Why do we need a newbie-mega-guild?

To be fair you posted that they were going to trojan-horse this into the game and that you were being kept out of the loop purposefully. (Or perhaps you were saying instead that was a possible impression someone could have, not that it was your impression.) I think that is what invited the conspiracy comment from Berek.

I do think an open conversation is always good to have - I don't disagree with the thread even though I haven't shared a viewpoint on it.



TBH, I'd rather see something like a newbiechat channel for question and answer type things. Developers, Volunteers, etc. on this channel answering questions (with some people given the ability to mute people on newbiechat if they are advertising for something). I think the biggest "fear" people have is the recruiting, and I experienced this when I made a new character under a different name. But I think it is a poor thing to shoot down a positive thing (access to knowledgeable/helpful/friendly people as a new player) because of the fear that this may give a guild a recruiting advantage is unfortunate.

Perhaps the ability to belong or chat to multiple guilds would be better if those other guilds had a finite number of members would cause them to be selective about who they bring in, rather than "everyone" and may promote growth of some smaller guilds too rather than just joining one of four mega-guilds.

I would LOVE to have the ability to have a town chat. I have about 20 or so people living in my town but the only we can chat is via PM or if they join the guild I am a member of. These players come from multiple guilds. We have the function of creating chat rooms in discord and working with overlays, but it would be preferable to have it in-game.

 

This game caters way too much for just a once little part of the community... with more people leaving they gain more and more influence. Why does this game promote all kind of cult behavior rather than give the players freedom to play the way they want and generate their own ways...

 

Ahh, there it is. I deciphered your 600 word message.

 

Dude. The Dude abides... He abides, dude........

 

I am not totally against multi guilds. If it was up to me i would not have it though. I think if they consolidated information in a cenral area we would not be forced into speculating things. When things appear out of the blue with several contradictory stories by upper management you naturally wonder why. But when you ask you get belittled or ignored.

 

Give me your mailing address, I'll send you butter and sugar!

 

It's funny, people keep tossing around terms like "newbie chat" and "newbie guild". I would be moderately offended but I've learned that even though I've been here since day 1, I'm still a newb when it comes to certain game features. I would love to be part of a global chat where I can ask simple questions because.....even though I've been here for over three years, there are plenty of things in game I don't understand. Using two or three methods of communication is cumbersome (i.e. in game chat, forums, discord, etc). I'd much rather be able to join a global chat to ask and answer questions all from within the game (this was possible back in my BBS days if I remember correctly. ). I will not however, join a guild to do so. It's a choice, I understand. I've been a part of guilds in the past - they are just too messy.

I am curious, from the dev's who object to global chat, why the "newbie guild" would work better than just a simple "newbie chat". That would be my one question.

 

More likely, the multiguild/newbieguild/guild alliance thing(s) is/are still so new, the devs haven't hammered out the details.. and they don't want to post their speculation on implementation and get a bunch if "but you said" 's later. Considering the reaction so far, I don't think they want to revisit it without a more concrete statement.

 

You have it already!

 

It seems like the main argument against this is the global chat. Why, exactly, is global chat a problem anyway?

....and "regional economy" doesn't count because it doesn't exist.

 

Better to have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy?

 

I fear some are still clinging to the idea of regional economy in this game even if it is clear that the chance to work into that direction is gone already. A global chat is another big step away from it. It's a decision which is made right now. Some don't like it. And some hate it, that they got the info about it in public chat and not earlier in dev+-chat. It's a vanity-fair ;-)

 

I think there might be some blowback as it is in the kickstarter.

 

I would like to apologize to everyone for giving the impression that multi-guilds are a fully decided and fully designed feature. It is neither (as Berek has stated in this thread). "Guild Alliances" might be a better term for the concept that has been briefly discussed by the designers, and as was mentioned by Starr in his post about the Outlander Guild. I, for one, consider guild alliances to be a very important feature for healthy guild growth and sustainability, for many of the same reasons as posted by @Spoon in this thread.

Many of you have asked why the devs are against a global help chat channel, since an Outlander guild chat will require much the same level of moderation as a global chat. I do not recall all of the reasons, but one I do recall is performance. A global chat channel requires broadcasting all chat in that channel to all players concurrently viewing that chat. The tech team says we cannot handle that potential load. However, they felt the load on an Outlander guild chat channel, with a much smaller subset of concurrent online players, would have manageable performance. Also, my explanation of this performance issue is my own, non-technical interpretation of what I think I heard the tech guys say (much the same as my mis-quoting "guild alliances" as "...enhancing the guild technology to allow a player to belong to multiple guilds simultaneously"), so please don't lawyer me over my non-technical interpretation.

So, the design concepts for the Outlander guild, as well as guild alliances, are still in their infancy. We are listening to the feedback that has been offered and will, as always, take it into consideration. And to paraphrase other voices on this thread, no feature is set in stone, if a feature has issues, then we make adjustments.

Once again, my apologies for my misleading reference regarding multiple guild memberships when speaking of guild alliance design concepts. I wish to thank all of you for your passionate feedback as we all share the same goal of making Shroud of the Avatar the best game it can be!

dallas

 

This is surprising. All the more reason the game should integrate with Discord for chat services. Plus the players could then access chat channels outside the game, including mobile.

With Discord.everything is in the client side.

 

Well guild alliances is something completly different, at least in my mind.
And something i personally have been waiting for ^^

 

Thank you for the clarification Dallas. It is greatly appreciated. I have eanted guild alliances for a long time. This is a good step forward.

 

It's disturbing that your tech guys feel they cannot handle the load of roughly 250-500 players (peak loads) at once.

Numbers according to Steam.

 

Steam doesn't give peak loads, only Steam Peak players. And presumably they would continue to design towards more than the current peak players (he said "potential load" not "current load"). I admit that it surprises me how much of a load a global chat might take up. Though in other games they cap each chat at X number of players so you have global1/global2 etc. I thought it was always because it got too spammy but perhaps it's more of a server issue.

 

Maybe the load issue and the global chat limitations has to do with the chat system the game uses??? Maybe time to look at alternatives to the IRC chat style window and log system.. I mean, many other games handle world chat and other guild chats...? Don't they?

Isn't the strength of the old-style IRC supposed to be something along the lines of simplicity? Not bring us back further? I think IRC also handle a lot more chats than this game is suggesting, so I am unsure why we stick to the IRC window, if it can't perform like IRC?