Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is touting a group of new and innovative features, one of which is a new take on an old favorite. Since the early MMOG's, people of like minds have banded together to complete similar objectives as a group. These guilds have been a staple of MMOG's for many years, but have they really been given the respect that they deserve? EA Mythic doesn't think so and in response to that they've revamped, retooled, and dropped the equivalent of a Corvette ZR1 engine into the guild system! Ten Ton Hammer had a chance to get together with Josh Drescher and Christian "The Almost Dark Knight" Bales to get some information on what sort of guild system we can expect come launch!
After reading this i have some concerns about the guild system being a guild leader and all. Granted that most of the stuff I post one may not be able to comment on. First of all, do we HAVE to collect dues? How do I collect them, is it automatically taken from each member of the guild and deposited into the guild bank? Personally I don't like collecting "dues", first off making it a requirement for being in a guild takes away from some of the fun of being in the guild, and second, trying to collect from members can become a chore. I for one am not willing to give up a % of my hard earned money to contribute to it, and I am not willing to make it a requirement to the members of our guild. Granted it is still beta, but couldn't they think of something else to do besides this system??
As mentioned in part one, you aren't required to collect dues, but if your guild is going to want to participate in the Keep capture part of the game, it going to be hard to pay for all of the maintenance of the keep (guards etc) out of your own pocket all the time.
As mentioned in part one, you aren't required to collect dues, but if your guild is going to want to participate in the Keep capture part of the game, it going to be hard to pay for all of the maintenance of the keep (guards etc) out of your own pocket all the time.
Considering how important Keep capture is to RvR, unless you want to doom your guild to being "just another guild" on the sidelines, you are basically required to setup guild dues. That way you CAN claim keeps and you CAN get guild XP from keep capture which will further allow you to level your guild toward optimal strength. Saying "Your guild, your way!" is great but it's more like "Your guild, your way... but if you want to capture keeps you HAVE to have guild dues." Honestly you could elect to not collect guild dues and just take collections from people who want to "donate" to be able to capture a keep, but that's not very realistic now is it?
Personally I don't like the sound of this monetary upkeep system. This will cause guilds NOT to claim keeps once they max out their guild level. It's also putting a "monetary grind" into the game which Warhammer has fought to keep out of the game (no "repairing" like WoW for example). Why bother paying anymore for a keep when you don't need the guild XP anymore? Once your guild has gone through the ropes and hit max guild level, that's an accomplishment in and of itself. You don't need to prove yourself anymore by claiming keeps. Maybe this is a good thing, maybe this is a bad thing. I don't know. It might encourage super large guilds who can maintain the cost of keeps at a reasonable %. Aka 300 people at 2% might be enough to maintain a keep indefinitely while 40 people at 10-15% might not be enough. Who knows, we won't know until we see the system, but this adds extra balance issues to an already complicated system.
I certainly hope they have people on their team who have organized 100+ man guilds successfully for years and are not solely relying on the feedback of the beta testers. I hate to make the comparison, but one thing that Blizzard did was hire Furor, the guild leader of the biggest guild in EQ as a consultant / GM focused on endgame content. He helped them see things from a guild leader / guild motivational perspective that helped WoW a lot. Of course it all went down hill after Burning Crusade, but ... meh.
__________________ Livistos, Zealot of Tzeentch Guild Leader of HILYMI since 2006 Healing in MMOs since 2001 ESAK - Achiever 20.00%, Explorer 86.67%, Killer 20.00%, Socializer 73.33%
After reading this i have some concerns about the guild system being a guild leader and all. Granted that most of the stuff I post one may not be able to comment on. First of all, do we HAVE to collect dues? How do I collect them, is it automatically taken from each member of the guild and deposited into the guild bank? Personally I don't like collecting "dues", first off making it a requirement for being in a guild takes away from some of the fun of being in the guild, and second, trying to collect from members can become a chore. I for one am not willing to give up a % of my hard earned money to contribute to it, and I am not willing to make it a requirement to the members of our guild. Granted it is still beta, but couldn't they think of something else to do besides this system??
Ehh.. You're talking like you have to have your hand out every day asking for money. The dues system is simple. As he said in his example. 10% would be dropped in the guild bank.. That 10% would be taken from every kill. They don't take it from the pocket, ti's the gold/copper/whatever that drops the guild gets 10% of..
So I go out and kill 10 WollyPopperss and get 1g per kill.. 1g = 100 silver.. 10 silver goes to the guild when you pick up your loot.. simple is simple does.
Although, based on DAoC.. there our guild has it set to 5%.. I expect most guilds will have a low % set because they will be so large that it wont take much to fund the coffers of a keep. Then again, some maybe small and need a larger take to support their guild habbits..
Edit: Oh, and to the above concern about GRINDING.. PVP/RVR kills drop gold as well.. I kill you, you drop gold(no worries, it doesn't come out of your pockit worry wort) it's my reward for killing you.. Again, 10% of that in the example would be dropped in the guild bank.. So unless you consider RvR grinding, (if you do your in the wrong game), then this really is a non-issue. Unless you're just a plain greedy bastage.
Personally I don't like the sound of this monetary upkeep system. This will cause guilds NOT to claim keeps once they max out their guild level. It's also putting a "monetary grind" into the game which Warhammer has fought to keep out of the game (no "repairing" like WoW for example). Why bother paying anymore for a keep when you don't need the guild XP anymore? Once your guild has gone through the ropes and hit max guild level, that's an accomplishment in and of itself. You don't need to prove yourself anymore by claiming keeps.
Unless holding a keep gives your guild advantages. 5% extra damage. 5% extra gold per kill (thus effectively neutralizing a 5% tithe rate), or crafting bonuses. All of these are options and I'm certain Mythic will give the large guild incentive enough to want to hold on to a keep.
Well I know there are costs to maintaining bases in CoH/CoV but the advantages can far outweigh the costs. More of a time will tell thing for me on whether this is good or bad. The sad part for me is that it will make it more expensive for Supplicium to hold all the keeps on our server.
Well, as I said in the other post, I appreciate the "realism" of it, in that regard.
Beyond that, I don't particularly mind. I've played a game where the guild only gained experience based upon whatever the particular taxation of the members experience went into it(modifiable for every rank... most guild leaders, myself included, would run at around the maximum 50% tax for a few days at start up, before settling for a 5-10%, with most members being 3-5%)...
I, for one, would much rather be taxed money than experience.
In practice, you don't really even notice the 10%. If you have to kill roughly eleven enemies to get the equivalent of ten, is it really all that much more effort? I don't think so. If the tax is 5%, then it is noticed even less so.
Anyway, Keep costs aside, Banners will cost money from the guild vault to buy, and that money has to come from somewhere. So, even if a guild doesn't want to pay for Keeps, they will likely want at least a 1% global tax to pay for Banners, if not simply from people of a certain rank.
I really like the idea of taxing the members automatically based on their earnings! It allows everyone to enjoy the game and let the system take care of it and when the time comes that your guild needs the gold for a keep or any other reason, just as the RvR is server wide working together so are the guilds working together to fuel that!
WAR: A Look at Living Guilds with EA Mythic, pt.2
, before settling for a 5-10%, with most members being 3-5%)...
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