Guild Wars 2

No in game mechanics or advantages should make you feel like you need to stay in a guild that you don’t like playing in.

Nor should they make you feel like you should tolerate joining one you don’t want, in order to take part in such advantages.

GW2 does this quite well, which is good.

Personally, in every other MMO since Everquest that I’ve played, the main thing that guilds have done is take away my interaction from all the people on my server and encouraged me to pretend that only the ones on the guild chat actually exist. Which is outright boring.

Here there’s very little making players feel they have to join a guild. Nothing but the social advantages that all guilds tout as being so important. I think they’re simply finding that more players don’t buy into it, and were joining them purely for mechanical advantages, not because the people inside them were just so wonderful and the community was so incredible. They were TOLERATING them in the majority of cases, as a necessary evil en route to filling up a group for a raid for loot.

arcaneclarity.5283:

Dungeon Finder is never a solution to create a social game. If you want a social game, get rid of the instances altogether. Instances do nothing but isolate people from the game world.

Also, if you want a social game, you want an ecology within the classes/professions. Things a class can do, that others cannot. Everquest had this in spades, which made it a very social game. A Druid and Wizard could teleport, an Enchanter could give you mana regeneration, a Necromancer could summon your corpse, a Cleric could rez you, etc. I am not sure why MMOs try to get further and further away from this.

The social aspect of your game is based around the granularity of your game design, not surface level stuff like whether it has guild options or not. If you present your world as a world that people can get lost in, instead of an amusement park with every little thing pointed out on your map, you will have a more social game. If you have a reason to interact with others because other individuals offer things you want that you can’t get yourself, you will have a more social game.

I don’t want to depend on someone else for something I want.. Sorry.. I like to be self sufficient.

Mackdose.6504:

To be honest, I think this is more of a player issue than a game one.

Yes, the guild design is what enables players to guild hop, but it’s the players themselves causing guilds to “fail.”

For instance: no one uses /g chat anymore, instead using Vent, TS or in my guilds case, Skype. Why chat if you have your main members in a 25 slot vent? This creates an atmosphere of no one talking. After a while, someone sees an ad for HUGE GUILD
and reps them instead, because having that amount of players, people are bound to be G-chatting

The fact the the article concludes with “they need a dungeon finder” which would basically solidify guilds as throw-away if implemented, kind of makes the whole of the article’s complaints moot.

Have you ever tried typing in guild chat while in a battle or doing a dungeon? Obviously not. Cause if you had then you would know why players use ventrilo or some other voice program.

Haishao.6851:

I wish they would make guild similar to how they work in most other games, that you have to join with each of your characters.
If someone wanted to make a guildless character, they couldn’t. Characters are tracked by guild even if you aren’t representing. Once you have a friend or guild, you cannot have “anonymity” in game anymore. even the invisible option doesn’t really work. Login in from the launcher show that you’re online ingame, then when you enter the game it tells your friends that you’ve come online, and if you go invisible it still track your location in friend and guild list.

Volomon.9147:

By the way I’m looking for a group right now, whats the website everyone is using I forgot to save it.

http://gw2lfg.com/

Thx oddly enough googling the subject didn’t bring up the results I wanted.

Eladriel.7295:

Mackdose.6504:

To be honest, I think this is more of a player issue than a game one.

Yes, the guild design is what enables players to guild hop, but it’s the players themselves causing guilds to “fail.”

For instance: no one uses /g chat anymore, instead using Vent, TS or in my guilds case, Skype. Why chat if you have your main members in a 25 slot vent? This creates an atmosphere of no one talking. After a while, someone sees an ad for HUGE GUILD
and reps them instead, because having that amount of players, people are bound to be G-chatting

The fact the the article concludes with “they need a dungeon finder” which would basically solidify guilds as throw-away if implemented, kind of makes the whole of the article’s complaints moot.

Have you ever tried typing in guild chat while in a battle or doing a dungeon? Obviously not. Cause if you had then you would know why players use ventrilo or some other voice program.

Yes, I have. It’s apparently a rare skill to be able to do that and still play well. Voice programs are lame. I don’t want to listen to a fat guy moaning over his cheetoes about how unfair a boss is because he forgot how to move out of the danger zone (that’s a true story).

Boomstin.3460:

nerva.7940:

dungeon finder wont fix anything. the world is DEAD right now. they need to keep the action in Tyria, not dungeons. if anything, rewards need to be better in the open world. id rather have a mindblowing open world and mediocre dungeons than having all focus shifting to crap like FOTM.

Someone explain to me why did they planned a beatiful dynamic world and then introduced a dungeon that requires spamming Lfg in a single city hub leaving the open world empty?

well fotm kinda killed whatever was left of Tyria. answer is simple. they concentrated ALL of the ascended gear rewards there. if you make it farmable, they will come. ascended gear needs to be available in the open world, and it needs to be obtainable easier than in dungeons.

this all stems from the fact that they left DE’s to rot. they havent fixed any of the scaling problems, AOE tagging, and many of the bugs. basically, they created another WoW, where everyone is stuck inside of instanced dungeons. but it’s actually worse than WoW because we dont have an LFG tool. sigh

Boomstin.3460:

nerva.7940:

dungeon finder wont fix anything. the world is DEAD right now. they need to keep the action in Tyria, not dungeons. if anything, rewards need to be better in the open world. id rather have a mindblowing open world and mediocre dungeons than having all focus shifting to crap like FOTM.

Someone explain to me why did they planned a beatiful dynamic world and then introduced a dungeon that requires spamming Lfg in a single city hub leaving the open world empty?

Because open world dungeons only work on paper. These games are way too populated now to get away with that. Think back to any recent game you’ve played where there were critical farming spots… What happened when you went there? You had to compete with everyone else to be able to tag the mob to farm what you need, right? Now imagine if that was 5-6 groups all racing to be the one to get to that “boss”. One group is people who just hit 80, and another is a group from the top guild on your server…. Who do you think is going to get that boss?

There’s 2 ways to work around that: Either everyone who is involved gets the rewards, but then that trivializes all the content in the game since if it’s hard you just throw more people at it, or you instance the area so that it’s not possible to steal kills and mobs.

Personally, I’d rather know that if I was making a group to go kill something that I’m going to go kill it, not stand around competing with a bunch of other groups to see who’s lucky enough to get the first hit off, or in GW2’s case, autoattack and watch TV while everyone else does the real killing.

Kerithlan.1659:

Eladriel.7295:

Mackdose.6504:

To be honest, I think this is more of a player issue than a game one.

Yes, the guild design is what enables players to guild hop, but it’s the players themselves causing guilds to “fail.”

For instance: no one uses /g chat anymore, instead using Vent, TS or in my guilds case, Skype. Why chat if you have your main members in a 25 slot vent? This creates an atmosphere of no one talking. After a while, someone sees an ad for HUGE GUILD
and reps them instead, because having that amount of players, people are bound to be G-chatting

The fact the the article concludes with “they need a dungeon finder” which would basically solidify guilds as throw-away if implemented, kind of makes the whole of the article’s complaints moot.

Have you ever tried typing in guild chat while in a battle or doing a dungeon? Obviously not. Cause if you had then you would know why players use ventrilo or some other voice program.

Yes, I have. It’s apparently a rare skill to be able to do that and still play well. Voice programs are lame. I don’t want to listen to a fat guy moaning over his cheetoes about how unfair a boss is because he forgot how to move out of the danger zone (that’s a true story).

In fact in this game it isn’t even a skill needed. There isn’t a single piece of PVE content in this game that needs in combat interaction with your teammates. Whether in vent OR via text. If I’ve done the fight a few times before, I don’t need to hear anything my team has to say in fact.

Am i like the only one who actually really loves the GW2 guild system?

I personally think being able to represent or stand down from a guild is one of the best things to happen in this game.

I usually hang out in a smaller guild who i run dunguens with, are most familiar with, talk in chat with.

But i also have a bigger guild which purpose is for me to go WvW with since they can field bigger numbers and has commanders and stuff.

And then theres the other random guilds that invited me which i dont know well but im still happy to meet some new people there.

Idk, it seems awesome to me.

Blaming guild hopping and guilds failing on this system doesnt seem right to me. If you want someone to represent your guild more you can always whisper him. And i see more guild hopping in games without this system.

Like WoW in which the article writer played.

New players would join the guild. Find that the guild doesnt give them what they want. Leave the next day. The turnover rate is really really high when you can only be in 1 guild.

With the GW2 system, people are not forced to leave guild when they want to go somewhere else. And all it takes is a whisper to people in your guild list not representing and you can find them somewhere.

I think the GW2 guild system discourages guild hopping actually.
I agree that a dunguen finder here would be gret though.

RE: Dungeon Finder

I actually like that players were forced to innovate a better solution than anything I’ve seen developers design so far. Now, developers just need to integrate gw2lfg.com into the game.

Boomstin.3460:

Someone explain to me why did they planned a beatiful dynamic world and then introduced a dungeon that requires spamming Lfg in a single city hub leaving the open world empty?

That’s a mystery to me. I would have liked to have seen the game leveless, with all the content being equally viable at endgame. Any game which looks to employ dynamic event style content should consider it, and when they’re using it on such a large scale they should strongly consider it.

WAR had a similar problem, with plenty of great public quests (GW2’s dynamic events), but because they were only relevant on-level most went totally unused, with a handful underused and some rare ones frequently used. Similar to GW2, group oriented public quests were almost never completed, especially the semi-raid or raid public quests (something we’re seeing with the Orr temples).

Slightly off topic, one of the most attractive things about WoW in the early years was the constant rollout of new servers. While not as relevant here because of the way the game is structured, it certainly extended the lifespan of mid-level content (low and high level content tend to have the highest concentration of players in any game).

I 100% Agree with that Article, but the game itself it’s not social intuivie, players solo alot, and it’s not easy find groups for make X event, Dungeon, etc…

Even with guilds that’s really hard to do, it’s sad.

I read it. There were several things that made sense. I didn’t expect a pro-guild fellow to also be pro-dungeon-finder, but this guy was. Wisely, in my opinion.

Still, I have to disagree with his finger pointing as far as multi-guild membership is concerned. I would be more inclined to join a guild outside my family guild due to this feature.

I think the real issue is players are fed up with guild drama in particular and the ways and means of internet strangers in general. Let’s face it, if you’ve heard your guild leader’s romance woes once, you’ve heard them a thousand times and it’s just not new and entertaining anymore.

Good players leave bad guilds and bad players leave good guilds, however, good players do not leave good guilds.

Its a player issue, not a system issue.

Peetee.9406:

Good players leave bad guilds and bad players leave good guilds, however, good players do not leave good guilds.

Its a player issue, not a system issue.

So essentially you’re saying “Do nothing” about the problem?

It’s like climate change then. Just ignore it and maybe it will go away.

This is one of GW2’s biggest issues. MMORPG.com and now Gamespy.com have both run articles about this issue. Numerous people in this thread have noticed the problem.

I don’t expect people with less than 500 hours in GW2 to realize it is even a issue but to those of us who are well over 500 hours it’s become apparent there is a pretty big problem with guilds in this game.

Say it’s a player issue all you want. Any economist would argue that it’s a system issue. Are you going to ask people to interact more in Guild chat? Stop guild hopping as much? Good luck with that approach.

Maybe we should just ask people to stop whaling, elephant tusk hunting, insider trading……….yeah, that will work. Maybe we should just ask people to get along instead of having laws next. 10,000 years of human history would disagree that works.

Argue all you want about human nature, it won’t change human nature.

In practice, too many players use it as a “flavor of the month” feature. They join up for a couple of days and hang around, but after they encounter an ad or invitation that promises even better times, they represent the new guilds. Few new guilds get a chance to build a community in the midst of all this fickle shuffling, and consequently most seem to die as quickly as they’re founded. That’s got to be depressing for players like me who jumped into Guild Wars 2 alone, and I suspect we make up a huge chunk of the playerbase.

I’d like to know how GameSpy journalist Leif Johnson got definitive enough data to say ‘too many’. This hasn’t been my experience at all, but I haven’t been going around asking people in the game how they approach the guild system. Has GameSpy journalist Leif Johnson? If so, he didn’t quote anyone on it.

I’ve joined 3 guilds: 1 that I signed up with in Beta and is relatively healthy, another that has a high proportion of people I’ve befriended while playing, and a third made up of people who are still awake when most of the other two guilds are asleep and it’s early afternoon in my time zone. Each of the guilds has a purpose for me, and each of the 3 different guilds has my membership based on an understanding of what I would bring to their membership and when.

There has been no issue with multi-guilds for me, in fact it has improved the social aspect of the game for me.

Godmoney.2048:

Peetee.9406:

Good players leave bad guilds and bad players leave good guilds, however, good players do not leave good guilds.

Its a player issue, not a system issue.

So essentially you’re saying “Do nothing” about the problem?

It’s like climate change then. Just ignore it and maybe it will go away.

This is one of GW2’s biggest issues. MMORPG.com and now Gamespy.com have both run articles about this issue. Numerous people in this thread have noticed the problem.

I don’t expect people with less than 500 hours in GW2 to realize it is even a issue but to those of us who are well over 500 hours it’s become apparent there is a pretty big problem with guilds in this game.

Say it’s a player issue all you want. Any economist would argue that it’s a system issue. Are you going to ask people to interact more in Guild chat? Stop guild hopping as much? Good luck with that approach.

Maybe we should just ask people to stop whaling, elephant tusk hunting, insider trading……….yeah, that will work. Maybe we should just ask people to get along instead of having laws next. 10,000 years of human history would disagree that works.

Argue all you want about human nature, it won’t change human nature.

If you’re going to ask Anet to do something about this issue, the only sure fired thing I can think of is in-game VOIP. Which might prove expensive and impractical as of now and could also create new, unexpected problems for players. Like the quality of said VOIP compared to the established products (have you ever tried to use WoW’s? Gah!).

Godmoney.2048:

Peetee.9406:

Good players leave bad guilds and bad players leave good guilds, however, good players do not leave good guilds.

Its a player issue, not a system issue.

So essentially you’re saying “Do nothing” about the problem?

It’s like climate change then. Just ignore it and maybe it will go away.

This is one of GW2’s biggest issues. MMORPG.com and now Gamespy.com have both run articles about this issue. Numerous people in this thread have noticed the problem.

I don’t expect people with less than 500 hours in GW2 to realize it is even a issue but to those of us who are well over 500 hours it’s become apparent there is a pretty big problem with guilds in this game.

Say it’s a player issue all you want. Any economist would argue that it’s a system issue. Are you going to ask people to interact more in Guild chat? Stop guild hopping as much? Good luck with that approach.

Maybe we should just ask people to stop whaling, elephant tusk hunting, insider trading……….yeah, that will work. Maybe we should just ask people to get along instead of having laws next. 10,000 years of human history would disagree that works.

Argue all you want about human nature, it won’t change human nature.

Exaggerations and straw mans galore.

If you don’t want guild hoppers and shady people in your guild, don’t invite them.

There was a reason guilds in Everquest forced players to go through a 2 month initiation period.

Peetee.9406:

Godmoney.2048:

Peetee.9406:

Good players leave bad guilds and bad players leave good guilds, however, good players do not leave good guilds.

Its a player issue, not a system issue.

So essentially you’re saying “Do nothing” about the problem?

It’s like climate change then. Just ignore it and maybe it will go away.

This is one of GW2’s biggest issues. MMORPG.com and now Gamespy.com have both run articles about this issue. Numerous people in this thread have noticed the problem.

I don’t expect people with less than 500 hours in GW2 to realize it is even a issue but to those of us who are well over 500 hours it’s become apparent there is a pretty big problem with guilds in this game.

Say it’s a player issue all you want. Any economist would argue that it’s a system issue. Are you going to ask people to interact more in Guild chat? Stop guild hopping as much? Good luck with that approach.

Maybe we should just ask people to stop whaling, elephant tusk hunting, insider trading……….yeah, that will work. Maybe we should just ask people to get along instead of having laws next. 10,000 years of human history would disagree that works.

Argue all you want about human nature, it won’t change human nature.

Exaggerations and straw mans galore.

If you don’t want guild hoppers and shady people in your guild, don’t invite them.

There was a reason guilds in Everquest forced players to go through a 2 month initiation period.

2 months? Really? I’ve had full time jobs with shorter probationary periods.

There is a reason some of us aren’t interested in joining guilds!

Honestly, I think the problem isn’t multi-guilding, it’s differing expectations. Some players won’t join a guild that demands too much. Some player want a guild that’s all encompassing. Some players want separate guilds for separate activities. I only see 1 of those types complaining about the current guild setup – the players who want an all-encompassing guild. Game journalists are always in the ‘all-encompassing’ crowd, so naturally the hardcore player concerns get the most airtime in gaming sites.

Some ideas that have been suggested – everything getting broadcast to the guild, single-guilding, forcing all players on an account into a guild – are terrible and would turn me away from guilds completely. But they show the real issue here, that some people are hardcore and want different things than casual players.

The basic issue isn’t multi-guilding. The basic issue is that there isn’t a good way to set and communicate the guild motto to players. We need a Looking For Guild function. Some way (in game!) to browse guilds, and for guilds to get their theme out to players. That way the dedicated players and casual can find guilds where they’re comfortable.

I wouldn’t say the game is failing, but if any game screams for a dungeon finder it’s GW2. The fact classes can cross roles and fill any niche the party needs means no group will be fail just because of it’s structure, but rather the players in it.

arcaneclarity.5283:

Dungeon Finder is never a solution to create a social game. If you want a social game, get rid of the instances altogether. Instances do nothing but isolate people from the game world.

Also, if you want a social game, you want an ecology within the classes/professions. Things a class can do, that others cannot. Everquest had this in spades, which made it a very social game. A Druid and Wizard could teleport, an Enchanter could give you mana regeneration, a Necromancer could summon your corpse, a Cleric could rez you, etc. I am not sure why MMOs try to get further and further away from this.

The social aspect of your game is based around the granularity of your game design, not surface level stuff like whether it has guild options or not. If you present your world as a world that people can get lost in, instead of an amusement park with every little thing pointed out on your map, you will have a more social game. If you have a reason to interact with others because other individuals offer things you want that you can’t get yourself, you will have a more social game.

I think this hits a big nail on the head. While the guild issue is a secondary problem to the way the classes are set up. Builds, specs, roles, inter-class reliance is all really homogenized. Mix that with the fact that everyone runs basically the same thing due to lack of skill…it’s a very anti-social system. In this respect, i really feel like it was a bad decision to remove the trinity and structure combat / boss encounters to feel like bosses you would fight in a platforming or action / adventure game rather than an RPG. I think the developers are trying to satisfy too many different tastes, trying too hard to be different that they’re missing what’s important, making a solid game that is fundamentally engaging for the player base, like GW1, which in turn is longevity and more cash in their pockets.

lothefallen.7081:

I think this hits a big nail on the head. While the guild issue is a secondary problem to the way the classes are set up. Builds, specs, roles, inter-class reliance is all really homogenized. Mix that with the fact that everyone runs basically the same thing due to lack of skill…it’s a very anti-social system. In this respect, i really feel like it was a bad decision to remove the trinity and structure combat / boss encounters to feel like bosses you would fight in a platforming or action / adventure game rather than an RPG. I think the developers are trying to satisfy too many different tastes, trying too hard to be different that they’re missing what’s important, making a solid game that is fundamentally engaging for the player base, like GW1, which in turn is longevity and more cash in their pockets.

I don’t think so. Having more viable build options makes me more interested in the game, and I think that’s true for most people. I like the actiony combat.

I honestly think that we just need the tools to get like minded people together and a lot of the issues with grouping and guilds will get sorted out.

Also, if group/guild leaders take the time to educate their players more than things go better. If a party lead doesn’t set up roles and strategies in advance and the party wipes in the dungeon, that’s their fault. Relying on the trinity system to enforce roles without talking it out before the dungeon is kind of lazy. Even a pug can take 2 minutes to sort out if someone is specced for support, what to do when there’s a risk of wipe, how to assist with targeting, etc. Guild leaders should clearly communicate the purpose of a guild and structure how the guild operates to support that. Guilds built from random chat invites are going to fail, that’s just how it is.

Godmoney.2048:

Mackdose.6504:

Godmoney.2048:

Mackdose.6504:

To be honest, I think this is more of a player issue than a game one.

Yes, the guild design is what enables players to guild hop, but it’s the players themselves causing guilds to “fail.”

For instance: no one uses /g chat anymore, instead using Vent, TS or in my guilds case, Skype. Why chat if you have your main members in a 25 slot vent? This creates an atmosphere of no one talking. After a while, someone sees an ad for HUGE GUILD
and reps them instead, because having that amount of players, people are bound to be G-chatting

The fact the the article concludes with “they need a dungeon finder” which would basically solidify guilds as throw-away if implemented, kind of makes the whole of the article’s complaints moot.

Human beings use systems that are available to them.

Blaming players is not the answer. Blaming the systems is the answer. Players are not going to ignore an available system.

Changing the system is the answer.

Your post is the same as saying that banks should regulate themselves. How about we change the system so bankers have to act responsible instead of leaving it up to them. It’s tantamount to asking a 2 year old to regulate themselves from the cookie jar with a open lid on the floor next to them.

How about we just give people a system that encourages guilds rather than kills them.

So basically you’re saying players are stupid/irresponsible and expecting them to act reasonably and responsibly is bad design and asking too much?

All the game has is a means for players to represent whatever guild they want, changing that won’t change the revolving door approach to player expectations for guilds. The fact that most players in guilds have probably known each other for years, and are in a 3rd party communication solution is a huge problem for new players looking for guilds.

Players being to stupid to regulate themselves? UM, hello banking industry. Um, hello humans with power.

Yeah, people regulating themselves works out real good am I right? Maybe we should just get rid of checks and balances in government and we’ll just trust them to regulate themselves.

You know like how Walmart pays their employees better and better every year, oh wait.

You know like how children with a bag of halloween candy will regulate themselves.

You know like how the Dodo bird is still around because people regulated themselves.

You know like how Rhino’s and Elephants are doing well because of self regulation.

You know how the rich don’e abuse their money and power in politics to get lower tax rates.

People are great at regulating themselves. >.> 10,000 years of human nature, numerous animals being hunted to extinction would disagree with you.

Was your anecdotal hyperbole contributing to comic relief on the forums? You make it as if only the rich canabalize themselves but in reality crime rates in lower income areas dwarf those in affluent areas.

There hasn’t been checks and balances in the political arena since the first executive order.

The rate of animal extension at the hands of humans pales in comparison to natural selection. The root cause for the extinction of the DoDo bird wasn’t by the hands of humans nor species introduced to maurititus island they just facilitated it the bird was doomed because of its specialized evolution ie; being a flightless bird… evolution was not kind to the plethora of flightless birds left over from pliocene epoch.

Godmoney.2048:

Peetee.9406:

Good players leave bad guilds and bad players leave good guilds, however, good players do not leave good guilds.

Its a player issue, not a system issue.

So essentially you’re saying “Do nothing” about the problem?

It’s like climate change then. Just ignore it and maybe it will go away.

This is one of GW2’s biggest issues. MMORPG.com and now Gamespy.com have both run articles about this issue. Numerous people in this thread have noticed the problem.

I don’t expect people with less than 500 hours in GW2 to realize it is even a issue but to those of us who are well over 500 hours it’s become apparent there is a pretty big problem with guilds in this game.

Say it’s a player issue all you want. Any economist would argue that it’s a system issue. Are you going to ask people to interact more in Guild chat? Stop guild hopping as much? Good luck with that approach.

Maybe we should just ask people to stop whaling, elephant tusk hunting, insider trading……….yeah, that will work. Maybe we should just ask people to get along instead of having laws next. 10,000 years of human history would disagree that works.

Argue all you want about human nature, it won’t change human nature.

If you’ve got over 500 hours of game play time in a game thats not even 4 months old you have more serious issues than broken guild mechanic.

finally an article that actually mentions issues the game has instead of the usual “this game is 10/10 buy it and yes we are paid to give high scores” nonsense.

Boomstin.3460:

nerva.7940:

dungeon finder wont fix anything. the world is DEAD right now. they need to keep the action in Tyria, not dungeons. if anything, rewards need to be better in the open world. id rather have a mindblowing open world and mediocre dungeons than having all focus shifting to crap like FOTM.

Someone explain to me why did they planned a beatiful dynamic world and then introduced a dungeon that requires spamming Lfg in a single city hub leaving the open world empty?

Easier to gate content.

As for the article – it is quite fitting.
I’m no guild hopper. I’ve been in one guild in GW2 – which I left over drama and dwindling numbers. Didn’t join a second one, but just made one on my own for myself so I had a place to dump influence when playing.
Guilds made up of RL friends or from previous games are nice n’ dandy – if and only if – the activity level consists high.
The issue is that previous games aren’t always a good foundation for a guild – because it often can fall into nostalgia trap (oh, it was so much better back in the days) or because people don’t share the same affinity for the current game, just because they did for the ‘old game’.
Finding new guilds for new games is often much more “healthy”. A lesson I’ve learned myself the hard way by now.
The casual approach to guilds in GW2 is in my book a good one – however why account wide guilds were used seems strange and would be the first thing I’d like to see go from guilds.
Secondly; the lack of actions for a guild – no, not ‘Guild vs. Guild wars’ which would fail in a game like GW2. But for example for WvW – no real benefits from claiming towers and keeps in WvW. No usage of influence as a currency for WvW etc. Something ANet should have learned from DAoC.

Lack of a dungeon finder is also an issue, but not really related to guilds IMO.
Dungeon Finders don’t ruin communities as many people like to claim, dungeons like FotM ruins communities. So a Dungeon Finder on top of FotM would do no more harm than it’s already doing – but it would provide much benefit for the more casual orientated that don’t feel like standing around in L.A. all day to spam or listen to spam.
Spamming LFG is not community despite it seems to be what some prefer.

Fuz.5621:

First point is kinda void, he joined guilds randomly.

Second point… he is 1000% right. It’s absolutely unconceivable for a mmo in 2012 to come out without an auto-grouping LFG tool.

It doesn’t even need to be auto grouping. We just need an easy way to find others looking to do the same content we want to do without having to spam chat in multiple zones, sometimes for hours without finding a single person to do anything with.

GW2’s multi guild system is a great innovation and I would never want to go back.

However, it is in dire need of additional tools to support this new model.

- In game guild finder: I should be able to click on a person, or type in a guild tag in an ingame browser (that’s also accessible via the web), and it will show me a guild’s info page, their description of themselves and any rules they have, and some indication of their roster size / activity times. I should be able to sort the guild list via various statistics like number of members, how active the guild is, what region of the world (if any) they mostly come from, what they key activities are, etc.

- In-game guild application system: Once I find a guild by the above feature, I should be able to apply to it on the same page, and my message will be sent to a guild mailbox that designated officers can access. They can read my message and decide to invite me if they want.

- Guild chat should not require representation: Rather than only my represented guild being on guild chat, instead I should have tickboxes next to each guild. If I choose to tick all of them, then all guild chat messages from all guilds will appear in my chat box. If I do /g I will type to my currently represented guild. But I can also type /g [guild tag] and type to a specific guild.
I should also be able to set up multiple tabs in my chat box, one for each guild, and typing /g in the tab will message that particular guild.

- Some indicator of member activity: We already have influence gain as a way of measure when guildmates play together. Guild officers and leaders should be able to see statistics on how often members represent, and how much influence they generate.
Don’t like how it forces you to generate influence all the time? Then don’t join a guild that says they have a requirement on how much you participate.

- Some indicator of guild activity: Player’s should be able to see a graph of the guild’s activity over time. Members representing / influence gain rate, etc. This way players can see what time zone a guild is active in, whether the members only play on weekends, etc, and can decide if the guild fits into their own play patterns.

- You should be able to select text and cut and paste from the Message of the Day – often VOIP server info and other stuff is in there, and it’s inconvenient when you can’t cutpaste it into your browser or VOIP software.

I forsee, with the above tools available, then Guilds can more easily communicate what they’re about to prospective members, members can more easily find and apply to active guilds that fit their play style, and guild leaders can more easily weed out inactive members if they choose to do so.

The overall effect of this, is that active, participating players will start to congregate into a fewer number of larger, active guilds. Because there’s no cost to running a guild, there will be a lot of pointless dead guilds that really should be disbanded anyways.

The key to having good guilds in this game is to consolidate the active players into fewer numbers of healthy guilds. Currently everyone is too spread out over a bunch of half-dead guilds and don’t have the tools to find each other.

Absolutely agree that guild cohesion is the number 1 problem. There is nothing to accomplish with a guild and no group feeling as a result.

They make massive events but
- they have no guild halls
- no guild wars
- no fortresses to own for an extended time
- no epic bosses to do as a guild
- no guild overview
- no guild capes
- no guild icon if you don’t wear 1 specific armor and no guild ranking.
- no alliance chat

On top of it all in the beginning guild chat didn’t even work like they haven’t even tested this core mmo functionality.

They did many things very well, but guilds is not 1 of it

beren.6048:

Absolutely agree that guild cohesion is the number 1 problem. There is nothing to accomplish with a guild and no group feeling as a result.

They make massive events but
- they have no guild halls
- no guild wars
- no fortresses to own for an extended time
- no epic bosses to do as a guild
- no guild overview
- no guild capes
- no guild icon if you don’t wear 1 specific armor and no guild ranking.
- no alliance chat

Quite right. I think someone else said it right earlier, guilds are nothing but a glorified LFG channel.

I’ve despised the multi guild system from the beginning. What I have been beginning to notice lately is members will not represent us all week until it comes to Friday, the day our magic find perk is active. Then they represent us for that magic find boost. Come Monday when it’s over, they are no longer representing. Sure, they’re giving me their influence for the weekend but that’s not what I want my guild to be about..influence farmers. Truth be told, at this stage, I have more influence then I even know what to do with. I digress. Please anet, give me more tools to properly manage my guild! Aside from the obvious ones needed, inactivity log, last time represented, sending guild messages, etc I’d love to be able to denote which ranks are eligible to take advantage of perks when they become activated Thus, that guy who represents on Friday and leaves on Monday but won’t sign up on the site, wont join us in vent, wont respond to my whispers to please represent or asking to come join us for WvW, dungeons etc..His rank wont be eligible to receive perks when they become active. I find people have no desire to immerse themselves in a guild, join the guilds website, talk in /guild or hop in vent because they can do nothing and still have access to all the guilds perks activated. There’s no desire to move up in rank or even talk in /guild unless you’re looking for something to do or you know the people in the guild from previous games etc (generally those people are in vent together). As a guild leader, it’s infuriating. Give us better management tools and things to actually do as a guild

@Paper Animal well why don’t you just kick these people? Especially if they don’t even respond. The problem remains that they have nothing to do to feel connected to your guild, you’re just this stranger who PMs them.

I remember how awesome it was (in another old MMO) to help your guild take the fortress and how we got to use it for a day to a week. It gave benefits like buffs and cheap porting and above all a place to hangout. To be a fortress owning guild was also mentioned on the map. This is just 1 example that can help guilds to create bonds.

Just because the game allows players to represent multiple guilds doesn’t mean you have to allow it in your guild. Make your own rules.

Godmoney.2048:

Peetee.9406:

Good players leave bad guilds and bad players leave good guilds, however, good players do not leave good guilds.

Its a player issue, not a system issue.

So essentially you’re saying “Do nothing” about the problem?

It’s like climate change then. Just ignore it and maybe it will go away.

This is one of GW2’s biggest issues. MMORPG.com and now Gamespy.com have both run articles about this issue. Numerous people in this thread have noticed the problem.

I don’t expect people with less than 500 hours in GW2 to realize it is even a issue but to those of us who are well over 500 hours it’s become apparent there is a pretty big problem with guilds in this game.

Say it’s a player issue all you want. Any economist would argue that it’s a system issue. Are you going to ask people to interact more in Guild chat? Stop guild hopping as much? Good luck with that approach.

Maybe we should just ask people to stop whaling, elephant tusk hunting, insider trading……….yeah, that will work. Maybe we should just ask people to get along instead of having laws next. 10,000 years of human history would disagree that works.

Argue all you want about human nature, it won’t change human nature.

I fully agree. To people who disagree, look at it this way:

quite some problems, including all the guild hopping, can be fixed by one of these two things

1) change in player mentality
2) change in game mechanics

The first point isn’t going to happen. So if the problem is to be solved, it has to be the second. It’s as simple as that.

Veldan.4637:

Godmoney.2048:

Peetee.9406:

Good players leave bad guilds and bad players leave good guilds, however, good players do not leave good guilds.

Its a player issue, not a system issue.

So essentially you’re saying “Do nothing” about the problem?

It’s like climate change then. Just ignore it and maybe it will go away.

This is one of GW2’s biggest issues. MMORPG.com and now Gamespy.com have both run articles about this issue. Numerous people in this thread have noticed the problem.

I don’t expect people with less than 500 hours in GW2 to realize it is even a issue but to those of us who are well over 500 hours it’s become apparent there is a pretty big problem with guilds in this game.

Say it’s a player issue all you want. Any economist would argue that it’s a system issue. Are you going to ask people to interact more in Guild chat? Stop guild hopping as much? Good luck with that approach.

Maybe we should just ask people to stop whaling, elephant tusk hunting, insider trading……….yeah, that will work. Maybe we should just ask people to get along instead of having laws next. 10,000 years of human history would disagree that works.

Argue all you want about human nature, it won’t change human nature.

I fully agree. To people who disagree, look at it this way:

quite some problems, including all the guild hopping, can be fixed by one of these two things

1) change in player mentality
2) change in game mechanics

The first point isn’t going to happen. So if the problem is to be solved, it has to be the second. It’s as simple as that.

The only fix ANet could do to the game that would quell guild hopping is make some sort of penalty for changing guilds. Quite literally Guild hopping happens in MANY games regardless of what systems are in place, if people don’t feel connected to the guild members at all, they are going to leave/not represent. Right now, with the multi guild system, it’s just more apparent how big the problem (if you even see it as one) is.

If it’s a problem for a leader to deal with, than they simply need to be kicked. I’m all for the better tools suggested here and in other threads and i think they are needed. But the bashing of the multi guild system in the sense that it promotes guild hopping really seems to be false to me.

It’s an interesting article. I agree on some points, but also would like to note on some of them.

1) I find that the best cohesion amongst guild members are usually within smaller guilds. Almost always, these smaller guilds are generally more tight-knit and close to each other while larger guilds (at least ones with almost no prior pre-GW2 foundation) have very little cohesion and were probably zerg-invited.

My best suggestion is to research on a guild and find the one that’s right for you. If that guild advertising on Lion’s Arch has a website, take some time to visit it and see what they’re all about, their rules and policies, and why they came to exist. If they also use social networking services like Facebook, visit their community page and see how active they are.

In addition, join a guild that also has an active Guild Leader. My first guild in GW2 was pretty great and average sized. Not too big but not too small. Almost everyone was representing and had guild-sponsored events every other week. Then the Guild Leader vanished and the active members in it no longer represent the guild.

Because you can join multiple guilds in GW2, you might also want to research on their representation policies. In fact, I’d say you should put this as one of your high-priority things to look for when it comes to shopping for a guild. For example, in my current guild, the guild leader only requires you to represent if you’re doing content with other guild members (eg. a guild run through dungeons). I think it’s a suitable compromise as opposed to the totalitarian-like view of having members always representing said guild and no one else’s.

My personal opinion on representation: I think it works great if you belong in guilds that specialize in different aspects of the game, like a separate guild for PvE, another for sPvP, another for WvW, and one for simply RP provided that there is little overlap. There are even “LFG” guilds that exist solely to help people find people for certain dungeons. I know some of my guildmates belong in other guilds and represent them when they do content with their guildmates. I’m perfectly fine with it as long they represent our guild when we do content together. With that said, it’s one of the few reasons why I don’t like guilds that invite en masse when spamming in Lion’s Arch. I guess I’m so used to going through “initiations” or being “interviewed” before accepting an invite for one.

2) The dungeon finder is a totally different subject from guilds. A key point made in that article is that the writer of the article is not worried that it might “ruin” the community. Honestly, there’s isn’t much community to ruin in GW2. Let me explain: First of all, whenever I hear about this remark, I think “which community is this schmuck talking about”? Honestly, when I used dungeon finders in previous MMOs, I thought my community outlook was more widened but only to be limited with a server-based friends list. Fortunately in GW2, our Friends List isn’t server bound, meaning I could have friends from many different servers.

Another key point to consider is that this game is 3 months old whereas when the dungeon finder was released in WoW, that game was 5 years old. I could see where the “breaks the community” argument could work as far as the age of the game goes. In addition, since many of WoW’s features were server-bound, I’m lead to believe that those communities were also bound to a certain server; and often times the dungeon ethics of one server may clash with the ethics of another server (eg. Rolling Need on loot regardless of who could use it). Fortunately, everyone gets a little bit of something in dungeons so you don’t have to worry about that greedy odd-ball in the group that probably rolled Need in previous MMOs. The trade-off is that same person probably has heavy amounts of Magic Find, but that’s another topic all together.

Next is server pride. In GW2, server pride only makes sense in WvW, whereas all other parts of the game are universal, including our friends list— and with guesting coming up in the future, the community cohesion would only be better.

Lastly, another topic touched in that point is communication. As long dungeons remain challenging and the group composition is mostly dynamic, then there will always be communication amongst party members. Sure, you’ll have a few sour bossy types, but I’ve seen them in just about every MMO I have played. If you somehow joined a “quiet” group, consider your party members. Do they all belong to the same guild? Maybe they’re doing their communication on a VoIP server, like Teamspeak or Ventrilo.

you know something is wrong when all you see in the chat box in Lion’s Arch are Fractal and dungeon shouts.

The problem is with guilds there are just no guild activities worthwhile.

-There is no raiding, which is the traditional function of guilds..

-WvW is a complete zerg fest where its kitten near impossible to get a whole guild group in.

-Tournaments have no bearing on guilds at all.

-We don’t even have guild halls to take pride in.

Yes Arenanet is going to have to do something about guilds.

So I posted about this topic on my personal blog and went more in depth of the history of guilds and the step that ArenaNet took in GW2. My conclusion was that this game has done everything possible to undermine the typical notion of guilds; both through its removal of guild ‘raids’ and through its ability to allow players to represent more then one entity at the same time. Both of these combined effectively make players transparent to the idea of joining a community for communities sake.

Is it the fault of players? Maybe. I’d be more prone to side with the naivte of the playerbase…. many of the people who are playing GW2 haven’t played an MMO before. My own guild, i’d say about 50% have played an MMO prior to GW2. A shocking number and not one you’d see in the early days of WoW.

The point i’d go on to make is that adding ‘perks’ to the guild system won’t solve the inherit problem with this game. Adding ‘activities’ that guilds are forced to do together would. Organizing a 25 player raid isn’t something thats typically very fun to do in the middle of Orgrimmar so instead players typically resort to joining a guild that can do them. Through this, depending on how your guild is setup, you’ve joined a community.

In Guild Wars 2 my own guild Shining Force has been around since 1998. We’ve built communities in the games we’ve gone on to play. Guild Wars 2 has been the biggest challenge for us though. We’ve taken to do a few things to help solidify our membership in this game;

1.) Require 90% representation. We are your primary guild, so make sure you represent us and show it. We understand the need for the occasional party/dungeon/wvw run to be pugged and thats why its set at 90%.

2.) We require Ventrilo. If your playing, your on Vent. Thats it. You don’t have to talk, if your uncomfortable with that type of communication but you have to be on to listen. This more then anything helps build a community. You get to know the players your playing with.

3.) We hold three weekly events where we do stuff together as a guild; 1.) WvW on Tues, 2.) sPvP/tPvP on Weds, 3.) PvE/Dungeons on Thurs. You have to attend at least one per week (exceptions made for holidays/work/sickness/etc).

4.) We force our recruits to apply to our guild on our website. Tying their gameplay experience into something outside of the game is key to ensuring they remain a part of Shining Force (we are a multi-gaming guild…we don’t just play GW2) even should they leave GW2.

While these requirements for our guild were passed last weekend, we’ve already seen an increase in our active guild participation. More players are online, and on Ventrilo hanging out with us.

The point is, YES, you can create a guild that’s worth being a part of. NO, I do not think having 500 members just so you can have 50 online representing is a valid way of ensuring you have a ‘community’. Those types of guilds are more bound to fail at creating a community then a smaller tight knit organization that emphasizes the social side of things. Are any of these things helped by ArenaNets current design choices?

No.

Cheers!

Relevant Links:
My Article on GW2 Social Failures: http://www.scree.org/guild-wars-the-decline-of-social-gaming-within/
Shining Force Guild Page: http://shiningforce.net

Shootsfoot.9276:

Lack of basic guild management tools doesn’t help things either. A guild calendar would go MILES to help guilds, IMO.

This, plus guild alliance chat for larger guilds, guild halls etc. Its ridiculous that some form of multi guild chat hasn’t been implemented.

guilds are made and success built on good management around games functions.

blaming a game on why a guild fails is , well, it just does not work. the real reason is we live in a era of ‘’everything is about me’’. But to be a good guild officer, leader, or member you have to be sharing and giving to help make others in your guild better.

This is missing in most guilds I have been in. Problem is small guilds not online enough for players that are playing the game 20+ hours a week. Offline players may be gone a few days but in hardcore gaming time a few days seem like weeks.

Players get bored and join bigger guilds, and most big guilds ignore there new people or treat them as foreigners joining a new land. Once the warm welcome of everyone in the guild chat saying welcome for 10 minutes you quickly fall to the back becoming ignored or forgotten or the new kid/adult in the corner no one picks.

So then people quit and try start new guild and the cycle starts over. I ve seen this happen countless times.

Recently I quit a guild I had been in off and on for FOUR years.

I gave tons of my free time recruiting and promoting the guild and over a 4 year period I had recruited hundred and hundreds of new members. During that time not one peice of gear was handed my way nor asked to group up for help leveling, Unless it was for something one of the main officers needed for themselves or there own personal gain.

I watched one idiot after another get promoted then proceed to power trip over good people and good honest members. So now I gave up. I just play in my own one man guild and hop on a public ts3 channel. What sucks is playing like this I miss so much the game has to offer.
Special events and dungeons rough to do alone or get groups if your not pushy or don’t have a dynamic e-personalty.

So the multi guild in game function in some ways is good because you can try out different guilds at once. It is not this function wrecking guilds . People wreck guilds.

arcaneclarity.5283:

Dungeon Finder is never a solution to create a social game. If you want a social game, get rid of the instances altogether. Instances do nothing but isolate people from the game world.

Also, if you want a social game, you want an ecology within the classes/professions. Things a class can do, that others cannot. Everquest had this in spades, which made it a very social game. A Druid and Wizard could teleport, an Enchanter could give you mana regeneration, a Necromancer could summon your corpse, a Cleric could rez you, etc. I am not sure why MMOs try to get further and further away from this.

The social aspect of your game is based around the granularity of your game design, not surface level stuff like whether it has guild options or not. If you present your world as a world that people can get lost in, instead of an amusement park with every little thing pointed out on your map, you will have a more social game. If you have a reason to interact with others because other individuals offer things you want that you can’t get yourself, you will have a more social game.

Completely agree. I started playing mmos with UO in 1997. Did time in EQ, DAOC, FFXI, WoW, and LOTRO. The genre has gotten less social over time simply because there is less need to be social in game. Why? To make more money. There are simply way more people/gamers who want an ultra convenient, solo friendly, playfor30minutesorless, theme park of attractions than who want the forced grouping to do anything, reliant on others, social network sandbox.

The last new friend I made in an mmo was years ago in WoW before random dungeon finder.

Veldan.4637:

I fully agree. To people who disagree, look at it this way:

quite some problems, including all the guild hopping, can be fixed by one of these two things

1) change in player mentality
2) change in game mechanics

The first point isn’t going to happen. So if the problem is to be solved, it has to be the second. It’s as simple as that.

I played games where every character could be in a different guild. You could just play with you best character in a top guild and with an alt in a friends guild. The difference is that the Guild Leader never knows if you are not playing or if you are on an alt. This game had many issues, but having multiple guilds worked just fine like that.

Guilds worked there because they had things to do that actually required a guild. Some epic bosses you could only do with a huge guild or an alliance. Maybe I think well long life my freedom, but that is the reason why guild are not working. They are good for nothing, a shared chat that nobody uses and some buffs that any guild can provide you.

I don’t think anyone actually believes a dungeon finder makes a game or its players more social. What it does is make things less tedious. Sitting in one spot and asking for a group over and over and over and over and over and over, potentially for hours and days on end if you’re after a trip to a less-popular, lower-level bit of content, is not a social experience — not to mention it’s not fun in any way, shape or form. It’s frustrating beyond belief and prevents people from actually playing the game during this time. With a LFG tool, you can still run around and do things — including talking to people! — while you wait. If no group is formed, you still got to play, to have fun, to get something done.

People will be social where and when they actually want to be social. Forced grouping, especially if it’s combined with the frustration of sitting in one place for hours to spam your fingers off trying to get a group, is frequently a recipe (though never an excuse, mind you) for tense, selfish or downright atrocious behavior to the other people.

As for guilds, I never joined one because I do not think it would have been “fair” to do so while I was still trying to get a feel for the game and decide if it’s worth sticking with, so I can’t comment on their state in this game. I think people are often too quick to join a guild — or make a guild, for that matter — without really being aware of or caring about the commitment that doing so entails.

Why guilds failed or have failed?
Well, that’s a simple answer really, and one that was warned about during beta.

There was little to no support for already established and community contributing guilds and alliances that had spent years keeping everything together, promoting, and helping to build GW’s fan base. Big guilds split up, smaller guilds are hanging on, and alliances went by the wayside.

With the introduction of servers that your friends are more or less stuck on, should they choose to be on a different one than you, and no guesting, this led to people being pretty insular. Couple that, with a party size of five, and people will always pick and choose carefully who they will be playing with — meaning that unless you have a big guild and can direct and split up into multiple teams, you’ll pretty much be leaving members out… and it won’t be a daily teaming either that everyone used to do with their pals. It will be like directed once every week type things. Which leads to…

What to do when teamed into your tiny groups? The only real big point is for dungeons. Story missions are snoozeworthy, and you don’t feel like you’re accomplishing much and are a bit disconnected when helping someone out in them. And after that, there are not alot of guild-centric activities worthwhile. Coupled with bugs and other issues along our gameplaying journey some population of really dedicated and loyal GW1 members were broken hearted and left the game. There’s no incentive to joining a guild — and really most content can be done with a PuG if needed.

The chat interface is not always user friendly, especially during gameplay where you’re having to move alot… which led people to use voice chat systems and third party providers. That in itself starts a whole boatload of individual issues, which is not neccessarily Anet’s responsibility, but it does showcase a glaring hole in the lack of community support.

Multiguilding is a noble goal, but I don’t think it’s one that actually works out that well — especially since we’re forced to be spread out on other servers. It does little to support a guild’s ability to form a sense of community spirit. This affected international guilds the most, that were often a backbone of community support and loyality to the brand. The representation system is still a mess…and half the time guild chat doesn’t work — ’’you’re not in a guild’’ message.

All this stuff, plus a guild’s own unique internal issues build to drama. People don’t like it. It leads to the dark side.. ;-)
Where is there a place for guilds? In WvW… where one can witness the power of the hive mind — and endless untouchable mass of third party-voice chat directed mindless zerg.

article is pretty accurate but i dont think the multiple guild system is the problem at all; it’s the fact that there is zero reason to be in a PVE guild. I can do everything just as well in a random group. joined 4 PVE guilds all have become ghost-towns. seriously nobody gets online anymore and if there is one or two people they never communicate at all. and with good reason.. there is no good reason to be in a PVE guild, no activities that make a PVE guild feel cohesive or fun to work together towards.

but my WvW guild experience is the opposite… it has thrived and its full of communication and laughing and kittening and sharing and raging and life, etc. these players very rarely do PVE though. they just dont care about it. and for good reason.

also i dont think the article’s writer is accurate when he calls the World Dragons “punching bags”. theyre more accurately called “Loot Pinatas” lol. just tickle them with a stick while blindfolded and they spill free loot haha sad

Only reason I could see a guild failing is if no one wants to play with anyone in the guild, if there’s no activity, and no one wants to help anyone. Probably other things that I don’t care to think of right now

The guild I made is doing great, we’re not very big, but we started as a family run guild and people seem to like it. We help each other and do stuff together when we can. The only rules we have are keep chat clean, no more than PG13, and respect other players. We just want our guild members to have fun and don’t want to force them to do anything they don’t want to

I cant agree.

The only reason why the social aspect of the game is lacking is because we dont need to coordinate to get anything done.

Any explorer (well, aside arah maybe) is doable with pugs. Any dungeon can be taken down in a matter of hours.

So why coordinate?

I freelance right now, but in WvW I play in other guilds vent. It’s the closest thing to being in a guild without having attendance requirements.

Well I for one want things changed so people can have a bit more loyalty to a guild.

Shake your virtual fists people, anet will eventually take note of our emote spam.

But I’d like to point something out.
Very few of you are showing your guild tag in your signatures on this thread which makes me think of a lack of dedication.
I’m not a guild master or even an officer just to get that cleared up, its not my guild that I built personally but I treat it as if it was my own.
We are either Os or out, you rep or you leave. Thats the deal and thats why our guild has such a solid community like in GW1. We have proven that if you remove rep people don’t complain, people enjoy it MUCH MUCH more since we move forward as a team rather than lone wolves, in WvW and in PvE.

arcaneclarity.5283:

Dungeon Finder is never a solution to create a social game. If you want a social game, get rid of the instances altogether. Instances do nothing but isolate people from the game world.

Also, if you want a social game, you want an ecology within the classes/professions. Things a class can do, that others cannot. Everquest had this in spades, which made it a very social game. A Druid and Wizard could teleport, an Enchanter could give you mana regeneration, a Necromancer could summon your corpse, a Cleric could rez you, etc. I am not sure why MMOs try to get further and further away from this.

The social aspect of your game is based around the granularity of your game design, not surface level stuff like whether it has guild options or not. If you present your world as a world that people can get lost in, instead of an amusement park with every little thing pointed out on your map, you will have a more social game. If you have a reason to interact with others because other individuals offer things you want that you can’t get yourself, you will have a more social game.

I agree with you.
But if you have dungeons in the game, you’ve got to have a proper automated dungeon finder, period.