Do you think it's better to have fewer Guilds ?

delete5230 · February 2017

What's your view on this,

In an mmo where the game focuses on community interaction and grouping, do you think the amount of guilds should be limited ?

The reason I'm asking is often mmos have hundred's of small guilds, everyone and their brother seem to make a guild. Hell, This spreads the community thin. People out of desperation for their guild to be popular make up numbers only to find they only have 7 true active members. How many people have witnessed this in their mmo life span ?

I don't buy this !...... " It's your fault, you should research good guilds on the internet "
Well yes somewhat BUT, because of freedom to make guilds on a whim this shouldn't have to be !

What's the harm in having the freedom of hundreds of guilds ?...........Lot's ! Players can't organize to the games full potential, simply spread too thin !.......How often have you had problems filling a group at say level 24. When you have guilds with only 21 members, the answer is clear, you can't. So what's your options ? Guild bounce ! Good players are left un-noticed because of lack of research external to the game !

Developers have all the control, it's a flaw in all mmo's.

Limit the number of guilds, what do you think ?

Blueliner · February 2017

uhm no? There is no rational reason to limit guild numbers. every game I have been involved in (and there's been a lot) there are lots of guilds, the good guilds rise and smaller guilds become stepping stones to the larger guilds, while some small guilds stay that way by choice and loyalty. What you are saying is one step away from being assigned a guild apon character creation. Let people play the way they want.

jimmywolf · February 2017

even in the fantasy world of only 1-2 guilds per server their still be issues, the key is not to limit diversity to force group play but encourage more ways any content can be done.

their no right answer as give to many options you go wow version with everybody wins a epic loot or force to much an you get hardcore mode only elitist get good loot an see end game content.

Kyleran · February 2017

No, I'd rather see a server of many small guilds as then they would have to cooperate between them to get things done.

DAOC has alliances for this purpose, as does EVE and in both I've never observed any issues to getting larger content.

What I"d rather see is a cap on guild or alliance size, it seems I've seen a greater scourge from the presence of mega organizations rather than many smaller ones.

I've watched big guilds ruin titles such as Shadowbane or L2, even in EVE many distain the power of the big alliances.

Besides running a mega guild is a real chore, practically a full time job in EVE and many corps and alliances actually pay their leaders to run them.

While usually in the form of in game currency I've seen Plex (sub time) and even RL cash used. (even in WOW I met a guy who was paid $600 a month by his guild to tank and be their raid leader, and this was back in Vanilla WOW days.)

filmoret · February 2017

It worked for Muds. But they were rpg and well noone in a mmo wants the rpg part.

Dullahan · February 2017

I'm with @Kyleran. I'd rather see caps on guild size before limitations to creating guilds. I don't particularly want either, but I do like the idea of people finding smaller groups of like-minded players that enhances the experience, and then forming alliances. That was how guilds worked on EQ's Rallos Zek (FFA PvP) server.

Big guilds are often very stale and impersonal, which in my experience, leads to the game feeling more like a chore than a pleasure.

Sovrath · February 2017

Yeah, I think people should be able to form guilds with like minded people.

Mylan12 · February 2017

Should be no limit on the number of guilds. Limiting them would lead to impersonal mega guilds. In early EQ most guilds were small even raiding ones. On my server the top three raiding guilds at first had an alliance to do big content like the Plan of Sky. Small guilds also teach you how to do things with a small group of players instead of zerging everything.
Note: I hope this game does not support zerging big mobs or raids.
Killing the early dragons in pre-expansion EQ with 18 to 22 people was a lot of fun.

Mendel · February 2017

I think that limiting the number of guilds is perfectly fine. It would encourage more pick-up groups, or at least attempt to encourage them. In a group-oriented game, both guild and pick-up groups should be encouraged. Starting a guild should have a substantial in-game fee, to keep everyone from starting individual guilds.

I'd rather see limits on guild size before a limit on the number of guilds, though. I've been in too many guilds where the membership was in the hundreds, but never more than 5 people were online at a time.

I'd also like to see some game explore the concept of guild dues for individuals, and a sliding scale for the guild fees / taxes depending on membership beyond the usual guildhall fees.

TyranusPrime · February 2017

This is a tough question for me, as I have recently been balancing the idea back and forth.. Implemented in the right way, you might just be able to re-invent the way people play MMOs (possibly even in a way few have even considered yet).. However, that implementation comes at the cost of a "loss" of a player choice.. A "loss" that many would balk at..

The positives could include new perspectives on player interaction and grouping, possibly even provide a greater sense of community (something that is very often sorely lacking).. The negatives remain as a "loss" of a feature that has been around since Ultima Online - Creating guilds..

To be honest, I am not really sure anymore.. I see positives and negatives to both.. And, seeing as I am trying to evolve the genre and build my own MMO someday, I am constantly having to examine and re-examine these kinds of ideas.. Maybe its time for guilds to become less of what they were and to now evolve in a different direction.. Or, maybe they need to remain as they are due to guilds being too set in stone and players not willing or not wishing to change..

Jury is still out.. But I do enjoy reading everyone's comments.. Really helps take the general (very general) pulse of the thoughts out there..

Mylan12 · February 2017

Mendel said:

I think that limiting the number of guilds is perfectly fine. It would encourage more pick-up groups, or at least attempt to encourage them. In a group-oriented game, both guild and pick-up groups should be encouraged. Starting a guild should have a substantial in-game fee, to keep everyone from starting individual guilds.

I'd rather see limits on guild size before a limit on the number of guilds, though. I've been in too many guilds where the membership was in the hundreds, but never more than 5 people were online at a time.

I'd also like to see some game explore the concept of guild dues for individuals, and a sliding scale for the guild fees / taxes depending on membership beyond the usual guildhall fees.

Limiting the number of guilds will really hurt this game and I don't see them doing that. Other games have limited the number of members in a guild and if done right that could work fine. As far as a guild with 100 of members and just 5 active, who is that hurting? Why should anyone else care? If those 5 members are unhappy then they can leave the guild or try and recruit new players. Also if this mostly inactive guild had a limit of say 60 members with only 5 active, how would that change anything?
You answered you own question about limiting the number of guilds. You could end up with a server full of mostly inactive guilds and all the people left on the server will not be able to create a new ones.
As far as pickup groups, some people like them and some don't. You can have pickup groups fine with lots of guilds around. Actually in early EQ. it made forming pickups easier as guilds had reputation so you have some idea about this unknown player wanting to join the group. With an unguilded person, you would have to take a chance or depend on the persons own reputation if such exist.

Distopia · February 2017

In my experience it's the small tight knit guilds that are the most effective.. so no... WHo wants just a few massive zerg guilds?

delete5230 · February 2017

Well, I do see good points to let the Guilds fly.

But maybe make Guilds much harder to start ( add more pre requites ).

Like I say, many good points, but you have to admit, often mmos have hundreds of Guilds, many are made with a half assed assumption that the leader MAY decide to stick around or maybe not.

I guess what I'm more trying to say is at least stop that......What do you think ?

Kyleran · February 2017

delete5230 said:

Well, I do see good points to let the Guilds fly.

But maybe make Guilds much harder to start ( add more pre requites ).

Like I say, many good points, but you have to admit, often mmos have hundreds of Guilds, many are made with a half assed assumption that the leader MAY decide to stick around or maybe not.

I guess what I'm more trying to say is at least stop that......What do you think ?

Not really sure what problem you are trying to solve here, does it matter if a game has hundreds of half assed guilds?

If people wish to join a larger one they easily can

You appear to be trying to force them into joining larger guilds which I see no real benefit to.

Lokero · February 2017

This would be like releasing a swarm of cobras on your land to get rid of mice. Sure, you may get rid of the mice, but then you have a new(and worse) problem.

SavageHorizon · February 2017

Long as you can't join multiple guilds I'm OK with whatever system. The multiple guild system is just a community killer imo.

Mylan12 · March 2017

Torval said:

Distopia said:

In my experience it's the small tight knit guilds that are the most effective.. so no... WHo wants just a few massive zerg guilds?

I think they're more social and you end up with better combat groups. You know your guilds idiosyncrasies and strengths. In a really big guild you might not even get the chance to build that. The potential for better social interactions (loot sharing, drama, etc) are there too.

I like that size of guild because I have strong min/max tendencies. I like to gear up the best I can and I like to help and see my guild gear up. In a larger guild that can easily get lost in the shuffle between A-teams, B-teams, and everyone else feeding off the scraps.

Yeah I like smaller guilds in pre-expansion EQ, we were a small guild but made do with what we had for the most part and used alliances when that didn't work. I remember once we were going after the dragon Vox and one of the clerics was late. We could not do it without 3 clerics. Anyway this large guild came in with their usual at the time 6+ groups and died. About that time our cleric got in game so we killed her with around 3 groups.

Adamantine · March 2017

delete5230 said:
In an mmo where the game focuses on community interaction and grouping, do you think the amount of guilds should be limited ?

YIKES ! Whats that for a fascist concept ? Seriously ? The heck ?

delete5230 said:
The reason I'm asking is often mmos have hundred's of small guilds,

Sure. And thats how it should be.

delete5230 said:

This spreads the community thin.

Nothing stops you from joining a bigger guild. Nothing stops you from joining a smaller guild. Unhappy with the current guild ? Leave it, join one that fits your needs better.

I have no clue why you think we need to regulate how people are allowed to play.

Amathe · March 2017

All that stuff you are looking to curtail - research on guilds, asking people questions about their guilds, conversations about what expectations the guild is not meeting, resolving those conflicts, and so on - that's all the social interaction/community type of stuff that is going to be a big part of this game's design. If you take that away, we may as well tee up the auction house debate again (because why should someone have to search, stop, inspect, talk to people and negotiate with them when it could just be the press of a few buttons).

svann · March 2017

So you get your guild started on day 1 and screw everyone else that comes later? No.

Redsalt · March 2017

Short answer: no.
Limiting the amount of guilds in game does not make sense. More choice in this area is good.

If none of the options for guilds is a good fit for me, then I could start my own with a group of like minded players. If you limit the amount, then this becomes a problem. Nothing wrong with small guilds.

laxie · March 2017

delete5230 said:
In an mmo where the game focuses on community interaction and grouping, do you think the amount of guilds should be limited ?

I was thinking about this recently.

Having preset guilds would make them more meaningful. You could also have those guilds interact with the lore. In a fantasy setting, you could perhaps have a guild of bankers - players would join and participate on a variety of ranks, being part of the "banker guild". Others could perhaps join the guard, getting rewards and content more tailored to what a guard would do.

I had a similar concept on my Minecraft RPG server. You had one central town, with three different branches. The civic (allowing them to plan the city, allocate building materials, collect rent), the executive (setting laws, commanding the guard) and the trade (arranging for crafting imports, setting trade taxes). The players could then contribute to these branches on the lower ranks, or register to be elected into higher ranks and get more powers.

The design on my server had several features that made this possible. (I did not plan for these explicitly; they just turned out to complement the system very well):

Players were affecting the guilds indirectly, even if they didn't mean to. If you sold something to a trader, the taxes would trickle down into the trade treasury. If you were selling a lot of swords, the guards would do better in combat. This allows players who do not reach the top ranks of the guild still contribute in a meaningful way.
You did not have to be a member to notice the benefits. If the civic branch built a new hospital, every player would get a new respawn point to use. Higher spending on guards would make areas around the town more safe for all the players. Again, this partially eliminates the issue of being left out. All of the players had some connection to the guilds around them.
The elected officials had significant impact. I was wary of this at first, as the Minecraft community is very young. To my surprise, the fact that these positions are elected meant those in power were quite responsible - everyone cared about reelection. Having access to potentially game changing features meant other players were inclined to engage with the guilds. For example, we had crafters regularly talk to the Trade officials to negotiate which imports would be ordered into the town.

I think this system has a lot of potential. By presetting guilds, you are encouraging players to interact with each other in a meaningful way. Even though our players were initially bummed they can't form small guilds for 2-3 of their friends, the interactions going on outweighed that in my opinion.

It may be difficult to scale this into the numbers of AAA games though. You would have to instance this somehow, perhaps similar to the concept of UO Shards or traditional MMORPG "realms". It would not be possible to have these relationships with the community changing all the time, which seems to be the trend in design lately (e.g. automatic instances, megaservers).

Dullahan · March 2017

Preset guilds you can join wouldn't be a bad idea. Especially if you can earn your way into more prestigious ones and it came with perks. Probably would want that to work in conjunction with normal guilds though.

Another thing I've always liked the thought of is racial adventuring guilds that players start in. Players could leave it at any time, but it would help new players. Maybe every 10 levels, it moves you into a higher tier guild that puts you with people who are in common areas and with whom you can discuss relevant topics.

For instance, halflings of Wild's End might start out in a guild called "Initiates of the End". When they hit level 20, they join Explorers of the End. Gives players an immediate community. They could leave at any time to join a player guild. Perhaps members of the starter guilds can get some sort of perks for staying in as a reward for providing a service to the general population.

Mendel · March 2017

laxie said:

delete5230 said:
In an mmo where the game focuses on community interaction and grouping, do you think the amount of guilds should be limited ?

I was thinking about this recently.

Having preset guilds would make them more meaningful. You could also have those guilds interact with the lore. In a fantasy setting, you could perhaps have a guild of bankers - players would join and participate on a variety of ranks, being part of the "banker guild". Others could perhaps join the guard, getting rewards and content more tailored to what a guard would do.

I had a similar concept on my Minecraft RPG server. You had one central town, with three different branches. The civic (allowing them to plan the city, allocate building materials, collect rent), the executive (setting laws, commanding the guard) and the trade (arranging for crafting imports, setting trade taxes). The players could then contribute to these branches on the lower ranks, or register to be elected into higher ranks and get more powers.

The design on my server had several features that made this possible. (I did not plan for these explicitly; they just turned out to complement the system very well):
Players were affecting the guilds indirectly, even if they didn't mean to. If you sold something to a trader, the taxes would trickle down into the trade treasury. If you were selling a lot of swords, the guards would do better in combat. This allows players who do not reach the top ranks of the guild still contribute in a meaningful way.

You did not have to be a member to notice the benefits. If the civic branch built a new hospital, every player would get a new respawn point to use. Higher spending on guards would make areas around the town more safe for all the players. Again, this partially eliminates the issue of being left out. All of the players had some connection to the guilds around them.

The elected officials had significant impact. I was wary of this at first, as the Minecraft community is very young. To my surprise, the fact that these positions are elected meant those in power were quite responsible - everyone cared about reelection. Having access to potentially game changing features meant other players were inclined to engage with the guilds. For example, we had crafters regularly talk to the Trade officials to negotiate which imports would be ordered into the town.
I think this system has a lot of potential. By presetting guilds, you are encouraging players to interact with each other in a meaningful way. Even though our players were initially bummed they can't form small guilds for 2-3 of their friends, the interactions going on outweighed that in my opinion.

It may be difficult to scale this into the numbers of AAA games though. You would have to instance this somehow, perhaps similar to the concept of UO Shards or traditional MMORPG "realms". It would not be possible to have these relationships with the community changing all the time, which seems to be the trend in design lately (e.g. automatic instances, megaservers).

I like this, @laxie. I had a similar idea about 'formalizing' the government, trade guilds, and religious 'hierarchies' as extended, but separate guild-like entities. The trade guilds would control everything about a specific craft in an area, from who was eligible to craft, to what they would make, and how much they could charge for items. The local governments dealt with making laws, planning improvements, residency and local security. The religious branch organized festivals and organized communal rituals (that was about as far as I got with that branch). But each branch would have had player participation, where players could even earn a leadership position in the organization.

I had hoped these types of organizations would be far more in-touch with the game lore, and have a specific function within the game world, as opposed to typical player guilds.

Kyleran · March 2017

Dullahan said:

Preset guilds you can join wouldn't be a bad idea. Especially if you can earn your way into more prestigious ones and it came with perks. Probably would want that to work in conjunction with normal guilds though.

Another thing I've always liked the thought of is racial adventuring guilds that players start in. Players could leave it at any time, but it would help new players. Maybe every 10 levels, it moves you into a higher tier guild that puts you with people who are in common areas and with whom you can discuss relevant topics.

For instance, halflings of Wild's End might start out in a guild called "Initiates of the End". When they hit level 20, they join Explorers of the End. Gives players an immediate community. They could leave at any time to join a player guild. Perhaps members of the starter guilds can get some sort of perks for staying in as a reward for providing a service to the general population.

Great idea really, maybe they could call the game Guild Wars.... Oh wait, NVM.

Would cool if such a game was made.

Mylan12 · March 2017

laxie said:

delete5230 said:
In an mmo where the game focuses on community interaction and grouping, do you think the amount of guilds should be limited ?

I was thinking about this recently.

Having preset guilds would make them more meaningful. You could also have those guilds interact with the lore. In a fantasy setting, you could perhaps have a guild of bankers - players would join and participate on a variety of ranks, being part of the "banker guild". Others could perhaps join the guard, getting rewards and content more tailored to what a guard would do.

I had a similar concept on my Minecraft RPG server. You had one central town, with three different branches. The civic (allowing them to plan the city, allocate building materials, collect rent), the executive (setting laws, commanding the guard) and the trade (arranging for crafting imports, setting trade taxes). The players could then contribute to these branches on the lower ranks, or register to be elected into higher ranks and get more powers.

The design on my server had several features that made this possible. (I did not plan for these explicitly; they just turned out to complement the system very well):
Players were affecting the guilds indirectly, even if they didn't mean to. If you sold something to a trader, the taxes would trickle down into the trade treasury. If you were selling a lot of swords, the guards would do better in combat. This allows players who do not reach the top ranks of the guild still contribute in a meaningful way.

You did not have to be a member to notice the benefits. If the civic branch built a new hospital, every player would get a new respawn point to use. Higher spending on guards would make areas around the town more safe for all the players. Again, this partially eliminates the issue of being left out. All of the players had some connection to the guilds around them.

The elected officials had significant impact. I was wary of this at first, as the Minecraft community is very young. To my surprise, the fact that these positions are elected meant those in power were quite responsible - everyone cared about reelection. Having access to potentially game changing features meant other players were inclined to engage with the guilds. For example, we had crafters regularly talk to the Trade officials to negotiate which imports would be ordered into the town.
I think this system has a lot of potential. By presetting guilds, you are encouraging players to interact with each other in a meaningful way. Even though our players were initially bummed they can't form small guilds for 2-3 of their friends, the interactions going on outweighed that in my opinion.

It may be difficult to scale this into the numbers of AAA games though. You would have to instance this somehow, perhaps similar to the concept of UO Shards or traditional MMORPG "realms". It would not be possible to have these relationships with the community changing all the time, which seems to be the trend in design lately (e.g. automatic instances, megaservers).

Other games have done things somewhat similar to this but more limited and simpler. Like crafting guilds such as metal smith, wood worker, ect. In Lotro they have things like "The Inn League" that you can join and get reputation and neat rewards. In no way can I ever see these replacing the regular player created Guilds but as an addition they are ok.
In most of the guilds I have been in members do interact with each other in a meaningful way. If all I had to join was some generic preformed guild that would take a lot of the social aspects of the game away. Actually without player created guilds, I don't think I would even play the game in the first place.

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Do you think it's better to have fewer Guilds ?

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV