Why do we need a newbie-mega-guild?

well its no secret there is dissent on the forums. People have indeed walked away. It is not the fault of the people posting though. It falls on moderation if the conversation goes sour. What is the problem with debate is when one side thinks that they cannot post on the official forums and get feedback. If some one is trying to steer the conversation away from dissent then that really is the problem. If the community at large does not agree with some things then its up to moderation to control out of context/vitriol, or slander. If the comments are honest feedback then it should be heard. I really do think you are a good person Themo, and I hate our past arguments, which I never wished went that way. But these forums should be the place for discussion. There are somewhere around 60k accounts out there if not more. Many of them just skim and never reply. But they can find information if they look in the Official forums. I agree there has been much heated discussion in the past. It is needed and portalarium should respond to the greater amount of people discussing things. Please do not think I am attacking you personally, as I have a great amount of respect for you really. I cannot do half the stuff you do in game. I just in all honesty say what I feel.

 

past is the past Mr Lich, we all get passionate

 

It's posts like that that make me proud to be a posting member of our... umm... let's just call it what it is, "Our Somewhat Official SOTA Forums" while others just can't stand us around here!



Now, what happens when any guild wants to interact in a meaningful way with the "bulk" of such a Outlander Guild? Who would we go to? We're not privileged to be members, so we don't actually have an active conduit we can count on, because we don't know anyone in that guild who may be on at the times our guild is active? (whatever guild that is .... just fill in the blank)...

If such a guild has no inner social structure, then we are forced to go become a Hospitaller ourselves? or maybe have an "alt character" to have in that Outlander Guild to act as our spy to figure out how we're going to accomplish this Guild Recruitment Hook-up?

Call in advance? Make an appointment? or maybe just stalk them on the overland map? Our interactions with them and access to them should be made as easy as a spontaneous guild hunt usually is. If we have a social collective motive within them, such as "The Quest of the Avatar", then there's bound to be an outreach by them to be more in touch with our greater SOTA world, because many of them are looking for brownie points that could lead up to becoming the Outlander Guild's Avatar. This means that they are also accessing their own friend's list and attempting to hook up with those on their list.

The Hospitallers think three's good reason for them to have them on the same Guild chat, so this is why they need them all in one guild, yet for outside guilds wishing to invite the Outlanders on a hunt or whatever, they "being self governed" need a collective quest so that they have collected all together, other than just to have a guild hunt of their own. Guild hunts of their own lead to a bonding effect to "that Outlander Guild" and do not encourage them to seek out any other guild. Yet, if they have the Avatar Quest motive in mind, then they are more likely to interact with outside guilds, "other than guilds those unfairly chosen by the Hospitallers". Meaning that our Hospitallers should stick by their original virtues and pledge not to become an outside guild recruiting organization.

One could say that, being a Hospitaller is a virtuous line of interaction and therefore deserves the privilege of having such early access to the Outlander's members, but I don't think that keeps any of our Hospitallers armor nice and shining with virtue. It just makes good sense then to have an organization with a quest that encourages the Outlanders to visit and also seek out other guilds to interact with.

Are there any other solutions other than just not having an Outlander Guild?
~Time Lord~

 

Yes - a newb-friendly chat channel, properly moderated so there's no offputting tradespam and slurs and so on.

Unmoderated it would only end up full of RMT trading and other tradespam, and racist/sexist rubbish flying around all day.

Nice, simple solution that does away with the need to bond people to a guild they may never want to leave - it's just an ingame chat channel - a forum for all their questions.

 

Sorry for being repetitive, but if the problem is "people don't get the game from the start" creating a way of communication won't make the game more understandable. Thus, the solution is making the game understandable and with an appropiate learning curve.

No matter how customer service lines you put up, no matter how detailed the users manual is, people won't use devices that are overly complicated. If you want people to get the game and stay, fix the most prominent issue; that is the game mechanics not being robust and coherent so they're grasped by the average human brain. Basically, games must tell you what they expect you to do, and SotA fails miserably on that task.

No kind of chat or way of communication will fix that. The only way to fix that is to fix that.

 

Not really handy for about 2/3rds of the timezones.

 

I feel I have to agree with some of the above sentiments -
In addition to yoinking new players into a 'guild' full of mostly other new players (which for some is going to be super-awkward), we're going to essentially be implementing a global chat used for 'helping' (recruiting). Folks with multiple accounts will likely tap into this for their own purposes. To keep the chat from being a tradespam/recruiting/nonsense channel, its going to need to be heavily moderated. If you're going to heavily moderate it, why not just add a help channel and moderate that?

Part of the appeal for me starting out was that I had to explore, figure things out, talk to npcs, perhaps ask questions of other avatars I passed by. I would have hated to be thrown into a newbie guild mess. I don't think this is going to improve the new player experience - helpful folks hanging out in Soltown is certainly a better solution.

 

Partly right.
Non the less there is no way around this forum if it is about stuff like this.
My preffered Medium is the God damned official game Forum.

 

In other words, you can't?

Even if you find something....a drunken DS or LB messing around with ideas usually dosen't end with those ideas going ingame without any comment.

 

Well that may be, but the hospitallers was not an official anything and we are not bound to a forum that has proven useless in every way for anything even vaguely resembling organization or discussion. Like many things it is a player initiative that was later given support since it was proven to be useful and beneficial to the community. The entire thing came about from 3 people wanting a simpler way to help new players other than answering the same questions repeatedly in an insane amount of emails and PM. People claiming that new players dont need help have no idea what they are talking about (and probably need help), the sheer volume of questions and requests i get for aid on a daily basis is insanity and i am just one person. Basically it was built by players trying to solve a serious issue and we are not going to make the new player initiative less effective by holding meetings on a forum and waiting 4 weeks after each comment/suggestion so every single forum user can approve it. If you think this forum is even looked at by the bulk of players you are mistaken. If you have an interest in being a part of this or any other project, put your hand up, attend the meetings and put in the work. Literally only one person has ever been excluded and that was somebody whos input was " Butts butts butts butts".. which may have been valid input from his perspective but less so for the rest of us.

 

I don't really get what you want here but the hospitallers were announced here:
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=57638
At that point it was mostly just the players and a tiny bit of dallas. You can see that the announcement was written by players.

What happened then was that dallas really like the efforts by the players and asked for what was difficult in helping new folks and how could it be better. Then dallas talked to the dev team and Portalarium on their own spawned some ideas.
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=58998#HOSP
come R30 they introduced a number of features to help players help other players.

Now mind you, none of those features was specifically requested by the players, nor was the players in on the decisions or anything. Instead it was "we have hard time seeing if someone is new just by looking at them", and "sometimes new players don't know who to approach among the veterans" etc >>>> Port comes up with the "Outlander" and "Hospitaller" titles, and the Hospitaller symbol to add to signs and books.

 

I for one love the Alliance/mega-guild/multi guild membership concepts and really hope they flesh out a big system from this.

That means that the same guild can have sub-guilds with specific interest groups and still be apart of the same mega structure.

For instance a guild with a PVP subsection, which can go to war and have all sorts of fun shenanigans without having to take any consideration for how the non-pvp demographic feels about it.
And while that PVP subsection is at war, they can still be apart of the same mega-structure that enables them to coordinate with their crafters etc.

This enables more loyalty, not the other way around. Right now with the straight-jacket of a single guild membership with no superstructure we've had guilds who has lost members because they want to take part in PVP - splitting a redundant divide in between.

Etc.


The more the merrier folks.

 

LoL.
Ok you got me wrong.
And i just came out of bed and i am ill.
I just forgot tthat we already found out that "this" isn't "your" fault.
I am sorry ^^

 

That was about the Hospitallers? D'oh.
@Mykll read the post before this one ^^

 

I like the idea of tiered membership like guild membership, and a collection of guilds forming an alliance but am saddened by the prospect of just allowing multi guild membership. Guilds mean allot to me and i don't want to see a GW2 situation where joining a guild is nothing more than subscribing to an additional chat channel. Guild/Clan is family.

 

its all good, i am just trying to explain what the new players initiative is.. Spoon did a better job.

 

Then, with the Newbie Mega Guild in, i hereby call this game "Cousins of the Avatar"

 

LOL, well yes.

 

But those two are not counterparts it is just a small question of implementation.

If I were in charge (muhahahahhehehe) then I would let the guild itself decide if it was "exclusive" or not. That way if specifically you and envy etc want your exclusive guild where the members are not allowed in any other, then so be it, fine and dandy.
But that shouldn't hinder the majority of getting multi-tiered guild memberships.
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...ild-warfare-feedback.42507/page-6#post-473959
This since if you live in Etceter and want a "Citizens of Etceter" group, while at the same time having a business arrangement with "Goldminers of Novia" group, and having your loyal battleclan "WeKillStuff-AreYouStuff-ThenStuffYou" group, then why should they be stopped from having that because you want exclusivity?

Its not an either/or scenario, it is a win-win scenario.

 

Unfortunately based upon the language used by Dallas and Berek; i'm pretty certain they have made the decision on multi guilds and it is something that will happen.

I don't believe it's good or healthy for a game, guilds become meaningless, it destroys the notion of true rivalry.....the list goes on.

If the game ever gets to the stage where it is successful in terms of a playerbase, I would certainly boot anyone from my guild who starts joining others...........based upon the current player trajectory and game design decisions, I doubt that will ever happen.