On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 7:48 AM, Jon Wright <jon@wright.org> wrote:
> Does anyone know of a MMO which allows membership to more than one
> guild at a time? Where the guilds become little more than group with
> it's own invitation only chat-room?
>
> I'm considering the benefits:
> Players are not forced to choose between social networks and therefore
> potentially lose touch with friends in old guild.
> Players can have more than form of social grouping (the raid guild,
> the pvp guild, the roleplay guild).
> Guilds can be more specialized and only exist to serve one of the
> goals above (is that a good thing?)
>
First off, let me make the statement that the word "guild" is useless, and
confuses the issue. "Guild" is a term used to represent any systematic
grouping of individuals in an MMO, but has a more precise meaning in
English. I've tried, where appropriate, to just use the word "group" below.
What are the typical benefits of guild membership in an MMO?
* Access to a chat channel for social purposes
* Access to a chat channel for utilitarian purposes (trade, etc)
* Membership in a group for prestige purposes
* Membership in a group for utilitarian purposes (mutual protection, etc)
There is some overlap between these categories. For example, one might be
more willing to trade with you if you have had prior social interactions.
One might be kicked out of the group (losing the prestige of belonging) if
one chronically shirks their utilitarian duties (participating in raids, for
example). But by and large, these are separate benefits. There is no need
for a new MMO to stick to the idea of a "guild" as an entity which provides
all of these, and none of them particularly well.
There is a big social component to playing MMOs. Many players, especially
casual ones, use them as chat rooms where you can catch up with your
friends, and also play games together. A group of friends may form a guild
to facilitate this interaction, but it's by no means a good idea to do so:
* Some of the friends might be really into PvP, which will unnecessarily
cause more PvE oriented players to be targeted for retaliation
* Some of the friends might be heavily into raiding, but the majority of the
friends are more casual players who would only be a liability in an
well-organized raid
* Some of the friends might be heavily into crafting, but the guild is not
large or crafting-focused enough to provide the mini-economy of crafting
resources required
* Some of the friends might love to chat about their cats, while the others
roll their eyes and are tempted to /ignore
* and so on
For this group, it would be best if instead of making a guild, they could
just create a user-defined chat channel.
Integrating some social networking components might be an interesting way to
do cater to the social agenda as well - you could have a channel called
"Hardware" where people could brag about their gaming rigs, another called
"Games" focused on chatting about video games in general, "Dogs", "Humour",
"Sports", whatever. Naturally, anyone can partake in any number of chat
channels.
Having just a chat channel for more utilitarian activities, like trading, is
not ideal. If trading is a major part of your design, it should have its own
full-featured system, like an auction house or EVE's Market interface. To
create a more secluded market, such as the mini-economy required for a group
of crafters to increase the standing of their group, allow individuals to
form trade alliances - a market-within-a-market where only those you trust
to serve your economic interests can partake. It could be as simple as
another tab on the Auction House interface. There is no reason you could not
be part of several of these, but you'd have to be invited to join them.
Some people join guilds just to be able to say "I'm in '4s$k1ck3rs of
Azeroth'!". But there are better ways to deal with prestige by association.
For example, you might implement a public Reputation score which is derived
from some stat (level? PvP kills? good deeds done?) of all the people who
have Friended you. This Reputation score means nothing other than "I know
some cool people". It does not increase with you, it increases only as your
friends do - but with a simple glance, another player can check out your
character and say "Oh, he's a nobody" or "Wow, she's quite up there, let me
check the details... oh, she knows LeeeroyJenkins?!?".
Finally, the utilitarian reasons to be a part of a group. There are many
reasons - protection, raiding, crafting, grouping, warfare, etcetera,
depending on the game. Why can you only be a part of more than one of these?
Well, it seems counter-productive to allow membership in two different
raiding teams and four militias. In particular, in a game where guilds
represent opposing factions and wage war on each other, a character should
not be allowed membership in multiple factions.
There is no reason a character could not be a part of one of each of these
types of groups, however. A given group might opt to serve in each category
- for example, a warfare/protection army, or a grouping/raiding force - but
others may wisely opt to be a group dealing in a single activity only,
without having to disappoint those members who also wanted to focus on other
things.
In closing, I think there are many benefits to questioning the idea of a
"guild" and that one may participate in one and one only, and I think that
by reinventing guilds many of the disadvantages could be avoided. The fear
that one's sense of belonging would weaken with membership in multiple - but
still focused - guilds is exaggerated, I think. To the contrary, I believe
it to be common that one's sense of belonging in a (single) guild is
weakened due to chronic personality conflicts with other members with
opposing interests and agendas.