas on the leading post, In my opinion I just don't feel that we will have that kind of game, and do we really want that? I enjoyed my time in different guilds in
different games, well sometimes, but never did it compare to my 6 years with the UO DV guild.

 

I agree with most of your post, however this game is still being created and things like guild structures and features are still under heavy discussion, which molds the game into what it is. Regardless if the devs put the features into the game, we are all still going to hang out, not going to change that. I believe that royalsexy is saying to further appropriate the player made events and hangouts that the devs and LB claim to support. What's wrong about working with several communities and having features to further those relationships?

 

What are the bonuses for a fishing guild?

 

That's a very good question. I want fishing in the game also. We have rods but no cast and reel. I think a fishing guild would have all the best treasure maps.

 

Ahhh wasn't trying to put a damper on the discussion and I do apologize if it came out that way.
Of course this is an important topic. I just didn't see the point of extra features being implemented to make
a guild great. I was thinking in terms of player driven with tools already in game, such as so many interactive
things already there. But I guess what I was missing is that you guys want more details now like infrastucture stuff and possibilities for your guild and to get whatever else you can to support them and make them more
viable, and fun, so no worries. I just thought we would create that part ourselves.

 

We could still create it ourselves. You always have some good feedback. What would you like to see? I'm going to bow down and let this discussion fly. Some good ideas going back and forth.

 

I do agree that players has to do the main work, and make their guild uniques, but we cannot do that alone, and some helps from the devs would be more than appreciated.
Firstly my we should take into account all the possible scenarios, big guilds and small guilds.
If u are in a big guild, the work of a GM become very difficult. You need intruments to fast manage all the guild members, possibly without addressing them one by one.
When I did the post I assumed that players would just use one of their house/castle/whatever as Guild Hall, but taking the example the BMC this means to add manually every single name of every single member of the guild.
and if some1 is kiked u have to update all the guild halls. While this trouble can be solved with just a simple piece of code. It's not only about what we can do, is also make the game efficient and consistent under many aspects.
Plus is also about cosmetics and estetic view, that bring the game to differ with other MMO.
I imagine, for instance, an alliance of guilds, where u can discern each guild from their colors and logos, that are ready to battle another alliance, and we see also all those flag carrier that inspire the players in the battle. Maybe we might differs and add drums but I guess devs have already tought about a musicanship skill...no? ,-)
Managing a big guild is not an easy task, and you need intruments to make the work lighter.... so for instance, adding the last login date/hours, so u know if X player is not playing anymore and u can delete him from the guild, and doing that u automatically remove all the access from every guildhouse. This is very handy and make the guild experience easier and funnier.
It's right, as I said do the stuff on our own, but is important do give strong customization traits to every guild (like the unique emble/logo) and instruments to manage the guild at his best.

 

Majoria you're one of my favourite people on here, so much so that I've been toying with the idea of doing a radio show once a week titled "Music for Majoria" for quite some time (you'll have to let me know a time that suits you so I can serenade you with in-game, baroque and medieval music).

I've never found a guild I liked in any online game I've played, but now I'm in Shroud and there's too many that I like! Almost every guild I've encountered so far have been great, from BMC and MGT470, to 4B and Pax et Veritas. Then the PvP guilds like SoS, DoD and Vengeance, which I know aren't my play-style but have some amazing people in them.

 

Im in the opinion that there shouldnt even be guild stones if that lets you know where I stand... So I will bow out too.

 

I'm not for that. I think guilds should be an organizational tool. Not a tool to reward a machine with 500 members that grinds all day and night. I'm all for giving Guilds better powers to host events, permissions, manage items. I'm not for giving them buffs that would affect PVE/PVP. The joy of being in a guild and going to do a dungeon together should be enough.

The only buff I would be supportive would be a guild bank vault.

 

Ahhh that is the nicest thing royalsexy. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for that. I am speechless,
but my head is cloudy since I have a cold at the moment, that doesn't help. Now that would be great to
be serenaded in game, is it possible? Also I don't need a radio show to profoundly feel the compliment you have given me by your words, and thank you so very much. They were wonderful

And regarding guilds and the people in the community, we have many of the very best here, and perhaps I am not the best authority on guilds. I can speak from guilds I've enjoyed in the past, but as to what will make our game have the best guild system, I do not have an answer, other than my previous thoughts.

 

(Lord Toe)
"I'm not for that. I think guilds should be an organizational tool. Not a tool to reward a machine with 500 members that grinds all day and night. I'm all for giving Guilds better powers to host events, permissions, manage items. I'm not for giving them buffs that would affect PVE/PVP. The joy of being in a guild and going to do a dungeon together should be enough.

The only buff I would be supportive would be a guild bank vault. "

Mine was a very short post, yet it seems you ignored the most important (and only) point: if you make "active" (i.e. balance affecting) perks temporary and expensive, they won't be unfair to other (non guild) players..... but would reward active teamwork? Sorry, but I just don't see how this is such a bad thing.

 

A FEW WAYS TO GAIN EXPERIENCE POINTS FOR GUILDS

BANK WITHDRAWALS = XP:
As far as experience points goes for guilds, maybe guild financial activity could be a way to gain XP. In an effort to reduce the stockpiling of gold and resources, it might be beneficial to award guild XP for payments made on behalf of the guild, and the number of resource "withdrawals" being made.

We don't need to officially count what we put in the bank but we should get XP for what we take out of the bank (as long as it isn't the same gold or resource being taken out and put back in over and over again)... has to be real input and output one person deposits, and another withdraws. **This also shows the productivity of a guild, so obviously a larger guild should have more productivity, than a smaller one***

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SUPPORT/TOUR GUIDE = XP:Another way to gain XP could be from official donations of time to Portalarium. New players need help, and if there was a system in place similar to calling a GM for support, but instead Portalarium could crowd source the support in exchange for XP for the guild. Players can sign up for available time slots to help field in game support issues, and tour guide requests. So this could be the first line of support before contacting a Dev or a paid employee for help. ***This will be necessary anyway so why not give actual guild members priority over ungilded players when it comes to serving the community.***

 

Not a fan of guild leveling at all. I am sorry but I think that they have a design that was mentioned on the direction for guilds. You can as a guild work toward gaining guild housing and guild banks via gold in game in competition with other guilds for limited guild housing per town.

 

I'm not for levels either if the levels actually effect the limit of the number of members, and the limits to the bank storage... a guild should be able to acquire all physical attributes such as actual members, and bank size etc without leveling.

Although I have no problem if leveling were just some fun thing to do that really doesn't hinder our game play but instead is just for fun.

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With that in mind maybe Levels aren't the way to go at all? Maybe leader charts are better. There's no need for levels if it doesn't do anything but act as fun... may as well have categories. That way one guild might have the most members, another guild might have the most cash flow, and another might have the most war victories, another might have the most war losses. lol Maybe some might be ranked top in more than one category.

If it was a category based system then the guild level could be generated by an average value of scores based upon where you rank in each category. the highest "level" could be level 1 for being #1. So being level 5000 isn't the goal, level 1 is.

There is no reason they shouldn't have this type of feature... but I whole heartedly agree that I don't want limitations on membership or anything else due to some guild level system.

EDIT: Notice I mentioned a category for most guild war losses. I just thought about it, if you ranked number 1 in most losses that would help your total guild ranking. Well either way I'm sure there is a good system out there.

 

I would completely content with chests that have access permissions AND permissions can apply to guild roles instead of just individual players AND if there was a chest transaction log. Such a chest could be used for guilds, POT's, rental houses, and friends and can be placed anywhere.