Guild Wars 2

It’s a weird thing with guilds in GW2.

Although I’ve dedicated myself to a single guild for a while now it forming a tightly knit social community was difficult considering how easy it was to found and form guilds. The fact that people could join multiple guilds played into that as well as people were constantly joining and leaving in search of a “home”.

I must say in retrospect allowing people to join multiple guilds was a bad idea. There may be some situational perks to such a system but in general it doesn’t foster the community well. A guild needs to be at least somewhat of a commitment and not something you switch around like character builds.

However now that things have settled in that regard we come across another issue.

Outside of the occasional WvW raiding there really isn’t much content out there for guilds to do. There is no core activity that would require a large number of people to turn up at the same time. There’s no content that would allow me to meet many of my fellow guild-mates or force us to socialize.

Essentially my guild channel feels more like a glorified LFG channel than anything else and I think that’s a shame, because a guild should be more than that.

Despite being designed as a social MMO I feel a lot more anti-social playing GW2 than I did playing any other game. We don’t even communicate for crafting purposes because everyone can do everything already and there’s no reason to craft anyway.

Open world customizable (non-instanced) housing was the best “social” game feature. Also guild vs guild wars added alot of social, especially with the freedom to have your war anywhere in the open world, so other people can watch

I agree. Though my guild requires 100% representation so it’s not really a problem for me or my guild mates.

To your other points, they have said they will have guild halls in the future and more recently have said they are going to be working on guild missions so those are definitely good signs.

The biggest social issue I see is the lack of any good method of guild recruitment (no server boards, no in game BBS), and no looking for group system. Also the cities should all be on the same map chat channel.

This game is lacking QA…
This game is lacking balance…
This game is lacking workable game mechanics…
This game certainly isn’t lacking bugs…
Etc. …

Since this game is B2P, I can speculate that the development team wasn’t/isn’t composed of guys with thirty years of experience in game development since such people tend to be rather expensive, besides being few and far between, and a B2P game isn’t going to have a super-expensive development crew. Being short on experience — that is, knowing what works and what doesn’t — means such niceties as proper social design aren’t going to be in the game… maybe after a few years of bug-fixes, re-work, re-thinking, and stealth fixes to basic mechanics.

BUT…

…it is B2P (no subscription), so while I might prefer a more polished product, the other games out there right now (TSW, TOR) are pretty much C-R-A-P (aka K-I-T-T-E-N).

IMO, the game’s social aspect is only lacking one big thing right now.

A channel for communicating with Contacts as a whole

Some players are all that giddy about guilds when they first join a game.
They like to roam around, meet nice people, add them, and make friends. That’s the fundamental basis for why MMOs work. Because us lonely gamers can make friends.

Right now, the only tool we have to grow closer to the new friends we make in GW2 is “Whisper”, and that is a —--ty form of chat to have casual conversation in.

Heck, we don’t even have customizable status-messages to use as ice-breakers.

—

Friends come before Guilds in MMOs. Despite the name, Guild Wars2 is no exception.

Friends are the “glue”. It always will be.

Guilds are just glorified chats atm.

DEVs talked to much about the Social side of the game, but about social this game is lacking alot. Friend list is useless, guilds are limited to a chat window and to make parties for especific things it’s a nightmare.

I can’t agree with the DEVs when they say the game is a Social Success.

Reihert.1509:

Guilds are just glorified chats atm.

This and/or a glorified friends list…

Lord Kreegan.8123:

This game is lacking QA…
This game is lacking balance…
This game is lacking workable game mechanics…
This game certainly isn’t lacking bugs…
Etc. …

Designing the social aspects of a game correctly isn’t about man power, it’s about understanding MMOs and MMO players and building around that.

And that’s where I think things went wrong as in that ANet designers didn’t truly understand the implications of their concepts. They may have sounded good on paper but didn’t translate well into the game.

The community lacks social glue, not the game. You cant attribute social dysfunction to bad design. This happens in real life too, people blaming their government for what is essentially a problem with their mentalities. There is nothing that any developer can do will ever force people to play together a game that gives them the capability to play it individually too.

you have to make your own “krew”.

thats what friends are for.
make a few that have the same goals as you: wvw or pvp or dungeon, mostly.

it helps of they are in your guild.

Joining multiple guilds is fine, the real problem is communication. Guild Wars 2 needs to allow the ability to make chat channels which are basically open all the time regardless of what you represent, or if you’re even in the same guild or not. And yes, you can put yourself on hide if you don’t feel like showing your presence.

This is one of the things I miss from City of Heroes.

projectcedric.6951:

The community lacks social glue, not the game. You cant attribute social dysfunction to bad design. This happens in real life too, people blaming their government for what is essentially a problem with their mentalities. There is nothing that any developer can do will ever force people to play together a game that gives them the capability to play it individually too.

Elements of game design have a significant impact on in-game culture. They don’t change bad people into good people but they exert an influence that works to shape a game culture.

Let me give you an example. Making quests and resource nodes non-competitive, DE’s benefit from a larger number of players, XP from rezzing players, all contribute to seeing other players in the map as a positive experience. Contrast this with another well-known MMO where more players in a zone are just more rats in the cage. The simple positive experience around seeing other players created by game mechanics forms the basis then for cooperative and mutually beneficial play. Don’t underestimate the game developers power to shape culture. It is a significant aspect of game design for good or ill.

I give credit where credit is due. Anet has implemented many features which contribute to a positive social experience.

Reihert.1509:

Guilds are just glorified chats atm.

They make good banks though.

There is a lot of social glue in the game but you CAN play the way you want it so if you tend to solo then you will be playing solo that the idea behind the game. In truth there may be something about your own personality that makes you tend to play solo if you truly want to play with others you would find a way.

Dee Jay.2460:

Lord Kreegan.8123:

This game is lacking QA…
This game is lacking balance…
This game is lacking workable game mechanics…
This game certainly isn’t lacking bugs…
Etc. …

Designing the social aspects of a game correctly isn’t about man power, it’s about understanding MMOs and MMO players and building around that.

And that’s where I think things went wrong as in that ANet designers didn’t truly understand the implications of their concepts. They may have sounded good on paper but didn’t translate well into the game.

Didn’t say it’s about manpower; it’s about experience.

To develop a good social interface and environment requires someone with extensive experience in (a) behavioral science, and (b) human factors engineering.

Bet you my paycheck against yours that they have nobody with those qualifications.

EverQuest (original) had one of the best social systems in my MMO history. Teleportations, Ressurections, Corpse Summons, Corpse retreival, Tracking spawns, Spirit of Wolf requests… and yes, raids. All of these made it worthwhile for people to talk to each other and build long-lasting friendships.

While a few of these do not fit into the new age of MMO’s (Exp loss and ressurections… corpse runs) … I do feel a lot of classes need to have more desirable things to offer other players to encourage lasting communication.

On to my suggestions —- I know most of the population would not like these, but I’ll throw them out there regardless.

Add in area’s that are completely full of Champions, a few Legendaries, and/or Veterans. People will be more apt to group up and farm these area’s for drops. This will also encourage people to run around in Tyria more than they do now. (Adjusting Diminishing Returns would be required for this though —- No one likes DR)

Removes waypoints. Yes, it’s an inconvenience to what we currently have. However, open up the asuran portals to the Vigil, the Priory, and Whispers. Charge for use so currency is still being removed from the game. This allows for teleportation spells for a few classes. There will now be more socialization (and a market) for teleportation.

Make encounters more difficult. When a group struggles, it encourages discussion (or critizing) with the player. Let’s take the Claw of Jormag as an example —- If you get hit by his ice spikes he shoots out, freeze the character in a block of ice that cannot be undone until another player releases them. A lot of the Orrian events should be beefed up considerably to require multiple groups working together (and not just zerg it) … This is similar to a raid, but anyone can join in and help.

Require team work for some jumping puzzles or general PvE area’s. Similar to the dredge fractal —- Have a catapult where one player must launch another one over a gate, then a switch to let the other person in.

World of Warcraft (Gasp) had a wonderful Simon Says event in Burning Crusade that was a lot of fun. You could do it solo, but with a group you could spawn a mini boss which was better loot.

I agree with the fact that there isn’t a lot of options for Guilds to participate in as a guild.

I also believe that there are many Guild related updates coming in 2013 as has been promised such as the additions of GvG and Guild Halls. So hopefully we’ll be seeing more guild activities outside of WvW.

My question to you Tuhtle —- What could be a fitting guild activity other than WvW and PvE Raiding though? IMO, anything else can be done with the general populace. Look at the Orrian temple events —- They are just zerged by everyone. No guild required!