Player Associations Archive

For more than three years, I attended the developing of Star Wars Galaxies™ helped to build up the german community and led one of the first guilds. For more than three years many ideas have passed the boards, many comments where written by the devs and many changes to the game where made. For more than three years nothing really changes for guilds. This may sound like a complaint - I assure, it is not. My interest is to discuss the philosophy behind decisions made by the devs when it comes to guilds and guildsystems.

There is virtually no MMOG without Player Associations, commonly known as guilds.In first person shooters,clans are the backbone of communities and a guarantor for longevity. Newer products often assisting with clan or guildfeatures in order to bind customers to the product. Guildplayers have an emotional binding to their team and the team is attached to the game, so they won't be the first who leave if development stucks. I noticed single player leave communityboards more easier than players in guilds, if developers decide to need another year of developing. And the more people are communicating, the more intersting it is for others. That is the reason why guilds could be called the backbone of communities, cause they fill the boards with life, which attracts others to join. Influence and importance of guilds in MMOGs depends on the type of game, but I guess no developer can ignore them.

Clan or guild fit to fantasy games. Player Association is the official term in Star Wars Galaxies of what is called guild or clan in other games. The original feature list said we could expect »massive« PA-features, but we never heard what was ment by that. There where a few discussions about multi-faction-PAs (MFPAs), many demands of players who wanted to see guild-logos, a feature which was cut later (never heard of it since then). With the decisionto allowMFPA, factioned guilds where gone. At the same time, it was one of the seldom insightsin the design philosphy of the developers concerning guilds. Raph Koster stated, guilds are for friends to organize themselves, thats why there won't be barriers who could hinder the players (friends) gather togehter if they want to. That means, guilds are entirely out-of-character, they do not represent syndicates, military units, clans or whatever image players gave to their PA. They are to organize friends. Thats why the official name is still the technical »player association«.

But this may only be one side of the medal. Star Wars Galaxies lays great emphasis on character design and his environment. Placing and decorating houses, customize vehicles and the image-designer professions (and the professionsystem itself) are a strong counter argument against only technical guilds. If player could create cities, name them and give them an own flair, why should guilds be just an organizing system? Lets take a look on other games...

To avoid making surreptitious advertising, I won't post any names. With the quotes I want to underline what is said before and carve out a thesis. These games are currently in development, so it is not sure if these features make it to live. All quotes are taken from websites of anticipated MMOG titles.

Guilds and clans are in-character and 'in' the world, leaders aquire special skills to handle their guild (guild is bound to characters), features are not only to organize, they are allow 'group-roleplay' (with crests and uniforms and the like).

Maybe the correspondent (or dev?)will have a word for it, it would be very interesting to see what we could expect to see someday and what will be quite impossible due to design philosophy. I expect to see a discussion,no flaming and I wont post the names of the other games.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
The devil is a squirrel ò

4 GUIDE: to Focus Threads
4 BRAINSTORM: GCW METAGAME
4 PROPOSAL: MILITARY STRUCTURES TO SET UP STRONGHOLDS

ÐARKSTALKER IMPERIAL INQUISITION

Welcome to the discussion here in the Player Associations forum.

First off, I completely aknowledge theshallow nature of the guild system in SWG, as compared to other MMORPGs. However, I will disagree with your thesis statement a bit. I have also followed the development of PAs, from pre-beta to release, and I do nottotally agree with your assessment of the developer's intentions toward Player Associations.

Firstly, why guilds are a bit "shallow" at present.Some remember the first days and months of release. Guilds were not the only feature that was lacking depth, nor were they the only feature that was not implemented to expectations. I don't think any of this was due to intentions, as the developers have been systematically fleshingout the game ever since. The time, money, logistics, whatever you want to call it may have been at fault... but I don't feel the issuewasa lack of desire or design.

What was implemented for guilds was the smallest backbone they could fit in.Yet, even when pressed for time, the developers were responsive to player feedback that requested role-play friendly labels in game. I remember arguments on the beta forums that Player Association were an out of character term. This is why PAs are called Guilds in game today.To my knowledge, all commands and interfaces read "guild" not PA, this is why we have guild chat, /guildremove, /guildstatus, guildwar, guild hall deeds, and the Guild Management Terminal.

Admittedly, my focus for Player Associations so far has been on issues of simple mechanics, and there is a simple reason for this. When I appealed to Thunderheart for a Player Association Correspondent position to be made PAs were nearlybroken due to bugs. Leaderless PAs were disbanding with no way to get a new leader, PA Halls were quirky, and Guildchat was completely unreliable. Mechanics is the foundation upon which all else is built. I don't feel I would have done aproper service to the community if I pushed for ways to make guilds fit into the genre before they were even tolerably operable.

Today my first priority remains with mechanics. I truly enjoyed the opportunities for role-playing that past guild systems created. I am not shy to mention DAoC as one of them. However, I am pushing to have mechanics equal to or greater than guilds in other games ahead of enhancements to make guilds more themed and factional. One of the reasons for this has been the feedback I have received here from other PA Leaders. By all means, add your own words to the mix.

A quick look at the requestedfeatures and tweaksshows a strong desire for getting the mechanics up to par. So, my plan is to push for mechanical guild features first. The next avenue would be to push for ways in which guilds can define themselves andassociate with each other. This would include at the very leastRebel and Imperial symbols, flags, and insignia that could beearned by factional PAs. This would also include a guildwar revamp and alliance implementation.

There is one huge limiting factor in all of this. It is not developerdesire, Thunderheart has asked me my thoughts on Player Associations quite often, and we've exchanged many emails. It is not my own desire, those who heard of the long ago SWG-RP movement can attest to my desire and involvement there, and my own PA is made up of Rebel role-players. It is not design. One thing I have learned is that the developers are more open than ever to feedback that would make the game more enjoyable overall. The limiting factor is time. PAs sorely need development time. So does the combat system, jedi,the GCW, and dozens of professions. My firstof the "10 Questions" is "When will PAs be scheduled some development time?" However, as just one question out of nearly 400,patience mustpersist.

We have come a long way with many bug fixes and even a feature addition or two (like guild wide emails). I totally agree that we have very far to go. I have one suggestion to make for those who are waiting:Be a part of the forward progress feedback loop. But, you already are. *grins*

couple of comments:

The /set title command allows for ranks of any kind... you just have to make them up... also not all guilds are based on the war. mine is a guild of all entertainer/ healers. If we had to go fractioned that would mess up what we strive for. I think in general guilds are fine however more mechanics are needed sucha s message boards, guild only things such as warehouses and or less lot use for the pa hall.

Cheers,

famousFATWOOKIE
Master musician, Master entertainer of Mos Oasis
-I support ATK people and playstyles.
Find FFWB Here!A SWG History

To design a game which have toattract peoplein a few years, it would be a must tocreate strongcore systems and grafics first. otherwise, time would make the game old too fast. If it looks old, people would prefer another title. Creating a robust skeleton which could be fleshed out evenpast release would be better than making a game which has more content from the start but is obsolete faster than it should. I do not argue against the priorities made in SWG, because it will be to our advantage.

Although I would prefer 'content' for guilds, I could understand a design philosophy which aims for the free and unbound modern player, who want to have access to every content the game offers. In the boards you find such people very often. Some of themcomplaining about rebel / imperial themepark, due to the limit access and the need to agree in PvP (even if they are quite safe as coverts). If the devs put guild-crests into the game, I am quite sure,many wouldargue against those 'special content' and may start a discussion about the evil uber-guilds. Sympathy for guilds is no premise, thats why I put a few explanations into the starting post.

I do not think creating a game is about philanthropy. The very fist is to target at people you want to have as customers. Classic MMORPGs maybe target at former MUD players, former ultima players or fans of fantasy games or whatever. Star Wars Galaxies targets at new MMOG players, casual gamers who should learn the new MMOG worlds, at star wars fans and then at MMOG players (maybe someone calculates MMOG players willbe customers anyway, because they are fluent with internet and they know about new MMOGs and would test them).They wanted to expand the MMOG market, with fresh players.

I think the unbound modern player is a target group. And the most things in Star Wars Galaxies are about unbound single players who want to have some spontaneous action. Professions, mission-terminals, cities and elections, the faction system — almost everything.Buy a house, settle somewhere decorate it, go hunting alone or with a bunch of other single persons with missions from terminals and make yourself some adventures. And jedi are the most singleunbound persons I could imagine, they are declared as a kind of endgame. You'll see, the gameaims a target group which may be different from guildplayers. I say may, because all things above are also fine for guildplayers. I like it and the most would agree

But in jedi you find another clue about priorities. New force sensitives are neutral and in the entire pre-release holocron stated jedi are enemies of the empire (jedi padawan are still).The entire jedi-theme is against imperial guilds, and I had many many problems with this feature. Per design there is no problem with it, because there are no 'imperial' guilds. But this, as you might know only one side of the medal.As an imperial guild we would never help a padawan to become jedi, even worse we would not take them into our rows. The only thing we could say is, »come back when you are dark-jedi«, but even this is discontenting. A padawan in our guildwould rip our identity as an imperial guild. Some players of course wanted to become a jedi, they become solo-players in the first place. The problem is no RP-dogma, it is about the role of guilds.

Althoughthis are strong evidence for the thesis I would not post in forums and I would not be moderator and staffmember of the currently largest german community/fansite if I would resign. I still believe something could be done, but I am quite unsure whattodo in this matterwhen as you say it needs a few more years of patience. Problem here are no lack of ideas, it is a lack of signals from devs. We currently know quite good what we could expect with the next monthly patch, and we knew it before the crackdown has gone live. All players know that the devs will put in new content as new themeparks, they know aboutprofessions revamp. We have already seen pieces from the space expansion but we know nothing about the future of guilds. Of course I want to post new ideas and I will do so, but I really think guilds are on number 436373773 of the dev's priority list.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
The devil is a squirrel ò

4 GUIDE: to Focus Threads
4 BRAINSTORM: GCW METAGAME
4 PROPOSAL: MILITARY STRUCTURES TO SET UP STRONGHOLDS

ÐARKSTALKER IMPERIAL INQUISITION