Guilds: More than just an avenue to get phat lewts?

S

Shadow001

Cadet
One of the things that I like about HJ is that it seems to compile all the flaws of existing MMO's and correct them. Having said this, I'd like to discuss the idea of the guild in an MMO game.

In WoW, being in a guild means nothing more than potentially having an opportunity to raid with fellow guild members. There's no real way a guild can influence anything going on regarding the world in general, aside from dominating the PvP aspects (and even then, the people who don't care about PvP are unaffected.) With HJ, it appears as though players are going to have an opportunity to directly influence the political system of Elanthia - gain enough 'faction' or influence and you can seat your representative at the head of the Triumvirate.

I really think it's cool how there will be clans, composed of a smaller group that can choose who to align with based on their best suited needs at the time. It's not like "I chose alliance when I first started playing, so I must now battle the Horde for the entire existance of this character." It's much more real than that..my clan can team up with a guild who has the same interests as me, and we can then work together to assert more control over the world at large.

It seems to me like this is a combination of FFXI and WoW's (and probably other MMO's that I haven't played) systems of world control. I'd like to see these things actually have practical meaning in-game, however..unlike in FFXI where zone control really has no effect on a regular player (at least it didn't back when I used to play.) Maybe tie in some sort of PvP aspect where if your faction controls the zone, the NPC's in the zone are more apt to help you, or even outright attack you if your faction's influence gets extremely low.

I really like the idea of the player being able to influence what's going on. That seems to me like the very essence of what being in a guild should be, not just to team up and raid for endgame items.
 
I found a love for Lineage 2 just becuase they had an open PvP system where Guilds could vow for dominance over cities. They could eventually control the city, and raise/lower tax's. Every week they would be attacked, and would have to defend their castle which they could equip with NPC's, and other weapons of war. If Hero's Journey just took the best of the PvP from every game, they would have a winner.

I love where Shadow is going with this becuase it is exactly how I feel. When it comes to PvP, I want to be working for something, and against something. I would love to be hated by a certain region of Elanthia, and ardor by the other side. Hell, even if I was banned from certain cities would be fine with me. As long as I recieved cheaper prices in another.

Player controlled cities are a must as well. Guilds should be able to vie for dominance over all of Elanthia, and if they somehow, someway control everything. Then let them do as they please. Let them destroy the economy, entire cities. Live by the sword, die by the sword is what some like to say, and being able to participate in something like that would be amazing.
 
Yeah but in lineage it was so much stress, i remeber when it got to the point where it was just 2 big clans fighting for dominance of the castles and the little clans just getting swept if they were in the way.

I wouldnt want a system that harsh, player control is cool but i wouldnt want players to have full control over anything economy wise like in lineage.

Guilds with the ability to influence cities would be cool, and gain fame and raise through the ranks, but i think they should never get to that position that will give them absolute power.
 
When I think of players controling parts of a MMO, all I have to do is look at player economies and see how bad of a idea it is. It's one of those things that sounds really nice on paper, but as soon as you add the "human" element to it, it goes into the crapper......:eek:
 
Yeah but in lineage it was so much stress, i remeber when it got to the point where it was just 2 big clans fighting for dominance of the castles and the little clans just getting swept if they were in the way.

I wouldnt want a system that harsh, player control is cool but i wouldnt want players to have full control over anything economy wise like in lineage.
Click to expand...

/ditto
 
I think Guild leadership should work like the goverment now.. well the theory of it anyway, notihng as corrupt, but anyway, guild would makes way into power, but all their actions will be documented and monitored by a senate like group, which would consist of ingame gms. That way if a guild gets out of control they could be removed from power at the disgression of the GM senate.

I do want guilds to have more purpose then just raiding, thats the reason i stopped playing warcraft, one day i just realised that all iw as doing was logging in to do that next raid, and when we werent raiding we werent talking. I dont wanna do that again in any mmo, i need a good communty, where i can talk and chat, i dont ask for anyoness help but idont really care to sit and play in the dark, waiting for leader to do raid rolecall.

I was never fortnate to be one of thosse people that has a guild with them going from game to game, so guild oriented activities always forced me to find some group of people to tag along with. I hope HJ isnt guild centric as WoW is.
 
Morneblade said:
When I think of players controling parts of a MMO, all I have to do is look at player economies and see how bad of a idea it is. It's one of those things that sounds really nice on paper, but as soon as you add the "human" element to it, it goes into the crapper......:eek:
Click to expand...

/signed
 
Ok, now that i have stated pretty much how I feel about player control of political, social and economical aspects of MMO's (EI: "the crapper") I would like to see guilds more than as a couple people put it, "so you can raid". I'm pretty lucky in the fact I've been in a guild that has spaned several years and several games. But I realize that many if not most people "guildhop" when they change games, and as such they really dont get to know people real well. For some people that works, but I think that alot would prefer to have a group they really know, and like playing with, as opposed to hopping on board the first "Raiding Guild" they look at. I think the actual game will have a large part to do in this. If you dont make raiding so important, then you dont have raiding guilds being so important. All of a sudden creating your own guild with a few friends isnt an act of futility. Hopefully HJ will be a game that givers players other reasons to play other than raiding, and gives guilds other reasons to form. I dont have many political, social or economical asperations for the guild I'm in right now, it's more of a group of friends that have played together for years that anything else right now. I leave that to some of the other members, I'm the powergamer/killer of the group. However I know that many players have greater asperations for their guilds. Would it be cool to be able to have influence in one of the Great Houses?

Sure it would. As long as there are some controls in place to keep things from getting out of hand.
 
I play with a small group of friends and family. Depending on the game, we have anywhere from 6 to 12 players. We always, if at all possible, form a guild. We don't recruit or anything. It is just a way to show our connection. Unfortunately, since we are so small, we are left out of most "big guild" events.

It would be nice to be able to have some form of impact by the smaller guilds. No, I don't want to control a zone but if the small guilds can sway the political system or something, that would be great. A bit of espionage or some form of sabotage or something that doesn't require 40 people entering a dungeon or taking over a town.
 
I don't mind guilds being able to influence certain aspects of the game...as long as other people can too. As Jaxtron said, not everyone joins large guilds, or even likes them for that matter. Personally I'm a fan of the smaller intimate guilds/groups. The last thing HJ needs to do is make it where only people of large guilds can get certain benefits, or they are the only people that can have in-game influence.

Everquest 2 took guilds a little too far, imo, making it where there was way too much you could not experience unless you were in a big guild. I'm all for rewarding guild efforts, but they need to keep from making joining a guild a requirement. Also as Jaxton said, all it really takes is the actions of one person to influence the world...maybe not as large of an influence, but an influence nontheless (I like that word). Some people RP loners, as a lot of my characters are. Others just like to avoid all the ooc drama that comes in all large guilds (yes, I said all, don't deny it...it's true).

That said, I'd love for the furture of the game to be player influenced...maybe a larger influence by guilds. But, you shouldn't be forced to join a guild just because you want to feel a part of changing the world.

Also, like Eve mentioned; perhaps they can include an alliance feature where smaller guilds and groups can allign in a common cause. Or even smaller guilds alligning with larger ones that stand for a specific faction/cause. This would allow the same benefits large guilds recieve, yet it wouldn't force smaller guilds/groups to compromise their playstyle.

As far as guilds and raiding goes...pfft. I shouldn't have to join large guilds in order to experience epic adventures. That's one reason I've never been through a WoW raid. What ever happened to the Adventurer's Hall where tons of adventurers gatherd outside and teamed up on a whim to fight?
 
I've never been a big fan of guilds. In fact, I've only ever been in one that I liked, and that was a CoH specific guild. I partied with one of the main people in the guild's alts for like two days(As in, like, two whole days... well, almost, anyway...) before deciding to join. And even that was a small guild... I dunno, I don't really like guilds. I don't see the point in joining them, other than for personal gain, and I'm not much into that...
 
I've never been in a hugely massively ginormous guild where no one knows eachothers name, those just don't seem fun. All the guilds I've been in I actually knew everyones name, knew their voice (vent) and knew what they were like.

We would joke around and have fun.

I think the small guilds should somehow have as much influence on the game enviroment as the big ones.

I understand if a guild of 300 raided the enemy Faction capital while a giuld of 40 defended...the 300 would win, but I just don't want to see the little guys pushed around because they don't spam invites.
 
Every guild/clan/linkshell(FFXI) that I've been in was really just for fun. All we did was goof around in chat and helped each other when needed.
 
Eve said:
Perhaps an alliance is the answer, for pulling small guilds together.
Click to expand...

I could certainly go for an alliance, depending on the purpose. If the goal is to link up smaller guilds so they can have an impact similar to a larger guild because that is the only way to influence things, that isn't really what I want.

Personally, I think anyone should be able to affect the politics of a city. If you are a lone wolf, assissinate a high ranking official or start a grass roots campaign of some type. Small guilds, interrupt a trade route to spread some anger and frustration among the populace. Larger guilds, out right attack a city.

Of course, not sure how everyone can go about causing hate and discontent without completely screwing up the political system but it would be fun.

Kind of got off the guild thing but I have played too many games where you are left out of so much content unless you are a raider in a very large guild. I am just hoping HJ isn't the same.
 
Jaxtron said:
I could certainly go for an alliance, depending on the purpose. If the goal is to link up smaller guilds so they can have an impact similar to a larger guild because that is the only way to influence things, that isn't really what I want.
Click to expand...

I was thinking more along the lines of the common enemies or factions. Say... a large guild is fighting a certain political faction that is also the enemy of a smaller guild. So they wouldn't really have to raid together or even group, but the game would recognize the alliance of common interest, thus, influence in that area would be rewarded to both in the alliance. This might also help solo players to benefit from influence, as they could allign to a certain guild/cause without actually joining. Perhaps it could work as simply as a flag you set in options or when talking to a certain NPC. Would be kind of neat if there was a guild/city NPC you could talk to and select which factions you wish to align with.
 
Building alliances is the way to go. Shadowbane was similar to LII, well it had a graphics engine 3 years old by LII's release, but it was open PVP and players actually built their cities and controlled their lands. Setting up prices for guild rank and allianced members and outsiders alike and all that. On Mourning, the unoffical RP server, a lot of specific guilds were created for RP reasons and we'd stick to that delegating things as an entire server alliance because it seemed like every month someone would get pissy with someone and they'd bring in uber 1,000+ member guilds from other servers to try and take over.
Well they found out quickly that being a RPer (Some HJ staff elsewhere really offended some of my guildies with a comment similar to this) in a MMO doesn't mean we can't play hardcore when we need to.
So Alliances are fun. But guild perks in MMOs have really been trivial things, even in EQ2. So you had a meager discount on a specific instanced house? Or saved a bit of silver on horses? Stuff like that seems to just cater to certain players.
I think Guilds are good for 2 things. Communicating with folks you like to play with and meeting new folks you'd probably like to play with. There's good raiding players and groups and guilds small and large. Good PvP players, groups, guilds. Yadda yadda.
 
I like the discussion thus far... for my own preference, I like medium sized guilds... 30-200 members.

My Dark Age of Camelot guild "Runs with Scissors", was at peak 300 members strongs, 600+ if you counted character alts. Now it's kind of dead, and we're down to 20 members, but we're on WoW now, and gaining members there. We also do something so few guilds do: we run democratically. Some games (like WoW) allow only one GM, so the one is a figurehead, and not in "actual power" except to adjust guild settings as declared by our ... "Council of Elders". There are four members, who are the "leaders of the guild", and we do things according to how it is agreed upon through a majority. We also make sure to get a good idea, through website voting, or in game voting, what our members feelings are on issues.

My guild is not a raiding guild, but, if we are able, and enough people want, we will. We do not yell at members if they do not show up, or play a certain day, or play for an amount of time per sessions. We accept people for who they are, come and go as you please, and join us for some fun. We'll hand out gold and silver to newbs, craft some newb armor, hand out inventory bags or whatever floats our fancy. We're in it for the folks and the fun, not the loot or the zomgzerg! raids.

If I'm not running my own guild, I look for a small to medium sized guild that won't kick me out for being gone for a week or two or three... and is in the game to support it's members, and have fun doing so.

~ Jaraeth
 
Yeah that's why I generally run my own and toss my 2 more consistant pals in as officers. They don't like cutting down and making a decision like me. As a guild leader in a lot of games, it's been a simple job and I think it always will be.
Just when folks ask for something to do, have something ready for them to do. Know the game or make felgercarb up as you go along.
One little game I do when I have a bunch of folks spamming that they're bored is either the beg game or the kiss game. We go out and slyly ask for things from folks or ask for emote kisses for say an hour then tally up a winner. LoL
Both oddly can turn an odd profit in WoW by the way.
 

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