Guilds and MMORPG's - How Can They Help One Another?

[waylander]

I wanted to break this off to a new topic since the MMO & Budget thread kept having some good discussions about MMORPG's and guilds.

It is interesting you are talking about guilds needing more attention in MMORPGs. I personally think that guild problems are almost always the trigger issue that causes players to leave a game. They may never say it was because of guild problems they quit, but players will put up with the issues that they say are the reason they are leaving, until their guild gives them a reason. If MMO's can cater to guilds, by making the games built around helping them stay together and work smoother, then there will be significantly higher retention.

Actually Nick Yee did some good research on why guilds have problems in MMORPG's, and the strains of guild leadership that are true to this day.

General Guild Related Issues

Part of it is that we are not a very large guild and once people reach a certain level and have attained their epic, they usually leave for a higher tier guild to do things that we can't or don't do as a guild.

This is why I thought the Age of Conan player poll about Guild Leadership being able to see a person's previous guild affiliations was interesting.  You see players hopping guilds after they get a certain set of gear is prevalent, and its demoralizing to the people who busted their ass to help billybob get his purple gear.  When dealing with large populations you have a lot of these types of guys, and they cause drama in guilds ....possibly to the extent of killing off the guild if enough of them come and go during that guild's lifetime.

It seems that every three to six months, we lose about 30% of our guild. A couple leave because of issues they feel we don't resolve, others because they want to do bigger things than what the guild is doing. Each time we lose people or have issue come up, we have to work through it and we come out with our ideals intact.

This is the two steps forward one step back approach that we always have to deal with, and its basically called membership churn.  As a game ages, more and more guilds put caps on the lowest level and lowest geared applicants they will accept.  For the new player this means that if they pickup the game a year after release, a lot of the better guilds won't accept them. So they have to slosh through a lot of bad guilds and hope they can hang around long enough to meet certain prerequisites for the better guilds.

While I personally dislike to set level and gear prerequisites, we have to do it because:

1.
Games do not let us effectively level with newbies to help them out

2.
Gear cannot be passed down usually due to level restrictions

3.
It takes too much time to catch a newbie up and get them to the current meta game


I think it was Mythic or someone that was talking about allowing guilds to "Level".  Honestly if guilds are supposed to be the ideal group for people to progress through the end game, then guilds need to be able to constantly replace old players who leave with newer players who come to the game. To do that, guilds need to be able to assist new players without the new player being too much of a burden.  I would recommend:

1.
Guilds be able to earn "Shadow EXP" sort of like how the old AC allegiance system did. I think the old allegiance system put around 15% of exp earned aside for your patron.  What I would do here is put that 15% aside into a general pool that could then be allocated to other members by guild officers.  So as long as the guild is earning exp, they are building a pool that can be used towards rerolls or new players.  15% isn't a lot but it can help, and it does mean leaders would have to allocate exp judiciously.

2.
A good sidekick system.  Basically an expanded COH/COV sidekick system where a higher level person can mentor a lower level person.  The lower level person could be teleported to the higher level mentor to save travel time, and teleported back if they break group. The lower level guy would be the temporary equivalent of his mentor's level, and gain access to temporary powers as if he were that level. For exp gain the lower level guy would gain double the exp for his level until he was within 3 levels of his mentor, then 1.5 times the exp until he was within 1 level of his mentor.

This system would solve one of the problem issues I mentioned with the current COH system, which was the exp gain was bad and the lower level guy didn't bring anything worthwhile to the group so sidekicking lost popularity there.

he main issue that seems to appear for most raiding guilds is the distribution of loot. Several guilds have gone to a point based system which awards points based upon participation in sucessful raids that can be used to bid on items that drop during guild raid events. However, for many guilds the point system is too complex and time intensive to be properly utilized.

This is true. Would it be possible to begin developing a DKP type system into guild management interfaces? Let the GM or an officer schedule an event, let members sign up for it, and take care of this stuff in a more automated way?  The time we deal with making DKP systems on websites is awful, and many guilds fall apart when their DKP managers quit due to the burnout here.  Maybe if games started building a system in that was easier to schedule and use, it would help with loot assigning.

I left a guild once because the guild leadership did not seem to understand that real life was more important than playing the game (my husband got sworn at because we had plans on New Year's Day -- plans we told them about in advance when they first mentioned wanting to raid that day -- because we wouldn't change those plans to attend the raid!).

Some of this stems from the fact that raids require an exact number of people and an exact number of classes or they are nearly impossible to pull off. You've got to get to the end of the encounter to get your reward, and that takes hours.  The crux of the issue here is twofold.  First most guilds are small (0-25 members) so the average raid takes nearly everyone having to be present.  Second you've got to have the time to do the raid in the first place.

I think WoW did a good job by reducing the number of people required for raids, but you still pretty much have to get to the end for the big reward as well as to unlock further game content.  Does anyone have additional ideas on these problems or ways to mitigate them?

Then, our guild leader had some personal problems and said she would not be playing for a few weeks, weeks turned into months and it became very difficult to keep the guild running without someone with the guildleader functions. She did come on once in a while, for a few minutes, just to say hello. But, she refused to turn the lead over to anyone else, even temporarily, and people began to leave the guild.

In this instance the will of the guild is negated by one inactive leader.  There needs to be a mechanism in more games to ditch inactive leaders, and keep the guild moving forward. Instead the guild usually dies out and people move on to other guilds where they meet the prerequisites to get into them.  The bad part of about this is that when guilds disband too much it creates a negative perception of guilds from the player community.

Guild Loyalty:

Lastly the guild loyalty thing is important for guild stability.  Again guilds need stability to survive, and games require an organized group (or guild) to basically play today's end game (Raids, RvR, etc).

What types of loyalty rewards could people get for staying with a guild over time, but not be game unbalancing?  A few extra HP? A slight damage or defense bonus? A slight loot or gold bonus?

I'm not entirely sure, but I think there does need to be a tangible reward that the average guild member can see other than just waiting in a DKP line for his loot number to drop.


Guild Leadership Issues

Leading a guild is very rewarding, watching it grow and thrive, being respected by your members as a good leader. Politics and folks leaving the game eventually ruins the experience. Overall it was very fun, time consuming and an emotionally exhausting experience. Not sure if I would do it again.

That's a good statement that sums up how many current or former guild leaders feel. Playing the game requires enough hours as it is, but when you add a guild leadership position into the mix then the game becomes a second full time job.  In a game that requires organized groups or clans to successfully play the end game, its a big deal when more and more people don't want to have the headache of leading a guild in new games they play.  Without good leaders then the guild community ends up being a mass of drama filled disasters waiting to happen, and it makes more players not want to have to deal with organized groups or clans in future games.

God damn, people don't listen. I hated it. They are so whiny and expect you to do exactly what they say and give them what they want. Balancing the needs of 50 people suck... I won't do it again. I don't even want to be an officer. Takes all the fun out of the game.

In a nutshell this boils down to:


1. Coordinating leveling activities
2. Dealing with loot drops / DKP
3. Issues related to recruitment/retention and what that does to PVE/PVP progress

You've got the guy who has 10 lvl 30 characters, you've got the guy who levels at a glacier pace, you've got the guy who hits 60 in a month but only wants to solo, you've got your hardcore raiders, the guy who has 8 lvl 60 toons, your casual players, your night crew and your stone cold PVPers. Trying to come up with goals and content for people like that, people who are all my friends, but have a million different goals, has been a really stressful balancing act. On top of which, I am a casual player who has a busy job and a RL of her own, and can't be on every night of the week to make sure everyone is happy.

To me the best way to mitigate this is to have a good system where higher and lower level people can efficiently group together, and where the lower level guy can actually assist the group (temp power suggestion).  Otherwise the guild leadership has to end up scheduling activities for both the Hardcore and the Casual members.  Unfortunately that rarely works out, and the guild has to either become Hardcore or Casual.  Casual guilds die off a lot quicker because they move so slow that people feel the guild is hardly getting anywhere, so they leave to go look for a "more active" casual guild.

Probably the most memorable experience has been inviting ppl to the guild and then very quickly realizing it was a mistake ie the person is annoying, greedy or something like that and then having to deal with the stress of kicking them out or keeping them in.. also had a few similar experiences that were reversed - ie ppl i was very very skeptical about adding because say they had a bad rep as loot hungry turned out to be great and generous best lesson from this is being careful in judging ppl. not to be to quick to judge and also diplomacy in getting rid of ppl is quite a challenge, while maintaining morale.

This reinforces the need for guild leadership to be able to see people's previous affiliations.

Minimum:
1. What guilds they were in
2. How long they were in those guilds
3. Previous GM names so we can contact them for a reference

Every time I've been in a guild that had taken a turn for the worse, it has been because of a lack of quality officers. I think that lesson can transfer to all areas of life as well. If you can find good people who are trustworthy and committed, keeping them around you can enrich your life in ways you've never thought possibl

Make sure the officer levels in the game are designed so that they can easily be given a wide range of permissions to help manage the guild. Such things could be:

1. Adding/removing - pretty standard
2. Managing guild resources - not so standard
3. Scheduling events via in-game calendar - not so standard
4. Managing in game DKP tools
5. Setting/removing titles - somewhat standard
6. Allocating guild based rewards

etc.

Toughest thing I think, is that you never get time to really play yourself. Between in game tells and answering question on guild forums, or messing with the in game loot rules and sets, ya just never find time to go play the game

And when the GM burns out in many cases the guild goes boom, members are displaced, they feel all their investment is wasted, and they start to dislike games that seem to require an organized group or guild to get anywhere. The bottom line here is that the in game tools need to be sufficient to where the GM isn't required to do virtually everything, and the officers have to have enough in game permissions to help manage the guild.

Another thing is games that still have a lot of /slash commands for guild management. That is terribly time consuming in and of itself, and needs to go as fast as humanly possible.

The toughest thing about being a guild leader is finding the middle ground between all the members, and being able to keep the group entertained at the same time. Being a guild leader is like being a manager at work, only without the paycheck. It's frustrating but rewarding to lead a group and see it function and grow, but it's a pain in the rear more often than not to get it to that point.

Again the reinforcement here is to try to look at the external tools the guilds are having to develop on websites to manage their guilds, and see if there are ways to incorporate that into the games. The biggest things I see here are things like DKP systems, rosters, activity management, scheduling and attendance monitoring, and recruitment.

Speaking of recruitment, too many games still rely on guilds to have to recruit externally via forums.  Please consider allowing stations in each major zone where someone can go look up guilds who are recruiting, and then allow guilds to set recruiting criteria so they can be matched with the types of people they are seeking.

Concluding Remarks

So anyway, lets hear your ideas.

We need to move beyond just considering a guild is a "cloak, tag, and chat channel", and realize that guilds are the primary vehicle that groups use to play the end game (and quite possibly to advance to the end game in many situations), and discuss what could be done to help both guilds and MMORPG's adapt to today's meta game.

[Rendakor]

Long post is loooooonnnnnggg. Replying to your points in random order! 

Adding DKP tools to the guild window should've happened years ago. Even something as simple as a "Raid Points" value for each character that you can type an arbitrary number into would be a step in the right direction. Adding several of the myriad DKP systems available would be nice (flat cost, bid, 0 sum, etc).

Players should have the option to have their guild history visible or not. This way guild leaders can ask players to show it, but still allows some player privacy. And if leaders dont like it, don't invite people who aren't showing their past.

CoH mentor/sk system is fine. No need to expand it further with temp powers, or there's no incentive to level. "Shit guys we need a druid. Someone go make one and we'll SK him up to max real quick." Granted, gear would be an issue, but still. Massive XP increases are also not needed, especially early in a game's life cycle.

Guild XP pool...interesting, never heard of this until now. I wouldn't have any problem with this, provided it was always detracting from the player grinding it. That is, some cost to players at max level instead of them just earning free xp for the guild whenever questing/raiding/faction grinding/whatever.

CoH has a system where if a guild leader doesn't log on in X days (set in guild options) he is demoted. This would work well, while adding sort of vote between the active senior officers to see who gets lead.

Guild loyalty rewards...I like it in theory, but don't like any of your suggestions. I suggest more meta guild rewards: hearthing to your guild hall on a seperate timer than normal, accessing guild bank remotely, etc. Special titles would also be cool (Loyalist, Fanatic, Rookie) based on time in guild. Things that are fun but don't affect game balance.

Finally, I hate your use of Elder game. Call it endgame. Without a capital E. That is all.

Edit: Thanks for finally posting your ideas, was just about to call you out again in the other thread 

[waylander]

I do like the COH sidekick mechanic, but there's a few problems with it.

1. You're level 20 with only level 20 powers in a level 50 group

In some games the mobs scale up in difficulty as you add party members. So a level 20 sidekick who's effective level is say ..49 is great. But the rest of the team might not be able to handle the mobs with that guy unless he's got some better powers.  Right now in COH a sidekick is best used to scale the difficulty of a farm mission, but otherwise people really don't want them because they don't help the group.

2.
Then there's the problem of getting the sidekick to the group without them being killed, taking up lots of time to maneuver, etc. Make it simple and just teleport them to the group if they aren't already with it.


As far as the guild rewards go, its pretty much like real life. You want to get something on a regular reinforcement cycle for being part of your group. That's like saying in real life that you love your job but the pay sucks, and so you move on to find a job with better pay even though the job itself might not be as enjoyable. As i said in the initial post, I'm not talking about massive guild rewards here....but I was trying to stir thought one some cool bonuses or features that would reward guild loyalty.  I like your suggestions, but I think the rewards need to be a little more tangible.

[Abelian75]

Finally, I hate your use of Elder game. Call it endgame. Without a capital E. That is all.

Yeah.  Sorry, I'll post something more constructive here when I have more time, as you've busted out a pretty nice post with a lot of ideas, but... endgame is, like, a word.  In the dictionary.  Why do we have to make a new, geekier word to describe the same thing.  With a capitalized "Elder," no less.

[waylander]

LOL ok I'll go back and edit Elder out in an hour when I get back from lunch:>

[Rendakor]

Well I don't like the idea of mobs scaling up to begin with.

Forgot to touch on teleportation. Things like WoW meeting stones outside of major dungeons really help mitigate this. I don't like something as blatant as your suggestion though, its way to exploitable.

[waylander]

WoW standing stones are a good concept to use in lieu of outright teleports.  Its been a year since I played WoW so I forgot about those.

[Soln]

Personally, I think providers need a bigger distance from guilds/interest-groups.  There's too much collusion, even when it's unintentional.  See Eve.  When you start worrying about guilds you lose potentially the design concern of the single player, and I don't agree that a "guild" is a good representation of "massive numbers of players" that is an MMO is by definition.  Otherwise, guilds are important temporary associations and what you propose for tracking is good. 

[Venkman]

Great writeup. Most of this stuff we've been having to deal with over the years as well. We don't really blame the games though, since we've had no problem just integrating extra-game tools to fill in the holes. Everything from calendars to DKP is supported in some form.

Sure most guildies don't visit guild forums. But then, it only really matters that those with a vested interest do so. Those people would be:

• Leaders
• Officers
• Raid attendes

People who want to come and go as they please all the time either quickly get fed-up with PUG Raids, or never bother raiding, instead go with farming honor or Arena points in small groups (or grind/farm/solo/alt, as they would in any other DIKU).

The other element, where devs "should" talk to guild leaders, I'm ambivalent about it. Some MMOs have come out just fine without over-communicating with the playerbase. Others were all fubar'd for doing so.

Forgot to touch on teleportation. Things like WoW meeting stones outside of major dungeons really help mitigate this. I don't like something as blatant as your suggestion though, its way to exploitable.

UO had runestones. Absolutely the best way to handle players grouping up, in a game that, at the time I played, didn't even havea global chat channel. Only need to do two things to make them work in any DIKU where Devs want players progressing through all of the content, public and instanced:

• Players can only make their own runestones (non tradeable), and first by visiting the spot
• They can only be used in public-space environments (no instances, though just outside would be fine).

So what if the world gets smaller thereafter? The size of it only gets in the way of those alt'ing their way up to the cap anyway, becomes a nuisance.

[tazelbain]

MMOGs these days are all about producing static content.   Many of your ideas involve bypassing content.

[Rendakor]

UO had runestones. Absolutely the best way to handle players grouping up, in a game that, at the time I played, didn't even havea global chat channel. Only need to do two things to make them work in any DIKU where Devs want players progressing through all of the content, public and instanced:

• Players can only make their own runestones (non tradeable), and first by visiting the spot
• They can only be used in public-space environments (no instances, though just outside would be fine).

So what if the world gets smaller thereafter? The size of it only gets in the way of those alt'ing their way up to the cap anyway, becomes a nuisance.

Not familiar with UO; could you describe how they work?

[Venkman]

Short form
Certain players could buy blank runes, go to somewhere in the world, cast a spell to mark that location of the world on that stone, and then use another spell to click on that stone to return to that spot themselves and/or with friends.

Long form
UO was a skills-based game. Imagine WoW without levels, where your entire effectiveness was entirely about how well trained your skills were (like the difference between 0 in Daggers and 375 in Daggers). Now, imagine that instead of getting those skills based on your Class choice, you chose different skills to train up entirely on your own. Then imagine that those skills supported each other in some way (like, say, that WoW Daggers skill also came with another skill that helped crit more often, instead of that crit being a stat on the weapon you were using).

One such skill players could get was Magery. With enough rank in Magery, players could bind a runestone to a location in the world, Recall to that location, or Gate to that location (opened a gate to that spot).

Worked for UO, but not good for DIKU:
These stones could be traded, and they could be added to books that were catalogs of many stones. And they could be placed in your house (or other houses) and anyone who could cast Recall could use them. And until the second expansion came out, you could just about make a rune for anywhere in the game. Imagine being able to make a rune for Rags in MC, or Opera in Kara.

This is the reason I qualified their use in a DIKU. In a DIKU they shouldn't be allowed to be traded, so you have to visit a location in the world yourself. Which means you needed to get there. Now, a Warlock could summon you there, but that can already happen, so there's no net loss anyway.

[Rendakor]

Mmm, thx for the explanation. Not sure how their application helps the "get my lowbie friend here faster" though, so much as just generally reducing timesinks. (Not that I'm not a fan of the idea, just not sure how it applies here. I thought the idea was that it was DIFFICULT and not time consuming for the lowbie SK'd up to get to the higher level zones.)

[Venkman]

It's a fix for alts. Content is expensive, and methods that get anyone around it on their first character are going to be very hard sells to developers. Instead, for first-timers, make the path through the content fast, mostly soloable, and just interesting enough to keep them coming back for more. Like WoW.

If you're making a DIKU, that is

[waylander]

Mmm, thx for the explanation. Not sure how their application helps the "get my lowbie friend here faster" though, so much as just generally reducing timesinks.

Also remember though what I said about guild recruitment as a game ages. Without efficient ways to help new players, many veteran guilds just don't accept them.  So many times they end up in crappy fly by night guilds full of drama and strife. Then they hate the very guilds that they need to compete in the end game, and quit when they can't advance on their own anymore. 

Lots of guilds would be more open to recruiting new players to the game if it were less burdensome to get them to the current meta where the guild is playing.

Or as the game ages new players can keep hearing themselves talking in chat with few to no responses, get frustrated, and eventually quit. So you get less new players in who stay beyond their free game time, and eventually guilds have a shrinking recruitment pool that could force them to leave the game entirely.

[Rendakor]

With that in mind, I'd have no problem with this being implemented, say, a year after a game launches. It'd fit well into EQ2 or WoW, but launching a game with all sorts of ways to bypass content is just going to cause faster burnout. Remember, 1-69 is a game too. Getting everyone out of it as fast as possible is only a good thing when theres plenty of stuff to do at 70.

Edit: with that said, I'd just like to ask waylander if your thoughts are ADDING these features to an existing game (if so, which one?) or for a new game. Things that are gamebreaking at launch are good fixes for a game where the lower level content is empty.

[Slyfeind]

A lot of your ideas are great, but they focus on powerlevelling newbies. If players want to bypass the newbie content, there should just be a big red button at character creation that says "Start At Max Level." (I have yet to find a compelling argument against that.)

Otherwise, I think a lot of strides could be made if newbies could be more helpful just by being newbies. Make it desirable to not only be Level 1, but also make Level 1 characters useful in a guild. Even further, give benefits to Level 1 characters that are lost at Level 2; resource gathering, for example, or content that chains upwards (defeat the L1 kobolds in one instance, and the L70 instance has no trash mobs that get in the way).

[waylander]

A lot of your ideas are great, but they focus on powerlevelling newbies. If players want to bypass the newbie content, there should just be a big red button at character creation that says "Start At Max Level." (I have yet to find a compelling argument against that.)

Without efficient ways for people of multiple levels to game together then as a game ages you have these two scenarios:

1. Newbie Zones

Generally unfriendly, and guilds not willing to go out of their way to group with non-guild people or deal with dumb newb questions. Pretty much status quo in many games today.  Newbie gets frustrated and quits when his 30 free days expire because the game doesn't have a friendly community to help him.

2. Veteran Players (End Game)

Guilds consolidate due to collapses because not enough newbies are sticking with the game long enough to become veterans. Or the newbies don't have the right prerequisites "Level+Gear" when they apply.  Its too time consuming to stop guild progress for that guy, so you pass and wish him luck on his guild search.  So the overall recruitment pool dries up and guilds collapse, or the veteran without the right gear just quits when he can't get into the better guilds (ala what happens in WoW these days).


No need to make a list but without effective ways for newbies and vets to be integrated into a guild (if they desire) then you have a community that degenerates to these two basic states. AC, EQ, DAOC, Shadowbane, CoV, and slowly....WoW just to name a few.

[schild]

(I have yet to find a compelling argument against that.)

That's because you're not looking, like, at all. It's like a giant pink elephant in the room.

The last thing any game needs is a bunch of total newbs who have no clue how to play the games. It's disruptive to the community and the designers of the game.

Really though, I'm more concerned about soloers and the casual gamer than the hardcore uberguild guy who's views of the game are never EVER in line with the majority.

Edit: Just to weigh in on the actual topics, while I agree with some, it seems like you want some sort of cultist indoctrination set of mechanics put into place to expand guilds and engulf more users into guilds. Because really, the major points you bring up are to keep people from twinking and exploiting game content. But I like the spin. "Help newbies." That's clever.

I'd personally like to see more inroads made into societal benefits rather than guild ones btw. Guild mechanics are largely standardized, or at least, any logical schmo what is and isn't needed for a guild to operate as a guild though.

[waylander]

(I have yet to find a compelling argument against that.)

Really though, I'm more concerned about soloers and the casual gamer than the hardcore uberguild guy who's views of the game are never EVER in line with the majority.

Casual gamers are the majority of players, and roughly half of them join some form of guild.  They have massive issues with being out leveled by friends due to RL commitments or not being able to participate in the multi hour (3-5+) raid end game in today's games that require several hours of continuous play.

The guild leadership stuff I posted about in here isn't relevant to the casual gamer who's not a guild leader.  The stuff I posted about ineffective grouping between higher and lower leveled characters is relevant whether someone is in a guild or not. The ones who never join a guild are going to quit the game when they can't solo regardless, and the ones who do join a guild will quit the game when they can no longer keep up with their friends.

Organized group of friends playing a game have some of the same issues that a guild has playing a game.

[schild]

Yes, sure they do. But those issues come from playing in a genre where everything is based on level. Once you get rid of that, you get rid of that issue. Until then, the entire thing is just an argument for shortcuts.

[waylander]

Yes, sure they do. But those issues come from playing in a genre where everything is based on level. Once you get rid of that, you get rid of that issue. Until then, the entire thing is just an argument for shortcuts.

I agree on the level stuff. I wish we could just play the dam games, but unfortunately they don't make them like that. I don't mind the content barriers so much as I mind the barriers that prevent people from gaming together effectively, and today's games simply use levels as a way to do that.

I don't expect anything to chance, but I think Nick Yee's research is still relevant to gaming guilds or small groups of organized players.  Its not like people are going to quit playing overnight if these things aren't addressed, but I think it does play a factor in why the player community (guild or not) really isn't as helpful anymore.  They are either barred by game mechanics, or already overloaded with what's on their collective plate.

[Slyfeind]

The last thing any game needs is a bunch of total newbs who have no clue how to play the games. It's disruptive to the community and the designers of the game.

I don't think it would be much worse than it already is. How many players of single-player games skip tutorials and immediately jump to the hardest difficulty setting?

[Archimedian]

First without a specific game in mind and havving led guilds in AO, EQ, WoW, AC and AC2 and becoming one of those 30 somethings who loved to game but now has rigorous time constraints I can probably shed some light into what I wish game designers would do to help management.

Integration between online and offline management would be primary on my list of things.  What does this mean?  Well that the formation and running of a guild should have real benefits.  I'm sure if you had metrics your churn numbers greatly diminish between people who "solo" in your virtual world versus those that build bonds.

So:
   Dedicated forums tied in with game accounts hosted by xyz gamijng company(with standard home page stuff)
   Dedicated voice server based on guild (with the standard subchannels and so on)
   Direct tie in between say MOTD and the like manageable by web interface
   Guild roster manageable by web interface.
   Chat logging and ability to view off line
   "Off line" ability to chat (AO did a nice IRC plugging for this)
   Historical data on characters (create dates, join dates, even play times and amounts - this would be for snooping parents)
   Integrated looting system (this should be ala carte really ranging from suicide kings style to DKP and it's variants)
   True guild management tools (viewable banks + logging of activity)
      ability to set ranks / titles and associate them with rights
      ability to set "taxes" for games that require upkeep on things (guild halls etal)
      ability to set alliances and grant limited access to your resources to sister guilds
  Crafting compendium for games that have that in them and ability for guild members to place orders against each other.

These could be ala carte and I would even go as far as say they are premium services.  So definitely chargeable.  You figure most guilds pay $20 for voice and probably another $20/$30 for image / forums/ home page / dkp web hosting.  Let your guilds decide if this is a single person carrying cost or if it can be shared.  Alter the monthly subs accordingly.  This of course needs a big warnign type system ingame with the "this guild expects you to pay for premium services based on it's current size your subscription will be altered by x amount per month.

All of these tools should be accesible ingame and offline.

From my experience I found that if a new member was brought in, if they talked in guild chat their retention went up.  If they posted on the forums, again another knotch, if they used vent yet another and if they actively spoke you pretty much had a full fledge member.  Each really signified a mental commitment to a virtual community.  Although I'm not sure as a gaming company if you offered these premium services for free what sort of return on your investment you'd get (ie longer subscription lengths to attracting the ever growing online community types).  Chances are your game design needs to be solid and fun.  I'd address the helping of newbies and the like but I think that's such a fundamental design flaw of most of todays diku variants I wouldn't spend the time providing tools to alleviate that but would just redesign the game play so that would not be an issue.  I guess it depends on the games fundamental design (progression via dings aint going away) but I would say trending towards a henchman type concept (ie making MMOs play like single player where as you meet people you replace your NPCs with person Y).

Any ways too much babbling from me, must be the new years hang over.

[Venkman]

That list sounds like what one could get if they purchased all of the micro-services offered on Station Players, except I think the VoIP support. You get charged for them, but if you took all the services, I think it comes out to $11.96 a month. If you only played EQ2, then that might be worth it. But I prefer to decouple the metagame stuff from any specific game. We'll eventually leave a game, but the tools we always need.

[DarkSign]

You'll be happy to know a lot of the ideas about guild management via web interface are discussed and solutions offered in the game design book / textbook Massively Multiplayer Game Development 2by Thor Alexander. Whether they get put into games is another question though.

I definitely echo the points made about knowing what guilds someone has been previously. This would aid guilds in making decisions. Someone could toggle it on or off, but if they wont let you see it then you know they're a bit sketch.

One of the ideas I had about guild loyalty had to do with integrating a raid / group command system. The idea centered around having a Savage / Battlefield system where raid leaders could set waypoints and objective commands. Group leaders could also use such a system. The twist was that the more you actually followed these commands, the more you'd get loyalty points. Officers could see how much a player followed orders and use that to decide if they should rise the ranks. Also such points might allow players to use/buy items from the guild armory bought with said points.  Heck you could even use the points on guild member's vendors if you wanted to.

The DKP idea is quite good too. Give guilds 2 or 3 stock systems to choose from...or an interface with choices to make their own. Guild-wide voting systems that pop-up on log in are also important.

[Lum]

In random order:

 * It's called elder game (the terminology I try to use as well) because (a) endgame implies the game ends and (b) "elder game" is correctly descriptive, it's the part of the game played by people who are, well, elders in game terms (length of time on character may or may not play a part here).

 * Sidekicking systems are a requirement and it amazes me when MMOs do not have them (I'm looking at you WOW)

 * EQ2 has a very intricate guild levelling system - in fact I really recommend in general people take a look at what they've done with guild support. I especially like what they've done with guild advertising/recruiting.

 * I think AoC guild leaders being able to see the guild history of past members is a bad idea. Anything which impinges on a character's anonymity is bad. Reputation should be player driven, it should not be controlled and gamed by the game system. There's enough ways for players to be junior high school girls to each other without the game helping. If it's character based, it's both intrusive and useless (reroll a new character when you want to escape your reputation). If it's account based, It is even more wildly intrusive and also eliminates espionage which is a pretty big part of hardcore PvP MMOs.

 * Guild requirements set too high - I don't think there's a lot you can do to address this honestly. It's human nature to want to go onward and upward, especially for achiever guilds. (Ironically in the book I wrote that 3 people bought I had a whole chapter on guild taxonomy. Only it wasn't called that because, well, the book was MMOs for Dummies.) Achiever guilds aren't going to want to nurture new members because they see that as a waste of time, even if apprenticeship XP and sidekicking is available (and apprenticeship XP is pretty easy to exploit - see XP chaining in AC1). Some guilds will nurture newbies (whether friends in RL, alts, or the guild is a casual guild that takes newbies) and the game should allow encourage and reward that. Other guilds will only want THE BEST OF THE BEST and there's not much the game can - or should - do about that.

* Coding DKP support - I'm leery about this because DKP is something that guilds need total control over. Anything the game codes in will be wrong for someone. The framework for DKP? Sure. Plugging in eqDKP, Suicide Kings, or whatever? Nope, the casuals won't use it because it's confusing and the hardcore won't use it because they found a better version they have total control over. Still if you have a raiding game support for loot distribution and attendance tracking is helpful/required. My fear is just that any time developing in-game DKP will be wasted.

* Raiding sizes vs guild sizes: WoW is instructive here. When 40-man raids were the norm smaller achiever guilds disintegrated or were absorbed by larger guilds. When Burning Crusade moved the focus to 25-man raids the largest guilds complained because it made less room for error in raid size makeup, but raids became doable for smaller guilds. It's important to note that very, very few effective achiever guilds can muster 40 ready raiders on a given night, but 25 is a more doable number (and for casual guilds one- or two-group 'raids' are optimal).

* Guild loyalty - from the developer standpoint, metrics show that once a player is integrated into a guild, they won't leave the game as long as the guild remains, effectively (they tend to remain subscribed *far* longer than guildless players). So, yeah, from a purely mercenary standpoint, we love guild loyalty! :) (which is also why I chuckle when I read "mmo devs don't care about guilds". Oh you are so so wrong.)

[Venkman]

I disagree that anonymity is so important in this medium that anything which impinges it is bad. How often have we wished for greater accountability? We're not talking about releasing billing addresses here. It's just the history of a character at a time when everyone accepts WoW's Armory. This is factual information about a fictional avatar.

It's important to note that very, very few effective achiever guilds can muster 40 ready raiders on a given night, but 25 is a more doable number (and for casual guilds one- or two-group 'raids' are optimal).

I don't assume you believe this, but I'm using this quote to air a greivance.

What is it with some devs who think large group gathering that require knowledge of strategy and adaptable tactics are spur-of-the-moment things? Jeezus, 40 people, 25, 15, anything over 6 and you're geometrically increasing the probability that the participants scheduled something.

Yea, there were complaints when raid sizes went from 40 to 25. Everyone adapted. That didn't suddenly make it viable for PUG raids to clear an entire instance, so the very same reason guilds form and people manage calendars still exists.

In edition to sidekicking that should become standard, ingame manageable privilege-based Calendars should be too!

As an aside, I agree with the use the "elder" though think endgame as it has been used for so many years is pretty much accepted as saying the same thing, regardless of what it may sound like.

[Archimedian]

 * Guild requirements set too high - I don't think there's a lot you can do to address this honestly. It's human nature to want to go onward and upward, especially for achiever guilds. (Ironically in the book I wrote that 3 people bought I had a whole chapter on guild taxonomy. Only it wasn't called that because, well, the book was MMOs for Dummies.) Achiever guilds aren't going to want to nurture new members because they see that as a waste of time, even if apprenticeship XP and sidekicking is available (and apprenticeship XP is pretty easy to exploit - see XP chaining in AC1). Some guilds will nurture newbies (whether friends in RL, alts, or the guild is a casual guild that takes newbies) and the game should allow encourage and reward that. Other guilds will only want THE BEST OF THE BEST and there's not much the game can - or should - do about that.

I can understand from a developer stand point why you'd want to give players anonymity.  I guess a few "whoops I screwed up and was an asshat", if it stayed with the player their choices would be reroll, new account.  Which would probably lead to cancelled subscription.  Similar to any game not having the ability to respec a character without a full reroll.  Not knowing any metrics but chances are those respecs keep player retention up.

From the flip side of the coin, I know most of the "community builders" that I associate with want accountability.  Meaning they might have their kids in guild and want to keep their recruiting standards high.  Most likely not so much for min/maxing guilds where content consumption is the motivator but for the more social experience guilds.

On the DKP / loot system issue.  I think you want that as a feature set.  Again not for the full achiever guilds chances are they are off siting all their stuff but more directed at the casual "hey we got enough to go raid one night a week" type guilds.  For them it would be a drama reducing tool if you build in, loot management.  Which leads me to something slightly off topic but the mechanic of repeatable content being repeated because of bad RNG issues is was probably the biggest "I'm bored and done with this game" issue I ever saw managing guilds.  Both from dragging people no longer interested in repeating the same content for the 100 time (I'm looking at you WoW).  Obviously you want to stretch this out to cover for content creation cycles but not to the point of being punitive.

As to what method I would say would be out of the box viable so that casual raids have built in tools?  I can think of a few systems out there that are pretty idiot proof and instinctual.  Now you could just ditch the RNG loot concept all together and go with a nice little bar (CoD4 style...hey 100 headshots here is your silencer!) and just attribute it to number of times killed or what have you here is your token.  This is probably a bit too visually "grindy" for people though but the RNG issue is something I saw more and more in WoW (before I stopped playing).

[Lum]

Yea, there were complaints when raid sizes went from 40 to 25. Everyone adapted. That didn't suddenly make it viable for PUG raids to clear an entire instance, so the very same reason guilds form and people manage calendars still exists.

Yeah, I'm not talking about pickup raids - good lord those are exercises in futility - but of a guild just to be able to schedule a night 40 - or even 25 - people can be on at once. (The guild I'm in right now can't do 25. Maybe we could do 10 on a good day. Hurray for Karazhan!)

In edition to sidekicking that should become standard, ingame manageable privilege-based Calendars should be too!

Looks like Warhammer Online is adding exactly that: http://mythicmktg.fileburst.com/war/us/media/beta/calendar_tab.jpg

I can understand from a developer stand point why you'd want to give players anonymity.  I guess a few "whoops I screwed up and was an asshat", if it stayed with the player their choices would be reroll, new account.  Which would probably lead to cancelled subscription.

Well, it's for a number of reasons. As a developer anything you create as an exit point is bad (exit point being "ok, I'm done with this game now, k thx bai") as you alluded to. As a player I don't see the need to cede my privacy to J. Random Asshat just because they think I should. There was a long thread about the way WoW Armory rolled privacy expectations back here earlier. Suffice to say that just because Blizzard runs their game a certain way does not mean I believe it's the correct way to do it.

On the DKP / loot system issue.  I think you want that as a feature set.  Again not for the full achiever guilds chances are they are off siting all their stuff but more directed at the casual "hey we got enough to go raid one night a week" type guilds.  For them it would be a drama reducing tool if you build in, loot management.

I can see that as a good idea but with social tools like that, you have to get them right the first time or you've wasted your time. To pick on WoW again, look at how they've gone through several LFG systems. The players ignored them because the first iterations frankly sucked, and now that they have a workable LFG system no one ever uses it because the players are trained that LFG tools in WoW don't work. Given the amount of work in an MMO that has to be done, wasted development isn't a good idea.

[Margalis]

I can see that as a good idea but with social tools like that, you have to get them right the first time or you've wasted your time. To pick on WoW again, look at how they've gone through several LFG systems. The players ignored them because the first iterations frankly sucked, and now that they have a workable LFG system no one ever uses it because the players are trained that LFG tools in WoW don't work. Given the amount of work in an MMO that has to be done, wasted development isn't a good idea.

I can't help but think this has more to do with the fact that you don't need groups in WOW. Seriously why would anyone even look for a group in the first place?

[Jayce]

I can see that as a good idea but with social tools like that, you have to get them right the first time or you've wasted your time. To pick on WoW again, look at how they've gone through several LFG systems. The players ignored them because the first iterations frankly sucked, and now that they have a workable LFG system no one ever uses it because the players are trained that LFG tools in WoW don't work. Given the amount of work in an MMO that has to be done, wasted development isn't a good idea.

I can't help but think this has more to do with the fact that you don't need groups in WOW. Seriously why would anyone even look for a group in the first place?

Surely you jest.

Have you ever played it?  I realize you're more about the Ballsmasher 6000 FFXI, but not forcing grouping doesn't mean it won't be popular.

[waylander]

In random order:

 * It's called elder game (the terminology I try to use as well) because (a) endgame implies the game ends and (b) "elder game" is correctly descriptive, it's the part of the game played by people who are, well, elders in game terms (length of time on character may or may not play a part here).

I feel vindicated! I thought that elder game was the correct term, but I can see where people get it mixed up.

* Sidekicking systems are a requirement and it amazes me when MMOs do not have them (I'm looking at you WOW)

I agree completely.  Having something such as a sidekick feature makes me more eager to try out a game because I know we have a way to help people level who can't play 5 days per week.

* EQ2 has a very intricate guild levelling system - in fact I really recommend in general people take a look at what they've done with guild support. I especially like what they've done with guild advertising/recruiting.

Is there a short version of what they've done in the public domain?

* I think AoC guild leaders being able to see the guild history of past members is a bad idea. Anything which impinges on a character's anonymity is bad. Reputation should be player driven, it should not be controlled and gamed by the game system. There's enough ways for players to be junior high school girls to each other without the game helping. If it's character based, it's both intrusive and useless (reroll a new character when you want to escape your reputation). If it's account based, It is even more wildly intrusive and also eliminates espionage which is a pretty big part of hardcore PvP MMOs.

I see your point here and respect that position. What if there was something like a guild notoriety system them? Where a person has a guild rep score, and only a GM or guild officers could assign positive or negative points?

The reason that this is important to us is due to the issue I mentioned in the original post, and that's to help us identify habitual guild hoppers who just come in to mooch some loot.  Because guilds have to constantly recruit, enough moochers that you don't have a good way to screen can affect overall guild morale.  It will make veterans not want to show up for raids to help new people out because they keep being burned by people who quit once they get their purples for a certain level.

 * Guild requirements set too high - I don't think there's a lot you can do to address this honestly. It's human nature to want to go onward and upward, especially for achiever guilds. (Ironically in the book I wrote that 3 people bought I had a whole chapter on guild taxonomy. Only it wasn't called that because, well, the book was MMOs for Dummies.) Achiever guilds aren't going to want to nurture new members because they see that as a waste of time, even if apprenticeship XP and sidekicking is available (and apprenticeship XP is pretty easy to exploit - see XP chaining in AC1). Some guilds will nurture newbies (whether friends in RL, alts, or the guild is a casual guild that takes newbies) and the game should allow encourage and reward that. Other guilds will only want THE BEST OF THE BEST and there's not much the game can - or should - do about that.

True, but even achiever guilds have to continuously recruit if they expect to survive in a game beyond 1 year. Guilds will take in people who aren't perfect if they don't have to spend a huge amount of time catching them up.  Sidekicking is a way to do that.

* Coding DKP support - I'm leery about this because DKP is something that guilds need total control over. Anything the game codes in will be wrong for someone. The framework for DKP? Sure. Plugging in eqDKP, Suicide Kings, or whatever? Nope, the casuals won't use it because it's confusing and the hardcore won't use it because they found a better version they have total control over. Still if you have a raiding game support for loot distribution and attendance tracking is helpful/required. My fear is just that any time developing in-game DKP will be wasted.

What about a basic tool that allows a guild to schedule an event, takes attendance, and assigns loot awards based on basic points. I know the advanced guilds are going to run their own thing, but it sure would help the less Hardcore avoid fights over loot.  I don't think extreme casual guilds would use it, but a regular casual guild (1-2 raids a week) probably would.

* Raiding sizes vs guild sizes: WoW is instructive here. When 40-man raids were the norm smaller achiever guilds disintegrated or were absorbed by larger guilds. When Burning Crusade moved the focus to 25-man raids the largest guilds complained because it made less room for error in raid size makeup, but raids became doable for smaller guilds. It's important to note that very, very few effective achiever guilds can muster 40 ready raiders on a given night, but 25 is a more doable number (and for casual guilds one- or two-group 'raids' are optimal).

Considering that an average MMO guild is somewhere between 25-50 members, even 25 man raids are troublesome when you've got a lot of 25-35 year olds in your guild.  I like the 10-15 man raid scenario better because its more doable by normal sized guilds with the age bracket of players that are gaming.  A guild of 50 with 30 people online (if they are lucky) would then run 1-3 raids at the same time. 

* Guild loyalty - from the developer standpoint, metrics show that once a player is integrated into a guild, they won't leave the game as long as the guild remains, effectively (they tend to remain subscribed *far* longer than guildless players). So, yeah, from a purely mercenary standpoint, we love guild loyalty! :) (which is also why I chuckle when I read "mmo devs don't care about guilds". Oh you are so so wrong.)

I didn't say devs don't care about guilds (I think).  What I meant is that in these revolutionary games that you all keep designing, the guild unit keeps getting stuck with essentially the same tools we had years ago.  Guilds today need to be more organized, managed more efficiently, need help attracting and screening members, and then need a way to help newer players get caught up to the guild's average play level as the game ages.

I think Nick's research and some of the other suggestions here have reinforced that we don't expect dev's to think of everything, but there are some areas where we could use some help if developers want quality guilds to survive and thrive year after year in their games.

[Venkman]

Watch WoW over the next year as they integrate more of the stuff for guilds EQ2 has

Yeah, I'm not talking about pickup raids - good lord those are exercises in futility - but of a guild just to be able to schedule a night 40 - or even 25 - people can be on at once.

Oh, yea, I thought you were talking coordinating schedules, not size. I prefer Kara as well, though we did have a larger alliance for the pre-BC days when we needed 40. Trouble is now we still have that alliance but not enough experienced/gear people to field two 25-man'ers. We have six different Kara IDs though

As to the Calendar, yes!. :NDA:

The players ignored them because the first iterations frankly sucked, and now that they have a workable LFG system no one ever uses it because the players are trained that LFG tools in WoW don't work

I blame timing. Alpha players train Beta players train Live players. LFG systems that are thrown into a game after launch do not survive the traditions already in place by that very late point. You need to really have that in place early. And it needs to include name, level range, classes sought, zone(s) and the specific event being sought.

[Tmon]

I blame timing. Alpha players train Beta players train Live players. LFG systems that are thrown into a game after launch do not survive the traditions already in place by that very late point. You need to really have that in place early. And it needs to include name, level range, classes sought, zone(s) and the specific event being sought.

Exactly, if grouping is a major component there's no reason not to have a useful LFG system ready to go as soon as the ability to form a group is working.  It's not rocket science and five minutes spent reviewing LFG spam (or just cut and paste the last sentence of Darniaq's) in any game out there will provide the info for the requirements doc.