A solution to multi-guild, cohesion problem

A solution to multi-guild, cohesion problem

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Posted by: Reanne.5462

Reanne.5462

A problem has existed in this game since day one, everyone has experienced it.

A Guild can not cater to all the play styles and playing locations of its members.
A 30 man guild may have 10 people online at one time, and 3 of them are in pvp, 3 are doing hearts/mapping and 4 are in WvW as an example. Another member logs on and wants to do a dungeon, but no one is available , so he goes to LFG, or worst case, seeks a different guild where people may be more interested in dungeons. There are so many opportunities for this situation to occur, it is difficult for a guild to stay a cohesive unit. And imho we want guilds to be cohesive units.
Now there are guilds that have survived through this problem, Because they have a strong core, and players willing to stick with the guild, while joining other guilds to have access to a player base for their individual preference of game mode. (pve,pvp,wvw etc.)

But the problem still persists.
How do you get the players in your guild to all rep 1 guild and play together.
Impossible I know.
So what can be done to get players who may be repping separate guilds to still feel like they are still under the same umbrella?

One thing that I would like to see is a multi-guild chat option. I think this would require a type of guild alliance system though, where the chat would only show if the two guilds were aligned. I recognize that the many combinations of guilds that are involved would make chat confusing, so it would require a separate chat box for people to talk in outside of the specific guild chat.

Another thought on this same concept would be, Chat boxes that are area specific.

WvW chat for example, where everyone in a guild, whether representing or not, can click the WvW chat and people who are in WvW would be connected through it. This would not be the same as ‘Team’ or ‘map’ in a BL, but would go across borderlands and would not include players outside the ‘Network’ .

The Network could be created automatically using the guilds of each online player, Or it could be created by the guild leaders of sister guilds.

Does anyone have any constructive input on how we can get people feeling as though they are playing with their guildees, even when not repping that specific guild?

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Posted by: Broom.2561

Broom.2561

Other games had alliances for that. Everyone would ALWAYS be in their own guild, but alliance chat gave contacts for e.g. dungeon runs, pvp matches etc.

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Posted by: SkyShroud.2865

SkyShroud.2865

Multi guild chat, how about guild identity then? Guilds that have overcome the said problem have also achieved guild identity, players who know where they want to be part of. Guild identity was part of the discussion during the Guild CDI thingy.

Multi guild chat is like a smaller scale of mega server. That what I think.

Founder & Leader of Equinox Solstice [TIME], a Singapore-Based International Guild
Henge of Denravi Server
www.gw2time.com

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Posted by: Reanne.5462

Reanne.5462

I just don’t see any way for a guild to satisfy all the play styles of its members, unless it gets huge. In your 500 man guild, how many are online at 1 time? 10% 50 people? more?

Guild identity would be determined by those players that chose to rep that guild.
I know that the guild I am in, would not lose its identity if we could chat with members who were currently repping their WvW guilds. But I also know we would love to have a bigger WvW presence. Are we more interested in the name of our guild being attached to a large number of people, or just having people easily interacting with each other regardless of the guild they rep? As long as the only guilds in the network are people who commonly play together,
I don’t think the guilds involved would lose their identity.

Would your guild be lost if you could chat with your friends from other guilds while also chatting with your guildmates? Without using map chat?

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Posted by: lioka qiao.8734

lioka qiao.8734

Guildwars 1 had alliances for this.

Little red Lioka

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Posted by: Arioso.8519

Arioso.8519

Or just give us 5 guild chat channels and the ability to set a different color for each one.

If you can simultaneously be tuned into the guild chat of all 5 of your guilds, that’ll solve this issue right there.

That shouldn’t be too hard to implement, I think, and then it doesn’t require an aliance system or anything like that. If it did, you might have the problem of being in two guilds that don’t actually want to form an alliance, so this solves the problem on a more individual level.

(edited by Arioso.8519)

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

The Alliance system from GW was great for what the OP is talking about. Unfortunately, we seldom get the nice things from GW in GW2.

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Posted by: yakuza snowdragon.4639

yakuza snowdragon.4639

I’m all for the GW1 system, they had alliances of a maximum of 10 guilds, its had the ally chat and everyone worked well together. I have no idea why they would leave this out of GW2

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Posted by: Just a flesh wound.3589

Just a flesh wound.3589

I was surprised that they didn’t bring the guild alliance feature over from Guild Wars 1. It made chat so much more lively when there were members from multiple guilds talking. It would definitely help with those looking for people to do things with.

Since so many people have alts, I would like an optional feature where it showed the display name instead of the char name in chat.

Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.

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Posted by: Illconceived Was Na.9781

Illconceived Was Na.9781

GW1 guilds could only hold 100 people and GW1 only allowed you to rep one guild at a time. In contrast, GW2 allows you to be in a guild with as many as 500 people, which is the equivalent of half a GW1 max-sized alliance.

I don’t think most guilds should try to cater to all types of gameplay. I think it’s better if people join enough guilds to suit their personal style. If you tend to do fractals only 5x/month, then a single fotm-focused guild is fine. If you tend to play every day, then you might want to join a WvW-guild, a fotm-focused guild, and a hang-around guild.

Guild Cohesion isn’t something that technology can enable or disable — that’s up to each guild’s leadership to manage. Some guilds are better at this and thrive; some guilds are poor at this so dwindle. That’s evolution, as seen in the microcosm of GW2 guilds.

tl;dr I don’t see a problem with the current system. (Better communication tools are always welcome nonetheless.)

John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”

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Posted by: Chyanne Waters.8719

Chyanne Waters.8719

Well If you saw the Angry Joe interview about HoT. You would know he mentioned that he would like to take several guilds in his Angry Army and be able to communicate between them so they can do things together. Colin responded that they are working on a system to do that. So no worries everyone it will come in time.

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Posted by: Tere.4759

Tere.4759

Or just give us 5 guild chat channels and the ability to set a different color for each one.

If you can simultaneously be tuned into the guild chat of all 5 of your guilds, that’ll solve this issue right there.

Elder Scrolls Online has it. If they can do it, anyone can.

Guild Leader of The Black Court, we’re small, friendly and active.

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Posted by: Reanne.5462

Reanne.5462

There is no good reason to not add features, that promote Guild cohesion and game play.

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Posted by: Crystallize.8603

Crystallize.8603

Totally changing my reply – scrapped the old one.

PvE guilds pretty much have to provide guild missions. Thats one of the key points a guild now has to do to get people to actively play/rep them.

Guild missions currently do not work well for smaller guilds, hence the mass recruiting/building members for numbers rather than anything else.

this is why guilds don’t work in gw2

Numbers are an actual requirement rather than anything.

It’s difficult to impossible to even get people to join a guild at the moment, harder still if it’s inactive (trying to rebuild) and harder still to get people to join a PvE guild that can’t host missions.

Guilds that require 100% rep are somewhat choking smaller guilds, due to their ability to host GMs/Form Groups/Run WvW.
Players are then stuck of they are in a 100% rep that provides GMs but they have to be on the same server if they want WvW

There are just so many flaws with guilds right now. Having an alliance chat could be good, but even 2 guilds, that’s up to 1k members. 3 guilds.. 4…5.6.. lets say 10? That’s up to 5000 people having the ability to talk in 1 channel.

That right there is an issue in itself. If someone is trolling/spamming alliance chat, how do you resolve it if none of that guilds leaders are online? If the alliance leader isn’t online?
Who is going to be alliance leader too? (In charge of 5000 people?)

I do genuinely feel guilds should be limited to 100 players again and then introduce alliances.

Can mods please stop locking threads that are constructive.
Just delete posts that are derailments.

(edited by Crystallize.8603)

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Posted by: Reanne.5462

Reanne.5462

Right now the problem is not enough people chatting, lets not give up on fixing this because of a fear that more people will be talking with each other.

WvW only allows what… 80 people in a BL? I don’t think we have to worry about 5000 people all talking at the same time. How many people are even on a Server? ( anet! tell me!) How could there be 5000 people on a server and only 300 are allowed into wvw?

Remember that as it is now, you may be in a guild of 500 people, but only 100 of them are representing at any given moment, having the alliance chat isn’t going to add 500 more people to the chat for each guild, its just going to allow the current 500 people to talk with each other, no matter which guild they’re in.
A guild may allow 500 players max, but those 500 players are potentially spread out across 5 guilds.

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Posted by: Crystallize.8603

Crystallize.8603

Lets say 100 people all online per guild with an active alliance chat. That’s more likely to bring more reppers at a time. So even then you are looking at 1k.. That’s more than any other map/guild will ever have by an amount of like.. 10×.. >.<

Can mods please stop locking threads that are constructive.
Just delete posts that are derailments.

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Posted by: SkyShroud.2865

SkyShroud.2865

I just don’t see any way for a guild to satisfy all the play styles of its members, unless it gets huge. In your 500 man guild, how many are online at 1 time? 10% 50 people? more?

Guild identity would be determined by those players that chose to rep that guild.
I know that the guild I am in, would not lose its identity if we could chat with members who were currently repping their WvW guilds. But I also know we would love to have a bigger WvW presence. Are we more interested in the name of our guild being attached to a large number of people, or just having people easily interacting with each other regardless of the guild they rep? As long as the only guilds in the network are people who commonly play together,
I don’t think the guilds involved would lose their identity.

Would your guild be lost if you could chat with your friends from other guilds while also chatting with your guildmates? Without using map chat?

It isn’t about you, you know that there is a difference between this and that because you are the one suggesting the system. However, does the people who are not aware of this is a feature will know what all of these are?

That is what happening to megaserver, server identity is questionable, people don’t even know what servers they are from or they care enough to find out. If you put this multi chat thingy, there will be more people confused about guilds and making this whole game becoming increasingly complicated.

Like other mentioned, alliance is a more sensible approach. There is guild identity and also alliance identity. If the reason you suggesting this is because you want to chat with your guild of real life friends, I think a group chat feature is a better suggestion.

If the reason you suggesting this is because you can’t get people to rep your guilds then maybe think of removing the people who didn’t rep for long, they not going to rep anyway. Or think about adapting 100% rep but 100% rep only work for guilds that attempt to do everything literally. BTW, there are also a lot of newbies who don’t know about rep because many other MMORPGs don’t let you join multi guilds, some might give you the option to have multi group chats but not guild because guild suppose to be special.

Anyway, this has been already discussed during the Guild CDI many months ago. You can read all the arguments there, look at the CDI section.

Founder & Leader of Equinox Solstice [TIME], a Singapore-Based International Guild
Henge of Denravi Server
www.gw2time.com

(edited by SkyShroud.2865)

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Posted by: Broom.2561

Broom.2561

Speaking as someone who’s been in charge of the same (multi-game) guild since 2004, this game’s guild system is a nightmare.

My first problem is that of the 4 letter guild tag. My guild’s called Fated, has been called that since 2003. In other games, we wear our tag, and are recognized as ‘oh, those guys we ran into in POTBS or Warhammer’. And then you get Guild Wars… where the tag is restricted to 4 letters. So we chose ‘Fate’. And found out at least 10 other guilds are using that tag. It’s tiresome and it takes something away from our identity as a guild. And it makes it harder to settle in-game conflicts. Someone misbehaves, others see a tag, assume it’s guild A, while it’s actually someone from guild B. Sure, you can select the character to see the full guild name, but most won’t bother. Which is how reputations get blown…

Then there’s the guild events. As the previous poster already mentioned, this game caters heavily for huge guilds, forgetting, apparently that by far most guilds are groups of friends and that PVP/WvW guilds especially tend to be smaller and selective about membership. Only about 25 members of my guild were ever interested in GW2, and we REALLY don’t like mass recruiting. That automatically means a lot of options are closed to us, since all the guild activities seem to cater to big groups. Which means that with the new system, we don’t even have the ‘currency’ to buy some of the items we have the influence for.

Another problem is the way ANet deals with ‘full’ servers. It’s ludicrous, but several of our members have been trying off and on SINCE PRESTART to get on the same server as the rest of the guild. There’s no option to enter a queue for an available slot, you just have to sit and wait at the screen and keep trying… and failing. This is REALLY significant, since we’re a open world PVP guild. A WvW guild, for the terms of this game. Not being able to get on the same server has proven to be a game killer for us.

And lastly, there’s the option to join multiple guilds per account. I hate it. Sorry, call me an elitist pig, but I prefer it if a guild is a bit more than something you join for convenience, and leave to be with other guilds at the drop of a hat. It doesn’t give guilds a chance to become a community, it is a pain for communication, and it makes it really hard for guilds to develop into maybe doing other things than the one they’re ‘branded’ for.

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Posted by: Crystallize.8603

Crystallize.8603

a guild is a bit more than something you join for convenience, and leave to be with other guilds at the drop of a hat.

Truth

Can mods please stop locking threads that are constructive.
Just delete posts that are derailments.

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Posted by: Avster.1935

Avster.1935

Basically, Alliances.

Most of the top tier WvW guilds are…exclusively, WvW based. So WvW Alliances will mostly be comprised of WvW guilds only – for better teamwork and communication.

However, this’ll work for PvE & sPvP groups + not-so-dedicated WvW guilds.

Evelyn Whitehawk | Exalted Legend | Demons’s Demise | I Transmuted My Legendary Medium Coat

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Other than the issue with guild tags, which doesn’t bother me, I find I have to agree with Broom and Crystallize on the problems with the GW2 guild system.

Guild Cohesion isn’t something that technology can enable or disable — that’s up to each guild’s leadership to manage. Some guilds are better at this and thrive; some guilds are poor at this so dwindle. That’s evolution, as seen in the microcosm of GW2 guilds.

And I’m going to disagree with this. Many factors have an effect on socialization and community development, not just the actions taken by community leadership. I’d say, “Actions taken (or not taken) by guild management enhance or hinder guild cohesion, but system design can and does have an effect.”

In the case of GW2, that effect is mostly negative. Many guilds that I’ve been part of have been a sort of gaming “family.” That feel is enhanced by a system that allows only single guild membership. Sure, a guild can try to generate that artificially, but the casual, drop-in nature of guild membership in the multi-guild system can turn an invitation to join a community into a requirement for 100% rep which some potential members see as draconian. In a one-guild system, the system assists in generating commitment. In a multi-guild system, the system can hinder commitment.

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Posted by: Reanne.5462

Reanne.5462

It isn’t about you, you know that there is a difference between this and that because you are the one suggesting the system. However, does the people who are not aware of this is a feature will know what all of these are?

Not sure what you mean.

That is what happening to megaserver, server identity is questionable, people don’t even know what servers they are from or they care enough to find out. If you put this multi chat thingy, there will be more people confused about guilds and making this whole game becoming increasingly complicated.

I am not suggesting they remove guild chat, or any of the other chats, I am only suggesting they add the ability to click the check box to see what the alliance is chatting about, or in the case of WvW specific implementation, it would be an additional chat box that a guild member could check to see the conversation in WvW.

Like other mentioned, alliance is a more sensible approach. There is guild identity and also alliance identity. If the reason you suggesting this is because you want to chat with your guild of real life friends, I think a group chat feature is a better suggestion.

Right now Contemporary Heroes and Charter Vanguard are in a loose alliance. I have confidence that our guild leaders could come up with a adequate name for our alliance, as well I know they would love a way to communicate/organize events together. Neither of our guilds is going to give up its identity, but wouldn’t Alliance Missions be cool? As far as chatting with real life friends, I am more interesting in convenience, and coordination, not gossiping and stories around the water cooler. people can go to FB for that.

If the reason you suggesting this is because you can’t get people to rep your guilds then maybe think of removing the people who didn’t rep for long, they not going to rep anyway. Or think about adapting 100% rep but 100% rep only work for guilds that attempt to do everything literally.

I am seeking a solution that does not require people to rep 100% of the time. Personally I like to rep my storage guild to gain influence, but this means I am cut off from the guild that has the people I play with. I know there are people who like to WvW but they have to make a choice which guild to rep while doing that. A guild should not be ‘All or nothing’ especially since there are so many different types of game play. A person usually does not ‘just do’ WvW, or ‘just do’ dungeons, Do we really want segregation? This is a MMORPG, we should be playing together.

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Posted by: SkyShroud.2865

SkyShroud.2865

Not sure what you mean.

I am saying you are making suggestions from your perspectives that it should be like this or that because you needed it without considering that what you need might not necessary be benefiting others but instead creating more confusions. There are a lot of new players who already have difficulties in understanding mega server and even knowing their own server. Putting these things will only make it even more complicated for the new players. I don’t approve of making things complicated as it is.

I am not suggesting they remove guild chat, or any of the other chats, I am only suggesting they add the ability to click the check box to see what the alliance is chatting about, or in the case of WvW specific implementation, it would be an additional chat box that a guild member could check to see the conversation in WvW.

That what it is, you are suggesting the ability chat to any guilds you are in, right?

I am seeking a solution that does not require people to rep 100% of the time. Personally I like to rep my storage guild to gain influence, but this means I am cut off from the guild that has the people I play with. I know there are people who like to WvW but they have to make a choice which guild to rep while doing that. A guild should not be ‘All or nothing’ especially since there are so many different types of game play. A person usually does not ‘just do’ WvW, or ‘just do’ dungeons, Do we really want segregation? This is a MMORPG, we should be playing together.

What I believe is that one can only be at one place at any time. A guild is like a club in the high school, you can join multiple clubs but can you be present at all the clubs at the same time? You can’t, you can only be at one place at a time. Eventually, you will find out which club you like the most and commit to because you won’t have that much time to commit to more than one club.

Founder & Leader of Equinox Solstice [TIME], a Singapore-Based International Guild
Henge of Denravi Server
www.gw2time.com

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Posted by: ZilentNight.5089

ZilentNight.5089

Well If you saw the Angry Joe interview about HoT. You would know he mentioned that he would like to take several guilds in his Angry Army and be able to communicate between them so they can do things together. Colin responded that they are working on a system to do that. So no worries everyone it will come in time.

You know that now that I recall all the interviews, something I just realized that is actually quite sad.
I love and enjoy all of the other people who interviewed Colin that day, these are people who play the game very regularly but do you know which one of them was the most passionate and asked the most relevant questions?
It was a guy who doesn’t play the game and yes you are right it was Angry Joe.
go Figure….

Also OP, I completely agree, an Alliance system is needed.
You should be able to see and respond to chat for all the guilds you are in regardless of the face whether you are repping or not.

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Posted by: Tongku.5326

Tongku.5326

Why not just hop on your server’s VOIP ? you know its there not just for PvP or WvW. I joined plenty of times on TS or Mumble for PvE events. Many times guilds have their own channels, and being on a server VOIP is great as you can hop a channel and chat with people as they log on / off.

Hence in light of this, I don’t see any point whatsoever of any additional text chats. In fact, I’d like to see more people on VOIP and less on text altogether.

Heavy Deedz – COSA – SF

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Posted by: Chyanne Waters.8719

Chyanne Waters.8719

Tongku.5326
Hence in light of this, I don’t see any point whatsoever of any additional text chats. In fact, I’d like to see more people on VOIP and less on text altogether.

You are kidding right so now you HAVE use a third party program to talk to people in the server to talk to other guilds? What if you do not like to voice chat? There are a lot of what if’s to this issue. If a new system is put in I hope its a good one. One thing I cannot stand is a guild that even though they have over 200 players very few or even no one chats in guild chat. Makes the guild seem empty.

Also in voice chat programs when people are talking over each other some may not even get a chance to speak at all and feel like their opinions don’t matter or that people cannot hear them at all. If they yell or raise their voice to be heard then people get upset with them for it.

So no VOIP should not be the be all end all solution to multiple guild chat. It is a handy tool to help with some things, but not all. Server VOIP is great for organizing WvW , but nothing else. What about world events? What about role-players? What about dungeon runners? Lots of reasons to have multi guild text chat system in GW2.

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Posted by: Zaklex.6308

Zaklex.6308

I’m a guild leader, I’m also practically the only one that still plays GW2, and that’s after taking a little over a year off to dabble in Second Life. I’ve been back for over a year and half…and I think everyone that posted here doesn’t get the reasoning behind the Multi-guild option, if you then you can ignore this, and the reason why 100% rep request is wrong and had for the health of the guild system as it is…if not, then read on.

This whole discussion is based on the premise that no guild you belong to requires 100% rep(which in my personal opinion is repulsive anyways). It’s quite simple really, and let’s look at it from the perspective of starting out and joining a guild that is comprised of your close friends you always game together with. You play with your friends exclusively for a while, let’s say you’re all just PvE players…but you try out WvW and want to play that more…only your friends don’t, but you still want to be in a guild with them, so you find a different guild that does WvW and join that one. Now you can still play with your friends when you feel like it, but also have the capability of joining your cohorts in WvW. If you’re intelligent enough, and I believe most of you are, extrapolate from here to include PvP, dungeons/fractals, or what ever group activity you want to do with certain people. That was and still is the whole reason behind the ability to join multiple guilds up to 5…would it be helped by having Alliances and Alliance chat, of course, does it dilute the importance of Guilds…not in the slightest, only if you let it. Patience is a virtue, and I believe the introduction of Guild Halls is a step in the problem that some of you see with Guild cohesion…for me, I’’ll stick with the two Guilds I belong to…one is from the days of Diablo, the other, well, you never talk about the fight club.