CDI- Guilds- Logistics and QOL

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Posted by: XarOneZeroNine.2374

XarOneZeroNine.2374

IMO, the best way of having loyalty to one guild while also allowing multiple guild functionality is simply to have alliances.

You may only represent one guild, but guilds that share similar interests can ban together and share resources and rewards.

For me the whole point of being in multiple guilds is because their interests are different. I am in a dungeon guild, a WvW guild, a guild with friends that migrated here from other games etc.

For two or more guilds to form an alliance their interests would overlap and make staying in one guild easier for that particular purpose, but would not solve the issue of different people having different interests all together.

My guildmates from my dungeon guild pretty much abhor any form of PvP so I would be wasting my time asking them to come to WvW or join a sPvP match with me. The WvW guild I am in is pretty focused on WvW. 90% of influence and merits and whatnot goes to helping the Commanders and the WvW cause.

Truncating the number of guilds that people can join is not an option that I would like to see entertained. Nor would I like to see ‘upkeep’ added to players in multiple guilds.

People were upset when fractal levels were reset / taken away. It was a mistake. Take away something else and taking things away become a trend…

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Posted by: anzenketh.3759

anzenketh.3759

I see a variety of comments on feeling more attachment to a specific guild and a lot of talk of the # of guilds people are a part of and the fear that is causing a lack of attachment. This lack of attachment keeps players players from being compelled to belong to any of their guilds instead of being compelled to belong to all of them

With all due respect Mr. Peters,

I believe the ability to join multiple guilds on this game is should not have existed at all. Very simply, it discourages guild loyalty and defeats the entire purpose of joining a guild in the first place.

Guilds are supposed to be a dedicated, close knit group of people. An ideal scenario would be a flourishing, active community in-game AND outside of the game, supported by communication programs such as IRC/forums/voice. The system now? Guilds having half the people not representing. Highly inactive/non-existent offsite interaction. Guilds are typically a hi-bye affair in the game.

People who say “I represent this guild today for WvW, then that guild tomorrow for PvE”this isn’t how guilds are supposed to work. In my opinion anyway. Guilds are groups where people do different things together – not a “I come as I like” place. People who represent different guilds on different days as and when they like are akin to clan-hoppers.

But obviously, this isn’t just the fault of guild hoppers alone. The guild system design in this game is absolutely sub par – you want people to know as many different groups of people as possible, but do not allow players to participate in the chat of guilds they are not representing. This, to me is the biggest problem about the guild system, because it renders useless the participation of a player, simply because he/she does not know what is happening in other guilds.

I respect your decision to give people the ability to join multiple guilds, but I still believe it was a wrong one.

I can understand where this is coming from. I have played many MMORPGs which adapt the one guild per character system. So, basically, players will put their main characters in the main guild. Not only that, guilds in some MMORPGs have very limited slots. So, their alts might not even be allowed in the guild.

The players belonging to those guilds are much closer to each other in comparison to the players in Guild Wars 2. Perhaps, players are forced to interact with each other and these forceful interactions breed meaningful interactions.

Sadly, in guild wars 2, I have observed that many guilds are being treated like a service or running like a service provider while players are just numbers to perform certain activities. This type of guild is pretty meaningless, dull, uninteresting and pointless.

Some people might think that this is just a game and doesn’t have to get that serious into it; attachment, sense of belonging, loyalty, pride, etc. However, I think that a game can only be truly fun and interesting if people get that serious into it.

Great points here and I think what I am hinting at is that if there was a way to maintain the current guild functionality of multiple guilds but also add a way to really commit to a singular guild what are the features old and new that you think are important for your basic guilds vs your, for lack of a better term, “home” guild.

Jon

Yes there may be ways to maintain the current guild functionality of multiple guilds but also have a way to really commit to a singular guild players are already doing it that is why so many guilds have a massive amount of players not representing they are currently at that time likely representing their main guild. But are any changes really needed here. If a guild leader does not want to run the guild with low representation for players then they can simple part ways from the player that does not represent them a lot. Guilds already set login requirements. As much as I hate to say it as I am even personally against login requirements perhaps just like you added last login you should also add a last represented or a % represented field. That way guilds can govern themselves based upon their playstyle and what they are expecting from a guild. I personally don’t find anything wrong with having some guilds as a service. The problem being described I feel is a Guild Governance problem not a mechanics or game-play problem.

In Game: Storm Bluff Isle — Anzz, Anzenketh Kyoto

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Posted by: Forgotten Legend.9281

Forgotten Legend.9281

[Guild Ranks and Permissions]

MUST HAVE: separate permissions for “guild invite” and “kick from guild”

for example: Guild leader can set it up so junior officers can have the permission to invite people to the guild, while only senior officers can kick people from the guild.

“admin lower ranks” would be reduced to promoting and demoting lower ranks.

Why?

prevents griefers from kicking everybody in the guild once they’ve jumped through the hoops to become officers

tl:dr

3 separate permissions:
1: invite to guild, 2: kick lower ranks from guild, 3: promote and demote lower ranks

– The Baconnaire

(edited by Forgotten Legend.9281)

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Posted by: Windu The Forbidden One.6045

Windu The Forbidden One.6045

Is this a feature I MUST have, SHOULD have, COULD have, or DON’T have to have. It’s easy to want everything but difficult to recognize which category something actually falls into for the good of the game in general.

Quality of Life features are never a MUST have. They wouldn’t be QOL features otherwise.
QOL features are by definition nice things to have, but not absolutely necessary.

Dear A-net: Please nerf rock. Paper is fine
~Sincerely, Scissors

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Posted by: Sungak Alkandenes.1369

Sungak Alkandenes.1369

Since we’re partially discussing people’s use of the multiguild system, I’ll mention my own experience. My apologies ahead of time for any rambling.

My primary reason for being in a guild – in whatever form you call it – has always been to be with a like-minded group of people that I can hang out with, and enjoy the game with as well (to the point that I’ve sometimes helped a game’s overall community for several years after leaving the game – i.e. the Mysterium Con). In GW2 it’s partially aligned with the game mode, and for me it’s generally PvX with focus on Story PvE and WvW. That gravitates me to the Eve model of ‘one major group at a time.’

The problem I’m having currently is the disconnect between Guilds and Servers, as fallout from the last two major patches (as well as a drop in my personal activity in GW2, to something a bit/lot more casual). That eventually prompted me to drop down to another Tier/League, and in turn make some major changes to how I perceived Guild representation and ‘Militia’ in WvW.

This is where I find the Guild system to fall a little flat, but at the same time is one of its strengths. What I’ve settled into now is one primary guild for non-WvW stuff, and working with that server’s community group (out-of-game) for my WvW Militia needs. Now, this is specific to the more Casual player involved in WvW, which is why I’ve been tagging myself as Militia. I think a more hardcore player would not have this problem.

So how can we fix this? I love to be involved in many similar groups, which is great here – you adopted the Second Life ‘groups’ model for Guilds. But, as others have mentioned, I am unable to communicate with all of them at once. That is why I have stuck to Eve’s format, which probably runs opposite to the original goal here. The above suggestions (for opening up chat to several guilds at once) would certainly help with that.

And, though the ‘Rep problem will continue to pop up, I think we have enough mechanics in place now to let that fix itself from the social angle. It’s still not enough – we could use better tools here – but its also not as critical as leveraging the social aspects of guilds.

Again, my apologies for the rambling. But I hope outlining the problem from my own searching will highlight some of the problems.

“The Meta Game does not stop at the game. Ever.” — Me
I like to view MMOs through the lazy eye of a Systems Admin, and the critical eye of a
Project Manager. You’ve been warned. ;-)

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Posted by: Wynne.3908

Wynne.3908

I can’t help but feel sad and a bit alienated when i saw the CDI title. All the guildmates I’ve played with since the original Guild Wars have long since left this game.

While I’ve created my own guild for the time being, it’s really a poor substitute for what was essentially a family of players that formed years ago.

Logistics of guilds and QOL changes are fine and all, but I for one would appreciate a discussion on how to get formerly strong guilds reinvigorated!

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Posted by: Artemis Thuras.8795

Artemis Thuras.8795

I see a variety of comments on feeling more attachment to a specific guild and a lot of talk of the # of guilds people are a part of and the fear that is causing a lack of attachment. This lack of attachment keeps players players from being compelled to belong to any of their guilds instead of being compelled to belong to all of them

With all due respect Mr. Peters,

I believe the ability to join multiple guilds on this game is should not have existed at all. Very simply, it discourages guild loyalty and defeats the entire purpose of joining a guild in the first place.

Guilds are supposed to be a dedicated, close knit group of people. An ideal scenario would be a flourishing, active community in-game AND outside of the game, supported by communication programs such as IRC/forums/voice. The system now? Guilds having half the people not representing. Highly inactive/non-existent offsite interaction. Guilds are typically a hi-bye affair in the game.

People who say “I represent this guild today for WvW, then that guild tomorrow for PvE”this isn’t how guilds are supposed to work. In my opinion anyway. Guilds are groups where people do different things together – not a “I come as I like” place. People who represent different guilds on different days as and when they like are akin to clan-hoppers.

But obviously, this isn’t just the fault of guild hoppers alone. The guild system design in this game is absolutely sub par – you want people to know as many different groups of people as possible, but do not allow players to participate in the chat of guilds they are not representing. This, to me is the biggest problem about the guild system, because it renders useless the participation of a player, simply because he/she does not know what is happening in other guilds.

I respect your decision to give people the ability to join multiple guilds, but I still believe it was a wrong one.

Not Quite. Allow equal attachment to each guild I am in. Give my influence I earn equally to each guild. Give me the ability to view the guild chat of each guild (similar to alliances in gw1).

I view the multiple guild thing as a replacement for alliances of gw1.

The core of the problem is the isolationist approach to guild chat (only seeing 1 at a time), and influence generation (only for one guild at a time).

There are too many people who (rightly so) want to be in multiple guilds. There are equally many guilds who are having to ask for them to represent exclusively, due to chat and influence limitations.

The individual wants his/her own alliance of guilds because guilds are specialized for certain things. Especially WvW/PvE/Spvp. You’ve pretty much encouraged this split focus due to the way megaserver works. Server is meaningless to a PvE (or sPvP) guild. As such we should be able to benefit from the larger, more diverse crowd. However WvW guilds have to be tied to server. The byproduct of mega server is this inherent split in focus and player base of the guilds. This creates the need for multiple guilds. However the way representation works results in guilds demanding representation from their members (some in better ways than others). This has resulted in heated, sometimes toxic interaction between leaders and members. Granted the idea needs polish, but as far as I can see its the best solution for the enjoyment of the game.

See discussion in this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Guilds-5/first#post4378848

Seriously, make it so I am in each guild , not on (up to) five rostas, but only in one guild.

Effectively we should be able to create our own alliance of guilds.

Also, I love the idea of buffs having a per hour cost of influence and being maintained (like maintained enchantments vs timed duration enchantments in gw1). Reactivating buffs daily is such a chore!

Jon, I’d really like to hear your thoughts on this idea ( I did post earlier on the idea, though perhaps it needs some tidying up for clarity).

Co-Leader of The Mythical Dragons [MYTH],
Advocate of learning and being a useful party member.
http://mythdragons.enjin.com/recruitment

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Posted by: Noxicon.4956

Noxicon.4956

After some initial discussions with my officers, these are some of the things we’ve come up with. I may post later as more offer up their opinions and I speak to my co-leader.

Proposal Overview #1
A log-in splash screen that would display the Guild Message of the Day, a list displaying ONLY the members in the guild who are currently online, and perhaps simple notifications that you have mail or perhaps things waiting at the Trading Post.

Goal of Proposal
We are a very active guild, running missions multiple nights a week to accommodate US and EU members, as well as multiple guild events throughout the year that require significant planning. As it stands, despite the guild message being updated with all relevant information, we seem to still struggle communicating to the guild at large because the GMOTD just isn’t visible enough. It’s completely easy to skip right past it. Remember how the guild list would always pop up on login in Guild Wars 1? Think something similar, but with a little more relevant information than just the guild listing.

Proposal Functionality

Each time a character logs in for the first time that day, a splash screen would appear with all the info I mentioned above. If the player switches characters and that character is representing the same guild, the screen does not display, but would for a character repping a different guild. The bottom line is I believe it brings communication to the forefront between Leaders and Officers and General Members.

Associated Risks

Simply from my perspective, which lacks knowledge in what it would take to make this happen, there are no risks, only upside. Consider it a flash look at what’s going on with your game at that current moment.
__________________________________________________________________

Proposal Overview #2

Goal of Proposal
Guild-Wide mail system

Proposal Functionality
Officers and Leaders would have the capability to send out a guild bulletin of sorts. As I said, our guild often does events which require mass mails being sent, and being suppressed every 2 mails when you have as many as 100+ mails to send is quite the PITA.

Associated Risks
Perhaps someone angry in one of these positions could send out some harmful stuff or a guild could abuse the system to spam members, which would cause some unrest.
__________________________________________________________________

Proposal Overview #3

Join Date and Last Repped options available on hover information

Goal of Proposal

People most definitely take advantage of the ability to be in multiple guilds within the game. However, it often makes your roster look quite bad when half of them aren’t repping your guild seemingly ever yet stick around on the roster. We run a 50% rep rule, which we don’t hold to an exact number, just that you rep occasionally. Currently it’s beyond annoying to keep track of, with officers and leaders maintaining lists of people they do not see repping often to see which overlap and for how long that may have occurred. A Last Rep notification would save my guild a ton of work. As far as join date, that’s merely to keep in mind for promotions to higher ranks as well as loyalty when it comes to removing people from the roster.

Proposal Functionality

I believe it’s been said that it’s very difficult to track representing, but I’d like to hope you could find a way. As for join date, I think that’s as simple as making that data available when you simply hover over a player’s name in the roster.

Associated Risks
None that I’m aware of.

Thank you for your time.

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Posted by: arkealia.2713

arkealia.2713

Proposal Overview
Memopad
Goal of Proposal
Add a memopad for players to keep informations on each guildies (at least those they want to keep things on). Can also be extended to friend and block lists. It would help keeping track of who are your guildmates, especially when you have a lot.
Proposal Functionality
Add an icon near player name on the guild pannel (or wherever on the line associated to that player).
When clicking that icon, it should open a window where the player can write whatever you want for your eyes only.
Those message should be saved on the client side, not the server.
Associated Risks
None except the part about client side, you lose all when you change computer.

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Posted by: Zesbeer.8365

Zesbeer.8365

Proposal Overview:

  • Achievements of guild members are visible to all guild members with an “achievement log”
    /Snip

Associated Risks

  • None

Some of the risks for this are:

  • Requiring that you have x achievement points or x achievement to be in guilds
  • added player frustration/embarrassment because they are unable to complete an achievement.
  • displaying dailys and monthlys which spam the system.

(edited by Zesbeer.8365)

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Posted by: anzenketh.3759

anzenketh.3759

Not Quite. Allow equal attachment to each guild I am in. Give my influence I earn equally to each guild. Give me the ability to view the guild chat of each guild (similar to alliances in gw1).

Now there is a idea. This would help the “Service” guilds and alleviate their pressure to require representation but still provide the function they were created for. Then the 100% rep requirements to player choice. Might be a good idea to add a last represented field just like there is a last logged in field. That way the leader of a guild can clean up their roster.

In Game: Storm Bluff Isle — Anzz, Anzenketh Kyoto

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Posted by: Zesbeer.8365

Zesbeer.8365

Title: Guild Missions

Proposal Overview: A QoL Change to the overall system of the Guild missions.

Goal of Proposal: Allow small/medium size or guilds without a current large representation participate in the events.

Proposal Functionality:
Our Guild is small with only a few daily active members of our 20 or so roster. So the Guild Missions as they currently exist are just not something we can participate in. The Missions take more of an active force then we can muster. Now I understand that some missions should require large groups to be successfully completed and that is just fine but we many Guilds, are not all cut from the same cloth.
There should be some things that the small and medium sized guilds can do to contribute to the grand guild brotherhood.
Yes I know there is Guild Bounty Training but that does not yield any Merits only influence. If we need to contribute influence, we can currently just buy it.

Guild Alliances Would be a possible way to circumvent the current mission feature but I think that Alliances fall more under New Content not QoL or Logistics so I will reserve further iteration until we get to the New Content Phase.

Associated Risks: There would have to be some sort of scaling system put in place so that the Large guilds could not take advantage of doing a mission slotted for a Smaller guild.

Sorry I don’t have more to contribute on this one but as I don’t do them, I just don’t have much to suggest.

I wanted to bring this topic up as well because the gating for a lot of the guild influence stuff is alot harder on smaller guilds. the downside to having it scale to the amount of players is that if you are in a large guild and want to have everything unlocked all you would have to do is kick 60-70% of your roster and then get the upgrades with the smallest amount I guess the best way around this would be to attach it to the guild size increases that people need to buy but even then you could run into the same problem of people holding off joining until all the major upgrades are completed.

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Posted by: LostBalloon.6423

LostBalloon.6423

Not Quite. Allow equal attachment to each guild I am in. Give my influence I earn equally to each guild. Give me the ability to view the guild chat of each guild (similar to alliances in gw1).

Now there is a idea. This would help the “Service” guilds and alleviate their pressure to require representation but still provide the function they were created for. Then the 100% rep requirements to player choice. Might be a good idea to add a last represented field just like there is a last logged in field. That way the leader of a guild can clean up their roster.

Though I would make that field only appear if your rank in guild allows you to view it.

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Posted by: Donari.5237

Donari.5237

Custom chat channels might help with communication issues. Let players create and name channels, then invite others to them. There are a host of problems with moderation issues and such, but had we had the possibility since launch, allied guilds would have been able to have a place to chat. RPers not guilded together could find a way to have ooc discussion along with the ic action. Interest groups could form.

That’s not a guild function, though, it’s a work around for a missing one that also has other uses.

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Posted by: Nabrok.9023

Nabrok.9023

Not Quite. Allow equal attachment to each guild I am in. Give my influence I earn equally to each guild. Give me the ability to view the guild chat of each guild (similar to alliances in gw1).

Interesting idea on the influence, I like it but it might be a bit more complicated than it seems.

For instance, the amount of influence you earn isn’t fixed but depends on the number of guild members around you doing the same thing. For example if only one guild member does an event you get 2 influence. If two or more members are doing the same event (in party or not) you get 20.

“I’m not a PvE, WvW, or PvP player – I am a Guild Wars 2 player”
Tarnished Coast – Dissentient [DIS]
All classes

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Posted by: Chris Whiteside.6102

Previous

Chris Whiteside.6102

Studio Design Director

Next

After some initial discussions with my officers, these are some of the things we’ve come up with. I may post later as more offer up their opinions and I speak to my co-leader.

Proposal Overview #1
A log-in splash screen that would display the Guild Message of the Day, a list displaying ONLY the members in the guild who are currently online, and perhaps simple notifications that you have mail or perhaps things waiting at the Trading Post.

Goal of Proposal
We are a very active guild, running missions multiple nights a week to accommodate US and EU members, as well as multiple guild events throughout the year that require significant planning. As it stands, despite the guild message being updated with all relevant information, we seem to still struggle communicating to the guild at large because the GMOTD just isn’t visible enough. It’s completely easy to skip right past it. Remember how the guild list would always pop up on login in Guild Wars 1? Think something similar, but with a little more relevant information than just the guild listing.

Proposal Functionality

Each time a character logs in for the first time that day, a splash screen would appear with all the info I mentioned above. If the player switches characters and that character is representing the same guild, the screen does not display, but would for a character repping a different guild. The bottom line is I believe it brings communication to the forefront between Leaders and Officers and General Members.

Associated Risks

Simply from my perspective, which lacks knowledge in what it would take to make this happen, there are no risks, only upside. Consider it a flash look at what’s going on with your game at that current moment.
__________________________________________________________________

Proposal Overview #2

Goal of Proposal
Guild-Wide mail system

Proposal Functionality
Officers and Leaders would have the capability to send out a guild bulletin of sorts. As I said, our guild often does events which require mass mails being sent, and being suppressed every 2 mails when you have as many as 100+ mails to send is quite the PITA.

Associated Risks
Perhaps someone angry in one of these positions could send out some harmful stuff or a guild could abuse the system to spam members, which would cause some unrest.
__________________________________________________________________

Proposal Overview #3

Join Date and Last Repped options available on hover information

Goal of Proposal

People most definitely take advantage of the ability to be in multiple guilds within the game. However, it often makes your roster look quite bad when half of them aren’t repping your guild seemingly ever yet stick around on the roster. We run a 50% rep rule, which we don’t hold to an exact number, just that you rep occasionally. Currently it’s beyond annoying to keep track of, with officers and leaders maintaining lists of people they do not see repping often to see which overlap and for how long that may have occurred. A Last Rep notification would save my guild a ton of work. As far as join date, that’s merely to keep in mind for promotions to higher ranks as well as loyalty when it comes to removing people from the roster.

Proposal Functionality

I believe it’s been said that it’s very difficult to track representing, but I’d like to hope you could find a way. As for join date, I think that’s as simple as making that data available when you simply hover over a player’s name in the roster.

Associated Risks
None that I’m aware of.

Thank you for your time.

Awesome. It is great to see compiled lists from guilds.

Chris

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Posted by: Chris Whiteside.6102

Previous

Chris Whiteside.6102

Studio Design Director

Next

Custom chat channels might help with communication issues. Let players create and name channels, then invite others to them. There are a host of problems with moderation issues and such, but had we had the possibility since launch, allied guilds would have been able to have a place to chat. RPers not guilded together could find a way to have ooc discussion along with the ic action. Interest groups could form.

That’s not a guild function, though, it’s a work around for a missing one that also has other uses.

Personally i like the idea of custom chat channels even though this isn’t guild specific.

Chris

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Posted by: Chris Whiteside.6102

Previous

Chris Whiteside.6102

Studio Design Director

Next

Ok so I am up to date but am busy for much of the afternoon.

I am going to start giving my thoughts and joining the discussion. To be honest however the largest amount of time I will have for this is the weekend. I will do my best between now and then.

Chris

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Posted by: Sungak Alkandenes.1369

Sungak Alkandenes.1369

Jon/Chris,

Is there a technical problem preventing the addition of a simple /server chat channel? Though not directly related to Guilds, it would certainly go a long way to alleviate some Guild-related QoL issues introduced by Megaserver. It would also help as QoL for WvW, an added bonus.

As a programmer and SysAdmin, I don’t see this taking much of your resources to implement and test.

“The Meta Game does not stop at the game. Ever.” — Me
I like to view MMOs through the lazy eye of a Systems Admin, and the critical eye of a
Project Manager. You’ve been warned. ;-)

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Posted by: BrunoBRS.5178

BrunoBRS.5178

I see a variety of comments on feeling more attachment to a specific guild and a lot of talk of the # of guilds people are a part of and the fear that is causing a lack of attachment. This lack of attachment keeps players players from being compelled to belong to any of their guilds instead of being compelled to belong to all of them

With all due respect Mr. Peters,

I believe the ability to join multiple guilds on this game is should not have existed at all. Very simply, it discourages guild loyalty and defeats the entire purpose of joining a guild in the first place.

Guilds are supposed to be a dedicated, close knit group of people. An ideal scenario would be a flourishing, active community in-game AND outside of the game, supported by communication programs such as IRC/forums/voice. The system now? Guilds having half the people not representing. Highly inactive/non-existent offsite interaction. Guilds are typically a hi-bye affair in the game.

People who say “I represent this guild today for WvW, then that guild tomorrow for PvE”this isn’t how guilds are supposed to work. In my opinion anyway. Guilds are groups where people do different things together – not a “I come as I like” place. People who represent different guilds on different days as and when they like are akin to clan-hoppers.

But obviously, this isn’t just the fault of guild hoppers alone. The guild system design in this game is absolutely sub par – you want people to know as many different groups of people as possible, but do not allow players to participate in the chat of guilds they are not representing. This, to me is the biggest problem about the guild system, because it renders useless the participation of a player, simply because he/she does not know what is happening in other guilds.

I respect your decision to give people the ability to join multiple guilds, but I still believe it was a wrong one.

I can understand where this is coming from. I have played many MMORPGs which adapt the one guild per character system. So, basically, players will put their main characters in the main guild. Not only that, guilds in some MMORPGs have very limited slots. So, their alts might not even be allowed in the guild.

The players belonging to those guilds are much closer to each other in comparison to the players in Guild Wars 2. Perhaps, players are forced to interact with each other and these forceful interactions breed meaningful interactions.

Sadly, in guild wars 2, I have observed that many guilds are being treated like a service or running like a service provider while players are just numbers to perform certain activities. This type of guild is pretty meaningless, dull, uninteresting and pointless.

Some people might think that this is just a game and doesn’t have to get that serious into it; attachment, sense of belonging, loyalty, pride, etc. However, I think that a game can only be truly fun and interesting if people get that serious into it.

I’ve been accompanying the discussion mostly through the dev tracker, and didn’t have any plans to chime in, but this surge in discontent with the multiple guilds system encouraged me to take a stance:

I absolutely adore the fact I can join multiple guilds. Without that system, I wouldn’t have been able to keep in contact with friends that gravitated towards other guilds that more tightly focus on their favorite aspects of the game, or met new friends without losing old ones. Currently, I’m able to lead my own guild (which is now mostly a glorified friends list with its own chat when we decide to do something together), a large PvE guild, a WvW guild, and TTS for world bosses, which I often rep even outside of scheduled events. I have different friend groups on each of those guilds, a lot of them people I wouldn’t have ever met if I was stuck with a single guild per account, or one per character (which is even worse, because it limits who I can bring to play with my guildies).

So long story short, whatever comes out of this CDI, keeping the multiple guilds feature is by far the most important feature that shouldn’t, under any circumstance, be changed or downplayed (i.e. no “main guild with extra benefits and sub guilds with limited access”).

LegendaryMythril/Zihark Darshell

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Posted by: Zesbeer.8365

Zesbeer.8365

Proposal Overview
Make guilds actually be useful. Right now guilds are scattered….don’t matter that much and have no impact on the player other then chat. Main reason behind this in my opinion is the ability to be in multiple guilds at the same time. I personally don’t like this because in most cases it makes players not be loyal to a guild they joined or encourages spying. There should be consequences for either leaving a guild OR for being in multiple to discourage these types of behavior.

Associated Risks
Honestly i don’t see any.

my take on risks:

  • time gating being in other guilds, would then frustrate players who were not right for a guild but want to be in a new one but cant because of time gating
  • removes the option of being in different guilds that focus on different things
    • examples of this: pvp, wvw, pve guilds.
  • the log of past guilds- this would encourage exclusivity
    • might add guilds that require that you have been in X guild for x amount of days.

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Posted by: Zesbeer.8365

Zesbeer.8365

Guys, PLEASE think about ways in which your proposals could:

  • Hurt existing players by forcing them to change behavior
  • Be exploited or abused
  • Change the game balance by being excessively rewarding or unrewarding

It’s fun to think “I have the best idea ever and there’s nothing wrong with it and everybody will love it and it won’t do anything bad only good yaaaaay!” but that’s rarely the case.

some wise designer once told me that the difference between a good designer and a great one is if you can come up with ideas and then be able to look at your idea and figure out the risks/downsides to the idea you proposed.

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Posted by: Berk.8561

Berk.8561

I believe the ability to join multiple guilds on this game is should not have existed at all. Very simply, it discourages guild loyalty and defeats the entire purpose of joining a guild in the first place.

Guilds are supposed to be a dedicated, close knit group of people. An ideal scenario would be a flourishing, active community in-game AND outside of the game, supported by communication programs such as IRC/forums/voice. The system now? Guilds having half the people not representing. Highly inactive/non-existent offsite interaction. Guilds are typically a hi-bye affair in the game.

The main guild I rep is a guild of my friends. The main channel I sit in in TeamSpeak is that build channel, so I can chat with my friends, some of which no longer live near me. There are times when I join the main WvW channels on our servers TeamSpeak, but I also enjoy talking about all sorts of things with my friends that really don’t belong in a server-wide TeamSpeak channel.

I’m willing to belong to and help other guilds, but I’m really not looking for another job that requires me to play during certain hours, I’m not looking to join an army where I have to follow orders, I don’t want my guild telling me which server I need to play WvW on (I’ve been asked to leave by one I’ve worked with and declined), nor am I really looking for a new set of friends, though I’ve met some people I really like online while playing that I would be happy to meet outside of the game and hang out with. Just not what I’m looking for in a recreational activity I do for fun.

Please note that I’m not saying that people who want a hardcore dedicated guild are doing anything wrong or bad. They aren’t. And if they have fun playing that way, that’s exactly how they should play. In many ways, I find their dedication and skill quite admirable and I in no way want to break that style of play for them.

It’s simply not what I am looking for. And if the game forced me into a single guild, I’d probably stay in my small personal friend guild rather than join a big dedicated guild. And I doubt I’m alone feeling that way. You can’t really force someone to be dedicated and close-knit if that’s not what they are looking for. But maybe the answer is to find some sort of middle ground where you can get the more casual players to be more dedicated in their contributions to a larger guild.

I think the way to do that can be found in several of the suggestions here, which is to improve communication across all of the guilds a player belongs to rather than just the one they represent. The way I sometimes resolve my desire to banter with friends and desire to follow a WvW commander in TeamSpeak, when there aren’t too many people in TeamSpeak such that I might be keeping someone else out, is to open up two connections and listen in the WvW channel and talk and listen to my friends at the same time. In other words, make it easier for me to communicate with a more dedicated guilds and my friends at the same time rather than telling me I need to dump my friends, several of which have limited or no interest in WvW, to join.

Kerzic [CoI] – Ranger – Eredon Terrace

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Posted by: Zesbeer.8365

Zesbeer.8365

QoL Proposal

Guild Message of the Day appearing in the chat window (upon login AND upon switching guilds so that all Guild MotDs appear in the chat window).

There are no drawbacks to this. Only less headaches for leaders so they dont have to explain to guildies that, “Yes, in fact there are guild missiobns tonight like it says in the MotD!”. My custom arena shows my message of the day in chat. Why doesn’t my guild message of the day do so?

Some of the downsides to this:

  • chat spam for reping more then one guild
    • also dose it display the message every time you switch characters?
  • no ability to turn off seeing guilds messages of the day with out leaving the guild.

(edited by Zesbeer.8365)

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Posted by: BrunoBRS.5178

BrunoBRS.5178

Guys, PLEASE think about ways in which your proposals could:

  • Hurt existing players by forcing them to change behavior
  • Be exploited or abused
  • Change the game balance by being excessively rewarding or unrewarding

It’s fun to think “I have the best idea ever and there’s nothing wrong with it and everybody will love it and it won’t do anything bad only good yaaaaay!” but that’s rarely the case.

some wise designer once told me that the difference between a good designer and a great one is if you can come up with ideas and then be able to look at your idea and figure out the risks/downsides to the idea you proposed.

for better or for worse though, i’d wager that a good chunk of the GW2 community is not comprised of game designers, and a parcel of that chunk foolishly believes game design is easy and you can learn it just by liking videogames.

so while timmy offered good advice, i find it hard to fault people for not necessarily following the advice (or failing to do it effectively). at the very worst, it’s still an idea that can lead to a better one, which is what brainstorming is usually about: not just throwing things at a wall to see what sticks, but looking at the splatters and see if you can come up with something better based on the bad “throwaway” ideas.

LegendaryMythril/Zihark Darshell

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Posted by: Sungak Alkandenes.1369

Sungak Alkandenes.1369

my take on risks:

  • the log of past guilds- this would encourage exclusivity
    • might add guilds that require that you have been in X guild for x amount of days.

This particular risk is major. I’d like to post an extreme example seen from Eve Online:

http://evewho.com/pilot/Alain+Kinsella

There is my main character’s entire history, including links to his forum and combat record (though I made efforts to mask the latter through an alt, which is now in the same corp – oh well :p ).

“The Meta Game does not stop at the game. Ever.” — Me
I like to view MMOs through the lazy eye of a Systems Admin, and the critical eye of a
Project Manager. You’ve been warned. ;-)

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Posted by: Chris Whiteside.6102

Previous

Chris Whiteside.6102

Studio Design Director

Next

Jon/Chris,

Is there a technical problem preventing the addition of a simple /server chat channel? Though not directly related to Guilds, it would certainly go a long way to alleviate some Guild-related QoL issues introduced by Megaserver. It would also help as QoL for WvW, an added bonus.

As a programmer and SysAdmin, I don’t see this taking much of your resources to implement and test.

This is definitely doable. it is just a matter of priority. i would really like this functionality to.

Chris

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Posted by: Clerigo.9475

Clerigo.9475

I can understand where this is coming from. I have played many MMORPGs which adapt the one guild per character system. So, basically, players will put their main characters in the main guild. Not only that, guilds in some MMORPGs have very limited slots. So, their alts might not even be allowed in the guild.

The players belonging to those guilds are much closer to each other in comparison to the players in Guild Wars 2. Perhaps, players are forced to interact with each other and these forceful interactions breed meaningful interactions.

Sadly, in guild wars 2, I have observed that many guilds are being treated like a service or running like a service provider while players are just numbers to perform certain activities. This type of guild is pretty meaningless, dull, uninteresting and pointless.

Some people might think that this is just a game and doesn’t have to get that serious into it; attachment, sense of belonging, loyalty, pride, etc. However, I think that a game can only be truly fun and interesting if people get that serious into it.

Great points here and I think what I am hinting at is that if there was a way to maintain the current guild functionality of multiple guilds but also add a way to really commit to a singular guild what are the features old and new that you think are important for your basic guilds vs your, for lack of a better term, “home” guild.

Jon
[/quote]

First i want to thank Cris and Jon for finally geting things moving, we hope.

Following your remarks, what is wrong with the orignal Guild system implemented in GW1? I mean in your opinion and in the opinion of the ANet dev team, could you accept that the design in GW1 brings more importance in belonging to a guild than the one in GW2?

Take all the sugar and goodies from the equation, remove all the nice graphics and interfaces, and look at the base design.

GW1 allows you to join a guild and every character you create is automatically added to that guild. Nothing fabulous here. But, then that guild can join other guilds and form an alliance with common goals.

Now transport this system (just looking at the base design) into everything ANet created in terms of content to GW2. It would automatically serve the player better than the current system implemented in GW2. I could ask if anyone wants to go do anything of what the game has to offer in the alliance chat. Just for that, it is better than the current system implemented and the LFG tool put together.

Just imagine what can be done with WvWvW with alliance forging? I mean you could even have a map of Alliance VS Alliance trying to assault or defend a keep!! What are you guys afraid of??

Now add all the features created for GW2 Guilds and measure every bit of content present in the game. Put every hour the dev team as worked to find a way to encompass the content being created that could be carried by guilds of 100 people and guilds of 10 people and again we can find the balance leaning toward the system that exists in GW1 better than the one GW2 has, so you guys cant really be losing all these hours with a design that has a working and fabulous structure in another game created by the same dev label, and that game si GW1. The structure just needs to evolve from the previous one, no need to invent a new one.

Im gonna put a stop here because too many things in my head and i cant discus them all, but basically ANet needs to really “bring the best of gw1 to gw2” and make it better just by refining that rough unpolished diamong GW1 is.

Im sorry if im being a bit vague, but this is a discussion for 1 million words or 100 hours around a table with alot of coffee, but i know its easy to understand where im going.

I really think that we should be discussing overall design and structure of guilds and not QoL improvements. That comes later. So to finish:

- Alliance forging = cant do without
- GvG pvp = cant do without
- Guild Halls = cant do without

- Sugar sweets and cream on top = cant do without

I really wish you all good luck and happy brain generated ideas. Ill keep on coming to this CDI and read all the great ideas, but im gonna save my brain for a CDI about Guild design.

“When in doubt, choose change.” Leung
“All great changes are preceded by chaos.” Chopra
‘No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world’ Robin Williams

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Posted by: Kaz.5430

Kaz.5430

Great points here and I think what I am hinting at is that if there was a way to maintain the current guild functionality of multiple guilds but also add a way to really commit to a singular guild what are the features old and new that you think are important for your basic guilds vs your, for lack of a better term, “home” guild.

Jon

When it comes to guilds IMO there are really only two options (GW2 doesn’t fit in either).

1. The traditional One-Guild set-up
2. Multiple Guilds.

The current system is not really a half-way house between options 1 and 2, it’s really just option 1 with a way to easily switch back and forth between guilds.

IMO ‘representation’ should simply be about which guild shows up next to your characters name, and that’s where the prioritisation should stop. If you’re in a guild, you should be actually ‘in’ the guild, not ‘nearly’ in the guild. As I see it, the whole concept of representation – as it currently exists – is the cause of any feelings of lack of community in guilds. The problem is not in being able to join multiple guilds, its in being unable to interact with 4/5ths of your guilds.

I think everything would work much better, if it was truly multi-guild in every possible sense of the word.

With Chat Channels you’d remove /guild (or perhaps tie it to representation) and would instead create /g1-/g5 which are tied to the 5 guilds that you can join.

With influence, you’d earn an equal amount of influence for all your guilds while you play. With exception perhaps of guild missions etc, where only the appropriate guild would get any influence for success.

With regards to managing the guild, accessing vault, queuing up upgrades etc, you’d be able to manage and look through any guild that you’re a member of, at all times.

If the system is going to ‘prioritise’ one guild over the others, then you should not be able to join more than 1 guild at a time, and it would make far more sense to switch to the traditional one-guild system.

If the idea is to have a multi-guild system, then IMO it should be a REAL multi-guild system, or it’s just pointless.

Monarchy - 15 year old browser-based game and roleplay community
Table Warfare Miniatures - Armatures, Custom Miniatures, Moulds etc.

(edited by Kaz.5430)

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Posted by: timmyf.1490

timmyf.1490

Proposal Overview

Guild Notification area in the top right of the screen (in the Story + Event notification area).

Goal of Proposal

Having a Guild Calendar is nice, but players often don’t think to look, forget to look, etc. Same thing for a Guild MOTD. Putting it in the chat box on login is also nice, but it’s easily forgotten.

Placing a Guild Notification area in the top right of the screen with a short MOTD (limited to 100-150 characters) as well as listing the next three events on the guild calendar could help to keep everybody in the loop.

Proposal Functionality

This might be easiest with a REALLY quick and dirty mockup.

Potential Risks

As it’s toggleable, I don’t think there would be many risks. More screen clutter, I guess.

I’m unsure as whether the click-to-open options would work as the current behavior has clicks collapse the panel. That’s something that is debateable.

Would a system like this help?

Attachments:

Karaoke – Guild Leader – [MEGA] Super Mega Happy Fun Time
www.getunicorned.com / northernshiverpeaks.org

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Posted by: wwwes.1398

wwwes.1398

Jon/Chris,

Is there a technical problem preventing the addition of a simple /server chat channel? Though not directly related to Guilds, it would certainly go a long way to alleviate some Guild-related QoL issues introduced by Megaserver. It would also help as QoL for WvW, an added bonus.

As a programmer and SysAdmin, I don’t see this taking much of your resources to implement and test.

This is definitely doable. it is just a matter of priority. i would really like this functionality to.

Chris

Is a shame we could not get this in place in time for the world vs world tournament! Should have asked sooner. :-)

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Posted by: BrunoBRS.5178

BrunoBRS.5178

QoL Proposal

Guild Message of the Day appearing in the chat window (upon login AND upon switching guilds so that all Guild MotDs appear in the chat window).

There are no drawbacks to this. Only less headaches for leaders so they dont have to explain to guildies that, “Yes, in fact there are guild missiobns tonight like it says in the MotD!”. My custom arena shows my message of the day in chat. Why doesn’t my guild message of the day do so?

the downsides to this:

  • chat spam for reping more then one guild
    • also dose it display the message every time you switch characters?
  • no ability to turn off seeing guilds messages of the day with out leaving the guild.

the downsides could be countered with chat filters. the new combat log shows that chat filters can have sub-filters. a system that lets you choose which guilds you see the chat (only the one you’re repping, or individual guild chats), with a way to visually tell which guild is saying what (maybe put the tag in white or pink or another eye-catching, contrasting color, before the name of the person) and a way to swap guild chats with text commands (maybe /[tag]) could allow players to communicate with all the guilds they want/need without having to constantly swap tags.

all of this could be applied to messages of the day as well.

of course, while it sounds simple on paper, i can imagine it being a bit cumbersome to implement, especially if you’re on multiple guilds with the same tag (like some of the TTS leaders, for example).

LegendaryMythril/Zihark Darshell

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Posted by: Mysticjedi.6053

Mysticjedi.6053

Proposal Overview
GvG as a PvP mode

Goal of Proposal
Allow Guilds to interact in a different way for the glory of their guild and server.

Proposal Functionality
Adding a mode to the PvP tab to be joined like solo queue or team queue.

Associated Risks
There are probably a lot, but I’m not going to pretend to be a game designer or programer. I just think the idea is cool.


I’d also like to see 100% rep in a guild be rewarding in some way. A lot of guilds ask for it, but outside of getting gkicked it would be cool to be recognized as a supporter of particular guild in some visible way.

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Posted by: Pocket.2740

Pocket.2740

Chris, I am not 100% sure if this can be filed under QoL, I believe this is an enhancement to the current guild logo and armour functionality. If this proposal is not relevant here, I would be happy to re-post in a subsequent CDI.

Proposal Overview:
A guild outfit that can be created/changed by a ranked guild member, and then toggled on/off by all members representing the guild.

Goal of Proposal:
The game currently includes guild chest amour, back items and weapons. However guild members rarely use these during guild events, missions or WvW raids. The look of your character is a very personal thing and the cost of acquiring and regularly changing between your personal look and a guild uniform is too high in terms of gold, transmutation charges and time. This system will enable guild members to easy toggle between their personal look and a guild outfit at no personal cost.

Proposal Functionality:
A guild upgrade option to unlock the ability to create a complete guild outfit, the outfit can then be created by a guild member with sufficient rank by visiting the guild armour NPC. Guild members can then select this outfit via the outfits tabs in their hero panel.

Associated Risks:
I am unsure which skins and colours should be made available via the guild outfit creator, should this be based on the skins available to the individual creating the outfit, or from a set of standard skins and colours? Could additional skins or colours be ‘unlocked for guild’ rather than unlocked for your personal character?

Is the outfit tab the right place to be able to select the guild outfit? Would it be better to have the toggle option via the guild window instead?

Would a separate outfit have to be created for light/medium/heavy professions?

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Posted by: maha.7902

maha.7902

I’m not sure why we need a CDI on QoL when you have already given us spades and spades and spades of QoL in both feature patches (wallet, account-bound dyes, easy access to minis, and so on etc. etc. etc.).

Serah Mahariel – Death and Taxes

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Posted by: Zesbeer.8365

Zesbeer.8365

stuff about last represented

Associated Risks
None, really. It does, however, depend on having this information retained either on a per-user/guild basis (not unreasonable – simply add a date field w/ the 5 guild slots) or via the guild system, so it updates when someone stops representing.

The risk is that it will make guilds that didn’t have strict rep requirements, have them.

I also think that rep requirements (which is the main reason you want this) is something that should just be changed or removed. it goes counter to wanting to allow players to be in more then one guild at a time.

Since percentage representation is something decided on by guilds and guild leaders, it’s not something that can ‘just be changed or removed’.

I absolutely don’t require 100% rep in my guild, but I see a ton of them that do.

However, this change wouldn’t really change that. I kick people if they haven’t played the game in 5 weeks. I’d prefer to be able to give them a courtesy mail if they haven’t represented the guild in that amount of time, and ask if they’re still interested in being part of the guild.

The base of why guilds want people to rep is so guilds can get guild influence. So to go along with when I said it needs to be changed/removed, a idea someone already detailed is to make it so you generate influence for all of the guilds you are in. Instead of just the guild you have represented. Other wise the rep requirement, is just there so your guild can be seen in the game world which is important to show that you have a prescience in game but it isn’t something that people should be kicked or removed because of.

(edited by Zesbeer.8365)

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Posted by: BrunoBRS.5178

BrunoBRS.5178

Great points here and I think what I am hinting at is that if there was a way to maintain the current guild functionality of multiple guilds but also add a way to really commit to a singular guild what are the features old and new that you think are important for your basic guilds vs your, for lack of a better term, “home” guild.

Jon

When it comes to guilds IMO there are really only two options (GW2 doesn’t fit in either).

1. The traditional One-Guild set-up
2. Multiple Guilds.

The current system is not really a half-way house between options 1 and 2, it’s really just option 1 with a way to easily switch back and forth between guilds.

IMO ‘representation’ should simply be about which guild shows up next to your characters name, and that’s where the prioritisation should stop. If you’re in a guild, you should be actually ‘in’ the guild, not ‘nearly’ in the guild.

I think everything would work much better, if it was truly multi-guild in every possible sense of the word.

With Chat Channels you’d remove /guild (or perhaps tie it to representation) and would instead create /g1-/g5 which are tied to the 5 guilds that you can join.

With influence, you’d earn an equal amount of influence for all your guilds while you play. With exception perhaps of guild missions etc, where only the appropriate guild would get any influence for success.

With regards to managing the guild, accessing vault, queuing up upgrades etc, you’d be able to manage and look through any guild that you’re a member of, at all times.

If the system is going to ‘prioritise’ one guild over the others, then you should not be able to join more than 1 guild at a time, and it would make far more sense to switch to the traditional one-guild system.

If the idea is to have a multi-guild system, then IMO it should be a REAL multi-guild system, or it’s just pointless.

i gotta say i agree with this, and it solves, at least at first glance, the problem with “repping” outside of publicity. you’re actively engaged and rewarding your guild*s* regardless of who you choose to rep, but at the same time this doesn’t turn all guilds into an amorphous blob of people with no specializations (like, say, WvW guilds).

communication is a large reason guilds exist, and the “repping” conundrum is a consequence of a system that only lets you reward or communicate with one group at a time.

LegendaryMythril/Zihark Darshell

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Posted by: Artemis Thuras.8795

Artemis Thuras.8795

Edit: quoting wigged. This is about earning influence for all the guilds one is in, not just the guild represented.

Not Quite. Allow equal attachment to each guild I am in. Give my influence I earn equally to each guild. Give me the ability to view the guild chat of each guild (similar to alliances in gw1).

Now there is a idea. This would help the “Service” guilds and alleviate their pressure to require representation but still provide the function they were created for. Then the 100% rep requirements to player choice. Might be a good idea to add a last represented field just like there is a last logged in field. That way the leader of a guild can clean up their roster.

Though I would make that field only appear if your rank in guild allows you to view it.

The influence is only part of my (not strictly just mine.. I had a lot of ideas/discussions with guildies and other forum go-ers) idea.
I’m leaning towards the concept of representation being visibly removed from the guild window. It would still exist for the guild tag displayed (and possible which guild you talk in /g) while your other guilds could be separated in chat like alliance chat was in gw1.

In essence you would be fully part of each of your alliance of guilds. Last represented would be moot if they can always see your guild chat, and always generate influence for you.

The option to view that is interesting, but it would need to be public, or it would cause friction when/if someone gets booted from a guild. Members don’t want to think they might get kicked for (seemingly) no apparent reason. Bad juju.

Co-Leader of The Mythical Dragons [MYTH],
Advocate of learning and being a useful party member.
http://mythdragons.enjin.com/recruitment

(edited by Artemis Thuras.8795)

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Posted by: Zesbeer.8365

Zesbeer.8365

Chris,

While I am super hyped that ANET is serious about future guild content, I do have serious ideas about implementation with the Gem Store. This topic briefly delves into future Guild enhancement ideas and the most important point, implementation. After all, Guild Wars 2 is in this to make money and Gems is the means of making that money. I feel that the Gem store falls short of being great, and it has huge room for improvement especially with the potential upcoming changes. Specifically, I feel it falls short in: GUI, content, and longevity of items sold. I’ll elaborate below.

Suggested Idea Format
Proposal Overview
My thoughts:
The gem store, to me, feels cluttered and random. The tabs along the top are not very specific and the content on those tabs are pretty randomly organized. The tabs would be organized much better as a condensed list down the side (similar to the new TP).
Example (I’ll expand on content as I proceed).
snip *

These are all great Ideas but I would rather they not all be centralized to the gemstone (like a lot of the new armors off topic sorry) its important to be able to play the game and be able to unlock content for progression. so for some of these things I would rather see them in game and tied to either meta events or dungeons or jumping puzzles or wvw or pvp.

(edited by Zesbeer.8365)

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Posted by: timmyf.1490

timmyf.1490

I find it a bit funny that the discussion has gone in two completely different directions:

1) Reduce the number of guilds people can be in.
2) Let people earn influence for all five of their guilds.

I don’t think either of these are helpful. It makes sense to have representation tied to influence. It also makes sense to give people flexibility to play with diverse groups of players.

As a guild leader, I have several guild members that bounce between guilds. This is for a variety of reasons. We’re a primetime-NA guild, mostly, but we have a handful of players who play during the daytime here. Well guess what… a guild with only 2 members online isn’t all that much fun! So some of our members have an alternate guild they join during the day and then they come back and rep us at night.

This isn’t a problem. This is a GOOD thing.

If you want to make guilds more useful, you need to give guilds things to do together. GvG is helpful for guilds that enjoy PvP. I doubt I’d be able to get my guild to GvG much.

There’s probably some sort of equivalent for PvE, but I don’t want to say the “r” word here. At least not yet.

I know this isn’t a nice thing to say, but if people don’t see a point in being in your guild, it’s probably because your guild doesn’t offer anything. Instead of pointing fingers at missing mechanics, perhaps you should talk to your guild members and see what it is they want and whether you’re providing it. I just ran a guild survey recently to identify what people like and dislike about my guild. I asked what activities they’d like to do more of. I took that feedback and scheduled new events to meet that demand.

Anyway, I don’t think there’s any shortage of reasons to be in a GOOD guild. I just see so many guilds that are “join for buffs, 400+ members, everybody welcome, [I just want your influence and numbers so I can feel important].” Those guilds – to me, at least – have zero value. But it’s not the game’s fault.

Karaoke – Guild Leader – [MEGA] Super Mega Happy Fun Time
www.getunicorned.com / northernshiverpeaks.org

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Posted by: wwwes.1398

wwwes.1398

Proposal Overview
Guild Loyalty Reward System

Goal of Proposal
It seems like there the question is being asked as to how to make a primary guild feel special, and the easy answer to that is simply to find ways to reward loyalty.

Proposal Functionality
Increased influence and extra guild merits/commendations based on rep time or as an unlockable by guild leaders. Perhaps you are rewarded for providing your guild with a certain amount of influence from activities by earning commendations. Perhaps commendations can just be earned by repping a guild for a duration or percentage of time during gameplay. Maybe you earn rewards for having repped a guild consistently every month.

Potential Risks
As always in terms of rewards, the chance exists that it will become something people farm. Perhaps they’ll set up personal guilds to reward themselves. Maybe other people have ideas for how to get around this

Caveat
The ultimate answer to strengthening an individual guild is, however, guild alliances. The reason, in my experience, that people belong to a bunch of guilds, is because some offer things that others cannot. My guild is not small, but not huge, we run activities at peak hours and schedule things for weekends, but we don’t always have enough for pickup groups just anytime. If we could have the ability to form plans with other guilds without switching representation, then that would keep people from leaving and keep our community stronger.

On the topic of multiple guild channels
I seriously don’t think having multiple guild chat channels would make things better. Having 20 people on at once and half of them not noticing people asking for groups in guild chat because they’re talking to other guilds would not make any individual community stronger and would make guilds less inclined to join alliances in the first place. That being said, just having the ability to have a chat channel that you can invite people to would be a really good idea. At least one guildmate left because he had a group of friends that he wanted to be able to talk to privately while playing. Doesn’t mean he didn’t want to also be in guild chat, but he didn’t want everyone else in the guild to be a part of the conversation between irl friends.

(edited by wwwes.1398)

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Posted by: Zesbeer.8365

Zesbeer.8365

About taxing players, here’s my idea:
/snip

Questions:
how would u prevent guild leaders/officers trolling guild members and requiring high amounts of gold or high tier items as a tax?

how would you prevent taxes from just being the guild leaders personal piggy bank? (ie skimming off the top or flat out using the income for personal gain)

how would having a guild tax allow you to get things for your guild that you are not able to get with influence?
why not have the influence system expanded to allow for guilds to be able to get the items that you want to be able to get with taxes ?

personally I would leave any guild that required taxes if taxes were added to the game.

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Posted by: anzenketh.3759

anzenketh.3759

Not Quite. Allow equal attachment to each guild I am in. Give my influence I earn equally to each guild. Give me the ability to view the guild chat of each guild (similar to alliances in gw1).

Now there is a idea. This would help the “Service” guilds and alleviate their pressure to require representation but still provide the function they were created for. Then the 100% rep requirements to player choice. Might be a good idea to add a last represented field just like there is a last logged in field. That way the leader of a guild can clean up their roster.

Though I would make that field only appear if your rank in guild allows you to view it.

Agreed there is really no reason for it to show to everyone same with last logged in.

In Game: Storm Bluff Isle — Anzz, Anzenketh Kyoto

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Posted by: timmyf.1490

timmyf.1490

personally I would leave any guild that required taxes if taxes were added to the game.

Right, that’s how you prevent situations like that. Guild Leaders who abuse taxation systems will quickly find themselves alone.

I’m not necessarily in favor of such a system – I don’t consider it a high priority and wouldn’t use it for my own guild – but it’s self-correcting to a reasonable extent.

Karaoke – Guild Leader – [MEGA] Super Mega Happy Fun Time
www.getunicorned.com / northernshiverpeaks.org

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Posted by: wwwes.1398

wwwes.1398

Not Quite. Allow equal attachment to each guild I am in. Give my influence I earn equally to each guild. Give me the ability to view the guild chat of each guild (similar to alliances in gw1).

Now there is a idea. This would help the “Service” guilds and alleviate their pressure to require representation but still provide the function they were created for. Then the 100% rep requirements to player choice. Might be a good idea to add a last represented field just like there is a last logged in field. That way the leader of a guild can clean up their roster.

Though I would make that field only appear if your rank in guild allows you to view it.

Could just appear as a tooltip when hovering over the “not representing” icon.

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Posted by: DiogoSilva.7089

DiogoSilva.7089

Questions:
how would u prevent guild leaders/officers trolling guild members and requiring high amounts of gold or high tier items as a tax?

how would you prevent taxes from just being the guild leaders personal piggy bank? (ie skimming off the top or flat out using the income for personal gain)

how would having a guild tax allow you to get things for your guild that you are not able to get with influence?
why not have the influence system expanded to allow for guilds to be able to get the items that you want to be able to get with taxes ?

personally I would leave any guild that required taxes if taxes were added to the game.

  • Taxes would be automatically defined by the game, and probably for an accessible fee too. For example, X silver coins each week or two (for each tier 1 permission on that account). Guild leaders and officers would only be able to set up/ change the member’s permissions to tier 0, tier 1 (tax-paying), or tier 2. Nothing else. They wouldn’t be able to set up the value of the tax.
  • The income would be restricted, by the system, to be only spent on specific, anet-intended shops and player’s gifts. How it would be spent would automatically be registed on a guild’s text log, so players would be able to see how it was spent, judge the leader, and decide if they should leave the guild or not.
  • Income could be an alternative way to buy items instead of getting influence, or even be influence itself. For example, the tax’s income could be directly converted to influence. So this could very well be an “expansion of the influence system”, if implemented that way.

EDIT
The option for taxing “normal” members (without permissions) is more questionable and could very well not even be implemented. The core of my idea is, if you contribute to the guild, you get access to some permissions/ privileges.

(edited by DiogoSilva.7089)

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Posted by: Castrin.8972

Castrin.8972

Proposal Overview
Guild Advertising / Bulletin Board

Goal of Proposal
A formatted and real time way to announce your guild is looking for members without having to spam local and map chat channels. Allows players to find guilds they might want to join easier.

Proposal Functionality
In the Guild in game menu, on the left side there would be a “town crier” tab which would lead to two topside icons.

First icon would access the current listings of all guilds actively recruiting in the game along with what info they have put up describing their guild. There would be a “join request” option that would alert the Guildmaster (or recruitment designate) of the application. Filters would include Guild type (PvP,PvE,etc.), keywords, and server (if relevant).

Second icon would access a menu with the guild’s current “ad” displayed (or blank if none) and with an edit button. If given the right an ad could be placed for n days based on either a) influence spent and/or b) gold spent for the ad. As noted this would be locked down based on rights assignment.

Associated Risks
Would create a bit of negativity for those that still spam in chat but otherwise I can’t think of any.

Grandmaster
Order of the Empyrean Shield [OES]
Avatar of the Silent Majority

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Posted by: Castrin.8972

Castrin.8972

Proposal Overview
Guild Purchasing / Selling Option

Goal of Proposal
A method to buy and sell items from the guild storage for guild profit.

Proposal Functionality
In the Guild in game menu, on the left side there would be a “store” tab which would lead to a guild version of the TP buy/sell menu.

This would be tied to the guild bank and allow selling and buying from the guild bank directly to the TP market. Any purchases would be automatically deposited into the highest level of the guild bank (i.e. if Guild Cave is highest any purchase would go there first as opposed to the basic Guild Bank level). Any gold received from selling would also be deposited the same way. To retrieve said gold/item(s) would require guild bank access from a town or other location where the guild bank is available from. The right to sell and buy would be separate assignable rights in the guild. Rights for guild bank levels already exist.

Associated Risks
Potential for sell/buy spamming but no more than current TP sell/buy system.

Grandmaster
Order of the Empyrean Shield [OES]
Avatar of the Silent Majority

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Posted by: wwwes.1398

wwwes.1398

I strongly disagree with guild taxes. Seriously, I can already see how this would create rage if this were implemented as a feature.

Instead of thinking about a tax, why not think about setting up a formalized system of a donation bank that everyone can put money into so the guild can buy things? We have a guild vault that only officers can put money into or take it out of that we really only use as a donation bank to help members get gems if they want to transfer to our primary server or to use for rewards in special events.

I don’t love the idea of this being used for permanent boosts, but I like it as an option to buy things like banners or banquets, things that anyone in the game can benefit from.

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

Guild Alerts and Calander

I really like this. A guild calendar would be amazing.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall