Promoting stability of social structures in mmorpgs

[sinij]

Promoting stability of social structures in mmorpgs

Currently, social structures in mmorpgs very closely resemble tribal societies. Key necessities in a typical tribal society – mutual reliance for protection, prosperity and leadership are all present in mmorpgs, but secondary elements, such as blood and cultural ties, are not. As a result, social structures formed in mmorpgs are typically less stable than real-world equivalents.

Why lack of stability is a problem? Collapsing social structures cause loss of subscriptions and eventual consolidation of in-game power. Both are very undesirable events.

I propose introducing several devices to reinforce in-game social structures. These are aimed at increasing investment in fellow players and loyalty in existing social structure.

* Shared Guild Achievements – these are a set of milestone goals that will provide persistent bonus. This can be ‘progression’ of goals, each leading to minor boosts that have a cumulative effect. All members will benefit from these bonuses as long as they maintain membership in the social structure.

* Social Gatherings – introduce the need for all members to gather on a regular basis regardless of relative power, rank or progression. One good way to do this is to require weekly ‘ritual’ in order to dispense the ‘shared guild achievement’ bonus.

* Patronage System – introduce a system where more advanced/powerful players receive temporarily benefits from progress of their ‘patrons’. This will encourage established players to take interest in new players and will provide selfish reason to help others.

[damijin]

I agree with your post, and the first two suggestions were implemented to some degree in Lineage 2. I believe the third suggestion is present in Asheron's Call, but I have not played it -- and I'm not sure that it's tied to a guild system.

One issue with Lineage, which had guilds that were very stable over long periods of time (in comparison to WoW, for instance), is that the entire guild relied on a leader to be present. Too much weight was placed on that leader, and if the leader left the game it could cause the destruction of the guild.

As a result, the most long standing guilds in L2 are the ones which have had the same leader for years. Some guilds are able to transcend this problem and assign new leadership when necessary, but the result is most often a loss of players, loss of guild motivation, and in most cases, eventual destruction.

So, going along with your list of things to improve the stability, I would like to see some sort of emphasis placed on shared leadership that will allow multiple players to be involved in the day to day operation of the guild. Ideally the players would be involved heavily enough that if one of them ever needed to take power to keep the guild running, they could do so without much difficulty.

One way to do this is to put a hard cap on the size of a guild, and implement a super-structure above that guild such as an 'alliance' or 'nation' made up of many guilds. Then create goals in the game which can only be attained by many guilds working together, which will cause guilds to form alliances in pursuit of those goals.

By having an alliance of many guilds, each guild has a leader with the best interests of it's own members in mind. Alliances could be lead by some form of consensus between guild leaders, or by a single main alliance leader. If that alliance leader ever quits the game, the rest of the guild leaders are available to attempt an fill his shoes so that the alliance need not disband. If the alliance disbands, the individual guilds themselves can remain in tact and join another alliance.

In the event that a guild leader quits, his members may disperse throughout the alliance into other guilds -- although, admittedly, many of them would probably quit the game causing some degree of instability. Even so, I feel the super-structure alliance system provides greater overall stability for the players compared to a system where the players have no regular social contact with anyone outside of their own guild.

[DarkSign]

The ritual makes it sound like you want to force people to like each other. I dont really know if you can do that. I'm not saying that a shared experience wouldnt bring people closer together, but there'd have to be a really special reason to get people to change their schedules to fit each other. Of course they do it when they see the benefit, but there's your task...what's the benefit?

I could see there being a mass training event perhaps. Perhaps a speed bonus for upping a skill could be given if a high-ranking player tought players a skill en masse. At an archery or firing range maybe? Just an idea.

[sinij]

Benefit could be getting guild 'achievement' buff.  Lets talk in DIKU terms, so more people would understand.

Your guild progressed through some dungeons and raids and earned right for 'achievement' buffs. These buffs has to be applied as a ritual and last for 30 days. They can be re-applied once a week but you get only one short window of opportunity to apply them. You don't need to be part of the team that made progression happen to qualify for these buffs, just being part of the guild is enough.

You are right, you can't force people to like each other, but in many games people even in the same guild hardly ever run into each other. Creating events that would 'encourage' people to show up will create more 'face time' and create opportunities for getting along.

[Ratman_tf]

You are right, you can't force people to like each other, but in many games people even in the same guild hardly ever run into each other. Creating events that would 'encourage' people to show up will create more 'face time' and create opportunities for getting along.

I always liked the idea of guild as a kind of character, that the players make "stronger" by contributing to guild goals.