Guild Wars 2

I’m posting again because for some reason page 9 was created, but completely empty after my post.

Kaz.5430:

I’m posting again because for some reason page 9 was created, but completely empty after my post.

yeah, forum bug.

Just to make sure.

CyClotroniC.4957:

Some random toughts on alliances:

First: Why do we want an alliance?

For me the reason would be to have a wider group of people, who can help out each other with forming groups for fractals, dungeons, guild activites probably. So basicaly it’s a friendship between 2 or 3 (or possibly more) guilds. Each can keep its own identity, but together they have the numbers for different kinds of activites (maybe raids in the future). That’s an alliance I can imagine.

I would definately differntiate this from “task/goal-oriented guilds” – at least that’s what I call them. You know very big guilds with non-dominant social life, created only for a single purpose like kill three-headed-wurm, WvW guild for the server, Dry Top farmers or whatever you can imagine.

The biggest question I have with alliances is that how global or individual should it be?
- the alliance is a rigid, global thing, each member is inside the exact same alliance
- alliances are guild-based choices, each guild can form its own group of alliance
- alliancer are presonal choices, each player can be in the alliance they want to

I would rule out the third, individual option immediately, because that’s not a real alliance, that’s just creating a platform for having all the guilds you are in connected somehow. It’s basicaly a friend list and doesn’t add anything to the social life that a good alliance should fulfill.

Separate alliances for each guild seem better at first sight, because it offers freedom for every guild to surround itself allies it wants to, plus it would create a web of connections, but it might raise some problems in action. For example “alliance chat” is out of question that way, because I would see different members there than one of my allied guild member is seeing, because his guild might have a different set of allies. But if there isn’t any alliance chat, than what practical things would it offer. Why would it be better than unofficial alliances that we can already have today, like “I ask XY guild, they are kind, they might help us out.” I have some ideas, like you could invite your allies to your guild hall (for a dinner party :P) but that will be another topic I guess.

On the other hand if alliances are rigid and not guild-based that would raise the question that who would decide about inviting a new guild to the alliance. Imagine two guilds that are already partners but one would like to add a third one. It shouldn’t be a problem between partners and I’m sure most of the guilds can sort it out, but technically we would rely on being fair and considerate with other, which is a human issue afterall. Relationships usually have bumps so we should think about how would kicking a guild out of an alliance work, or should we have that option in the first place.

So all in all the biggest question for me, before we would go into details about alliances, that would they be non-overlaping social cricles (even with their own name) or do we want different alliances for each guild, but then we should deal with the issues that it raises.

I know I’m not offering many answers here , but I really consider this a core point of alliances and I can come up with many pros and cons for both types.

Actually I think you bring up very good points. Imo each guild should have its own alliance but when your representing a certain guild you only see the alliance chat of that specific guild. Again I think these are very good points you bring up and should be answered or at least considered.

My guild disscussed the following idea and thought it would be alright. So here it is:

Proposal Overview
Temporary Guild Waypoints.

Goal of Proposal
Guild events and meetings is becoming an increasing problem for big and guilds on the raise, when new and veteran players using alts, have to walk half across Tyria multiple times just to attend community events. The idea of a temporary waypoint hopes to address this issue by giving quick access to certain areas to players who have not discovered them and could be another way of spending guild influence.

Proposal Functionality
The idea is to use guild influence to set a linkable, temporal waypoint that would be used by guild members to port, thus giving facility for guild to quickly gather anywhere in the world.

• Limited only withing Guild Event areas after the event has started.
• This waypoint would vanish after several minutes.
• Could be used to travel to unexplored areas.
• Could only be used in PvE.
• Cannot travel inside of a event area other than G.E.
• Could only be used by guild members.
• Previews the travel location before waypointing, and thus avoids grieving.

Associated Risks

• Per design, players who have not explored an area cannot travel there via waypoint. So, giving direct access to some places to a new player could be overwhelming. However, even though this is true in theory, in reality, players who have not explored a certain zone and want to assist to a guild or any particular event, will just run in a straight line over the maps even if out leveled. Using this method a level 5 character can reach Fort Trinity unharmed.

• This could be used for grieving by some players, but could be resolved by first previewing the location of the waypoint (a la living story letter style) before accepting to travel.

Accepting suggestions. Will edit if neccesary.

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?

Yes! Please this! City of Heroes (RIP) did this very well! They had a team outfit you could toggle on at any time to wear your team colors and armor. I think Guild Wars could go a long way with this feature and guilds could even unlock certain items through guild missions!

zenleto.6179:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I would be personally very unhappy if the amount of Guilds a player could belong to was reduced to only two.

Ideas that add to the game are great…ideas that remove what we already enjoy? Not so great. As evidenced by the player-base reaction to the latest Feature Patch.

Yep that seems to be the resounding feedback about reduction in guild occupancy. Alliances can exist outside of that though.

Chris

Indeed. Alliances would be adding something to the game, and I’m sure they would make many players pleased. Especially, Alliance chat. =)

Not sure about the logistics of Influence, Bonuses, Buffs, or anything else. What I mean is would people be asking for such things? Would several smaller Guilds want to pool their resources in such a way as to be able to, then, participate in content only the larger Guilds are able to now?

It might require some thought.

I think small guilds would Ally . WvW guilds would. And potentially for PVE content to with larger guilds. And WvW alliances with pve guilds. I have been adopted by a WvW Zerg Smashing guild called Helioz on TC and they wanted to ally with a PVE guild to do the content.

Depends on how progression is distributed and the communication channels etc.

Chris

I might be a little late to this part of the conversation but I’d be all for this. I’m in a tiny guild (2.5 people!) and very hesitant to join a large one, though I have a slot reserved for just in case. Anything that would allow family guilds and small groups of mates to get together and get things done would be wonderful.

I’m all for alliances too because I have no plan nor desire to join any guild save the one I’m in. We are a tight knit group of friends and old RPG/gaming hands and like it that way. I’ve been in huge (literally hundreds of members strong) guilds and I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly. I’m done with that scale of guilds.

Alliances would allow smaller guilds to link p for common goals while being able to keep their identity. Should thing not work out they can split off without having to “reform” or wonder what the rest of the membership will do/go.

Peace.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

steveway.3167:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ben K.6238:

steveway.3167:

If these issues were resolved by opening up a seperate channel for all guilds you are a member of, dividing all influence earned between each guild you are a member of and displaying the MOD and online members of each guild you are a member of, then it would not be a problem. In essance you would need full access to each guild you are in at all times to truly be in multiple guilds.

Quick comment – if you could switch between repping guilds without losing guild chat, dividing influence wouldn’t matter so much. If you wanted to go 50/50 you could switch over at will. I’m not sure how complex divvying up the influence would be to implement, but until then there’d be a workaround if we could have all /g channels displayed.

How would you handle the UI design. Specifically clutter?

Chris

As far as clutter for general features, it could be just a matter of clicking on the guild in the guild menu and displaying all the information avail to a repping member to every member. you would select the guild and it would display mod, online members, influence, upgrades etc as it does now to repping members. If you wanted to change to another guild then just clicking on the guild would give you access to that guilds info without clicking rep each time.

As far as clutter in the chat, each guild would have their own color to signify each channel like map/say now. Players would have the option of turning off specific channels as they do now. It does present the porblem of channels with alot of discussion hiding comments of other channels. This is already an issue though when say/map chat gets really going in some areas. We would alwasys have the same option of hiding specific channels like we do now though.

Hey Steve,

Interesting points. If you had each guilds chat on your main chat panel you would likely get a huge amount of traffic and not be able to keep up with the volume. I get that people can hide channels but it needs to be designed in such a way that at its max functionality it doesn’t break immersion.

Chris

I think this issue is a bit over stated. In general you will have a core of people that will do a lot of chatting but many will just lurk. In large guilds/alliances it’s voice comms that are most used for raiding and guild activities. Chat will be used more for commentary and social interaction (it’s been the case for every “alliance” chat channel I’ve been on) than event coordination, save for possibly alerting the members of something going on.

Peace.

GUILD HALLS

Personally I’m not sure why people want them but … I’d suggest putting a hall into each of the major cities that a guild can rent for a couple of hours using guild points, i.e. open an instance to a meeting hall. These temporary guild halls would need very little customization for each guild and very little management on the server. This approach would avoid the need for decoration and housing in GW2. Any other new guild facilities could be linked through a guild hall, such as fast travel to guild events and activities.

grifflyman.8102:

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?

Yes! Please this! City of Heroes (RIP) did this very well! They had a team outfit you could toggle on at any time to wear your team colors and armor. I think Guild Wars could go a long way with this feature and guilds could even unlock certain items through guild missions!

I think this is a fantastic idea!! I don’t want to run around all day with guild armor and I don’t want to spend transmutation charges, but I would love the ability to have something I could toggle on/off during guild events!

CDI Change Proposal

Problem: Off topic discussions

Definition: The subject of this CDI is Guilds, the phase discussion is QoL and Logistics. Anything posted other then that would be out of scope and thus off topic.

Proposal:

1. Chris, could you check the Q/A: ‘Box’ Enabling Q/A mode will allow you to choose a post which best answers your question. This will put Chris’s initial requirements at the top of each page so they can be reviewed before posting
2. As part of Chris’s CDI summary, Chris could you call out All the proposed phases and what they will pertain to, so that contributors can better gauge when the best phase to post on their chosen subject.

Please take special note to CDI Rule Number 7:
7: Off topic posts will be deleted.

Devata.6589:

Castrin.8972:

Devata.6589:

Automated guild-ranks.

No and just no. Beyond the “entry” rank assignment it’s a bad idea to automate any of the other ranks. If you can’t be bothered to manage your guild and have no one to help then it’s time to trim the membership or just close the guild.

Right now there is enough granularity for what is there. If things are added then they should include rights assignment like everything else. If things get really complicated it might be an idea to add guild roles as a sort of template to streamline assigning rights.

Peace.

It’s completely optional to use so i’m not sure why you would be so much against it. You don’t like that option? Don’t use it! Simple as that.

We have an international guild so people all play on different times. They play also on different characters. Some always join for guild-missions some never some sometimes.

There is so much variables that it is almost impossible to be fair to all members. In addition it also makes it much more clear for members themselves.

We have a big guild and multiple officers helping but that does not mean this would not be useful, besides we would also like to play the game ourself in stead of watching the roster 24/7 noting online times / representing times and so on the whole time (what would be the only way to manually do what this function could provide!). Personally I think if guild-members would do that they should close there guild because what’s a guild if the leaders only look at the roster all day?

I would personally also only use it for the first few ranks but it’s really a very good and useful tool for bigger guild.

Now that you might not use it yourself that’s all fine but it’s a little bit stupid to come here and say “No and just no.” as if it would hurt you what is of course not the case. It’s completely optional.

Peace.

Well sorry but I’m only saying this is a bad idea because I’ve seen what an “automated” rank/control system can do. It’s not pretty. Complete loss of guild control, emptying of banks and goods and a general destruction of the guild to the detriment of all the members.

Optional is fine (though I have yet to see anything that is “optional” in GW2 save client options) but the potential to seriously damage a guild due to one rouge player is huge. Should that happen how would you explain to the members? That you decided that it was too hard to manage and instead relied on scripting to promote people? Oops?

So no, I’m not voicing my opposition out of some random reason or desire to dissent but because I can see how this could go horribly wrong for your, or any other huge/international, guild. For mine, it would remain off (if that is an option) and never used.

Peace.

p.s. Please don’t use emotional terms like “stupid” or similar, it detracts from the discussion. Thanks.

Castrin.8972:

Devata.6589:

Castrin.8972:

Devata.6589:

Automated guild-ranks.

No and just no. Beyond the “entry” rank assignment it’s a bad idea to automate any of the other ranks. If you can’t be bothered to manage your guild and have no one to help then it’s time to trim the membership or just close the guild.

Right now there is enough granularity for what is there. If things are added then they should include rights assignment like everything else. If things get really complicated it might be an idea to add guild roles as a sort of template to streamline assigning rights.

Peace.

It’s completely optional to use so i’m not sure why you would be so much against it. You don’t like that option? Don’t use it! Simple as that.

We have an international guild so people all play on different times. They play also on different characters. Some always join for guild-missions some never some sometimes.

There is so much variables that it is almost impossible to be fair to all members. In addition it also makes it much more clear for members themselves.

We have a big guild and multiple officers helping but that does not mean this would not be useful, besides we would also like to play the game ourself in stead of watching the roster 24/7 noting online times / representing times and so on the whole time (what would be the only way to manually do what this function could provide!). Personally I think if guild-members would do that they should close there guild because what’s a guild if the leaders only look at the roster all day?

I would personally also only use it for the first few ranks but it’s really a very good and useful tool for bigger guild.

Now that you might not use it yourself that’s all fine but it’s a little bit stupid to come here and say “No and just no.” as if it would hurt you what is of course not the case. It’s completely optional.

Peace.

Well sorry but I’m only saying this is a bad idea because I’ve seen what an “automated” rank/control system can do. It’s not pretty. Complete loss of guild control, emptying of banks and goods and a general destruction of the guild to the detriment of all the members.

Optional is fine (though I have yet to see anything that is “optional” in GW2 save client options) but the potential to seriously damage a guild due to one rouge player is huge. Should that happen how would you explain to the members? That you decided that it was too hard to manage and instead relied on scripting to promote people? Oops?

So no, I’m not voicing my opposition out of some random reason or desire to dissent but because I can see how this could go horribly wrong for your, or any other huge/international, guild. For mine, it would remain off (if that is an option) and never used.

Peace.

How about a middle ground where the automation would allow you to quickly have a list of eligible players for a promotion (which has to be done manually by an officer)

Zoso.8279:

Storm Toryama.2197:

I’m not sure if someone has already proposed this QoL or something similar. I would appreciate it if such a case is.

Proposal Overview
A build template system, allowing for players to switch up their builds on the fly without having to manually do so every time.

Goal of Proposal
With this QoL suggestion, this will drastically cut time on players changing their build to several occasions; such as dungeons, World Bosses, WvW, etc.

QoL is actually guild QoL not general QoL Hope this helps.

Hmmm, actually it could be ported over to a guild template idea. That would allow a guild to “post” approved builds for classes. That in turn would help new members/players figure out what works and what doesn’t by having a base to work from.

Not an idea that should be dismissed yet. Maybe re-written in more of guild terms.

Peace.

LostBalloon.6423:

Castrin.8972:

Devata.6589:

Castrin.8972:

Devata.6589:

Automated guild-ranks.

No and just no. Beyond the “entry” rank assignment it’s a bad idea to automate any of the other ranks. If you can’t be bothered to manage your guild and have no one to help then it’s time to trim the membership or just close the guild.

Right now there is enough granularity for what is there. If things are added then they should include rights assignment like everything else. If things get really complicated it might be an idea to add guild roles as a sort of template to streamline assigning rights.

Peace.

It’s completely optional to use so i’m not sure why you would be so much against it. You don’t like that option? Don’t use it! Simple as that.

We have an international guild so people all play on different times. They play also on different characters. Some always join for guild-missions some never some sometimes.

There is so much variables that it is almost impossible to be fair to all members. In addition it also makes it much more clear for members themselves.

We have a big guild and multiple officers helping but that does not mean this would not be useful, besides we would also like to play the game ourself in stead of watching the roster 24/7 noting online times / representing times and so on the whole time (what would be the only way to manually do what this function could provide!). Personally I think if guild-members would do that they should close there guild because what’s a guild if the leaders only look at the roster all day?

I would personally also only use it for the first few ranks but it’s really a very good and useful tool for bigger guild.

Now that you might not use it yourself that’s all fine but it’s a little bit stupid to come here and say “No and just no.” as if it would hurt you what is of course not the case. It’s completely optional.

Peace.

Well sorry but I’m only saying this is a bad idea because I’ve seen what an “automated” rank/control system can do. It’s not pretty. Complete loss of guild control, emptying of banks and goods and a general destruction of the guild to the detriment of all the members.

Optional is fine (though I have yet to see anything that is “optional” in GW2 save client options) but the potential to seriously damage a guild due to one rouge player is huge. Should that happen how would you explain to the members? That you decided that it was too hard to manage and instead relied on scripting to promote people? Oops?

So no, I’m not voicing my opposition out of some random reason or desire to dissent but because I can see how this could go horribly wrong for your, or any other huge/international, guild. For mine, it would remain off (if that is an option) and never used.

Peace.

How about a middle ground where the automation would allow you to quickly have a list of eligible players for a promotion (which has to be done manually by an officer)

Well that is an excellent idea and a good compromise.

Peace.

Arcangel the Reaper.9418:

Proposal
Gemstore contracts for Guild Hall feature

Goal
This will be a two way benefit to both players and ANET. Guilds will receive the guild halls they have been wanting and ANET will be able to receive minor compensation via gem purchases for it.

Function
The process works similar to how PvP Custom Arenas work in the long run. A guild must have Architecture T7 before being able to purchase a Guild Hall Contract. Once you have the contract you are then able to purchase and activate a Guild Hall through purchase on the gemstore (1600gems). This gives you one month access to the guild hall. You add days to it similar to how you add days to a PvP Custom Arena. You can add other functions to the guild hall through both gemstore microtransaction (maybe black lion things like trading post vendor, bank, merchant, etc) for a one time purchase and also through influence (crafting stations, armorsmith and weaponsmith, etc.) which will be in the T5,6,7 category.

This also opens the possibility for ANET to come out with new guild hall skins (which just change the guild hall and not the vendors [though vendor changes would be nice based on guild hall]). These skins could be seasonal or released in line with LS events. Ie. Halloween comes around and for maybe 2-4 weeks they have the Halloween guild hall theme for sale that you can unlock on the guild account. You can then access a new tab under guild (if you have the appropriate rank) and change the guild hall from the list of unlocked guild halls (similar to how the new wardrobe shows you outfits you have unlocked, ones that are locked, and ones that are for sale). Once you have the skin unlocked you can choose it whenever you want with no additional charge. Want a Halloween guild hall this week? Awesome! Want a Wintersday, SAB, or Mordem corrupted hall next week? Go right ahead! As long as you own it, you can switch it. [Note: if players are inside when you change the hall, it can do just like a WvW reset and give a 10 minute counter for people to leave, and if they don’t leave they are kicked until it switches.]

Risks
A vast majority will like this (because they have guild halls) but there will be a lot of negative feedback about having to pay for something that they assumed would be in the game. There would be a lot of flak for that. Also there would be a risk of losing purchased items (ie, vendors purchased on gemstore or influence) if you don’t pay for your guild hall. This this I say maybe give the community a basic guild hall when you unlock guild halls in Architecture T7 and make the payment for guild halls maybe a “Guild Hall Starter Pack” which gives you access to maybe 5 preset guild halls (Charr, Norn, Human, Sylvari, Asura).

Additional Notes
Different Guild Hall ideas for purchase off the gemstore:
Halloween
Wintersday
Dragon Bash
Cultural (Human, Norn, Sylvari, Asura, Charr)
Molten
Aetherblade
Toxic (Nightmare Tower)
Zephyr
Pavilion
Orrian
Kodan
Quaggan (Primarily underwater?)

Or we keep the cash-shop completely out of the guild-stuff. Earning those things ingame are goals / content / playtime for guilds. Buying any of that removes that and makes it just ‘buying it’ (what is not really interesting). If Anet want to earn money on that (what make sense) simply put the guild-halls + everything you can do with it in an expansion.

BTW guild-halls are out of the scope of the CDI (for now).

Castrin.8972:

Devata.6589:

Castrin.8972:

Devata.6589:

Automated guild-ranks.

No and just no. Beyond the “entry” rank assignment it’s a bad idea to automate any of the other ranks. If you can’t be bothered to manage your guild and have no one to help then it’s time to trim the membership or just close the guild.

Right now there is enough granularity for what is there. If things are added then they should include rights assignment like everything else. If things get really complicated it might be an idea to add guild roles as a sort of template to streamline assigning rights.

Peace.

It’s completely optional to use so i’m not sure why you would be so much against it. You don’t like that option? Don’t use it! Simple as that.

We have an international guild so people all play on different times. They play also on different characters. Some always join for guild-missions some never some sometimes.

There is so much variables that it is almost impossible to be fair to all members. In addition it also makes it much more clear for members themselves.

We have a big guild and multiple officers helping but that does not mean this would not be useful, besides we would also like to play the game ourself in stead of watching the roster 24/7 noting online times / representing times and so on the whole time (what would be the only way to manually do what this function could provide!). Personally I think if guild-members would do that they should close there guild because what’s a guild if the leaders only look at the roster all day?

I would personally also only use it for the first few ranks but it’s really a very good and useful tool for bigger guild.

Now that you might not use it yourself that’s all fine but it’s a little bit stupid to come here and say “No and just no.” as if it would hurt you what is of course not the case. It’s completely optional.

Peace.

Well sorry but I’m only saying this is a bad idea because I’ve seen what an “automated” rank/control system can do. It’s not pretty. Complete loss of guild control, emptying of banks and goods and a general destruction of the guild to the detriment of all the members.

Optional is fine (though I have yet to see anything that is “optional” in GW2 save client options) but the potential to seriously damage a guild due to one rouge player is huge. Should that happen how would you explain to the members? That you decided that it was too hard to manage and instead relied on scripting to promote people? Oops?

So no, I’m not voicing my opposition out of some random reason or desire to dissent but because I can see how this could go horribly wrong for your, or any other huge/international, guild. For mine, it would remain off (if that is an option) and never used.

Peace.

p.s. Please don’t use emotional terms like “stupid” or similar, it detracts from the discussion. Thanks.

In fact I did give that as a risk. However with better tools for bank permissions you should be able to prevent a player from misusing it. Also the same can just as well happen with manually giving ranks.

Please don’t use emotional sentences like “No and just no.” and really your whole first paragraph did not add anything useful and seemed more emotional then anything else. That’s why I did consider it a little stupid. To clarify that.

Kaz.5430:

One way of implementing could be a simple modification like the one in the image I’ve attached to this post. I’ve added channels for home server chat (/h), roleplay (/rp) and alliances (/a & /a1-a5) because you might as well add the other common requested channels while doing guilds. I’ve also assumed that the cap would be 1 alliance per guild, because otherwise the system would become massively complex from a chat point of view.

I think it was mentioned before, but why not use a system similar to the wispers.
As an example /g <name of guild> and even use an autocomplete function like the mail already has or a dropdown menu or something similar.

And since we are talking about the guild chat, what I (and other guildies) would like is to keep guild chat history after switching characters

LostBalloon.6423:

Castrin.8972:

Devata.6589:

Castrin.8972:

Devata.6589:

Automated guild-ranks.

No and just no. Beyond the “entry” rank assignment it’s a bad idea to automate any of the other ranks. If you can’t be bothered to manage your guild and have no one to help then it’s time to trim the membership or just close the guild.

Right now there is enough granularity for what is there. If things are added then they should include rights assignment like everything else. If things get really complicated it might be an idea to add guild roles as a sort of template to streamline assigning rights.

Peace.

It’s completely optional to use so i’m not sure why you would be so much against it. You don’t like that option? Don’t use it! Simple as that.

We have an international guild so people all play on different times. They play also on different characters. Some always join for guild-missions some never some sometimes.

There is so much variables that it is almost impossible to be fair to all members. In addition it also makes it much more clear for members themselves.

We have a big guild and multiple officers helping but that does not mean this would not be useful, besides we would also like to play the game ourself in stead of watching the roster 24/7 noting online times / representing times and so on the whole time (what would be the only way to manually do what this function could provide!). Personally I think if guild-members would do that they should close there guild because what’s a guild if the leaders only look at the roster all day?

I would personally also only use it for the first few ranks but it’s really a very good and useful tool for bigger guild.

Now that you might not use it yourself that’s all fine but it’s a little bit stupid to come here and say “No and just no.” as if it would hurt you what is of course not the case. It’s completely optional.

Peace.

Well sorry but I’m only saying this is a bad idea because I’ve seen what an “automated” rank/control system can do. It’s not pretty. Complete loss of guild control, emptying of banks and goods and a general destruction of the guild to the detriment of all the members.

Optional is fine (though I have yet to see anything that is “optional” in GW2 save client options) but the potential to seriously damage a guild due to one rouge player is huge. Should that happen how would you explain to the members? That you decided that it was too hard to manage and instead relied on scripting to promote people? Oops?

So no, I’m not voicing my opposition out of some random reason or desire to dissent but because I can see how this could go horribly wrong for your, or any other huge/international, guild. For mine, it would remain off (if that is an option) and never used.

Peace.

How about a middle ground where the automation would allow you to quickly have a list of eligible players for a promotion (which has to be done manually by an officer)

That would work as well. The other suggestion I made would give all the information for it.
Based on that information you could make a little ‘script’ and in stead of setting the rank automatically it could also only point guild-leaders and officers to that information.

However if you have that I think you will think .. Why not do this automatically?

But personally I would be fine with that as well.

JonPeters.5630:

Tamasan.6457:

JonPeters.5630:

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

That statement really fills me with dread. Please do not take anything currently available away from what I’ll call a non-primary guild, and if you are going to be adding functionality, please make sure that if it is something that grants any kind of in game advantage (access to raids, buffs, areas, gear, skins, whatever) that it is available to smaller guilds.

My primary guild is about a dozen active people and another dozen or two that we see occasionally. I’ve known most of these people for years before GW2, and gaming in the same MMO is mostly what keeps us together.

However, most of my primary guild is also member of another larger guild of maybe about 30 or so people that we do missions and other random things with frequently – it started because missions are (and remain) such an enormous pain to try to do as a small guild (seriously, try even a tier 1 bounty with 5 or 8 people online). Yet I’ve gotten to know some of this other guild and I want to keep playing with them.

Please don’t make me choose between the people I’ve known for years and some kind of game mechanics that penalizes me for not wanting to spend most of my time in a huge guild where you’re just another face in the crowd.

Point taken. I was simply asking as an exercise what are the things you really use on all your guilds vs the things you use on your primary guild and what QOL things that we talk about would be important to all guilds vs primary, because I think in order to make primary a meaningful choice it has to provide benefit beyond secondary guilds.

But the secondary guild of one person is the primary guild of another. The primary guild will be the one that fits the player the best. And that fit would be the benefit. That fits all guilds of all sizes and purposes.

• Guild Calendar, where players can add their own events, and people can sign up for them.

• Option to block chat, for some members. Guild Masters could create a rank, which does not allow these people to write. It would be very helpful, and not that hard to create i guess.

• Guild Halls - cool stuff, but it definitely must be done wisely. Somehow encourage players to visit them etc… Even… It would be nice, when every guild mate after logging in to the game would be transferred to the guild hall It could be an interesting feeling. Who knows…

Devata.6589:

Castrin.8972:

Devata.6589:

It’s completely optional to use so i’m not sure why you would be so much against it. You don’t like that option? Don’t use it! Simple as that.

We have an international guild so people all play on different times. They play also on different characters. Some always join for guild-missions some never some sometimes.

There is so much variables that it is almost impossible to be fair to all members. In addition it also makes it much more clear for members themselves.

We have a big guild and multiple officers helping but that does not mean this would not be useful, besides we would also like to play the game ourself in stead of watching the roster 24/7 noting online times / representing times and so on the whole time (what would be the only way to manually do what this function could provide!). Personally I think if guild-members would do that they should close there guild because what’s a guild if the leaders only look at the roster all day?

I would personally also only use it for the first few ranks but it’s really a very good and useful tool for bigger guild.

Now that you might not use it yourself that’s all fine but it’s a little bit stupid to come here and say “No and just no.” as if it would hurt you what is of course not the case. It’s completely optional.

Peace.

Well sorry but I’m only saying this is a bad idea because I’ve seen what an “automated” rank/control system can do. It’s not pretty. Complete loss of guild control, emptying of banks and goods and a general destruction of the guild to the detriment of all the members.

Optional is fine (though I have yet to see anything that is “optional” in GW2 save client options) but the potential to seriously damage a guild due to one rouge player is huge. Should that happen how would you explain to the members? That you decided that it was too hard to manage and instead relied on scripting to promote people? Oops?

So no, I’m not voicing my opposition out of some random reason or desire to dissent but because I can see how this could go horribly wrong for your, or any other huge/international, guild. For mine, it would remain off (if that is an option) and never used.

Peace.

p.s. Please don’t use emotional terms like “stupid” or similar, it detracts from the discussion. Thanks.

In fact I did give that as a risk. However with better tools for bank permissions you should be able to prevent a player from misusing it. Also the same can just as well happen with manually giving ranks.

Please don’t use emotional sentences like “No and just no.” and really your whole first paragraph did not add anything useful and seemed more emotional then anything else. That’s why I did consider it a little stupid. To clarify that.

Hearing someone say no to your idea is hard to except so I can understand your emotional response. I don’t take offense with you trying to throw it back into my face.

I read the risks you noted and I felt they were understated, simple as that. No emotion involved but you can infer whatever you feel you need to.

I like where the idea is going, in a more “inform the officers” as opposed to “automate” path, so let’s just focus on that.

Peace.

JonPeters.5630:

Seera.5916:

JonPeters.5630:

Tamasan.6457:

JonPeters.5630:

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

That statement really fills me with dread. Please do not take anything currently available away from what I’ll call a non-primary guild, and if you are going to be adding functionality, please make sure that if it is something that grants any kind of in game advantage (access to raids, buffs, areas, gear, skins, whatever) that it is available to smaller guilds.

My primary guild is about a dozen active people and another dozen or two that we see occasionally. I’ve known most of these people for years before GW2, and gaming in the same MMO is mostly what keeps us together.

However, most of my primary guild is also member of another larger guild of maybe about 30 or so people that we do missions and other random things with frequently – it started because missions are (and remain) such an enormous pain to try to do as a small guild (seriously, try even a tier 1 bounty with 5 or 8 people online). Yet I’ve gotten to know some of this other guild and I want to keep playing with them.

Please don’t make me choose between the people I’ve known for years and some kind of game mechanics that penalizes me for not wanting to spend most of my time in a huge guild where you’re just another face in the crowd.

Point taken. I was simply asking as an exercise what are the things you really use on all your guilds vs the things you use on your primary guild and what QOL things that we talk about would be important to all guilds vs primary, because I think in order to make primary a meaningful choice it has to provide benefit beyond secondary guilds.

But the secondary guild of one person is the primary guild of another. The primary guild will be the one that fits the player the best. And that fit would be the benefit. That fits all guilds of all sizes and purposes.

Right, in now way would certain guilds be called primary and others secondary as a guild, it would be a rating you give that guild personally. For example:

• I have a guild with my college friends that is my primary guild.
• I am also in the ArenaNet guild.
• For me I get extra functionality for my primary guild
• Someone else might assign their primary guild to be the ArenaNet guild.
• For them that additional functionality that helps attach them to that guild is tied to the ANet guild.

Here is a bad example of something I would be ok with as only being tied to primary guild:

• When a guild completes a Guild mission it gains some rewards and when it has enough of these special rewards they are shared among all of the members of that guild who flagged it as their primary guild.

This example obviously has problems but that is sortof what I am talking about. Anyway I think I’ve talked enough about that issue. I’ll look for some other hot QOL issues to respond to now.

But what would that functionality be?

I could see it as part of the megaserver map assignment. If I’m in three guilds, A, B, and C and A is my primary and I go to a map and they are each on different shards, the assignment would prioritize a map with more members from guild A as that is my primary.

But anything tied to influence, merits, rewards etc is a bad idea.

What do people think of my previously posted proposal for being able to form a “web of parties” within the same guild? Would it help making large content easier to organize, especially when pugs are involved too? Would it be worth the effort?

A good point was made a page or two ago that the chat system redesign (which I feel is needed at some point) should not become a roadblock to expanding guild communication possibilities.

But within the current system, maybe it would be possible to add more tabs? I’ve not tested this in a while but there did seem to be a limit on how many I could have, perhaps because of issues sliding them into place. A second tier of tabs wouldn’t use much more space. They could still go red when new posts are in them, and each should be configurable as to what channels show.

Thus one could have one’s five guild tabs (or whatever else one wants to put in the tabs) in a row sitting just atop the main row.

One thing I do love about the current chat system is that each tab actually “sees” all the chat, and so you can for instance toggle out whispers while screenshotting an RP scene, then toggle them back in. Plus even if you didn’t have whispers showing in any tab, you can turn them on to see what you missed. We should keep that.

Mini Proposal
Have guild chat persist through a character relog just as whispers and party do. This will help with continuity of discussion.

JonPeters.5630:

Seera.5916:

JonPeters.5630:

Seera.5916:

JonPeters.5630:

Tamasan.6457:

JonPeters.5630:

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

That statement really fills me with dread. Please do not take anything currently available away from what I’ll call a non-primary guild, and if you are going to be adding functionality, please make sure that if it is something that grants any kind of in game advantage (access to raids, buffs, areas, gear, skins, whatever) that it is available to smaller guilds.

My primary guild is about a dozen active people and another dozen or two that we see occasionally. I’ve known most of these people for years before GW2, and gaming in the same MMO is mostly what keeps us together.

However, most of my primary guild is also member of another larger guild of maybe about 30 or so people that we do missions and other random things with frequently – it started because missions are (and remain) such an enormous pain to try to do as a small guild (seriously, try even a tier 1 bounty with 5 or 8 people online). Yet I’ve gotten to know some of this other guild and I want to keep playing with them.

Please don’t make me choose between the people I’ve known for years and some kind of game mechanics that penalizes me for not wanting to spend most of my time in a huge guild where you’re just another face in the crowd.

Point taken. I was simply asking as an exercise what are the things you really use on all your guilds vs the things you use on your primary guild and what QOL things that we talk about would be important to all guilds vs primary, because I think in order to make primary a meaningful choice it has to provide benefit beyond secondary guilds.

But the secondary guild of one person is the primary guild of another. The primary guild will be the one that fits the player the best. And that fit would be the benefit. That fits all guilds of all sizes and purposes.

Right, in now way would certain guilds be called primary and others secondary as a guild, it would be a rating you give that guild personally. For example:

• I have a guild with my college friends that is my primary guild.
• I am also in the ArenaNet guild.
• For me I get extra functionality for my primary guild
• Someone else might assign their primary guild to be the ArenaNet guild.
• For them that additional functionality that helps attach them to that guild is tied to the ANet guild.

Here is a bad example of something I would be ok with as only being tied to primary guild:

• When a guild completes a Guild mission it gains some rewards and when it has enough of these special rewards they are shared among all of the members of that guild who flagged it as their primary guild.

This example obviously has problems but that is sortof what I am talking about. Anyway I think I’ve talked enough about that issue. I’ll look for some other hot QOL issues to respond to now.

But what would that functionality be?

I could see it as part of the megaserver map assignment. If I’m in three guilds, A, B, and C and A is my primary and I go to a map and they are each on different shards, the assignment would prioritize a map with more members from guild A as that is my primary.

But anything tied to influence, merits, rewards etc is a bad idea.

As I said the rough proposal was intended to have some problems with it. However this problem is not as bad as you make it out to be as large guild must also share those rewards with more players.

I get that and I did offer one answer to my what functionality question. Megaserver shard placement. But I’m sure there are other functions.

JonPeters.5630:

Seera.5916:

JonPeters.5630:

Tamasan.6457:

JonPeters.5630:

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

That statement really fills me with dread. Please do not take anything currently available away from what I’ll call a non-primary guild, and if you are going to be adding functionality, please make sure that if it is something that grants any kind of in game advantage (access to raids, buffs, areas, gear, skins, whatever) that it is available to smaller guilds.

My primary guild is about a dozen active people and another dozen or two that we see occasionally. I’ve known most of these people for years before GW2, and gaming in the same MMO is mostly what keeps us together.

However, most of my primary guild is also member of another larger guild of maybe about 30 or so people that we do missions and other random things with frequently – it started because missions are (and remain) such an enormous pain to try to do as a small guild (seriously, try even a tier 1 bounty with 5 or 8 people online). Yet I’ve gotten to know some of this other guild and I want to keep playing with them.

Please don’t make me choose between the people I’ve known for years and some kind of game mechanics that penalizes me for not wanting to spend most of my time in a huge guild where you’re just another face in the crowd.

Point taken. I was simply asking as an exercise what are the things you really use on all your guilds vs the things you use on your primary guild and what QOL things that we talk about would be important to all guilds vs primary, because I think in order to make primary a meaningful choice it has to provide benefit beyond secondary guilds.

But the secondary guild of one person is the primary guild of another. The primary guild will be the one that fits the player the best. And that fit would be the benefit. That fits all guilds of all sizes and purposes.

Right, in now way would certain guilds be called primary and others secondary as a guild, it would be a rating you give that guild personally. For example:

• I have a guild with my college friends that is my primary guild.
• I am also in the ArenaNet guild.
• For me I get extra functionality for my primary guild
• Someone else might assign their primary guild to be the ArenaNet guild.
• For them that additional functionality that helps attach them to that guild is tied to the ANet guild.

Here is a bad example of something I would be ok with as only being tied to primary guild:

• When a guild completes a Guild mission it gains some rewards and when it has enough of these special rewards they are shared among all of the members of that guild who flagged it as their primary guild.

This example obviously has problems but that is sortof what I am talking about. Anyway I think I’ve talked enough about that issue. I’ll look for some other hot QOL issues to respond to now.

The problem is primary guilds tend to be social guilds not interactive. It is the players relationships that makes primary guilds. There is also some cases that a player could have two primary guilds.

So the only features that you would really want to enhance are items of social design. Rewards, Buffs and other social items to encourage players to represent more frequently. Without removing game play functionality. But a lot of social tools are used for communication so removing them from secondary guilds is not necessarily a option either.

Thanks Chris and Jon for all those answers, this CDI feels really alive.

So here’s some MUST have option I’ve been thinking about, allow players to keep the guild chat when they change character (whole chat would be even better, including party chat even if you left the party).
It’s annoying to lose the track of what people are saying because you relogged to another character.

At launch, I wanted an alliance because my guild and another RP guild were in close collaboration on stories. With no custom chat channel, we had to join both guilds and then decide which chat to use for ooc coordination of scenes.

Sadly our guilds ended up at odds and went our separate ways. But that process was exacerbated by the difficulty in shooting the breeze with each other while still maintaining individual guild identity.

I no longer go into other guild chats, and hop back to my main guild as fast as I can after doing personal guild inventory management. There’s too much a feeling that I’ll be “missing” something in my main guild’s banter. I think the enforced one-chat-at-a-time feature may have shaped a lot of people that way and closed off some communities from forming.

So an alliance for me is a way to stay more socially connected. It’s a communications tool, and an RPer’s dream to let us have our theme guilds while still participating in a greater plot arc. But I could see it being very handy for ad hoc joining of forces for guild activities, and other benefits discussed in the thread above.

JonPeters.5630:

I see a lot of talk about alliances. Two questions on that front:

1) What functionality would you like to get out of an alliance?
2) What makes you want alliances?

I’ll try to answer them myself.
1) Ability to play content that is made for larger guilds. Ability to connect some of my guilds and have them be able to chat together without the commitment of being in the same guild.
2) My guild is small and there is not enough content for small guilds. I think we could make more small guild content too which would help alleviate the need for alliances.

1) a) Chat tools that link the guilds together via mutual accessibility based on guild membership.
1) b) Pooled influence that can be used to start world events and other large game content.
1) c) An alliance tool similar to the Guild tool that allows for information sharing and management.
1) d) Megaserver placement prioritization for guilds that are in the same alliance.

2) The ability to collaborate in larger content (events/puzzles/etc.) without losing our guild identity or having to “jump around” to other guilds just to be involved. To be more involved in WvW and possible other, similar (like GvG or AvA if ever implemented in the future), parts of the game.

Peace.

JonPeters.5630:

I see a lot of talk about alliances. Two questions on that front:

1) What functionality would you like to get out of an alliance?
2) What makes you want alliances?

I’ll try to answer them myself.
1) Ability to play content that is made for larger guilds. Ability to connect some of my guilds and have them be able to chat together without the commitment of being in the same guild.
2) My guild is small and there is not enough content for small guilds. I think we could make more small guild content too which would help alleviate the need for alliances.

I am more inclined to go with option 2.

If there was some sort of chat overhaul so that I could choose how many and which guilds that I saw chat for at the same time I wouldn’t need an alliance.

Formal alliances are sticky wickets. For example why on earth would my dungeon guild want to form an alliance with my WvW guild? Their only connection is that I am in both of them. If there is going to be any sort of alliance system it would need to be at the players discretion not the guilds, it would have to be very flexible and easily changed.

JonPeters.5630:

I see a lot of talk about alliances. Two questions on that front:

1) What functionality would you like to get out of an alliance?
2) What makes you want alliances?

I’ll try to answer them myself.
1) Ability to play content that is made for larger guilds. Ability to connect some of my guilds and have them be able to chat together without the commitment of being in the same guild.
2) My guild is small and there is not enough content for small guilds. I think we could make more small guild content too which would help alleviate the need for alliances.

1.) Mostly the ability to chat with other guilds while representing one guild. Also increase the pool of players I can pull help from. If you want to see how much people would like this and how much it would help. Check in your metrics for instances where players rep 1 guilds for less then 5-10 minutes. Talk in chat. Then rep another guild for less then 5-10 minutes. Then another… In most cases this is a player trying to pull some friends to help them out….. I just came up with another proposal that might solve the issue people are trying to solve here.

2.) See answer to #1. Also your answers are good too.

The problem I see with alliances is if they were a replacement for multiple guilds it would make it so that I can’t associate with multiple guilds I choose.

JonPeters.5630:

I see a lot of talk about alliances. Two questions on that front:

1) What functionality would you like to get out of an alliance?
2) What makes you want alliances?

I’ll try to answer them myself.
1) Ability to play content that is made for larger guilds. Ability to connect some of my guilds and have them be able to chat together without the commitment of being in the same guild.
2) My guild is small and there is not enough content for small guilds. I think we could make more small guild content too which would help alleviate the need for alliances.

There’s more than that, guilds are also a place where you can put together groups for things like dungeons/fractals/story quests/wvw guerrilla raids without feeling like you’re going to be running with lots of people you don’t know. I would say the number one reason small guilds lose players is because during down times, they find themselves about 1-2 willing people short of being able to do a dungeon at any given moment.

Alliances make it so the pool of available players is bigger but still not just randoms from lfg tool. That’s my opinion, anyway. Activities for small guilds would be really nice, but wouldn’t actually solve the biggest problem they have.

JonPeters.5630:

I see a lot of talk about alliances. Two questions on that front:

1) What functionality would you like to get out of an alliance?
2) What makes you want alliances?

I’ll try to answer them myself.
1) Ability to play content that is made for larger guilds. Ability to connect some of my guilds and have them be able to chat together without the commitment of being in the same guild.
2) My guild is small and there is not enough content for small guilds. I think we could make more small guild content too which would help alleviate the need for alliances.

I don’t see a need for smaller guilds in PvE to create alliances in order to complete larger guild events. With the mega-server, if you’re a small guild you can just taxi into an active guild mission and tag along with other guilds for the merits/commendations.

I feel alliances are needed for WvW. Before the mega-server, we could just pop into LA or DR and ask for help from our home servers whenever there was an enemy force in our borderlands. With alliances, WvW guilds can link to other guilds of the same server and with an alliance chat, mass message players to help out in WvW to defend a borderland. I really just want a way to connect with other players from my ‘home’ server when it comes to WvW. I think weaker/smaller WvW servers would benefit more from an alliance function the most, in my humble and honest opinion.

JonPeters.5630:

Seera.5916:

JonPeters.5630:

Tamasan.6457:

JonPeters.5630:

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

That statement really fills me with dread. Please do not take anything currently available away from what I’ll call a non-primary guild, and if you are going to be adding functionality, please make sure that if it is something that grants any kind of in game advantage (access to raids, buffs, areas, gear, skins, whatever) that it is available to smaller guilds.

My primary guild is about a dozen active people and another dozen or two that we see occasionally. I’ve known most of these people for years before GW2, and gaming in the same MMO is mostly what keeps us together.

However, most of my primary guild is also member of another larger guild of maybe about 30 or so people that we do missions and other random things with frequently – it started because missions are (and remain) such an enormous pain to try to do as a small guild (seriously, try even a tier 1 bounty with 5 or 8 people online). Yet I’ve gotten to know some of this other guild and I want to keep playing with them.

Please don’t make me choose between the people I’ve known for years and some kind of game mechanics that penalizes me for not wanting to spend most of my time in a huge guild where you’re just another face in the crowd.

Point taken. I was simply asking as an exercise what are the things you really use on all your guilds vs the things you use on your primary guild and what QOL things that we talk about would be important to all guilds vs primary, because I think in order to make primary a meaningful choice it has to provide benefit beyond secondary guilds.

But the secondary guild of one person is the primary guild of another. The primary guild will be the one that fits the player the best. And that fit would be the benefit. That fits all guilds of all sizes and purposes.

Right, in now way would certain guilds be called primary and others secondary as a guild, it would be a rating you give that guild personally. For example:

• I have a guild with my college friends that is my primary guild.
• I am also in the ArenaNet guild.
• For me I get extra functionality for my primary guild
• Someone else might assign their primary guild to be the ArenaNet guild.
• For them that additional functionality that helps attach them to that guild is tied to the ANet guild.

Here is a bad example of something I would be ok with as only being tied to primary guild:

• When a guild completes a Guild mission it gains some rewards and when it has enough of these special rewards they are shared among all of the members of that guild who flagged it as their primary guild.

This example obviously has problems but that is sortof what I am talking about. Anyway I think I’ve talked enough about that issue. I’ll look for some other hot QOL issues to respond to now.

I think you are on the right track, but there’d need to be modified functionality in place for that. If you have 5 characters for 5 guilds, then you’d just switch to whichever character has that guild set as their primary. A better system would be to award commendations or other extra rewards to whomever has provided the most influence to the guild that week (possibly also removing the ability to directly spend your way into providing the most influence).

Another way to think about this might be to not just ask what a player wants from their primary guild, but what does the primary guild want from that player and how can they show appreciation for it? Because heroes in a guild are what creates loyalty and a good group environment.

ChoChoBo.6503:

JonPeters.5630:

I see a lot of talk about alliances. Two questions on that front:

1) What functionality would you like to get out of an alliance?
2) What makes you want alliances?

I’ll try to answer them myself.
1) Ability to play content that is made for larger guilds. Ability to connect some of my guilds and have them be able to chat together without the commitment of being in the same guild.
2) My guild is small and there is not enough content for small guilds. I think we could make more small guild content too which would help alleviate the need for alliances.

I don’t see a need for smaller guilds in PvE to create alliances in order to complete larger guild events. With the mega-server, if you’re a small guild you can just taxi into an active guild mission and tag along with other guilds for the merits/commendations.

I feel alliances are needed for WvW. Before the mega-server, we could just pop into LA or DR and ask for help from our home servers whenever there was an enemy force in our borderlands. With alliances, WvW guilds can link to other guilds of the same server and with an alliance chat, mass message players to help out in WvW to defend a borderland. I really just want a way to connect with other players from my ‘home’ server when it comes to WvW. I think weaker/smaller WvW servers would benefit more from an alliance function the most, in my humble and honest opinion.

That really indicates more of a need for a wvw/server chat tab more than anything else. And also indicates that such functionality definitely belongs on the table during this discussion.

JonPeters.5630:

I see a lot of talk about alliances. Two questions on that front:

1) What functionality would you like to get out of an alliance?
2) What makes you want alliances?

I’ll try to answer them myself.
1) Ability to play content that is made for larger guilds. Ability to connect some of my guilds and have them be able to chat together without the commitment of being in the same guild.
2) My guild is small and there is not enough content for small guilds. I think we could make more small guild content too which would help alleviate the need for alliances.

I think you really hit the nail

1) What functionality would you like to get out of an alliance?
//they are plenty, and unless we turno the QOL into “content upgrade” it may derail the discussion. Alliance chat and the ability to spot allies visually are probably the first that come to mind

//2) What makes you want alliances?
as they are now, guilds are just social containers. If I could be in a guild that can specialize into something, that become long term end game content. But I still would like to remain in contact with all the friends I made along the way, and all the functions listed in this thread aimed at improving that aspect are great.

note: whatever new mechanics are introduced, I think they should put large guilds and small guilds on equal foot at least in the term of importance if not in terms of benefits. History taught us that in the past have existed extremely small guilds that were so highly specialized and universally acknowledged that they even had “immunity”, being able to travel everywhere without fear of harms.
Now, being in a large guild has the edge, while being in a small guild is penalizing: I think improving this situation would be a step forward.

JonPeters.5630:

Tamasan.6457:

JonPeters.5630:

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

That statement really fills me with dread. Please do not take anything currently available away from what I’ll call a non-primary guild, and if you are going to be adding functionality, please make sure that if it is something that grants any kind of in game advantage (access to raids, buffs, areas, gear, skins, whatever) that it is available to smaller guilds.

My primary guild is about a dozen active people and another dozen or two that we see occasionally. I’ve known most of these people for years before GW2, and gaming in the same MMO is mostly what keeps us together.

However, most of my primary guild is also member of another larger guild of maybe about 30 or so people that we do missions and other random things with frequently – it started because missions are (and remain) such an enormous pain to try to do as a small guild (seriously, try even a tier 1 bounty with 5 or 8 people online). Yet I’ve gotten to know some of this other guild and I want to keep playing with them.

Please don’t make me choose between the people I’ve known for years and some kind of game mechanics that penalizes me for not wanting to spend most of my time in a huge guild where you’re just another face in the crowd.

Point taken. I was simply asking as an exercise what are the things you really use on all your guilds vs the things you use on your primary guild and what QOL things that we talk about would be important to all guilds vs primary, because I think in order to make primary a meaningful choice it has to provide benefit beyond secondary guilds.

but what of people that don’t really have a “primary” guild? personal example:

• my guild from launch, which i lead, is probably the one i rep most of the time, even though nowadays it’s more as a memento than a guild that does guild things. sometimes we get our “core group” all repping it to chat and/or do stuff, but never in a capacity that uses any guild features, because we’re too small for that and we all have other, bigger guilds.

• TTS, which i only spend time with during their events.

• a PvE guild that i only show up for their weekly guild missions, since a friend from the first guild is an officer there. i don’t really interact with the guild, it’s more “play with my friend and his friends and get some good out of it”.

• a WvW guild that i (and everyone else in it) only rep for their late night rallies.

there are really no guilds there that would be “primary”. i mean, it would probably be my own guild, but i wouldn’t reap any benefits from that, forcing me to choose some guild i don’t care about nearly as much to be put on top of others.

personally, i think tracking down a way to make people more engaged within a single guild through some priority/carrot-on-stick system is the wrong path. instead, we should be discussing how to make all guilds equally valid for a player, without having the guild’s higher ups look at all those non-repping members and think “what a waste of slot”. in fact, i’d argue that even if you added something silly like “get extra guild mission rewards only from your primary guild”, it would only serve to discourage multi-guilding, as increasing the value of a single guild, by proxy, decreases the value of others, as well as encourage the “rep our guild or get kicked” mentality.

Proposal Overview
Improve the LFG system so that it sends a alert to guild members that a guild member is looking for a group.

Goal of Proposal
All this talk of alliances, viewing multiple chats etc. I feel are trying to solve one problem. People like to pull from their group of friends for help before they group up with strangers. They do this currently by asking in chat. Swapping between all their relevant guilds asking for help. This proposed system will allow players to request assistance from multiple guilds at the same time without actually representing the guilds in question.

Proposal Functionality
A player determines that he wishes for some help from his guild members. Not many people are on his currently representing guild at the time. He would open up the LFG tool and put a advertisement that he is looking for a group. He would then select how he wants this advertised with the following options (Check-box options as you may want multiple guilds but exclude others no need to spam your WvW guild with a PvE advertisement).

[] Everyone
[] ALL Associated Guilds.
[] Guild 1
[] Guild 2
[] Guild 3
[] Guild 4
[] Guild 5

The system will then send a filterable LFG message to the desired groups(With the exception of Everyone). Stating the players advertisement.

The player that wishes to join based on the advertisement would then go into the LFG system and request to join the party.

Associated Risks

• LFG spam. Easily mitigated by chat filters. But these filters may cause people to revert back to the old way of doing thing. Represent advertise. Represent advertise.
• Not as tight control of who to invite as talking in chat.
• Influence is not gained for the guild members playing together.
• Can reduce some conversation in some guilds.

Proposal Overview
Changing the guild roster UI to better reflect guild leaders/officers.

Goal of Proposal
Currently, when viewing the guild roster, members/representers/officers/leaders are all scattered across the roster. Having a “call out” section that displays the guilds officers/leaders to be able to quickly identify those people allowing for quicker and easier means of communication for inter-guild issues/questions.

Proposal functionality
The top portion of the guild roster player slots being reserved for leaders and officers, in a seperate and distinct area. For example: When viewing the guild roster, instead of showing the players name first, and the other guild members (presumably according to their log in times), a dedicated section displaying the guild leaders and officers is displayed first on that list.

Associated risks
None.

The answer for the question “what would define a primary guild?” could, in my opinion, very well be the same for the question “how would a guild make us feel at home?”

This reminds me of societies and clubs, where members gather at a place to socialize with each other, sometimes owning a place collectively, and donating/ contributing furniture and other things. All of them would have a key to said place, and be able to enter it whenever they would wish, but of course, the rules depend on case-by-case.

Which makes me wonder, if this wouldn’t be better accomplished with guild housing – not in the sense that GW1 did it (selectable halls + merchant unlocking), but a more customisable housing where its members would be able to contribute and donate cosmetic enhancements. This way, they would feel “personally invested” and “at home” within said guild, because they helped shape it.

Guild Halls is off-topic, but it would probably be a better way to acchieve this feeling of “primary guild” than QoL changes to logistics.

JonPeters.5630:

This is precisely why I asked the question, “what would you want to gain from your primary guild?” It is an exercise in collaborative creativity to see if someone can come up with something that is actually compelling but at the same time doesn’t make you feel like you made the wrong choice. If the answer was easy, everyone would be doing it already, but most things worth doing are hard.

personally, i think the simple solution that someone else presented would be the best: do away with the exclusionary repping system, allow people to actively take part in all of their guilds. guild-related rewards are account-bound anyway (so you can’t get guild mission rewards, then do the same missions with another guild and get more), and influence, quite honestly, is a non-currency for most guilds (it’s like guild karma, everyone has tons of it but very little to spend on after a while), so i don’t see how multi-repping would damage the system right now. you’d probably have to pick only one to display the tag at a time, and this system would also depend almost entirely on whether or not multiple guild chats can be implemented.

if you can socialize, reward, and be rewarded for all the guilds you’re in, the only factor left would be the “advertisement” of the guild through tags, which is where the “primary guild” thing could come in.

i had this idea halfway through typing the answer, and i’m aware that there are people that would try to “game the system” with it, but what if you gained a small boost (to stats, karma/exp/gold gain, magic find, or whatever have you) if you had a guildmate either within 3000 units of range, or in your party, in the same map as you? it would have to be something minor enough that it’s harmless if you’re not benefitting from it, but still interesting enough that people would be encouraged to represent the right guild during large, public guild events (like guild missions).

i still stand that being able to swap what is your “primary” should be as easy as it is to switch reps now, which is where a simple, rather harmless bonus would come in. not something to make the player feel like they need or should invest more time with a single guild, but rather a bonus for players that are doing activities with their guildmates. i feel my solution lines up better with guild wars 2’s friendly, open ended approach to social systems, because it’s an immediate reward for playing with your friends, not an investment.

pdavis.8031:

Proposal Overview
Changing the guild roster UI to better reflect guild leaders/officers.

Goal of Proposal
Currently, when viewing the guild roster, members/representers/officers/leaders are all scattered across the roster. Having a “call out” section that displays the guilds officers/leaders to be able to quickly identify those people allowing for quicker and easier means of communication for inter-guild issues/questions.

Proposal functionality
The top portion of the guild roster player slots being reserved for leaders and officers, in a seperate and distinct area. For example: When viewing the guild roster, instead of showing the players name first, and the other guild members (presumably according to their log in times), a dedicated section displaying the guild leaders and officers is displayed first on that list.

Associated risks
None.

you can already do that. just click the rank and it’ll sort the guild roster by rank. right now it defaults to representing or not (so you know who you can talk to at first glance), but whenever i need to know if a certain leader is online, i can find out with a single click.

you can also sort by aplhabetical order, zone, or last online, and that’s all without leaving the front page.

pdavis.8031:

Proposal Overview
Changing the guild roster UI to better reflect guild leaders/officers.

Goal of Proposal
Currently, when viewing the guild roster, members/representers/officers/leaders are all scattered across the roster. Having a “call out” section that displays the guilds officers/leaders to be able to quickly identify those people allowing for quicker and easier means of communication for inter-guild issues/questions.

Proposal functionality
The top portion of the guild roster player slots being reserved for leaders and officers, in a seperate and distinct area. For example: When viewing the guild roster, instead of showing the players name first, and the other guild members (presumably according to their log in times), a dedicated section displaying the guild leaders and officers is displayed first on that list.

Associated risks
None.

You can currently sort by rank. Perhaps it should be the default.

anzenketh.3759:

pdavis.8031:

Proposal Overview
Changing the guild roster UI to better reflect guild leaders/officers.

Goal of Proposal
Currently, when viewing the guild roster, members/representers/officers/leaders are all scattered across the roster. Having a “call out” section that displays the guilds officers/leaders to be able to quickly identify those people allowing for quicker and easier means of communication for inter-guild issues/questions.

Proposal functionality
The top portion of the guild roster player slots being reserved for leaders and officers, in a seperate and distinct area. For example: When viewing the guild roster, instead of showing the players name first, and the other guild members (presumably according to their log in times), a dedicated section displaying the guild leaders and officers is displayed first on that list.

Associated risks
None.

You can currently sort by rank. Perhaps it should be the default.

i think “let’s see who i can talk to” is a more frequently asked question than “let’s see who are the leaders”, so sorting by representing makes more sense, at least to me.

maybe it could save your last sorting filter, though it seems like a needless hassle.

BrunoBRS.5178:

pdavis.8031:

Proposal Overview
Changing the guild roster UI to better reflect guild leaders/officers.

Goal of Proposal
Currently, when viewing the guild roster, members/representers/officers/leaders are all scattered across the roster. Having a “call out” section that displays the guilds officers/leaders to be able to quickly identify those people allowing for quicker and easier means of communication for inter-guild issues/questions.

Proposal functionality
The top portion of the guild roster player slots being reserved for leaders and officers, in a seperate and distinct area. For example: When viewing the guild roster, instead of showing the players name first, and the other guild members (presumably according to their log in times), a dedicated section displaying the guild leaders and officers is displayed first on that list.

Associated risks
None.

you can already do that. just click the rank and it’ll sort the guild roster by rank. right now it defaults to representing or not (so you know who you can talk to at first glance), but whenever i need to know if a certain leader is online, i can find out with a single click.

you can also sort by aplhabetical order, zone, or last online, and that’s all without leaving the front page.

I was not aware of that….I never really messed around with the guild roster that much, but noticed it was kind of chaotic, and didn’t make much sense. However, I still believe that such a change would definetly fall into QoL, and make things much easier then having to sort manually, or having it sort that way by default.