Guild Wars 2

I’ll PM you the details.

(continued)

The guild would also not restrict the story of the characters. Being a member of an exploration guild does not prevent your warrior from being a soldier in a regiment (uniform included), your mesmer – from trying to infiltrate a certain Rata Sum research group, or your necromancer – from secretly trying to gain the powers of a lost artifact (or develop a potion to make flowers grow backwards into seeds to gather life force, etc.). All those stories will create the basis for the story events of the guild, or create requirements for further development that can be completed by doing regularly scheduled events (that necromancer may need to look hard for clues to that artifacts whereabouts, and only expeditions in or near certain ruins/sites of power will count towards that goal). On the other hand, since character story will develop during guild events, players will propose the next step in their character’s development and the requirements for that will be decided by the guild as a whole. The mix of character stories will guide the selection of a large part of the regular exploration events (the rest being guided by the guild development line) – after all the characters won’t be inclined to spend time exploring a place that is of no interest to any of them!

An example of a character story event: A warrior or guardian is being dispatched by his/her garrison commander to reinforce one of the Lionguard outposts in Caledon Forest. Based on their current “official” location, the expedition may start from Lion’s Arch, or Queensdale, or the Grove. The “main” character and their companions then proceed to travel to the destination (walking, not running), dealing with the dangers on the way based on their motivations, camping during the night periods (if they deem the area safe enough) or pushing forward to the next settlement for safety, all based on the RP they want to do. They finally arrive and the party disbands. The outpost becomes the new official location for the “main” character, furthering their story, while everyone else that took part and has any personal goals linked to the area can benefit from the trip too, motivating players to take part in guild activities to help their personal RP.

I admit I developed the ideas for the guild while I was writing this, so in a way you’ve already helped me. I only hope that you and other like the idea so that the guild may come to be.

Your post sounds so close to what I have been actually thinking about for some time, and so much different from all the direct gaming guilds out there, that I hope you’re still looking for a guild.

My initial idea was to create an exploration guild. This may sound like a redundant guild goal – everyone does exploration for one reason or another. The point is this guild does exploration for the exploration itself – not the achievements, treasures, collections, etc. All these are a nice side bonus, but the real reward is the thrill of discovery – suddenly dropping in a cave that you’ve passed near a hundred times, finding a hidden (or just not so obvious) door to a catacomb, discovering a jumping puzzle by simply roaming the world. In order to feel this, it is imperative that you don’t spend your time reading JP how-to guides, lists of PoIs and area walkthroughs. You just go out there and comb every little corner of the world until you are sure you have been everywhere. And then you go back for some more, or go to your favourite hiding place, or treasure trove, or any other place you have discovered that struck a chord in your soul…

Certainly, the members of THAT guild need to be able to take pleasure in finding stuff out on their own, without any help, apart from their guildmates. And that’s why it is perfect for an RP guild. A roleplayer can either RP their character’s lack of knowledge (which can be extremely fun), or have the strength of will to keep their lack of knowledge (for example, by NOT reading dulfy’s) so they don’t have a hard time faking it. Layer in the character specific personality, and you have all the options in the world to play out an encounter.

I do not uphold the most common type of RP that I’ve seen (namely, sitting around, emoting feelings that range from tearful to naughty based only on some imagined character history that never happened in or out of game). I always wonder why people don’t go out into the world of the game and actually RP along the events that happen to them. In this game it should be even easier, because there are actual events happening!

About the game mechanics that govern guilds: I see representation as something that has to be a player/character’s decision, more than a strict requirement. Since this guild would care about the RP, and not the points and so on, representation would be required only during RP, and then only if it doesn’t go against a character’s beliefs. Rep works for RP, not the other way around. Of course, getting a guild hall and all possible goodies would be great, but that should be the next great guild adventure, that every member (read character, alts can’t simply tag up, they need to enter the guild the RP way) has their own motivation to take part in.

The major activity of the guild will consist of organized events that can be simple exploration endeavours in various areas (can be scheduled regularly and be done even solo or by anyone that happens to be online at the time), character story linked adventures with some orchestration (those can happen in the open world, in dungeons, or even fractals) or guild story lines that define the guild itself. Every member can propose or organize an event, as simple or as complex they like it to be, and ALL member players will be required to take part in an event at least once a week with any of their member characters. The thing that is more important than representation, is participation!

(continued)

TyPin.9860:

Cognitive dissonance is a concept that can be applied to anything. Simply if someone doesn’t like the Dragonhunter theme, it creates a cognitive dissonance. That doesn’t make an argument.

I agree with that, and most of what you have said before. I’ll just try to point out a… point of view that seems to have not been discussed yet (or I have utterly missed it in those seven pages). At point’s I have used the plural since I believe no one is unique and absolutely alone in their opinion, and thus there will be those that agree with me.

Why are so many people enough people arguing about the theme that a discussion of this proportion has developed?

Q: Who are the people that are likely to take a side in the discussion?
A: The people that mainly play a Guardian and care about the profession. They feel the dissonance with the theme of the spec the most. I have played GW2 for 6 months, all of it as a Guardian, and I admit I had my own “WTF?!?” moment with the DH trailer, because it struck me as alien to the profession.

Q: Who is most likely going to try the spec?
A: The same crowd that already plays a Guardian. I mean, I like the Chronomancer very much, but it doesn’t make me want to try out Mesmer more, and a single specialization won’t change a profession so much that its player base shifts significantly (even this one, as people actually like the mechanics. I know I do.). Thus, the people that KNOW they are going to play this voice their concerns about the fact that they are going to have to overcome the theme every time they want to shoot a bow (looking forward to that too, even got a bow in mind!).

So, to answer the initial question:
(1) We, the Guardians, care about our profession, because we identify with it (or some of us do at least).
(2) We, the Guardians KNOW we will be shooting those arrows. We like the skills, the visuals and the change in tactics.
Because of (2) we know that we’ll HAVE to put up with the theme and name if we want to experience the spec (and we want to experience it alright).
Because of (1) we want to have that good feeling when we slot in the bow and spec, instead of the mixed cringe/discordant feeling we are anticipating ever since the reveal.

Some of us don’t want to put up with the theme. Others don’t want to cringe. Together the two groups make up a significant enough part of the Guardians reading the forums that a discussion like that develops.

Up until an hour ago the Mesmers discussed how they didn’t get all their traits revealed like the Guards. They only cared about the info and whether they’d be competitive enough in PvP/WvW. Right now they are hyped over their 25% speed increase. None of them are going to play a Guard. They don’t care about the Guard. We do.

My argument is this: If enough of the community (Guardians reading the forums, however a small fraction that might be) reacts such that it is felt, there probably is a problem. Don’t tell me it’s because Guards are generally more whiny than Mesmers…

If they gave it a skill that teleports you at the enemy position and does an area knockdown if it crits, and then lets you smash their head in with the bow before continuing with your melee weapon of choice, I think DH would fulfill the guards’ expectations