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Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning: Correspondent - Bringing Back Guild Life
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
Warhammer Online Correspondent Bao Huynh writes this article about the importance of guilds in MMOs and why he believes that WAR will return them to their former glory.
Since the beginning of the MMORPG and its popularity, games stemming from Ultima Online and succeeding titles have embedded guilds into their massive worlds. In some games, guilds were necessities, and other games it simply seemed like a paid-for space so you can advertise a silly tag name like "Orcs Gone Wild", and other awkward names one can conjure up.
The recent trend in MMOs has not given guilds and their members anything to really shoot for. Loyalty between guild members was hard to come by simply because games like World of Warcraft have turned guilds into politicking around who gets the uber phat lewts. Star Wars Galaxies tried the Player Association and most of those were really formed so that the town mayor could shoot for metropolis status. EverQuest 2 tried the whole guild leveling thing and it worked to a certain degree. I can go on and on, but to cut right to the point, nowhere in my 10+ years of MMOing have I felt more of a bond and need for a guild than in Mythic Entertainment's Dark Age of Camelot.
;)
Read the article here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
I completely agree with that article. When I was in a guild in DAoC it felt really good and right to belong. There was also a real sense of loyalty and when I played it was quite rare to hear about people defecting.
I enjoyed playing in a guild in the early days of WoW, and we hung out to level up and basically gank before there was any PvP rewards. I think they ruined guilds in WoW somewhat when they introduced PvP rewards, because there wasn't/isn't anything really aimed at the guild. I suppose some high level instances are easier to achieve with a well organised guild, but that's not everyone's cup of tea and like the author says at the end of the day people are just in the guild for chat and loot.
--
First: DAOC
Current: WAR
Played: PotBS, WoW, DDO, LOTRO, SWG, 9D
Anticipating: Stargate Worlds, Warhammer 40k Online
Another well written article by an in game correspondent that lacks enough content to make it anything more than a glorified forum post.
Please, if you are going to write an article, add content and not just your thoughts on the demise of guilds in online games and how WAR is the savior. There was maybe 1 paragraph of WAR content.
Shadowbane had the best implimentation of guilds. If MMO developers want to make meaningful guilds, they'll have to take a page from that game ; sorry jack, but a token leveling system and a banner just isn't going to do anything special for guilds.
Content Writer for RTSGuru.com
And overall bitter old man.
Is it me or are Most of the articles that are written for MMORPG.com a little short?. I start reading them only to get myself comfortable which takes most articles i've read from MMORPG.com about 2 paragraphs to do. Then 2 paragraphs later it ends. Surely they can write alot more.
It actually forced me to go research on WHY the living guild system was different, such as one point stating there were different guild levels, i had to find out what they were. Something i shouldent need to do if they were actually writing about it. Instead it felt like the writer was just telling me that WAR are implementing a Living Guild System, which anyone following the newsletter should know anyway.
I agree!
The words that are wrote are well written, but they lack meaningful content. I was looking forward to an explanation of the WAR guild system, as that is what the title lead me to believe I would get. But it didn't deliver.
and btw since 4 years+ lineage 2 allowed guilds to fight against each other on huge siege battles and for around 2 years theres a living guild system where your guild earns skills for pvp/pve...
its not a genious invention of war and one of the biggest issues war has to prove to me is that there still can be fun in the game even if you are not in an uber guild
imho as soon as you issue out rewards people will be drawn to the top guilds and most throw their loyalty out of the window if they are on the loosing side.
so war has to prove that underdogs can have fun and im not talking about soloplay or pugs here but smaller, well organised guild that fight the establishment.
things i miss in the concept so far is that you get a bonus (in moral, gold, xp or whatever) if you fight stronger guilds and only time will tell if theres anything in place that stops the big guilds to grab stuff intended for the little guys. war will be about competition and it will loose subscribers if the people in small guilds continiously will loose.
if your bored, visit my blog at:
http://craylon.wordpress.com/ dealing with the look of mmos with the nvidia 3d vision glasses
Meaningful guilds are one of the things I'm hoping for in WAR. Not that I'm sure I will be able to participate that much in guild-activites, but that's a personal issue for me. Also a game I think is well worth a meantion when talking about meaningful guilds is EvE Online. A corp (corporation, EvEs version of guilds) can really offer its members a lot, especially newer players who joins a friendly corp and get help with everything from ships/gear to ship setups and so forth. Not sure how well implemented EvEs corp-system is. But there are features like corp-bank with different access setups at least. I'm not the best person to talk about the specifics of corps, so I'll not get further into it. And also corps are of course the basis of alliances which play a big role in "end-game" EvE.
Playing: Xbox360.
Played: NC, WoW, EvE, WAR, LOTRO.
Waiting: Dust 514, SW:TOR, Infinity:TQFE, et al.
Guilds and loyalty in MMOs are something that is not around anymore. Thats all to do with WOW and the greedy evolvment it has turned out to be.
In some ways you can say that the guild and server hopping is a good thing cause lets face it - alot of guildleaders are asholes and should not be in charge of one single person. But it also gives alot of scums out there the chance to jump around at will to get things they are after. And when they get them - they jsut move on to next guild to get some few extras.
This is sadly what WOW is turning into. With that said - the huge guild efforts that are put into playing the PVE content in the game are probably the best of any MMO and gives ppl the real feeling of acomplishing something -not only as an individual - but as a team.
If guildlvls in WAR can come close to that ? Dunno. Im still waiting for the game that brings out content that both rewards PVE (like wow) and PVP (like war) where these two groups of ppl work together to improve each other. It can get boring running PVEs 5 days a week and PVP is .... well.... just killing some ppl. Many dont like that and want rather to work with ppl without killing them.
And then... there are ofc the issues that actually make things like PVP not much of a contest if it turns out to be battle of the ping. OFC there should be PVE content for those ppl to enjoy and be rewarded for.
I agree with most of what you say. And to promote EvE a little more (no I don't play or get payed for this
) there is actually a quite good balance between PvE/PvP in EvE. At least if you count rocks as enemies 
Playing: Xbox360.
Played: NC, WoW, EvE, WAR, LOTRO.
Waiting: Dust 514, SW:TOR, Infinity:TQFE, et al.
imho serverhopping is the downside of a fast lvling game.
if you need 2years to build up your char your less likely to mess up your reputation or just quit the server to start over.
if your bored, visit my blog at:
http://craylon.wordpress.com/ dealing with the look of mmos with the nvidia 3d vision glasses
In WoW you can transfer your char though. Sure you lose your player to player reputation, but that's not worth much in WoW anyway. In the best of worlds I prefer a single realm (server), but for a RvR-game that doesn't work unless the game world is HUGE, which isn't really possible for a game like WAR (it is for EvE though *slaps self*)
Playing: Xbox360.
Played: NC, WoW, EvE, WAR, LOTRO.
Waiting: Dust 514, SW:TOR, Infinity:TQFE, et al.
Craynlon, to your question about can non-Uber guilds still be enjoyable...
I don't know first hand as I've not had the chance to play yet, but from what I've heard/read even medium sized guilds should have an impact on the game.
Scenario: Tier 2 Destruction Keep being attacked / sieged.
Attackers: ~75 Order players. One guild (we'll call them Uber) with 50 players. A 2nd guild (medium sized guild) of 15 players and 10 remaining players there to join in the battle.
Upon Victory, assuming they do win, each guild that was represented with Banners has the ability to "claim" the keep and place their banners on it. Once placed all Order members in vicinity of the Keep will benefit from any effects from said banners. Not only can the 50 player guild place their banner(s) but so can the guild of only 15. While they may not have as many banners, nor as many collective kills, they can still join in on the victory, gain appropriate XP for their guild level and assist in maintaining control of the keep with their affixed banners.
Now obviously those 15 people alone probably could not take over the keep, but who would expect that to happen in a WAR? But alliances and well coordinated efforts between guilds should allow smaller uniquely identified guilds to exist and thrive well.
As I said, this is what I've heard / read and this is what I'm hoping for.
-Sven
Confusing article, you start out saying how guilds will be so important in War yet you never seem to get around to saying in what manner they will be important. They are not the first to have guild leveling, you have to explain how War differentiates between the other games.
I suggest you take a course in writing, it would help you understand how to write a coherent article.
I SO agree with the OP! I bemoaned it so long now, that most guilds nowadays are nothing more than chatrooms. Granted, I met some nice ppl there, but a game needs to motivate people to do something together as guild, and that can be achieved, they only need to think of some creative ways. EQ2 has managed that ok, and I hope WAR will bring back guild life as it should be, as something more than a chat channel!
I have to agree that I didn't understand the article. I understood all the sentences, but I didn't quite get the point other than this guy liked his DAoC guild.
Questions that should have been answered:
1. If it takes an alliance of guilds to RVR - why not just make one big guild? It seems like organizing a bunch of smaller guilds to set up a RVR event is just an extra waste of time.
2. Did DAoC have guild levels? If not, why do you think that having them will be good for WAR?
3. What the hell are guild levels in WAR? What do they do for you?
4. Will you be forced to join a 50 person guild in WAR if you want to partake in RVR? If so, is that a good thing?
I found the article to be lightweight and 'general'. Vague statements of personal opinion with no fact to back them up. Maybe this article is too early . Waiting until release and giving 'THIS is what is happening. SEE how it will change the Guild systems for the better.'
I am 100% for WAR. I do think the Guilds will make a positive impact and the changes to them will be highly enjoyable/beneficial. I think the overall backbone of WAR is 'Good vs Evil' and need to defeat one side or the other will have a 'cohesion effect', not the Guilds specifically.
(There. I wrote an article too)
Go to Mythic's official Warhammer site and watch the production podcasts. Somewhere in all of those is one called "Living Guilds" or something like that. That seemed to explain things a lot better.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
The podcasts are great. I think most of the postings here were less about 'You gave information we don't understand' and more about 'MMORPG.com articles are getting softer and softer. If there is no content, why bother writing in the first place.
Totally agree with this article!
[Insert Pic2.jpg here] -rofl :]