Loading... July 8, 2008 - Community Tools

[Boomjack]

Welcome to the 866th Edition of Loading...

Warhammer's living guilds, Age of Conan maps, MMOG soccer, the gamer's handbook, Ghost Online beta giveaway, Rosie and more, today in Loading...

[Medeor]

The community tools seem to be low hanging fruit that the companies only now seem to be reaching. Why has it taken so long for these to be implemented? I know they have bigger fish to fry (or bugs to squash), but web work seems like a no brainer when you look at the return on the investment (customer retention).

I still think the ingame guild tools is where games fall on their face. The really really big guild "thing" for me would be guild advancement. EQ2, love it or hate it, has one of the best reasons to be in a guild - the guild leveling system. It gives people a reason to be in a guild (recruitment) and stay in a guild (access to cool stuff). There is guild housing (and keep building in AoC) and other bits and pieces in other games, but EQ2 has made the only real inroads that I have seen. WoW doesn't even pretend to give a crap about guilds (well, the tabards are awesome..err...yeah).

In conclusion, give us a reason to work as a guild towards common goals that aren't just raid dungeons.

[heerobya]

The toolset of a community site/resource doesn't mean squat if the people don't use it.

Xbox Gamertag system is effective and popular because everyone who plays anything on Xbox live has to use it.

It's not like Facebook/Myspace/Friendster etc. where no one is forcing you to use it (though it does kind of feel that way sometimes)

If WAR's living guild system offers similar, if not better functionality then something like Guild Portal, it'll be a huge success.

[Lizante]

I know this sounds like wanting such a thing to be "all things for all people," but I don't think "game specific" ones, like Blizzard's, SOE's, etc. aren't as good as they could be simply because of their narrow focus on their own games.

Don't get me wrong, that's fine, I just think if someone had the brains, the vision and the money to develop and offer a top-notch, unbiased site, for all games, with sections for each platform, it would likely succeed.

Hey, if the above were developed and they offered unique, truly useful, unbiased information and services to the MMO community (read useful being far more than paying a "premium" for a longer video about a game or offering "paying" members services most people never use) ... I really think that the MMO community would gladly pay a monthly fee for such a useful service.

Unfortunately, I assume EA will develop that site they just spent $30M for to clone out something for only EA games, mimicking SOE, Blizzard, etc. That's too bad, too -- looks like we'll have to wait for some visionary to come along and do it right ... eventually.

[lumio]

I really like the push. I enjoyed SOE's station players, I love stats. The more the better. Being able to see the status of the RVR fight is awesome.

[Sardu]

What do you want to see in a community toolset? What is missing from the current offerings?

First off I'll just say that I absolutely agree with this:

I still think the ingame guild tools is where games fall on their face. The really really big guild "thing" for me would be guild advancement. EQ2, love it or hate it, has one of the best reasons to be in a guild - the guild leveling system. It gives people a reason to be in a guild (recruitment) and stay in a guild (access to cool stuff).

The guild advancement / guild UI in EQ2 easily set the bar for how to handle guilds as a social group. Having the entire guild be rewarded by an individuals actions no matter what their level is a great way to enhance the social aspects of the game, but it was done in a way that it encouraged group efforts while never really forcing grouping on anyone. In the few different guilds I was in it was highly common to see guild groups form at nearly all level ranges as a result - sometimes it was to work on city writs together, sometimes it was to work on the Heritage quests, but by comparison in any WoW guilds I'd played in the only time people grouped was for the sake of killing X boss in Y instance to get Z drop - no more, no less - up until the "endgame" content.

To expand on that concept, I've always wanted to see some of the tools from Guild Portal incorporated into the actual game environment. In other words, better tools for communication, announcements and event planning. A guild MotD simply doesn't cut it, which is why most larger guilds opt for a third-party site at their primary means of communicating with the guild as a whole.

In EQ and EQ2 you can now launch the TCG directly from within the game. The Station Players site gives guilds their very own web-page similar to a GP site, only they've added stat and achievement tracking into the mix. Why not take those two concepts and find a way to incorporate them into the game's UI? In other words, allow that guild site to be accessed from within the game as it's own UI function rather than force players to Alt+Tab out to get there.

I still see guild websites as mostly a necessary evil - necessary in the sense that no in-game tools even come close in terms of communication, which ultimately forces players to experience a part of the game from somewhere other than the game itself. The more time players spend on social interaction outside of the game, the less they're doing so when logged in to Game X. That may work as a crutch for guild communication, but on the whole it doesn't account for a larger form of social networking.

Then again, that's also what helps sites like TTH stand out as a solid community where players can be social in a space dedicated to the industry. In that case, the time spent out of game does enhance the social aspects when not logged in, as at least players are interacting with other people not directly involved in their own guild.

But! There I go getting side-tracked about the concept of guilds and guild tools ...

In AoC I think they have the core concepts there, but the execution is definitely lacking. Hopefully with time that's one area where the UI will become more streamlined, but even at that it still currently relies solely on a MotD system to communicate with guild members. As far as that goes, another thing Funcom would benefit from adopting from EQ2 is the ability to send out guild-wide announcements via the in-game mail system. Why that mechanic hasn't become standard in games by now is beyond me.

All of that said, I'm definitely interested in seeing just how deep the guild rabbit hole really goes in WAR - without seeing things in action it's easy to assume a more robust system will be in place than what might be there come launch day.

To throw one more monkey wrench into things, I'll leave you with the following quote taken from a long discussion on Scott Hartsman's blog: (for anyone interested, there's also a discussion about this going on in this thread )

By doing that, you’re saying that base enjoyment of your product requires Other People. Since we as developers cannot guarantee the presence of Other People at the time you’re looking to play, requiring their presence in order for an arbitrary customer to take part in the base experience turns out to be a very poor idea in practice.

Do you think hyping a robust guild system will work for or against WAR in that context?