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.
Yes it would be hard to stop massive guild creations. But It would suck to have 100 guilds on a 2000 player server. AND THIS OFTEN HAPPENS. All because a player feel spunky and doesn't care about the responsibility.
Who pays the price ?......... The new person that would just like to enjoy a 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.
Yes it would be hard to stop massive guild creations. But It would suck to have 100 guilds on a 2000 player server. AND THIS OFTEN HAPPENS. All because a player feel spunky and doesn't care about the responsibility.
Who pays the price ?......... The new person that would just like to enjoy a game.
"New persons" will not be welcome in this game, it's only for grizzled vets of the MMORPG wars and mercenaries.
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
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.
Yes it would be hard to stop massive guild creations. But It would suck to have 100 guilds on a 2000 player server. AND THIS OFTEN HAPPENS. All because a player feel spunky and doesn't care about the responsibility.
Who pays the price ?......... The new person that would just like to enjoy a game.
The size of the guilds in games I played anyway, seems to be related to the numbers you need to do the content. If all the content can be done with an 8 man group then the guilds will tend to be small. If you have raids that need 30 to 36 people then the guilds will be larger. I not sure how this hurts a new person joining the game.
Ive never played a game where there were not enough guilds for new players to join. Not seeing a problem here. Played EQ, EQ2, lotro, wow, UO, and others. Small family guilds and large come one come all guilds. The very idea that new players cant find guilds is just absurd. Is this satire?
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.
Yes it would be hard to stop massive guild creations. But It would suck to have 100 guilds on a 2000 player server. AND THIS OFTEN HAPPENS. All because a player feel spunky and doesn't care about the responsibility.
Who pays the price ?......... The new person that would just like to enjoy a game.
Again, in a game that requires grouping for nearly all character progression, players will want to have guilds that provide them with those groups on a daily basis.
This is not a solo progression game where players can run from hub to hub and hit max level, and then be automatically joined into a dungeon instance when they need it. That means there's no need to regulate guild creation, because people will naturally gravitate towards guilds to enable them to succeed in the game.
Developers have all the control, it's a flaw in all mmo's.
Limit the number of guilds, what do you think ?
Just so I have this right, you want the developers to artificially limit the amount of guilds there can be while at the same time saying developers having all the control is a "flaw" in MMOs?
Let's just say you aren't saying that and you're talking about in game player control of guilds, in effect asking prospective small guild leaders not to make them. Still no, because there are many reasons and goals for creating a guild.
1. Different region/activity times 2. Raid/not raid 3. Tradeskill guilds 4. Porting guilds (if that ends up being a thing in Pantheon) like Dial a Port in P99 5. Various levels of roleplay 6. Family only guilds
The problems you are describing are self-regulated. If someone comes into the game fresh and gets into a "toolbox" guild and after a time realizes they can't get guild groups often enough.... they move guilds. If a guild has numbers but not enough they seek out other guilds to merge or create alliances.
One thing I hope Pantheon will consider is a guild window with information similar to EQ2.
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.
Yes it would be hard to stop massive guild creations. But It would suck to have 100 guilds on a 2000 player server. AND THIS OFTEN HAPPENS. All because a player feel spunky and doesn't care about the responsibility.
Who pays the price ?......... The new person that would just like to enjoy a game.
Very silly argument. That could be 99 one player guilds and one guild with up to 1901 players (2000 if you allow alts). Add twenty new players and they could create guild 101 or join one of the existing guilds or just play the game without a guild.
Yes it would be hard to stop massive guild creations. But It would suck to have 100 guilds on a 2000 player server. AND THIS OFTEN HAPPENS. All because a player feel spunky and doesn't care about the responsibility.
Who pays the price ?......... The new person that would just like to enjoy a game.
Very silly argument. That could be 99 one player guilds and one guild with up to 1901 players (2000 if you allow alts). Add twenty new players and they could create guild 101 or join one of the existing guilds or just play the game without a guild.
Again what is your problem?
I feel that perhaps maybe Delete simply ran out of thread ideas and is just simply scraping the bottom of the barrel with this filler thread. That's my guess. It just feels like he wants to have a random back-and-forth.
On topic: "Who pays the price?" No one? I don't see how the amount of guilds affects a new person in any way whatsoever. If they "would just like to enjoy a game" and don't want to put any thought into choosing a guild, then the guild probably doesn't matter that much to them anyway. If someone just wants to play without making that choice, then they can simply not join a guild at all(or just join one at random).
It's always better to have options and diversity. I would personally hate it if the only guilds available were a few big and/or elitist type guilds because the game didn't allow for any others to exist.
Yes it would be hard to stop massive guild creations. But It would suck to have 100 guilds on a 2000 player server. AND THIS OFTEN HAPPENS. All because a player feel spunky and doesn't care about the responsibility.
Who pays the price ?......... The new person that would just like to enjoy a game.
Very silly argument. That could be 99 one player guilds and one guild with up to 1901 players (2000 if you allow alts). Add twenty new players and they could create guild 101 or join one of the existing guilds or just play the game without a guild.
Again what is your problem?
I feel that perhaps maybe Delete simply ran out of thread ideas and is just simply scraping the bottom of the barrel with this filler thread. That's my guess. It just feels like he wants to have a random back-and-forth.
On topic: "Who pays the price?" No one? I don't see how the amount of guilds affects a new person in any way whatsoever. If they "would just like to enjoy a game" and don't want to put any thought into choosing a guild, then the guild probably doesn't matter that much to them anyway. If someone just wants to play without making that choice, then they can simply not join a guild at all(or just join one at random).
It's always better to have options and diversity. I would personally hate it if the only guilds available were a few big and/or elitist type guilds because the game didn't allow for any others to exist.
I could really see how you think that way for the amount of topics I make. HOWEVER, I study game populations deeply, I always have......I've become very good at it. It's an effort that no one really cares about.
I watch player chat and see the frustration in every mmo. Chat speeds scrolling faster than you can read two words then to the bottom and gone !..... You know what I'm saying.
Then we have guild searching. The average player some well versed in mmo's decides to find a guild. They don't research major organized guilds on the internet, they guild bounce. Searching then searching for days, until they may or may not find one.
This often impacts how they view a game and their longevity. Often it doesn't matter anymore the way mmos are designed in the past several years because the games are not community focused, but this game is.
As an experiment, try and pretend your just that average player and try to find a guild in an mmo that's romped in having hundreds of guilds....... You know what you would find......Guilds with 7 players, none at your level, and none that play together !!!!!
The way everyone is talking here....were about to have the same old, same old... Everyone spamming chat, and 4000 players spread out in low yielding guilds !
Yes it would be hard to stop massive guild creations. But It would suck to have 100 guilds on a 2000 player server. AND THIS OFTEN HAPPENS. All because a player feel spunky and doesn't care about the responsibility.
Who pays the price ?......... The new person that would just like to enjoy a game.
Very silly argument. That could be 99 one player guilds and one guild with up to 1901 players (2000 if you allow alts). Add twenty new players and they could create guild 101 or join one of the existing guilds or just play the game without a guild.
Again what is your problem?
I feel that perhaps maybe Delete simply ran out of thread ideas and is just simply scraping the bottom of the barrel with this filler thread. That's my guess. It just feels like he wants to have a random back-and-forth.
On topic: "Who pays the price?" No one? I don't see how the amount of guilds affects a new person in any way whatsoever. If they "would just like to enjoy a game" and don't want to put any thought into choosing a guild, then the guild probably doesn't matter that much to them anyway. If someone just wants to play without making that choice, then they can simply not join a guild at all(or just join one at random).
It's always better to have options and diversity. I would personally hate it if the only guilds available were a few big and/or elitist type guilds because the game didn't allow for any others to exist.
I could really see how you think that way for the amount of topics I make. HOWEVER, I study game populations deeply, I always have......I've become very good at it. It's an effort that no one really cares about.
I watch player chat and see the frustration in every mmo. Chat speeds scrolling faster than you can read two words then to the bottom and gone !..... You know what I'm saying.
Then we have guild searching. The average player some well versed in mmo's decides to find a guild. They don't research major organized guilds on the internet, they guild bounce. Searching then searching for days, until they may or may not find one.
This often impacts how they view a game and their longevity. Often it doesn't matter anymore the way mmos are designed in the past several years because the games are not community focused, but this game is.
As an experiment, try and pretend your just that average player and try to find a guild in an mmo that's romped in having hundreds of guilds....... You know what you would find......Guilds with 7 players, none at your level, and none that play together !!!!!
The way everyone is talking here....were about to have the same old, same old... Everyone spamming chat, and 4000 players spread out in low yielding guilds !
If I decide to play my first move will be to check if my "corporate" guild Grievance is going to set up a chapter. If so I'll have access to a larger friendly playerbase to group with.
If not, I'll check the official forums, see who might line up with my playstyle and contact them.
Or I might research in game, look to see what guild tags I see most often, and then contact some of their members to see if they like it and if they might be recruiting.
Heck, worse case scenario, I'll start my own guild.
As I implied before, this really isn't a game for "average" players.
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
People create guilds for various types of gameplay, as soon as you start putting limits on that, then your effectively trying to put limits on how people play the games, you can't have too many guilds, its not that uncommon for small Guilds to be formed that are invite only, or even not open to new recruits at all, if you start putting limits on guild numbers, you run the risk of having new players being unable to join guilds or create ones for themselves, or they end up only having the choice of joining large unwieldy guilds that do not benefit the members, and if they don't like the guilds name or people in the guild or behaviour of some of the members, then tough luck you don't get to choose. So what if there are 200 guilds on a 2000 player server, let there be 400, 500 if they really want, at least then players will have a better chance of joining a guild that has members they are more likely to get along with and activities that they are more likely to take part in. Only thing for me is that you should only be able to be in 1 guild at a time, and that when you leave, there is a cooling off period of 24 hours before you can join another guild, particularly for games with PVP.
You know what happens when there are limits on the number of guilds? Same thing as happened to housing in ultima online. Selling for exorbitant prices.
I watch player chat and see the frustration in every mmo. Chat speeds scrolling faster than you can read two words then to the bottom and gone !..... You know what I'm saying.
Generally, the chat spam usually only happens in very concentrated areas like major cities/trading zones.
For that matter, it would be much, much, much simpler for the developers to place limitations on chat than on the actual guilds themselves. It's not hard to implement preventative measures for spam nowadays.
Personally, though, I'd rather have an overabundance of chat in my box than to have barely any. I hate that most games today have so little chat actually happening. One of the big complaints with modern games is how hardly anyone talks in-game anymore. So long as there's ways to report and ignore with the click of a button, and limitations on rapid spamming(which most games have now), I don't see that much of an issue here.
Then we have guild searching. The average player some well versed in mmo's decides to find a guild. They don't research major organized guilds on the internet, they guild bounce. Searching then searching for days, until they may or may not find one.
This often impacts how they view a game and their longevity. Often it doesn't matter anymore the way mmos are designed in the past several years because the games are not community focused, but this game is.
As an experiment, try and pretend your just that average player and try to find a guild in an mmo that's romped in having hundreds of guilds....... You know what you would find......Guilds with 7 players, none at your level, and none that play together !!!!!
The thing everyone is trying to express to you is that these problems actually only become worse with fewer guilds.
Sure, you have fewer choices to pick between, but that's more of a problem than a benefit. It might sound like you'd have a much simpler choice, but all it really does is pigeonhole you into a few guilds you may hate or not be compatible with. You have to remember that these are player-run guilds, which means they will have specific social circles and personalities.
I could see your point if all guilds were controlled by the game, rather than players. But, as long as players are in power, more choices is the way to go.
I completely agree that finding a "good" guild can be quite tedious nowadays. This, however, is something that can be worked around with in-game systems. There are all sorts of tools they could add to help people find a fitting guild. And, I firmly believe that they should have these things in-game. People shouldn't need to go hang out in random 3rd-party chatrooms or visit external websites to research guilds, imho. All of these things should have some type of built-in functionality.
Side Topic:
Someone else mentioned before that some pre-defined starter guilds would be a neat approach. I wouldn't mind seeing something like that. It would give new players an avenue to socialize and put them in contact with others for knowledge/grouping, etc., from the start.
I think it would be pretty cool to have some type of large NPC-owned guildhalls that you have a reason to visit often. Perhaps the guild would provide basic apartments for its members where they could store some items, etc. You could have instanced little bedrooms but public areas throughout the guild for players to gather and do things(even something like mini-game rooms or training halls/dueling areas, crafting stations, message boards people could post ads on, etc.). The possibilities would be pretty limitless if they wanted to put in some effort to create gathering spots for new/returning players to visit. That said, all those sorts of "community gathering" can be done just as easily without guilds, but it would be a pretty neat way to welcome new players as part of a club where they can do things with other beginners from the very start.
Lokero, I like your side note thing about pre-defined starter guilds too.
In World of Warcraft, Rogues and Druids has this little side thing that made you feel special. For the Rogues they had MI:7 or something like that where you had a special quest line in the city of Stormwind where it would eventually sent you to a secret spot hidden in the hills of I think South Shore, it was even hard to find the path to it. Druids had an entire zone for them alone..... I thought that was so much fun
They were not really guilds, and they were more than just a quest line. It was more like a spot just for them. Hard to explain because no other game ever had this, at least that I can think of.
Definitely think there is a problem with too many guilds, at least in some games (just check the guild finder in WoW), but I dont think putting a limit on a server is the answer. Keep the crappy unattended guilds just because they get there first? Nah. Guilds can get too large as well... not only do I prefer smaller guilds (I find 2-3 raid sizes to be a good balance) but ive also heard of guilds who pretty much take over and go all mafia on other players.
If anything, maybe a monthly "penalty" for having too few unique members and a scaling upkeep fee for having too many. Nothing too drastic but little "incentives" or reminders for GMs to please keep the guild bloat down while on the other hand, preventing other guilds (lets call them "The Saviors") from gaining too much power.
Thats IF they do anything to address that. TBH, its mostly fine as is. I doubt this game will have a guild finder UI like WoW so youll really only ever see chat spam or forum posts from guilds who may be small but still actively looking and ive only ever heard/read about guilds controlling certain resources, AH supply, or harrassing players they "dont like."
In World of Warcraft, Rogues and Druids has this little side thing that made you feel special. For the Rogues they had MI:7 or something like that where you had a special quest line in the city of Stormwind where it would eventually sent you to a secret spot hidden in the hills of I think South Shore, it was even hard to find the path to it. Druids had an entire zone for them alone..... I thought that was so much fun
They were not really guilds, and they were more than just a quest line. It was more like a spot just for them. Hard to explain because no other game ever had this, at least that I can think of.
Ah, yeah, I remember those. They were pretty cool. I felt WoW had some really cool class-specific quest lines when it started out. But, they basically killed them all off later for some reason. For example, I thought the quest for the Druid aquatic form was pretty epic -- diving down into the ocean, etc., but they later just made all of that stuff trainable in town or something.
Kind of ironic, that in a game built around quests, they largely killed off their most epic quest lines.
Definitely think there is a problem with too many guilds, at least in some games (just check the guild finder in WoW), but I dont think putting a limit on a server is the answer. Keep the crappy unattended guilds just because they get there first? Nah. Guilds can get too large as well... not only do I prefer smaller guilds (I find 2-3 raid sizes to be a good balance) but ive also heard of guilds who pretty much take over and go all mafia on other players.
If anything, maybe a monthly "penalty" for having too few unique members and a scaling upkeep fee for having too many. Nothing too drastic but little "incentives" or reminders for GMs to please keep the guild bloat down while on the other hand, preventing other guilds (lets call them "The Saviors") from gaining too much power.
Thats IF they do anything to address that. TBH, its mostly fine as is. I doubt this game will have a guild finder UI like WoW so youll really only ever see chat spam or forum posts from guilds who may be small but still actively looking and ive only ever heard/read about guilds controlling certain resources, AH supply, or harrassing players they "dont like."
I don't think penalties are necessary. All they really need to do is add some proper filtering to the "guild finder".
A filter that would let you specify min and max member counts, etc. A proper statistic that told you how many active players each guild had on average in the last _____ days.
Honestly, all they really need to do(for the most part), is allow outsiders to view some of the statistics that most guild windows already have anyway -- such as levels, etc.
If people cared about privacy, all they would need to do is block the character names, while still showing the stats.
Comments
Yes it would be hard to stop massive guild creations. But It would suck to have 100 guilds on a 2000 player server. AND THIS OFTEN HAPPENS. All because a player feel spunky and doesn't care about the responsibility.
Who pays the price ?......... The new person that would just like to enjoy a game.
"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
I not sure how this hurts a new person joining the game.
This is not a solo progression game where players can run from hub to hub and hit max level, and then be automatically joined into a dungeon instance when they need it. That means there's no need to regulate guild creation, because people will naturally gravitate towards guilds to enable them to succeed in the game.
Let's just say you aren't saying that and you're talking about in game player control of guilds, in effect asking prospective small guild leaders not to make them. Still no, because there are many reasons and goals for creating a guild.
1. Different region/activity times
2. Raid/not raid
3. Tradeskill guilds
4. Porting guilds (if that ends up being a thing in Pantheon) like Dial a Port in P99
5. Various levels of roleplay
6. Family only guilds
The problems you are describing are self-regulated. If someone comes into the game fresh and gets into a "toolbox" guild and after a time realizes they can't get guild groups often enough.... they move guilds. If a guild has numbers but not enough they seek out other guilds to merge or create alliances.
One thing I hope Pantheon will consider is a guild window with information similar to EQ2.
Again what is your problem?
I feel that perhaps maybe Delete simply ran out of thread ideas and is just simply scraping the bottom of the barrel with this filler thread. That's my guess. It just feels like he wants to have a random back-and-forth.
On topic: "Who pays the price?" No one? I don't see how the amount of guilds affects a new person in any way whatsoever. If they "would just like to enjoy a game" and don't want to put any thought into choosing a guild, then the guild probably doesn't matter that much to them anyway. If someone just wants to play without making that choice, then they can simply not join a guild at all(or just join one at random).
It's always better to have options and diversity. I would personally hate it if the only guilds available were a few big and/or elitist type guilds because the game didn't allow for any others to exist.
I could really see how you think that way for the amount of topics I make. HOWEVER, I study game populations deeply, I always have......I've become very good at it. It's an effort that no one really cares about.
I watch player chat and see the frustration in every mmo. Chat speeds scrolling faster than you can read two words then to the bottom and gone !..... You know what I'm saying.
Then we have guild searching. The average player some well versed in mmo's decides to find a guild. They don't research major organized guilds on the internet, they guild bounce. Searching then searching for days, until they may or may not find one.
This often impacts how they view a game and their longevity. Often it doesn't matter anymore the way mmos are designed in the past several years because the games are not community focused, but this game is.
As an experiment, try and pretend your just that average player and try to find a guild in an mmo that's romped in having hundreds of guilds....... You know what you would find......Guilds with 7 players, none at your level, and none that play together !!!!!
The way everyone is talking here....were about to have the same old, same old... Everyone spamming chat, and 4000 players spread out in low yielding guilds !
If not, I'll check the official forums, see who might line up with my playstyle and contact them.
Or I might research in game, look to see what guild tags I see most often, and then contact some of their members to see if they like it and if they might be recruiting.
Heck, worse case scenario, I'll start my own guild.
As I implied before, this really isn't a game for "average" players.
"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
So what if there are 200 guilds on a 2000 player server, let there be 400, 500 if they really want, at least then players will have a better chance of joining a guild that has members they are more likely to get along with and activities that they are more likely to take part in.
Only thing for me is that you should only be able to be in 1 guild at a time, and that when you leave, there is a cooling off period of 24 hours before you can join another guild, particularly for games with PVP.
"WTS guild with hall pst with offer"
For that matter, it would be much, much, much simpler for the developers to place limitations on chat than on the actual guilds themselves. It's not hard to implement preventative measures for spam nowadays.
Personally, though, I'd rather have an overabundance of chat in my box than to have barely any. I hate that most games today have so little chat actually happening. One of the big complaints with modern games is how hardly anyone talks in-game anymore.
So long as there's ways to report and ignore with the click of a button, and limitations on rapid spamming(which most games have now), I don't see that much of an issue here.
The thing everyone is trying to express to you is that these problems actually only become worse with fewer guilds.
Sure, you have fewer choices to pick between, but that's more of a problem than a benefit. It might sound like you'd have a much simpler choice, but all it really does is pigeonhole you into a few guilds you may hate or not be compatible with. You have to remember that these are player-run guilds, which means they will have specific social circles and personalities.
I could see your point if all guilds were controlled by the game, rather than players. But, as long as players are in power, more choices is the way to go.
I completely agree that finding a "good" guild can be quite tedious nowadays. This, however, is something that can be worked around with in-game systems. There are all sorts of tools they could add to help people find a fitting guild. And, I firmly believe that they should have these things in-game.
People shouldn't need to go hang out in random 3rd-party chatrooms or visit external websites to research guilds, imho. All of these things should have some type of built-in functionality.
Side Topic:
Someone else mentioned before that some pre-defined starter guilds would be a neat approach. I wouldn't mind seeing something like that. It would give new players an avenue to socialize and put them in contact with others for knowledge/grouping, etc., from the start.
I think it would be pretty cool to have some type of large NPC-owned guildhalls that you have a reason to visit often. Perhaps the guild would provide basic apartments for its members where they could store some items, etc. You could have instanced little bedrooms but public areas throughout the guild for players to gather and do things(even something like mini-game rooms or training halls/dueling areas, crafting stations, message boards people could post ads on, etc.). The possibilities would be pretty limitless if they wanted to put in some effort to create gathering spots for new/returning players to visit. That said, all those sorts of "community gathering" can be done just as easily without guilds, but it would be a pretty neat way to welcome new players as part of a club where they can do things with other beginners from the very start.
In World of Warcraft, Rogues and Druids has this little side thing that made you feel special. For the Rogues they had MI:7 or something like that where you had a special quest line in the city of Stormwind where it would eventually sent you to a secret spot hidden in the hills of I think South Shore, it was even hard to find the path to it. Druids had an entire zone for them alone..... I thought that was so much fun
They were not really guilds, and they were more than just a quest line. It was more like a spot just for them. Hard to explain because no other game ever had this, at least that I can think of.
If anything, maybe a monthly "penalty" for having too few unique members and a scaling upkeep fee for having too many. Nothing too drastic but little "incentives" or reminders for GMs to please keep the guild bloat down while on the other hand, preventing other guilds (lets call them "The Saviors") from gaining too much power.
Thats IF they do anything to address that. TBH, its mostly fine as is. I doubt this game will have a guild finder UI like WoW so youll really only ever see chat spam or forum posts from guilds who may be small but still actively looking and ive only ever heard/read about guilds controlling certain resources, AH supply, or harrassing players they "dont like."
For example, I thought the quest for the Druid aquatic form was pretty epic -- diving down into the ocean, etc., but they later just made all of that stuff trainable in town or something.
Kind of ironic, that in a game built around quests, they largely killed off their most epic quest lines.
I don't think penalties are necessary. All they really need to do is add some proper filtering to the "guild finder".
A filter that would let you specify min and max member counts, etc. A proper statistic that told you how many active players each guild had on average in the last _____ days.
Honestly, all they really need to do(for the most part), is allow outsiders to view some of the statistics that most guild windows already have anyway -- such as levels, etc.
If people cared about privacy, all they would need to do is block the character names, while still showing the stats.