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I'm a bit frustrated with Guild Support in MMOGs

Many MMOGs place a great deal of pressure on in game Guilds to do the heavy lifting when it comes to gameplay, enjoyment, and retaining membership in a mature game setting.  This can be through content that is inaccessible to unorganized or solo players, mechanics that do not impose 'fair fights' for players, and general complexity and character interdependency to name a few methods.  Many MMOG reviews, from the jaded experienced gamer point of view, qualify the gaming experience based on the quality of guild you manage to get into.  It seems wrongheaded, from this basis of expectation, that guilds receive as little support in game as they do.  In many games a Guild consists of nothing more than a few chat channels and shared visual cue (crest, tabbard, name suffix, etc.).  Guilds do not become better entities within the structure of the game, they often live or die despite the game.  The game itself often makes life exceedingly difficult for guilds by nature of loot distribution, encounter challenge, and/or other asset management issues.  One of the biggest needs for a guild is authoritative identity management, as a guild is often judged on how well it can manage enjoyment for its membership, and yet most games make membership management difficult or provide no support at all to this end.  Running a guild is often seen as work, and most people do not play games to spend more time at work.  The tools available to guilds should then be focused on simplifying the work of running a guild, so players can focus on enjoying the game.

What then should modern Guild enabled MMOGs provide to facilitate their in game guilds?  I'm going to start a list broken arbitrarily into three sections, one dealing with loot, one for manhours, and one for the game the guild belongs in.

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Asset oriented tools:
Many games focus on loot.  Guilds are often a route to acquiring better loot (helping hands, team accomplishment, crafter access).  For many Loot is a visible indicator of achievement, something they can show off while standing around outside the most popular in game bank.

• Guild Bank  These days this should be a minimum expectation, like a couple new chat channels and a visual cue.  From the game side of things, one would think a single guild bank entity would be a much lighter load than the many bank-mules all transferring items between each other that comprises the work around for not having this feature.
  
• Guild Auction House  This too should be a gimme for most MMOGs that deal with loot.  One of the greatest pressures of MMOG Guild management is the real-time interaction requirement for basic goods and services.  Players want to play in real time, not wait for someone else to log in so they can pick up item_003 to transfer to character_008.
  
• Loot distribution and Tracking  Games with a heavy joint raiding expectation, but limited loot drops per pull on the loot generator are punishing players by not providing an in the box solution for dealing with who gets what.  Endless drama is borne from loot distribution arguments, often ending guilds when the disagreement involves today's best item ev4r.
  
• Transation Histories  Lastly, this is an administration tool that should be built in, but often is left off entirely.  Guild management is about balancing the needs of the guild against the needs of each individual.  Without transparent asset tracking the rumors of favoritism can bring down even the most altruistic leadership, putting the guild's stability at risk.  Shadowbane had a perfect example of this, which buildings had many levels of trust for player 'owners' there was effectively two levels:  owner and everyone else.  There was no transaction logging nor separation between internal cashboxes.  This meant that individual players or subguilds could not be granted rights to operate a single vendor without granting rights to the entire building - one cashbox fed the upkeep, upgrade, buyback, and sales profits for each building.  It is nearly certain that the first version of Guild Bank in most games will come without transaction logging, which means granting access to the guild bank will be granting access to clean out the guild bank.  It can negate the effort of adding a cool new feature by making it unusable.
  

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Interaction oriented tools:
Most guilds are social structures built on a system that supports anonymous interaction.  That alone should raise an eyebrow, as it is difficult to have trust when you don't know who you are dealing with.  In order to facilitate trust, and understanding of who and what makes up ones guild some basic tools should be available for the guild members and managers.

• MOTD +  The Message of the Day is the basic gimme for guilds today.  While this can be helpful to sync players it often is used to point to an external information source where the heavy lifting is done (guild website, vent server, etc.).
  
• In Game web-like site  Players and guilds ought to be able to access their important guild website based information from within the game, as well as from without it.  Strongly template this and limit in-game access to those templates, but provide access so those in game and out of game can keep in sync.
  
• Schedule  Why do people need to be in sync?  Because MMOGs today often make meeting requests in real time.  When your players have to coordinate real world schedules to get 5, 10, 25, 40, 50, 100 people together in the same place at the same time they need the capability to make that schedule from within the game.  Raid, Quest, Siege, Event tracking capabilities are a requirement for any game that has Raids, Quests, Sieges, or Events as part of its core gaming experience.
  
• In Game Recruiting Framework  Games that shit on their new blood die.  If a new player's first experience with Guilds in your game is said guilds stomping them flat right out of new player protection, chance are new players won't stay around to be old players in your game.  This is a frustration on both ends, guilds want to find like-minded members but can't economically do it in game.  Players want to find like minded guilds but can't do it in game.  Setting a "Looking for guild" flag requires some guild watching for people with that flag set, taking time to get to know them, and if a match is made taking them into their guild.  There is a whole lot of what-if in that pattern today and leaves the seeker in a passive role (i.e. with the perception that they don't really control their future)  If guilds have a strictly templated, and accessible in game, web-like site then they can be browsed in game by players looking for like minded guilds.  Whatever is done, the real-time aspect must be mitigated as most of your players don't play games to simulate to standing around handing out pamphlets at the mall.
  
• Identity Management - verification  Players love being anonymous so far as no anonymous jerk takes advantage of them.  Guilds need to know that the jerk they just kicked out, at a cost of severe drama and trauma, hasn't just applied under a new name and persona.  It is unfair to design a game that requires cooperative effort but withhold the tools for dealing with those who are not cooperative in that effort.
  

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Game world tools:
Fairness is often an issue in Guild based games.  How does one satisfy big guilds, vs. small guilds, and how does one deal with big guilds fighting with small guilds or the same fighting for resources?  If guilds were not static entities, but rather could develop over time they would fit better into the world (encounters could be developed with respect to how guilds in your game actually are, instead of how you hope players will instantiate them).  One of the biggest issues with long-term guild management is that there is no consequence for throwing out your old broken guild and making a new one with most of the same people and a shiny new name.

• Membership Advancement  Many games provide Guild versus Guild action.  Many guilds recruit membership to overwhelm their opposition.  This tends towards the Green vs. Purple wars where the reason for fighting has to do with which color you are wearing rather than anything related to the game world in the first place.  By fixing the membership of a guild, and allowing a guild to develop its capacity for more membership this limits the in-game ability to pile on.  Even without guild vs. guild action planning for a specific guild size allows the game to have enough content to keep that guild's population active, without needing 3x the required membership on the roster in order to field one A team for peak performance.
  
• Territory Advancement  As with membership I think guilds should be tied to the world of the world in a similar way.  Guilds have territory and if they want to extend their territory they should have the capability to spend their advancement points on this instead of other directions for advancement.
  
• Crafting Advancement  And lastly, commerce should also be scoped to the development level of the guild.
  

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Guilds ought not be static entities independent of the game in your game world.  Basing success on a resource (guilds) that is mostly external to your product shouldn't be seen as a sound decision. 

How about guild pensions, retirement accounts, and 401ks?

Lightstalker, I think a lot of guilds wouldn't use half of those tools just because they don't care enough. Certainly they would be useful to the hardcore guilds, the really organised and dedicated raiders, and so on, but the majority of social guilds don't give a hoot about DKP or scheduling or transaction histories. A lot of these problems are solved by people socially, without the need of specific ingame mechanics.

There certainly is a modicum of accommodation that should be present, like motds and guild chat, guild bank, but given the vast playerbase that exists, people can find solutions to the majority of those other issues, should they need to, outside of the game.

I think Lightstalker's point was that while people can and do manage those things through other methods... If the game devs want to encourage and promote guild growth and activity, encourage time spent in-game, then having in-game tools to manage it is good.  It's good for stickiness, too... If all of the guild's management stuff is on guildportal or whatever, then the game is secondary to the existence of the guild.  If the game starts to fade, they start threads on moving to game X, vote, come up with a game to move to, and go; You've just lost 50-200 subs.  You can delay this if the primary guild organization tool is inside the game, which will be lost if they leave to go to another game.  You can also build queries to see how much chatter there is about competition if you have access to the guilds' forum databases.  Datamining 4tw.

As to the 'need' in less hardcore guilds... There have been lots of things people wanted/needed that they didn't know they needed until someone showed them the solution.  Most of them are convenience tools.  Sure, you could carry a coal around in ashes from your last fire around in a horn... or you could buy these matches, and easily produce new fire as needed.

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Alkiera

Yeah, I think it'd be the case of where those more casual guilds may not desire such tools right now, once they got their hands on them, they'd still appreciate them (or some, at least, to a worthwhile extent). Furthermore, it could help grow certain guilds that typically may not have the effort for too much organization, but some of the interest is still there - meaning with easier tools, they naturally adopt more organization simply because it now fits their more casual playstyle.

It may may make organization simply more fun, too. Take Ranks, for example. Without in-game ranks, a lot of guilds likely would not of bothered with custom rank names on paper, their guild site, etc. But with an easy in-game tool to give flavored rank names, a lot of guilds start to take advantage of that. The same thing could apply to a lot of guild features (and character/guild/etc customization and personalization in general).

Ingame access to the web would be a winner. Or to certain specifc places. To use the example of WoW, it would be pretty nifty if in the main cities there were places you could access the forums (promote community), guild forums (promote out of game communication), or a game information site. It would encourage people who didn't normally spend time on such things to do it.

The same would apply to more specialised guild tools, though I personaly think things like DKP and transaction histories are really a bit too specific. Given how many different DKP systems guilds use, and how complicated dealing between people can be it's a bit silly to hard code in a system that players might be contrained by.

Better is to foster the growth of more general tools, like web access, guild banks, etc.

Personaly I think the best thing that could happen in the current group of MMOs is a greater integration between guilds and game areas. From the purely superficial, like cities in towns having monthly elections for a vanity title of mayor, to the more complicated systems where guilds/players gain influence in the game world (things like being able to dictate the action of town guards when in control, etc).

But yeah. Specific tools are tricky, because unless you get them just right then players willl just find them annoying and limiting, or will not use them and go to 3rd party tools or out of game systems instead.

A history of every guild (on any server) the player has been in would be nice too, like in Eve.

The first step for "guild support" long before the aforementioned things is actually making guilds a viable and necessary part of the game itself.  Those who work tirelessly to build guilds in most mainstream games receive next to 0 payoff and see just about zilch as far as reward on the macro level.  If games really cared about guilds they'd make many more changes before adding in banks.  The truth is until the industry stops making MMOG's exactly the same way they'd make a single player game, guilds are going to find barricades in their paths in everything that they do.

In a game like World of Warcraft the goals of the guild are nothing but a macro manifestation of the goals of the individual.  We need purpose for our guilds first and foremost.  Some motivation that makes them beneficial on more than a trite and selfish level that is supported IN GAME.

Several games have pushed in this direction, but unfortunately within an MMO "package", if the "package" fails, much of the designs within the package are doomed to "guilt by association".

Two examples:

Shadowbane: The "higher" layers of the game were fundamentally built around the concept of organizations (guilds/nations). The specific systems implementations weren't particularly great, and of course the execution of the game as a whole sucked, but organizations definitely had game effecting responsibilities.

Horizons: not guild support related, but from a technological perspective, there was some pretty damned cool systems in the game--had one of the most flexible mini-map/overland map systems I've seen implemented, as well as "pressing to test" the "world can change forever based on player actions" dynamic.

Unfortunately, since both of these projects ultimately failed as commercial games, their pushes into new directions failed as well (albeit not necessarily fully, as for example GW has a pretty ok world map system).

Wow the way you put this hits home pretty hard for me for one reason.  The whole idea of guilt by association when you are talking about these MMO "packages" is something probably everyone should think about for a little while.  A lot of times we look at one game and lump the mechanics into one bundle and this can cause us to overlook gems or even overlook crappy design concepts that should be avoided in the future.

I do think that the macro level guild support in games that you mentioned like Shadowbane is such a vast and untapped resource in our games....it is truly unfortunate that a lot of things that were great about some of the less mainstream games were totally consumed in the flames of overall poor design and execution.

One thing I've always wanted, is to have my guilds chat channel also be tied into our IRC channel. I'm not sure what kind of technological and/or security hurdles that would cause, but being able to load up my IRC client to chat with folks in game, and being able to chat with folks outside of game without alt-tabbing constantly, would be keen.

Interestingly, with a well designed "independent chat server" (EQ 1 for example moved to this), this idea and a whole lot more are pretty trivial, barring proprietary formats (which IRC obviously is not).

The Music Lounge (now vSide) is a Torque "social MMO for teens" that implemented AOL chat capability, as well as leaving things open for any other formats.

One thing I always wanted to have is the ability to open up a small client app that would dump "live video" from a static camera in an MMO game world to a window on my screen.

Picture yourself as a guild/nation leader in shadowbane, with a static cam on your city. It gets attacked? "Hey boss, I'm feeling really woozy--I think I have to go home now!", and you can zoom off to defend your virtual territory!

I remember taking "breaks" at work to organize my guild  for sieges in Shadowbane.

*look left* *look right*

Allright guys, you need to make sure the banestone is covered and keep an eye on track south of the city.  I want RECON HERE PEOPLE!

I think the guild system should be abandoned technology has grown passed it's concept.  Instead, they should make the faction systems in games more robust.  Make it easier to coordinate attacks and such.  On the flip side, they should bring back the old D&D concept of the "Party" system.  Where a small group of 5-8 players form a "Party" and acts in much the same way as guilds do with some added ways for making playing/rejoining party members easier and faster.

Technology certainly has, but people haven't. People will always want to form persistent groups of like minded peers. Guilds fill this role quite nicely.

I don't know why but I'll chime in here.

Quite a bit of this is already being done, at least in EQ2.

Guild chat is accessible outside of game (though you do have to load the mini splash screen and agree to the EULA to get to it), as well as quite a bit of guild (and character) specific information from eq2players.com.

In game web-browser which is actually a result of the /pizza command that everyone guffawed at.  Mine is set with the home page to a item & quest info site but it's simple enough to go read my guild forums or look at the raid schedule.

Guild bank, accessible from any bank.  It has 4 unique areas, each one of which can be access controlled independently.  For example 3 of our areas are general access and everyone is free to drop things off or pick things up if they need em.  Lots of crafting and collection stuff in here.  The 4th area is for officers and houses rare items that may be needed in the future, the guild funds - cash received from raids or sale of unwanted raid goods, and other sundries that couldn't be given out immediately - everything is available for the asking but don't be surprised if you hear 'no'.

VERY detailed map.  Every terrain feature and known static POI is there with mouse-over info.  This is provided by a third party but the EQ2 devs go out of their way to make sure it's working okay with future changes.  The map shows all your party members locations and allows you to set way points with a glowy trail.

Recruiting is handled via a button on the options menu that says GUILD where each guild that is recruiting gets a nice little blurb (which often includes website info and classes & levels needed) and an icon and a quick link to chat with the recruiters that are currently online.  I think I recall it also lists total membership and guild rank (guilds in EQ2 have levels).

There is also an in game guild menu that lists ranks, rank privileges (such as guild access, recruiting rights and etc...) as well as adventure level, crafter level and a space for a blurb where alts often are listed.  The list can be sorted in a variety of ways such as, online or last login, level or alpha.  Oh, and it also lists the zones each character is in.  There is quite a bit more information there as well.

The only things from OP that I can think of that are lacking is identity tracking and loot tracking.  Both of which would be useful, loot tracking would probably be very useful.  I would like to see guild brokering directly from the guild bank rather than from one of the officers.  It would be a cleaner solution.

Upcoming changes to guilds include guild halls which are chock full of nice things such as:

Edit: My mistake, the guild interface does actually track deposits and withdrawals from each bank.  Also, the guild recruiting information also has a set of identifiers such as casual play, alt friendly, dedicated raider, and etc...

Looks like someone's been reading "Massively Multiplayer Game Development 2" by Thor Alexander  :grin:

Some other ideas for guild tools could be a web-based management tool that allows removing/demoting/managing via a web page so that you wouldn't have to be in game to manage your guild.

A lot of the best guilds are going to organize outside the game, but if it helps keep people connected (and therefore playing) why not bring these features into the client?

Good ideas here.