Player Associations Archive
Thread: Do You Think A Guild Level System Could Work In SWG?
your jocking right? Pfft, please, all this sys does is encourage guilds of size, more than it does quality. My guild has a branch on Mistmoore, our guild is the second largest guild, we formed with a set of phylosephies that make us strong in SWG. The largest guild on mistmoore is an inactive guild of 330 members, we have 140. thelargest has one leader, one officer, and the rest recruites. the guild sys in EQ2 sux, all it is is a status contenst. There is no real politics involved. Guild quests are nefty, but shouldn't determine one guild better than another.
Rothin wrote:
You're right, this isn't EQ2, however, EQ2 has a FAR superior guild system than any other game right now. A lot of those ideas are coming from us. They aren't going into SWG, they're going into EQ2.
Guilds should be based on levels for several reasons. One, it gives the guild something to constantly strive for and achieve, a numerical number is a clear goal to reach for. Two, it doesn't give large guilds any advantage over a small guild. In fact, it's quite opposite. If you use the patron system or something similiar the more people you have trying to help the guild, the longer it takes since it takes that all into account, where as if you have 12 dedicated people do it, the guild moves forward much quicker. This gives smaller guilds a much higher advantage since smaller guilds are more cohesive and usually have a stronger base to them.
Levels are simply put a goal and a way to access more content as you advance higher. It brings guilds together to do these types of activies which will in turn make them even stronger. A Guild level system isn't a bad thing. Does it have to be level based? No, but then you can't add content for 'veteran' guilds since everyone will have access. Then you revert to the previous system of "give it more ham" or "make it require 50 people to do" instead of it being controled through making you level up through the other quests first. It just wouldn't be the same.
Levels = Clear, concise goals to achieve for the guild and everyone benefits, small and large guilds.
And just to make it clear, My guild is a small guild, not a huge guild. So when I'm asking for something to happen for you guys, its so everyone can have fun with it, not just those 200 player guilds.
If you look back to the second post in this thread, Rothin said that he does not agree with the idea of not showing guild tags until a certain level.
And I'm sure they'd find some way so that this could work for crafting or entertainer guilds as well as combat guilds.
Rothin, the idea is not a bad one, but it does not (in the EQ2 form) take into account all the more diverse playstyles we have in SWG. My guild is made up exclusivley of entertainers. Some of us have combat professions, but the majority of us are CL1 folk (self included). So, a reward of 'more dungeon content' holds little for us. However, this is the same problem SOE has been wrestling with for a long time. They just don't have a good idea exactly what to do with the social playstyle folks. There is not much in the way of a precedent for our gameplayl so we're a bit of an enigma.
I would be more inclined to have a 'guild skill tree system' similar to the professions system, or a city specialization system. Just as you can label a city "improved job market" you can have a guild work it's way up the "Entertainment Troupe" designation, for example. A similar thing could be implimented for crafters. I think this approach would be a better fit for SWG rather than a straight level system. It would be more flexible in that it could reflect SWG's more diverse playstyles (when compared to EQ2).
If a guild level system wouldn't work for some people, but guild quests and content could, Do you think the rewards for those quests should be guild based or individual based?.
I personally like the idea of guild basedrewards over individual ones. Such as the emblems and other ideas some of the other posted under the guild wishlist thread. I mean making a guild do say 5 guild quests to receive a guild emblem reward isn't making them a better guild than anyone elses, just more customized is all with a closer group of people than before because they worked hard to get something just for them.
Just look at player cities right now. I mean so your town has a shuttle port and mine doesn't. Does that mean my town sucks? some would say yes and others no. But we have all been to those towns that have tons of people but no rhyme or reason to their layout and finding your way around is murder. Sure they have all the perks of a large city but would i want to live there, probably not where as a city with a good layout and easy use makes a much more pleasent experience. You do not need a master politician with every perk in the book and 200+ residentsto have a great city in SWG. So in affect the city level system that is already in place hasn't hurt small cities in my opinon and i do not think i would hurt guilds either.
The rewards for guild levels do not have to be anything but fluff. I mean how cool would it be to have a guild starport only guild ships within whatever city you have residence could dock at. Would that hurt anyone else.... i don't think so. So if you happen to be in a guild that doesn't feel like leveling up or grouping for quests and your ok with that because that is how you play as well. Then your really not missing out on much, just some small guild based content meant to give players a common goal without giving them an advantage over others....
I would love to see someone say they lost to me in PvP because my guild has a crest reward for our armor and theirs doesn't.
it isn't competition, is just content geared toward a specific group of people and rewarded accordingly
As for the EQ2 way of guilds, well it has its perks and downfalls and yes crafters kinda get the shaft but alot of the rewards there are fluff as well. At guild level 30 i buy a title for my character.... YAY! oh wait it didn't make me tougher... i'm not invincable... well what fun is that? j/k its just fluff but when you see someone with that title you know they worked for it. just like if you see a jedi in SWG, you know it took them awhile to get there and regardless of what you think of them personally or anything like that, one has to sit back and go Cool, I want one !. (ok maybe thats just me, lol)
anyways this is turning into one of those monologues, so thanks for reading
Still, such a system is hard to adapt for Crafters/Entertainer folks, and thus, I'm a bigger fan of guild specilizations (like cities) to get some addtional fluff.
). When it comes to rewards, in no way did I mean it should be purely combat related. Personally I play all styles, I have two full combat characters, a pure crafter, and a pure entertainer. I've been an Entertainer since the original beta. I'd want rewards for all 3 playstyles. Combat is usually just the easiest to discuss and compare them too.One thing that the other system already has is youc an do combat or crafting writs (quests) to advance the guild. That could be expanded on in SWG to allow combat, crafting, or entertaining as means to help the guild so that everyone can participate and with that, everyone should be rewarded. Perhaps special craftable decorations could be given out in the form of schematics (with like 1-3 uses) for crafters, maybe new dances/songs for Entertainers (not sure how feasible that is though), and then raids / combat quests for the others. Just some ideas, I'm sure you guys can come up with plenty of awesome ideas.
Just to clarifiy about what i meant by PA Spaceports. These would only be accessable by guild members. Other residents that are not guild affiliated would not be allowed to use them. ( but thats just an idea).
But a here are a couple more ideas i had for guild rewards.
Recipies for tailors to make larger backpacks for guildies only, say 50% more space
Or maybe all Guildies get 100 more slots for storage on their primary residence house.
I think these suggestions would not give anyone an unfair advantage over another but i know they would be rewards i would want.
oh maybe guild colors instead of emblems. You submit your guild colors just like you would a name and if approved all guild members have and option on customization kits for vehicles and ships to "apply guild colors".
anyways the initial buzz of the coffee is wearing out so i'm out of ideas for now....
First off, sorry it's so long......
I do like the idea of having guild goals. My small guild is made up of veteran players, and for kicks we are starting to run out of ideas for things to do. At the same time, I am also in a guild that is profession based, not faction based, so faction perks aren't helpful at all to us.
The idea of a piece together crest for all members to wear is an awesome one. I think that would go over well with just about any guild. But with the idea of a straight level tree, i can see problems. While I did play EQ2 (for 30 days.... hated it!) one of the things i liked was that it brings the guild together for a common goal. I do NOT want to have to work my hiney off just to display my tag though. It's hard enough to recruit quality people at this time with your guild name showing, I can't imagine how horrid it would be if you had to convince some one that you really did have a guild.
At the same time, we do need things for guilds that will be benificial to all members, combat, crafter, entertainer, and healer members all have a valid place, and should not be over looked. I think that if you made a skill tree type idea, or maybe multiple skill trees (combat, crafter, entertainer, healer, generic) and allow us as guild leaders (ideally after consulting the members) to choose a box that would best suit OUR needs, that would work well. Let us choose from various lines in each type, with no maximum limit. This would give us a large variety of things to acomplish, and smaller guilds ould gain "guild xp" just as well,possibly a bit slower then large guilds. I could live with that.
In EQ2 there was a "sweet spot" for the number of patrons. I see good points and bad points to that. While it does make it easy to grow for both large and small guilds, the patron system itsself also leaves out so many members. The new guy that just joined and is gung ho for the guild wouldn't be put in as a patron, because there's always that chance that he's going to bail, so trust comes into play, and as a guild leader, we all have to be careful about these things, for the good of our entire group. I'm having trouble figuring out how to penalize a guild if the members go inactive or quit (should we benifit from the work of those in guild, regardless of how long they stay? This might lead to exploits .. i.e. for 1 mil i will make your guild great.... or would we lose xp if members that contributed quit? This might lead to the previous paranoia).
Before I would suggest implimenting something like this, you have to find a way that would allowALL players to contribute, yet prevent exploiting the system. Then again, if it's nothing but fluff (crests, etc) there might not be a problem with exploiting the system. Consider making each member's contribution to the whole a % of the guild population? This would benifit guilds with large percentages of active players, and harm those that have members that are padders (or inactive). So a guild of 5, each member would contribute 20%, while i guild of 100, each member contributes 1% to the whole benifit. This would level the playing field for guild size, and still allow all members to contribute (encourage it actually) while preventing the all mighty ONE person from trying to make cash to level your guild.
With this system though, you would have to make sure that to gain "guild xp" you have methods for all types of players. Other wisea guild gets penalized for having say, 50% crafters... beause they can not complete combat style quests. One idea is to make guild xp types? Crafter xp would grant crafter guild boxes, entertainer guild xp would grant entertainer guild boxes. This might enlighten Guild Leaders as to how active their non coms actually are. I would also LOVE to see quests where all types, or mixed types of mebers would be necessary to complete it, thus encouraging all members to play together. As in a multi stage quest, where you must have an entertainer to sooth the savage beast, a healer to treat some one, a crafter to assemble a component, and combatants to kill every thing else. (down side with that would be guilds like mine that do not have all styles..... some one find me an entertainer PLEASE! =p )
I like the idea of my guild having a goal to accomplish together though. I think it would make many guilds closer. The problem as I see it right now, is that guilds are nothing more then a glorified chat system.....I would love to see us have something to OFFER to members besides a group of friends.
Just my 2 c =)
One city is in a safe common location, for our crafters, with a research bonus, and a zoned area designed for industry. Not to mantion, the first 200 meters around the shuttle port is restricted to shops and all trainers are geared towards crafters and low level warriors. Our second city serves as our capital, and our warrior city, usually has a medical bonus, or strong hold bonus, and all trainers are military. If both, or even one had a space port, we would neve visit the NPC citiesexcept to get a mission, or do a quest. As it is, our guildies hangout in only the two NPC cities that wepass through on naboo and dantooine when traveling betwen our cities.