Player Associations Archive

Absolutely everything.

Okay, so here's something I've been carting around for a while. Figured now is as good a time as any to get it off my chest.

PA's in SWG currently are implemented in a fairly normal way. Players can be members of one and only one PA at a time. The PA you are a member of is indicated above your head wherever you go. Members of that PA share a private chat window and admins can send emails in bulk to the PA. There's even a not-frequently-used system that can manage a dynamic leadership structure. The PA also shares a "meeting hall" that functions somewhat like a shared bank account for the PA. On the whole, a fairly useful thing that everybody here is pretty attached to I'm guessing (including myself).

But why stop there?

What would happen if the idea of PA's was broadened in a few simple ways:

• Multiple memberships - players should be able to hold memberships in multiple PA's and have control over selecting which PA title showed at any moment (much like profession titles - in the same way that you can hold multiple profession titles as well and select which you would like to show if any).


• Manageable shared banking - right now anybody admin'd on the guild hall can withdraw funds up to 100K at a time over and over again. What if instead the ability to withdraw was a seperate configurable permission with the paired ability to specify a daily maximum allowance on a per-person basis?


• Specialized versions of PA's were implemented with extended rules. Examples might include a trade guild where members had admin access on each other's merchant vendors, a fight guild where all members were TEF'd to each other 100% of the time, a BH guild where members could take out bounties on members of their guild (or maybe anyone who is a member of any BH PA?), a factional PA where you select a faction and members must be either neutral or of that faction and the PA earns a kickback whenever members earn faction (as your members increase in standing, so to does your PA) which could be spent on faction assets (like bases) or even a notoriety system for the PA's of that faction, or any other sort of logical grouping of people you can come up with.


• Alternately, allowing many of the above ideas (or other ideas) to be selectable options on ANY PA (so for instance you could have a PA that was rebel aligned, BH option on, and members can all withdraw up to 10K a day from the PA bank for personal use)

I'm sure I could go on but by now you're probably getting the idea. There are SO MANY different ways people might enjoy grouping together and SO MANY cool gameplay ideas that new types of PA's could enable - all of which would blow the doors open on encouraging people to find new ways to have fun together and NONE of which would require adding any substantial new systems to the game (most of the ideas I threw out could probably be done through minor rule changes, probably easier to implement than the merchant rule changes were). For far less effort (most likely) than even something like the Loot Revamp the devs could generate so much buz and new gameplay they wouldn't know what to do with all the happy customers they would suddenly be confronted with.

So, you tell me. Am I crazy or does this not look like a whole lot of fun for a very small amount of effort on the devs part - while not unbalancing ANYTHING in the game in the process? Can you think of any reason why this idea in general (I know we could spend all week debating the fine details or merit of the specific ideas themselves, let's stick to the general concept of allowing multiple PA memberships and adding customized rules for new types of PA's for now) is a bad one?

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CaseytheHutt wrote:

• Multiple memberships - players should be able to hold memberships in multiple PA's and have control over selecting which PA title showed at any moment (much like profession titles - in the same way that you can hold multiple profession titles as well and select which you would like to show if any).

This idea I'm kind of in the middle on. Personally, in any guild that I've ever ran I've never allowed dual guilding of any sort, because somewhere down the road conflicts usually arise in one way or another. Now, this is just my experience and won't be the same for everyone and I certainly wouldn't want to stand in the way or allowing or not allowing it, as long as it was an option for people to set per PA and not mandatory must be allowed. You say further down it could be an option, and I think it could be a nice option to have for sure.One also added thing would perhaps be merged guild chats or new 'alliance' chats for guilds who chose to affiliate with each other.

If implemented correctly and the right options to control who can join what per PA, you could set up really nice alliance features with guilds. You could also have a guild that has multiple divisions or branches and each branch serve as a 'mini guild' with their own tag and own options to admin itself, with another guild overseeing their function that all members of the various ones would be involved with. I think this could be a very nice feature for sure as long as it had the right restrictions guilds could set.

• Manageable shared banking - right now anybody admin'd on the guild hall can withdraw funds up to 100K at a time over and over again. What if instead the ability to withdraw was a seperate configurable permission with the paired ability to specify a daily maximum allowance on a per-person basis?

This I would love to see for sure. We've always wanted / asked for a shared bank for guilds. Even if the first step is just doing something similiar to this. The idea of allowing anyone in the guild to donate / remove a set amount per day is a very nice one. One of your members sees that item they just have to have but are 10k short, so they borrow the funds get their item and pay it back later. So many scenerios that this would be useful for. And with a set fee, you'd know who was leeching off the benefits daily and could prevent it. Just would need to make sure that it emailed the leader or the entire guild when funds were borrowed. Having that option toggled as well would be very nice.

• Specialized versions of PA's were implemented with extended rules. Examples might include a trade guild where members had admin access on each other's merchant vendors, a fight guild where all members were TEF'd to each other 100% of the time, a BH guild where members could take out bounties on members of their guild (or maybe anyone who is a member of any BH PA?), a factional PA where you select a faction and members must be either neutral or of that faction and the PA earns a kickback whenever members earn faction (as your members increase in standing, so to does your PA) which could be spent on faction assets (like bases) or even a notoriety system for the PA's of that faction, or any other sort of logical grouping of people you can come up with.

This seems like it would be the hardest of the ideas you've mentioned to implement but it could be very fun to see in the game for sure. It would open up opportunities for the PAs out there to really stand for what they are and maybe even encourage more roleplaying. Some of the ideas you mentioned such as the BH one specifically the Devs have always stated that Player Bounties were hard to impliment due to griefing potential, so I'm not to sure on that one (of course joining that PA would be that persons choice as long as it was known beforehand perhaps through a warning pop up box like when you buy a bag off a vendor).

As for the prestige system, it sounds like it would be something similiar to what EQ2 is doing which could be interesting as long as it didn't go overboard. It would need to be a system where it could give some perks, but not unbalancing ones (Perhaps a small faction bonus for NPCs the higher you go to help earn faction, or cheaper npc prices for npc vendors, maybe even make it so that you could earn the ability to have guild vendors and things), and also make sure that it was open to all without being a power gamers benefit. Must keep things casual friendly. But overall, a very cool idea indeed.

• Alternately, allowing many of the above ideas (or other ideas) to be selectable options on ANY PA (so for instance you could have a PA that was rebel aligned, BH option on, and members can all withdraw up to 10K a day from the PA bank for personal use)

As in my points above, I think I agree with you fully that these types of changes would make for some very interesting gameplay without re-writing complete systems, trying to constantly add new content, etc.. As long as the permissions are set up to control each aspect per PA (so they could in turn define who they are in the Star Wars Universe) these types of things would be a very welcomed addition. Great ideas.

So, you tell me. Am I crazy or does this not look like a whole lot of fun for a very small amount of effort on the devs part - while not unbalancing ANYTHING in the game in the process? Can you think of any reason why this idea in general (I know we could spend all week debating the fine details or merit of the specific ideas themselves, let's stick to the general concept of allowing multiple PA memberships and adding customized rules for new types of PA's for now) is a bad one?

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Over all, I love the ideas and hopefully we can discuss them further and the new Correspondent when picked could forward some of these types of ideas on to the Devs.

Hi Rothin,

on the issue of multiple PA memberships - I don't think you entirely followed me. I don't think many people would even want to be a member of several different "guilds" in the sense that we currently think of guilds. That's not really what I'm driving at.

You'll note down in my sig that it makes reference to "An'gelCor". An'gelCor is a mining company that handles large volume orders for some of the top crafters on Naritus. It was originally set up by my guild (House An'geles), but quickly outgrew us and is now composed of a large number of people from several different guilds. An'gelCor is an excellent example of a non-guild sort of player association that could really benefit from some actualy system infrastructure (like a guildchat window, guild email, a shared bank account, or even just a member list with titles).

Think of it like your RL. You are the citizen of a nation - that nation is a type of association. You're probably either a student at some school or an employee of some company. Maybe BOTH! Both a school and a company would also be types of associations. You may be on an athletic team or compete in some athletic event - those are associations. You may also have a membership in an exercise club - also an association. It's possible you are a member of some religion and regularly attend a facility for that religion - that is also an association. The list goes on and on and on. It is just basic human nature to group together with others around areas of common interest - and very few people have only ONE area of interest.

Within the context of SWG that would translate into things like current guilds, but it also translates into groups oriented around a shared financial or social interest completely seperate from what we think of as a guild. One of my guildmates has wanted for a LONG TIME to get a "fight club" started with a dueling ladder and regular tournaments. But he doesn't want to leave House An'geles and even if he did he doesn't want to try and bait people away from their current guilds for it either. Why should he be able to just create a "fight club" that people can join regardless of whether their in another guild or not?

The point is, the current guild system is "all or nothing". When you pick a guild that guild has to provide for EVERYTHING you are looking for in a guild because it's the only one you get. It's an arrangement that stiffles choice.

Oh, you mentioned difficulty implementing. No way to know for sure since we don't have access to the source code, but here's my thoughts on it:

"trade guild"
Would require the addition of code that checks for association membership when permitting admin on vendors instead of just checking for owner. NOT a big deal.

"fight guild"
Would need to add code to put members of the guild in permanent "duel" status with each other.

"BH guild"
Would need to add an interface to permit players to place bounties - one or two little dialogs - and code to verify that the person being selected is a valid target for that person (whether it's just your guild or any BH guild, same approach applies). EDIT: Ideally, I'd like to see a little more work go in to generating "standings" similar to the way the Naritus BHG works now. But that should be the case for BH in general even without BH guilds so...

"factional PA"
Would need code that credits a certain amount of faction to the PA when a member earns faction. Probably also need to add some management functions to control who can use how much when. If notoriety is part of the equation, there's more work involved to create the overhead structure for monitoring notoriety as well as creating applicable rewards. My gut says notoriety is something that should wait until faction PA's are up and running and everybody is comfortable with them.

So with the exception of notoriety for a factioned guild, nothing I suggested would really require a great deal of work. All of it combined is still considerably less effort than, say, adding a new set of wookie armor.

Message Edited by CaseytheHutt on 11-27-2004 09:19 PM