We tried the whole "everyone can make a guild" thing the last 15 years, it doesn't work.
It actually encourages people to be less social because instead of a group of friends working with another group of friends, they can just make a pointless guild of 6 and avoid the whole process. If you don't make players invest in their guilds, they will continue to not invest in their guilds. And if you want a unique tag under your name you need to earn it.
I'm with Kano. More games need an alliance system that can bring guilds together if they wish to do bigger things while still having the option to have a smaller more family oriented guild. This was a huge selling point to me with Revelations Online even though some other aspects were dated/questionable. If more games have that going forward, I think more people would stick to certain games more.
I'm with Kano. More games need an alliance system that can bring guilds together if they wish to do bigger things while still having the option to have a smaller more family oriented guild. This was a huge selling point to me with Revelations Online even though some other aspects were dated/questionable. If more games have that going forward, I think more people would stick to certain games more.
We had alliances in EQ with no system in game. In early EQ on my server (the Rathe) we did big raids with an alliance of three guilds (KEG, MFH, and CIW) as none was big enough to do it alone at the time. I not sure why this needs to be an in game system. Later on it was common for smaller guilds to form alliances for some of the content.
We tried the whole "everyone can make a guild" thing the last 15 years, it doesn't work.
It actually encourages people to be less social because instead of a group of friends working with another group of friends, they can just make a pointless guild of 6 and avoid the whole process. If you don't make players invest in their guilds, they will continue to not invest in their guilds. And if you want a unique tag under your name you need to earn it.
It worked fine in the more social and group friendly MMORPGs that I played such EQ, DAoC, EQ2 and LOTRO. In most of them I was in a social family type guild. If I wanted to be in Raiding guild as I was for a time in EQ then I look for one in whatever game and join it. If the game is a solo style MMORPG like most are now days then their be no point in joining a guild unless you want to hang out with friends while you solo the content. If you force people to join a guild with people who may not be compatible in play style or anything else, then this game will be dead on arrival. Allowing people to make guilds with people that have compatible play styles and game goals has worked for years and I see no reason to change it.
We tried the whole "everyone can make a guild" thing the last 15 years, it doesn't work.
It actually encourages people to be less social because instead of a group of friends working with another group of friends, they can just make a pointless guild of 6 and avoid the whole process. If you don't make players invest in their guilds, they will continue to not invest in their guilds. And if you want a unique tag under your name you need to earn it.
What leads you to believe it doesn't work?.
If you have a group of friends, even a group of like minded people in a guild then it is working. If there is another group of friends they can join the guild or just group together and it is still working. You can even fill out guild groups with someone random and, if they seem to fit in, invite them to the guild and it is still working.
Personally do I prefer smaller guilds to ones with hundreds of members, it is way more personal that way and I learn to know my guildies and their playstyle. I'm rather a large fish in a small pond then the other way around, guilds are a lot about social interaction and that part get way more meaningful with 40 players then 400.
I don't honesty see why how large the guild I choose to play in is the devs or any none guildies business.
Let us decide what is most fun and pick guilds based on that.
Now guild alliance mechanics is another matter and a far better solution if you worry that some guilds are too small to effectively raid and would allow smaller guilds to organize together.
We tried the whole "everyone can make a guild" thing the last 15 years, it doesn't work.
It actually encourages people to be less social because instead of a group of friends working with another group of friends, they can just make a pointless guild of 6 and avoid the whole process. If you don't make players invest in their guilds, they will continue to not invest in their guilds. And if you want a unique tag under your name you need to earn it.
You seem to be assigning blame to the wrong game system. You could make small guilds in EQ, but they weren't exactly effective because the game had a greater demand on cooperative play. It's only when group content took a backseat to solo progression that small guilds became popular. When player progression requires groups for most of the content, guilds will once again see the need to expand their guilds to facilitate those groups.
I see a lot of good points to not limiting the amount of guilds. The best one is " it's no ones business how many guilds there are " this is true !
BUT....I would like to say this:
3 ways of finding players 1) Spam chat, doesn't work, no one reads chat. Proven over and over again, however seems most popular for some reason. 2) Ask guilds, Except end game not enough players to fill a group EVER in low and mid level. This forces the player to look outside. 3) Use the Social panel, this works best ! Use the filters to find other players and ask. But no one uses it.
So looking at 2 ( ask guilds ) This always keeps players divided. Unless VRealms has something unique in finding groups, WILL HAVE THE SAME OLD SPAM CHAT !!!!!!
I see a lot of good points to not limiting the amount of guilds. The best one is " it's no ones business how many guilds there are " this is true !
BUT....I would like to say this:
3 ways of finding players 1) Spam chat, doesn't work, no one reads chat. Proven over and over again, however seems most popular for some reason. 2) Ask guilds, Except end game not enough players to fill a group EVER in low and mid level. This forces the player to look outside. 3) Use the Social panel, this works best ! Use the filters to find other players and ask. But no one uses it.
So looking at 2 ( ask guilds ) This always keeps players divided. Unless VRealms has something unique in finding groups, WILL HAVE THE SAME OLD SPAM CHAT !!!!!!
Plenty of people will read the chat in this game, in fact the chat system will be buzzing imo.
No one reads chat anymore, care to give me the evidence for this?
I see a lot of good points to not limiting the amount of guilds. The best one is " it's no ones business how many guilds there are " this is true !
BUT....I would like to say this:
3 ways of finding players 1) Spam chat, doesn't work, no one reads chat. Proven over and over again, however seems most popular for some reason. 2) Ask guilds, Except end game not enough players to fill a group EVER in low and mid level. This forces the player to look outside. 3) Use the Social panel, this works best ! Use the filters to find other players and ask. But no one uses it.
So looking at 2 ( ask guilds ) This always keeps players divided. Unless VRealms has something unique in finding groups, WILL HAVE THE SAME OLD SPAM CHAT !!!!!!
Plenty of people will read the chat in this game, in fact the chat system will be buzzing imo.
No one reads chat anymore, care to give me the evidence for this?
What !.......You want evidence ?
Read every topic for every game related to chat, then log into your favorite mmo and try spamming chat to get a full group...... It's the reason dungeon finders were invented !
Chat system will be buzzing !......... That's not good, just watch your request for others fade away as others are chatting about unrelated topics.
I see a lot of good points to not limiting the amount of guilds. The best one is " it's no ones business how many guilds there are " this is true !
BUT....I would like to say this:
3 ways of finding players 1) Spam chat, doesn't work, no one reads chat. Proven over and over again, however seems most popular for some reason. 2) Ask guilds, Except end game not enough players to fill a group EVER in low and mid level. This forces the player to look outside. 3) Use the Social panel, this works best ! Use the filters to find other players and ask. But no one uses it.
So looking at 2 ( ask guilds ) This always keeps players divided. Unless VRealms has something unique in finding groups, WILL HAVE THE SAME OLD SPAM CHAT !!!!!!
Plenty of people will read the chat in this game, in fact the chat system will be buzzing imo.
No one reads chat anymore, care to give me the evidence for this?
What !.......You want evidence ?
Read every topic for every game related to chat, then log into your favorite mmo and try spamming chat to get a full group...... It's the reason dungeon finders were invented !
Chat system will be buzzing !......... That's not good, just watch your request for others fade away as others are chatting about unrelated topics.
Again your claim so show me the evidence that know one uses chat anymore and won't in this game.
Its true, the groupfinder worked much better in Vanguard than chat or guild.
In absolute terms, sure a lot of people read chat. But with a groupfinder and /tell you're much faster, because you can target the possible candiates directly and usually get a clear "no" or "yes" very quickly.
I see a lot of good points to not limiting the amount of guilds. The best one is " it's no ones business how many guilds there are " this is true !
BUT....I would like to say this:
3 ways of finding players 1) Spam chat, doesn't work, no one reads chat. Proven over and over again, however seems most popular for some reason. 2) Ask guilds, Except end game not enough players to fill a group EVER in low and mid level. This forces the player to look outside. 3) Use the Social panel, this works best ! Use the filters to find other players and ask. But no one uses it.
So looking at 2 ( ask guilds ) This always keeps players divided. Unless VRealms has something unique in finding groups, WILL HAVE THE SAME OLD SPAM CHAT !!!!!!
Plenty of people will read the chat in this game, in fact the chat system will be buzzing imo.
No one reads chat anymore, care to give me the evidence for this?
What !.......You want evidence ?
Read every topic for every game related to chat, then log into your favorite mmo and try spamming chat to get a full group...... It's the reason dungeon finders were invented !
Chat system will be buzzing !......... That's not good, just watch your request for others fade away as others are chatting about unrelated topics.
Since you believe what others say, here's my recent experience in a DAOC free shard.
When I first joined the starter guild was alive with players LFG, but I spent much of my time soloing as the game design and low exp of players did not make groups more efficient.
I soon joined a guild and had access to both guild and alliance chat. As a group friendly class I regularly saw tells for my class from both players and groups looking for my services
There is no global chat, but one of your other options is quite common, people reached out several times a play session to invite me.
As I gained levels, the invites and chats increased as from lvl 40 to 50 game design heavily favors grouping for efficient exp gains.
Now that I've become more well known as a player who knows his role in different situations and group compositions I now find people both inside and outside of my guild/alliance regularly seeking out my services.
DAOC has a group finder, but I find it a bit cumbersome to set up and use, but then again I struggle to set up apps on my smart phone sometimes.
Its really the game's group centric design which drives the success of its chat and group finding capabilities perhaps coupled in part by a playerbase long familiar with finding groups by means other than dungeon and raid finders. (though I did have to relearn them as my skills had grown quite rusty over time)
Sure chats fail in many games, but this more due the game's design not properly supporting their use and not a flaw of the chats and the players who know how to properly use them.(along with other social mechanisms of course)
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
We tried the whole "everyone can make a guild" thing the last 15 years, it doesn't work.
It actually encourages people to be less social because instead of a group of friends working with another group of friends, they can just make a pointless guild of 6 and avoid the whole process. If you don't make players invest in their guilds, they will continue to not invest in their guilds. And if you want a unique tag under your name you need to earn it.
It worked fine in the more social and group friendly MMORPGs that I played such EQ, DAoC, EQ2 and LOTRO. In most of them I was in a social family type guild. If I wanted to be in Raiding guild as I was for a time in EQ then I look for one in whatever game and join it. If the game is a solo style MMORPG like most are now days then their be no point in joining a guild unless you want to hang out with friends while you solo the content. If you force people to join a guild with people who may not be compatible in play style or anything else, then this game will be dead on arrival. Allowing people to make guilds with people that have compatible play styles and game goals has worked for years and I see no reason to change it.
Did you even play these games or just the watered down versions, 10 years after the fact? In EQ1 it was extremely annoying to make a guild, requiring a GM at one point. Even DAoC required 8 people sitting in the same zone. EQ2 is widely considered an abomination to the genre, let alone the EQ franchise so who cares what it did. LoTRO was the very first WoW clone ever made, the opposite of the Pantheon audience.
Again, this has probably been stated with rational, and of course, swell arguments, but let the people decide. Prestigious guilds will form on their own and make decisions about membership like they always have. Small guilds will do the same thing. This idea that this system needs to be controlled at all is asinine.
The problem with the original post is that Delete5230 made it. But besides that, if you have difficulty finding a guild that fits you, it's on you. Finding a guild that fits you is an important part of the process.
Just to dig in to what you were challenging specifically, if you put a hard limit on guilds, who would be the leader of these guilds? Who would decide how the guilds are structured? It just a silly idea, in the context of what ACTUALLY happens.
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 ?
This can be a problem, but I think it has more to do with the mechanics of the social systems in the game than anything. Limiting the number of guilds doesn't really fix the problem.
Social systems should bring people together. True. I think we all agree with this.
Guilds (Clans, Linkshells, Corporations, whatever we call them) are one way to bring people together. Some games go further - fellowships for smaller groups, alliances for larger groups, even just private chat channels (EQ had a lot of these, some even spanning across servers for a while).
You want people to be in the size of group they feel comfortable. Some people like to have a lot of people around them, other people only have a couple of close friends they care to be around, others may want to lone wolf it. Everyone plays a bit different, and everyone has a different personality. Heck, someone who typically likes to be around people may just need a break for a couple of days.
The trick is to be able to allow all of these people to weave together and form a tapestry of community - the more seamless you can make that, the better it will be.
Guilds were one fairly coarse way of doing that. Open world "Public" questing was another way of doing that from a different direction. Even the dreaded Random LFG Queues are another way to help bring people together. These all act in a lot of different ways, but they are all methods of addressing the problem you are talking about - mechanisms so that people can get together and have fun.
I don't think there's any one answer. I think the best games are the ones that implement a lot of different methods of meeting people, of keeping in touch with friends, and making it easy to work together on challenging and worth while goals. That requires a lot of different tools - not everything needs to be a guild. The old saying - when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. There are a lot more tools out there to help pull communities together than just a guild.
Another component there is to make sure the dev team is watching the community. A lot of times, a community will come up with a better way of doing things, and a great game will recognize that and turn it around and pull it tighter into the game.
All that being said, I did like Eve's method with NPC Corps
Again, this has probably been stated with rational, and of course, swell arguments, but let the people decide. Prestigious guilds will form on their own and make decisions about membership like they always have. Small guilds will do the same thing. This idea that this system needs to be controlled at all is asinine.
The problem with the original post is that Delete5230 made it. But besides that, if you have difficulty finding a guild that fits you, it's on you. Finding a guild that fits you is an important part of the process.
Just to dig in to what you were challenging specifically, if you put a hard limit on guilds, who would be the leader of these guilds? Who would decide how the guilds are structured? It just a silly idea, in the context of what ACTUALLY happens.
Agreed. What you could do though is to lock guilds to a faction, in reality creating a smaller guild for you and your friends allied with other guilds of the same faction with access to chat and players from those other small guilds when you want to group.
Something like a meta guild. The question is of course if you want a player faction leader that can kick out guilds that don't follow the factions ideals or if you want to use in game mechanics instead.
Personally do I try to keep my guilds below 50 players because I think they are more manageable that way and the guildies learn to know eachother better. In a guld with several hundred players most guildies feel more like facebook friends then real friends and allies.
That do mean it is hard to put together larger raids though.
Every single one of you are right !........How often do I say that ?
I'm trying to get a point across, but I'm having a hard time doing it
I'll phrase it differently........Stop the whim Guilds.
The ones where players randomly say " I think I'll start a guild ". Giving no thought to deep detail other than " lets see how many people I can get ". Maybe the reason is " let me see how popular I can be ".
Sure to each their own, I'm all for freedom to do as you like. I get what many are saying, this is what gives a social game character.....All true !..... But this has MAJOR SIDE EFFECTS, it separates the community.
Many here would say " I'm smarter than that, I know better than joining whim Guilds ".
Some would say " that's your problem, if your that stupid ".
I'm trying to look out for the small guy. The people that are new or the ones that just want to have fun and try their hand at being social.......Should this game NOT be for them too ?..... Many get caught up in the whim Guild mess that all mmo's have.
Many stop playing. They say " I'm not having any fun. Not sure why, I'm just not ".
@delete5230 why stop whim guilds? If people find them fun for them then let them have their fun. After all every great guild started as someone's whim in the beginning.
Every single one of you are right !........How often do I say that ?
I'm trying to get a point across, but I'm having a hard time doing it
I'll phrase it differently........Stop the whim Guilds.
The ones where players randomly say " I think I'll start a guild ". Giving no thought to deep detail other than " lets see how many people I can get ". Maybe the reason is " let me see how popular I can be ".
Sure to each their own, I'm all for freedom to do as you like. I get what many are saying, this is what gives a social game character.....All true !..... But this has MAJOR SIDE EFFECTS, it separates the community.
Many here would say " I'm smarter than that, I know better than joining whim Guilds ".
Some would say " that's your problem, if your that stupid ".
I'm trying to look out for the small guy. The people that are new or the ones that just want to have fun and try their hand at being social.......Should this game NOT be for them too ?..... Many get caught up in the whim Guild mess that all mmo's have.
Many stop playing. They say " I'm not having any fun. Not sure why, I'm just not ".
In life it is important to protect small children and the elderly from being exploited, but adults not so much.
Even more so here in this situation, with so little "danger" from someone joining a "whim" guild there is no good reason to protect people from joining one.
I realize some people may quit a game over a bad guild experience, and some people these days seem to eschew joining them due to a previous bad encounter.
More often than not their complaints are about overbearing, harsh leadership, favoritism to certain members or cliques, dishonesty including theft of dues and assets or excessive drama.
Im pretty sure if any person, even a new player finds themselves in a whim guild they are smart enough to quit and find another.
If they are the rare person who can't figure this out, well then very likely this won't be their sort of game.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
We tried the whole "everyone can make a guild" thing the last 15 years, it doesn't work.
It actually encourages people to be less social because instead of a group of friends working with another group of friends, they can just make a pointless guild of 6 and avoid the whole process. If you don't make players invest in their guilds, they will continue to not invest in their guilds. And if you want a unique tag under your name you need to earn it.
It worked fine in the more social and group friendly MMORPGs that I played such EQ, DAoC, EQ2 and LOTRO. In most of them I was in a social family type guild. If I wanted to be in Raiding guild as I was for a time in EQ then I look for one in whatever game and join it. If the game is a solo style MMORPG like most are now days then their be no point in joining a guild unless you want to hang out with friends while you solo the content. If you force people to join a guild with people who may not be compatible in play style or anything else, then this game will be dead on arrival. Allowing people to make guilds with people that have compatible play styles and game goals has worked for years and I see no reason to change it.
Did you even play these games or just the watered down versions, 10 years after the fact? In EQ1 it was extremely annoying to make a guild, requiring a GM at one point. Even DAoC required 8 people sitting in the same zone. EQ2 is widely considered an abomination to the genre, let alone the EQ franchise so who cares what it did. LoTRO was the very first WoW clone ever made, the opposite of the Pantheon audience.
Your examples lend zero weight to your argument.
Lets see I played EQ from Beta to the third expansion. In it I was in a raiding kin for about a year and then a family style guild for the rest of the time. The family style one was actually the first guild formed on the server. I never started a guild in EQ myself but were plenty around so guess most people figured out how. In DAoC I played from beta till the TOA expansion and was in a guild created by another family style guild that moved from EQ. Note I was not a member of this guild in EQ but often played and grouped with them. I agree that EQ2 was an abomination but I was in an offshoot of my old EQ guild in it. In LOTRO I started in beta and still play some off and on. In it I just found a group of nice people with similar playstyles and joined it. Early on LOTRO was more group orientated but as time went on it became more of a solo affair. I don't think Pantheon will limit the number of guilds. Of course I do agree it shouldn't be trivial to form one. I am also fairly sure they have some type of group finder and hopefully even allow player created chat channels. I think as long as the game encourages group play and limits solo play that people will form groups and guilds to experience the content. I don't see a problem here.
Every single one of you are right !........How often do I say that ?
I'm trying to get a point across, but I'm having a hard time doing it
I'll phrase it differently........Stop the whim Guilds.
The ones where players randomly say " I think I'll start a guild ". Giving no thought to deep detail other than " lets see how many people I can get ". Maybe the reason is " let me see how popular I can be ".
Sure to each their own, I'm all for freedom to do as you like. I get what many are saying, this is what gives a social game character.....All true !..... But this has MAJOR SIDE EFFECTS, it separates the community.
Many here would say " I'm smarter than that, I know better than joining whim Guilds ".
Some would say " that's your problem, if your that stupid ".
I'm trying to look out for the small guy. The people that are new or the ones that just want to have fun and try their hand at being social.......Should this game NOT be for them too ?..... Many get caught up in the whim Guild mess that all mmo's have.
Many stop playing. They say " I'm not having any fun. Not sure why, I'm just not ".
In life it is important to protect small children and the elderly from being exploited, but adults not so much.
Even more so here in this situation, with so little "danger" from someone joining a "whim" guild there is no good reason to protect people from joining one.
I realize some people may quit a game over a bad guild experience, and some people these days seem to eschew joining them due to a previous bad encounter.
More often than not their complaints are about overbearing, harsh leadership, favoritism to certain members or cliques, dishonesty including theft of dues and assets or excessive drama.
Im pretty sure if any person, even a new player finds themselves in a whim guild they are smart enough to quit and find another.
If they are the rare person who can't figure this out, well then very likely this won't be their sort of game.
There just aren't alot of good ways to monitor guild creation.
What EQ1 did was just a nightmare for both the GMs and the players. Sitting in out-of-game chatrooms and crap for hours. It was horrible. They did try to limit them through requiring 10+ people to be present and petitioning there, though.
WoW(iirc) tried to keep the numbers requirement and do away with the tedious GM work. However, this simply resulted in people paying gold to newbies or unguilded folks to sign the charter to reach the requirement. Then the people simply left after the guild was formed.
Neither of those efforts were worth repeating. I don't know if there's any genuinely good ways to restrict these things without a CS nightmare.
I suppose you could have some type of statistic that shows how many hours you've spent in parties with other individuals. And, if you and the founding core for the guild(I'd say a full group at least) have been proven to spend time adventuring/working together then it'd pass a requirement.
Frankly, I think these types of things would just be too much work to bother with, though. And, there's very, very little benefit to even consider it.
Rambling off-topic: I actually wouldn't mind seeing some type of party-tracking statistic, though. On a guild level, it'd be pretty cool to see who groups with whom the most in the guild window or something.
Comments
It actually encourages people to be less social because instead of a group of friends working with another group of friends, they can just make a pointless guild of 6 and avoid the whole process. If you don't make players invest in their guilds, they will continue to not invest in their guilds. And if you want a unique tag under your name you need to earn it.
If the game is a solo style MMORPG like most are now days then their be no point in joining a guild unless you want to hang out with friends while you solo the content.
If you force people to join a guild with people who may not be compatible in play style or anything else, then this game will be dead on arrival.
Allowing people to make guilds with people that have compatible play styles and game goals has worked for years and I see no reason to change it.
If you have a group of friends, even a group of like minded people in a guild then it is working. If there is another group of friends they can join the guild or just group together and it is still working. You can even fill out guild groups with someone random and, if they seem to fit in, invite them to the guild and it is still working.
Please identify what isn't working?
I don't honesty see why how large the guild I choose to play in is the devs or any none guildies business.
Let us decide what is most fun and pick guilds based on that.
Now guild alliance mechanics is another matter and a far better solution if you worry that some guilds are too small to effectively raid and would allow smaller guilds to organize together.
BUT....I would like to say this:
3 ways of finding players
1) Spam chat, doesn't work, no one reads chat. Proven over and over again, however seems most popular for some reason.
2) Ask guilds, Except end game not enough players to fill a group EVER in low and mid level. This forces the player to look outside.
3) Use the Social panel, this works best ! Use the filters to find other players and ask. But no one uses it.
So looking at 2 ( ask guilds ) This always keeps players divided. Unless VRealms has something unique in finding groups, WILL HAVE THE SAME OLD SPAM CHAT !!!!!!
Plenty of people will read the chat in this game, in fact the chat system will be buzzing imo.
No one reads chat anymore, care to give me the evidence for this?
What !.......You want evidence ?
Read every topic for every game related to chat, then log into your favorite mmo and try spamming chat to get a full group...... It's the reason dungeon finders were invented !
Chat system will be buzzing !......... That's not good, just watch your request for others fade away as others are chatting about unrelated topics.
Again your claim so show me the evidence that know one uses chat anymore and won't in this game.
I'm waiting.
In absolute terms, sure a lot of people read chat. But with a groupfinder and /tell you're much faster, because you can target the possible candiates directly and usually get a clear "no" or "yes" very quickly.
When I first joined the starter guild was alive with players LFG, but I spent much of my time soloing as the game design and low exp of players did not make groups more efficient.
I soon joined a guild and had access to both guild and alliance chat. As a group friendly class I regularly saw tells for my class from both players and groups looking for my services
There is no global chat, but one of your other options is quite common, people reached out several times a play session to invite me.
As I gained levels, the invites and chats increased as from lvl 40 to 50 game design heavily favors grouping for efficient exp gains.
Now that I've become more well known as a player who knows his role in different situations and group compositions I now find people both inside and outside of my guild/alliance regularly seeking out my services.
DAOC has a group finder, but I find it a bit cumbersome to set up and use, but then again I struggle to set up apps on my smart phone sometimes.
Its really the game's group centric design which drives the success of its chat and group finding capabilities perhaps coupled in part by a playerbase long familiar with finding groups by means other than dungeon and raid finders. (though I did have to relearn them as my skills had grown quite rusty over time)
Sure chats fail in many games, but this more due the game's design not properly supporting their use and not a flaw of the chats and the players who know how to properly use them.(along with other social mechanisms of course)
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Your examples lend zero weight to your argument.
The problem with the original post is that Delete5230 made it. But besides that, if you have difficulty finding a guild that fits you, it's on you. Finding a guild that fits you is an important part of the process.
Just to dig in to what you were challenging specifically, if you put a hard limit on guilds, who would be the leader of these guilds? Who would decide how the guilds are structured? It just a silly idea, in the context of what ACTUALLY happens.
Social systems should bring people together. True. I think we all agree with this.
Guilds (Clans, Linkshells, Corporations, whatever we call them) are one way to bring people together. Some games go further - fellowships for smaller groups, alliances for larger groups, even just private chat channels (EQ had a lot of these, some even spanning across servers for a while).
You want people to be in the size of group they feel comfortable. Some people like to have a lot of people around them, other people only have a couple of close friends they care to be around, others may want to lone wolf it. Everyone plays a bit different, and everyone has a different personality. Heck, someone who typically likes to be around people may just need a break for a couple of days.
The trick is to be able to allow all of these people to weave together and form a tapestry of community - the more seamless you can make that, the better it will be.
Guilds were one fairly coarse way of doing that. Open world "Public" questing was another way of doing that from a different direction. Even the dreaded Random LFG Queues are another way to help bring people together. These all act in a lot of different ways, but they are all methods of addressing the problem you are talking about - mechanisms so that people can get together and have fun.
I don't think there's any one answer. I think the best games are the ones that implement a lot of different methods of meeting people, of keeping in touch with friends, and making it easy to work together on challenging and worth while goals. That requires a lot of different tools - not everything needs to be a guild. The old saying - when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. There are a lot more tools out there to help pull communities together than just a guild.
Another component there is to make sure the dev team is watching the community. A lot of times, a community will come up with a better way of doing things, and a great game will recognize that and turn it around and pull it tighter into the game.
All that being said, I did like Eve's method with NPC Corps
Something like a meta guild. The question is of course if you want a player faction leader that can kick out guilds that don't follow the factions ideals or if you want to use in game mechanics instead.
Personally do I try to keep my guilds below 50 players because I think they are more manageable that way and the guildies learn to know eachother better. In a guld with several hundred players most guildies feel more like facebook friends then real friends and allies.
That do mean it is hard to put together larger raids though.
I'm trying to get a point across, but I'm having a hard time doing it
I'll phrase it differently........Stop the whim Guilds.
The ones where players randomly say " I think I'll start a guild ". Giving no thought to deep detail other than " lets see how many people I can get ". Maybe the reason is " let me see how popular I can be ".
Sure to each their own, I'm all for freedom to do as you like. I get what many are saying, this is what gives a social game character.....All true !..... But this has MAJOR SIDE EFFECTS, it separates the community.
Many here would say " I'm smarter than that, I know better than joining whim Guilds ".
Some would say " that's your problem, if your that stupid ".
I'm trying to look out for the small guy. The people that are new or the ones that just want to have fun and try their hand at being social.......Should this game NOT be for them too ?..... Many get caught up in the whim Guild mess that all mmo's have.
Many stop playing. They say " I'm not having any fun. Not sure why, I'm just not ".
Even more so here in this situation, with so little "danger" from someone joining a "whim" guild there is no good reason to protect people from joining one.
I realize some people may quit a game over a bad guild experience, and some people these days seem to eschew joining them due to a previous bad encounter.
More often than not their complaints are about overbearing, harsh leadership, favoritism to certain members or cliques, dishonesty including theft of dues and assets or excessive drama.
Im pretty sure if any person, even a new player finds themselves in a whim guild they are smart enough to quit and find another.
If they are the rare person who can't figure this out, well then very likely this won't be their sort of game.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
In DAoC I played from beta till the TOA expansion and was in a guild created by another family style guild that moved from EQ. Note I was not a member of this guild in EQ but often played and grouped with them.
I agree that EQ2 was an abomination but I was in an offshoot of my old EQ guild in it.
In LOTRO I started in beta and still play some off and on. In it I just found a group of nice people with similar playstyles and joined it. Early on LOTRO was more group orientated but as time went on it became more of a solo affair.
I don't think Pantheon will limit the number of guilds. Of course I do agree it shouldn't be trivial to form one.
I am also fairly sure they have some type of group finder and hopefully even allow player created chat channels.
I think as long as the game encourages group play and limits solo play that people will form groups and guilds to experience the content. I don't see a problem here.
Well put, I see your side too
What EQ1 did was just a nightmare for both the GMs and the players. Sitting in out-of-game chatrooms and crap for hours. It was horrible.
They did try to limit them through requiring 10+ people to be present and petitioning there, though.
WoW(iirc) tried to keep the numbers requirement and do away with the tedious GM work. However, this simply resulted in people paying gold to newbies or unguilded folks to sign the charter to reach the requirement. Then the people simply left after the guild was formed.
Neither of those efforts were worth repeating. I don't know if there's any genuinely good ways to restrict these things without a CS nightmare.
I suppose you could have some type of statistic that shows how many hours you've spent in parties with other individuals. And, if you and the founding core for the guild(I'd say a full group at least) have been proven to spend time adventuring/working together then it'd pass a requirement.
Frankly, I think these types of things would just be too much work to bother with, though. And, there's very, very little benefit to even consider it.
Rambling off-topic:
I actually wouldn't mind seeing some type of party-tracking statistic, though. On a guild level, it'd be pretty cool to see who groups with whom the most in the guild window or something.