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

[Mrbloodworth]

Just want to toss this in. While side-kicking is cool, and works, Mentoring, i feel, is also a Must as standard all moos need to employ. (See EQ2) Its really nice when your over level friend can "De-level" down to your level and adventure with you.


Or, stop making games use levels. This would be a better idea altogether.

I really want to be an AXE wielding Leather wearing MAGE that can melt face and ride a motorcycle.

[Venkman]

I really want to be an AXE wielding Leather wearing MAGE that can melt face and ride a motorcycle.

And I'm all out of motorcycle /roddypiper

 

Otherwise, yes. UO 2.0. Plz.

[Mrbloodworth]

I really want to be an AXE wielding Leather wearing MAGE that can melt face and ride a motorcycle.

And I'm all out of motorcycle /roddypiper

 

Otherwise, yes. UO 2.0. Plz.

Lol, Got any bubble gum?

[SnakeCharmer]

Am I the only person that thinks that guilds (and catering to them) aren't the end all be all important thing to MMOs as everyone makes them out to be?

Make it easy to form a guild.
Make it easy to invite or kick guild members.

Done?

Custom guild rank titles and guild history and the like seems like superfluous fluff that development resources would be better off used elsewhere.  And who really worries about "If you don't do this, I'm taking my 200 (15) man guild and going to <whatever game>!!!111!!" anyway?  It's like trying to make sure the hardcore catasses don't outpace your content.  Is there even a handful of guilds that even remotely deserve that sort of attention?  I mean, if anyone seriously listens to FoH or their like deserves to have their game crash and burn (i.e. Brad).  Casualites would be scared off from the FoH website (and others like it) anyway.

If you're truly worried about inviting some uberdick that stole his/her old guild's bank and caused extreme amounts of douchebaggery, then do a little research on them.  Don't try and make YOUR (social) job of making sure someone is a cool cat the devs responsibility.

[Rendakor]

SC, I only see the issues as relavent because MMOs are structured in a way that requires a guild to advance at the endgame. If you're going to force me to do something, I want it to be as painless as possible.

[Lum]

* 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?

Brandon Reinhart's blog has a good writeup including screenshots.

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.

I guess my concern here is that this turns into a broken eBay rep system. If you drop below 0 in your rep score, you'll never get into a guild, and if you're a bad apple you'll reroll a new char/account and if you've been victimized by a psycho guild officer you'll simply cancel instead because it's too much trouble.

Why does your guild need to constantly recruit? Game system requirements (more troops = more wins)? Why not keep new recruits at a "we don't trust you farther than we can throw you" level and cause new recruits to earn (real life) rep to get promoted to a level where they can have access? In our WoW guild new recruits have to get an officer to mail them anything valuable out of the guild bank and we're an extremely casual guild. I'd think for a larger guild that'd be a requirement.

I am VERY leery of social tags that follow characters because I have seen similar systems used for abuse in the wider Internet and in an MMO the motivation for grief is increased hundredfold. I will admit to being somewhat hardcore about this opinion (and anonymity requirements in general) and I'm usually the outlier in internal discussions on this.

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.

Yeah, something like that is probably a requirement going forward.

Am I the only person that thinks that guilds (and catering to them) aren't the end all be all important thing to MMOs as everyone makes them out to be?

Make it easy to form a guild.
Make it easy to invite or kick guild members.

Done?

Underestimating the value of social connections in MMOs is kind of foolish considering that's the primary difference between an MMO and a single player game.

[tazelbain]

The whole reason the raid cockblock exists is to be a pain that slows down the players from burning through the content.

[Ratman_tf]

Or, stop making games use levels. This would be a better idea altogether.

That would be my prefered situation. Levels just make so many damn problems...

[SnakeCharmer]

SC, I only see the issues as relavent because MMOs are structured in a way that requires a guild to advance at the endgame. If you're going to force me to do something, I want it to be as painless as possible.

Couple things:

1)  They aren't forcing you to anything.  It's a choice as to whether or not you partake in the 'endgame', which incidentally, is different for everyone.
2)  It's awfully difficult to make /invite and /kick any easier than it already is/should be.  Though I'm sure someone has or will do it.

Questions to anyone: 
What percentage of players actually care about raiding? 
What percentage of players actually stick around long enough for it to become an option?

I saw a dev blog or something with percentages of players/guilds that had completed "X" raid in WoW, and the numbers were staggeringly low single digit percentages.

Am I the only person that thinks that guilds (and catering to them) aren't the end all be all important thing to MMOs as everyone makes them out to be?

Make it easy to form a guild.
Make it easy to invite or kick guild members.

Done?

Underestimating the value of social connections in MMOs is kind of foolish considering that's the primary difference between an MMO and a single player game.

I'm not sure how making it easier to form a guild and inviting/kicking guildmates is underestimating the social connection of an MMO.  If anything, it reinforces it.

Like minded players will find each other, either through forums, PUGs, or other.  Don't take it that I'm against some sort of simple matchmaking thing, it just seems to me that he best way to foster social connections isn't necessarily through guild tools but more towards game mechanics (i.e. player interdependency via class/professions, crafting, etc).

Just as an aside opinion directed at noone in particular:  If people are joining guilds for the simple fact that they can raid/endgame, they're joining guilds for the wrong reason.

[tazelbain]

Raids should exist to accommodate Guilds.
Guild shouldn't exist to accommodate Raids.

[Merusk]

Your bias is showing, because of the slant of the discussion here, SC.  However, even non-raiding guilds have social structures and things they'd LIKE to do, but can't in-game because they don't have the tools.  Many of these have already been listed, from event scheduling (for rp fests, gnome-football, OR raids) to distribution of guild resources.

You join a guild for the social network and connections.  You join a PARTICULAR guild because its goals are in-line with your own. ('engame' content or bsdm play)

I see no reason not to ask for these to be included, other than 'omg the dev's lives just got harder.'


As to the DKP/ Item Scoring stuff that was mentioned, including it would be fantastic.  It would even mesh well with move among the WoW PVE players to do-away with random loot alltogether.

They'd rather see ALL 'boss' mobs drop a similar item to the 'badge of justice' and put ALL classes on the same 'armor token' (to limit cases where a guild gets 10 'druid/priest/paladin' tokens in a row, when they only have a sum of 4 people playing all those classes alltogether.  Grats DE!)  It stems from seeing the arena folks able to pick-and-choose their loot and always being  happy, as opposed to living with the BS of 'random loot generator' that doens't appear to be quite so random.

  If there were an in-game DKP system, and tokens, there'd only be one or two values to set and track per person, instead of the way DKPs work currently. (A different value for every item, a different token for every 3 classes, and different sums for everyone there.)

[Venkman]

SC, I only see the issues as relavent because MMOs are structured in a way that requires a guild to advance at the endgame. If you're going to force me to do something, I want it to be as painless as possible.

Couple things:

1)  They aren't forcing you to anything.  It's a choice as to whether or not you partake in the 'endgame', which incidentally, is different for everyone.
2)  It's awfully difficult to make /invite and /kick any easier than it already is/should be.  Though I'm sure someone has or will do it.

#1, the endgame is not really different for everyone. It's shades. You are advancing your character during the endgame through gear upgrades, just as you were from 1-cap. Raids get you the better gear, because you need that for the next tier of raiding beyond. And it's long since been proven that scheduled raids work much better than a bunch of soloers who join a PUG because they realize they've hit a wall.

#2, agreed. But guild management is more than that once you get beyond the personal-friends size. Who's managing the newbies? Who's managing the guild bank (usually someone's alt unless the game has it)? Who handles invites, interviews and recommends drops/retains? Who's scheduling anything, from guild swaps to raids? Who's running the raids? Who's coordinating with the other guilds in the alliance? And so on.

All of this stuff goes on in everything from the most contrived DIKU to the most open virtual worldy game, and it is not specific to just endgame raiders. This is for any organized body that has an identity, charter and purpose. They are intrinsic parts of the genre now. And yet there's still very inconsistent support from various devs. That seems attributable mostly to devs not thinking these are as important as raw content.

Going by the numbers, they are right to emphasize the content first. If I had to guess, I'd say maybe 10% of WoW players Raid, and tha number only goes down as travel backwards through other games. But these are also the people in the game the most. You can't ignore that while focusing on content for someone who logs in maybe 3 hours a week.

[Kiste]

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.

Social tools have to be in and complete as soon as you let a large number of players into the game, i.e. during beta. People have to get used to them and once alternative systems have been firmly established, even if it's just spamming global chat, then it's hard to establish social tools. The same happened with DAoC's pretty sophisticated LFG tool. It came way too late and was never really adopted universally, not even in Albion, the one realm where people were still doing traditonal tank/dps/cc/heal groups instead of PBAOE idiocy back in SI days.

MMOs are supposed to be social games and I don't understand why many devs seem to consider social tools a low priority. Has there even been one game other than FFXI that bothered to implement an LFG tool comparable to what DAoC had years ago? In WoW they gave us the Retard Rocks no one uses, after having removed even the basic /lfg flag for some reason. Most games still are still released with social tools that are often little more than glorified /who searches and friends lists.

It's been more than 10 years since UO and almost 9 years since EQ. By now every MMORPG should have

- FLG/LFM tools that allow you to specify not only what kind of class/group you're looking for but also content. A comment function would be great, too ("Doing Buttking Breechloader. No retards and DPS Paladins, please.")
- A friends list with IM fuctionality
- A sophisticated guild management tool with ranks and privileges, guild bank management, scheduling/calender tool, attendance statistics and a way for guild leaders to send information to all guild members other than setting a MOTD. Integrated DKP systems should at least be taken into consideration.
- sidekick/mentor systems

[Archimedian]

One thing I'll throw out here as I saw it as a trend in my last few MMOs is the guild coalition concept.  Meaning the more casual guilds tended to stay small (below raid size) but made conglamorates to raid and the like.  Pretty similar to standard social circles where the "cliques" are just identified by guild tags.  These conglomorates usually ran multiple raids with time slots and were interchangeable.  Think of it as a trusted LFG system.

Anyn one thinking of doing a scheduling tool for an MMO should just rip this WoW mod off.

Screeny: http://media6.curse-gaming.com/images/previews/7407/guildeventmanager-list-of-subscribers-and-leader-functions.jpg

Called guild event manager you can probably still grab a version from curse.

Now I'm not sure how big this trend is (small guilds getting together for content) but having the ability to decouple "raid tools" into logical raids would also be something which would help out this segment.

[Kiste]

Back when I was still playing WoW (pre-BC) such a "raid alliance" was the most successful raiding group on my server. When my guild was doing MC back then, we were lacking certain classes, so we invited people from smaller guilds to participate. They'd get DKP like everyone else but weren't required to join our guild.

In EVE Online, alliances are built into the game, i.e. it's three-tiered (player/corporation/alliance). Some people are even advocating the idea of adding another tier - coalitions between alliances, since these exist in the game inofficially and are forming huge power blocs.

[Merusk]

One thing I'll throw out here as I saw it as a trend in my last few MMOs is the guild coalition concept.  Meaning the more casual guilds tended to stay small (below raid size) but made conglamorates to raid and the like.  Pretty similar to standard social circles where the "cliques" are just identified by guild tags.  These conglomorates usually ran multiple raids with time slots and were interchangeable.  Think of it as a trusted LFG system.

Anyn one thinking of doing a scheduling tool for an MMO should just rip this WoW mod off.

Screeny: http://media6.curse-gaming.com/images/previews/7407/guildeventmanager-list-of-subscribers-and-leader-functions.jpg

Called guild event manager you can probably still grab a version from curse.

Now I'm not sure how big this trend is (small guilds getting together for content) but having the ability to decouple "raid tools" into logical raids would also be something which would help out this segment.

GEM is a nice mod for smaller guilds, but from what I've seen it lacks the functionality of a 3rd party tool like Raidspace.  With RS you can have alliances sign-up and you see who everyone is, what class they are and then who was/ wasn't needed for the raid.  (If 15 dps warriors and 4 healers were the first to sign-up you're not killing anything.)

[Jayce]

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.

Apparently it IS rocket science, as at least 2-3 games have made various attempts that mostly sucked.  The probability of being able to pin the blame on one or two worthless developers or designers seems pretty low.

The ultimate outcome in WoW has been a mostly usable tool, but it would benefit from a few other enhancements:
 - ability to specify what role you're looking for (tank, healer, dps, cc) in some other format than free text. 
 - Being able to look for group and specify what role you fit (for example a resto druid as opposed to feral) would be good on the flipside
 - have an auto join that gives you a profile of the group and a yes/no choice, so you can auto join but not have to say "oh sorry it's FredRetard in this group, I'm not grouping with him" and drop group.

There are probably others, but the tool as it exists now is pretty usable.  That said, the ever popular spamming the trade channel seems to still be at least as popular a method.

I'm not familiar with the FFXI or (current) DAOC tools, or what EQ2 uses.  But it doesn't appear to be an easy problem judging from the number of attempts that failed.

[ajax34i]

I agree with some of what's been said here:

- being a guild leader is a pain and you barely have the time to play the game anymore
- players will remain in the game only as long as their guild exists
- the difficulty with keeping a guild together is a social one and the issues are pretty much the same across all MMOG's

So, make the guild leader's job as painless as possible.  I'm all for calendars, loot distribution tools, some sort of rating system for PVE / raids attended, switching the loot to tokens, etc etc. 

I think that a PVE rating system combined with tokens-for-loot could completely eliminate DKP.  Master looter could auto-send the tokens to the guild NPC vendor, and then members can go buy said tokens from the NPC by spending their rating or honor or whatever.  Automated system, and if the GM could set the NPC Vendor's prices, or if the NPC Vendor is some sort of auctioneer...  that's all that would be needed.  All you'd have to do to gear new recruits would be to take a vet team through Kara every so often to stock the vendor with Kara loot badges, and then give each recruit a bunch of free honor so they can go buy the shit, and voila.

As far as calendars and organizers, it's about time that they integrate with existing Internet comms technology.  I understand that there are security issues with inbound communication (letting internet users control in-game stuff), but I would love to see more outbound communication (where, for example, if an event is set up in the in-game calendar, the data is also sent to the guild's registered website, notification emails are sent to all registered members (registering your email is voluntary of course), and also text / IM are sent to pagers, phones, IM addresses, etc etc. (registering these is also voluntary).

The biggest frustration I hear right now from my current guild officers is people signing up and then forgetting to show up.  Officers could page them, but that's just extra work and it could be automated.

Anyway, yes please.

[SnakeCharmer]

Your bias is showing, because of the slant of the discussion here, SC.  However, even non-raiding guilds have social structures and things they'd LIKE to do, but can't in-game because they don't have the tools.  Many of these have already been listed, from event scheduling (for rp fests, gnome-football, OR raids) to distribution of guild resources.

What tools do you really need that you can't don't already?  edit:  Holy shnikies I have no idea what I was saying, but I think this is it:

What tools do you really need that you don't already have? 

Do you really need tools to decide guild officers?  Or who has more pull than the next?  True guild leaders tend to rise to the top automatically.  Self-appointed (or even elected) guild leaders tend to fail in epic fashion.  People are going to follow and give proper respect to whatever leader naturally climbs the ladder.  Does guild email not work for event scheduling, or raids, or gnome bowling?

To me, all these fancy dancy guild tools are the equivalent of ingame VOIP.  There's already means for VOIP (TS and Vent), and they do a better job of it.

#1, the endgame is not really different for everyone. It's shades. You are advancing your character during the endgame through gear upgrades, just as you were from 1-cap. Raids get you the better gear, because you need that for the next tier of raiding beyond. And it's long since been proven that scheduled raids work much better than a bunch of soloers who join a PUG because they realize they've hit a wall.

#2, agreed. But guild management is more than that once you get beyond the personal-friends size. Who's managing the newbies? Who's managing the guild bank (usually someone's alt unless the game has it)? Who handles invites, interviews and recommends drops/retains? Who's scheduling anything, from guild swaps to raids? Who's running the raids? Who's coordinating with the other guilds in the alliance? And so on.

1)  But not everyone raids for their engame.  Unless you count PvP as raiding (arguable, I suppose).  Some craft.  Some aspire to climb the social ladder to be the social king or queen.  Or being an altaholic. 

2)  Why do you need tools beyond guild mail privileges to decide who is managing newbies?  Or scheduling/running raids?  Or PR for guild alliances?  Generally, the most effective people at such tasks rise to that position naturally, and all that is really needed to such is guildwide email privileges.  I'll concede the guild bank is important to a certain degree, but can be worked around with an alt just as effectively, and more securely.

I just don't see the point of trying to reinvent the wheel here.

[Jayce]

Adding on to what Snakecharmer said, I think it's also important to figure out what belongs in code and what parts of running a large guild are just hard and never will be easy, no matter what sorts of in-game doodads you have.

Dealing with drama, taking tells from irate people who encountered your problem child, recruiting, scheduling raids, running raids, designating class leads, and other general leadership stuff doesn't have a software solution.  I agree with a fair amount of what has been said here, but a fair bit of it won't help the underlying problem, which will always be HARD.

[Lightstalker]

...
To me, all these fancy dancy guild tools are the equivalent of ingame VOIP.  There's already means for VOIP (TS and Vent), and they do a better job of it.

There may be a better 3rd party tool out there in the world.  The issue is that the game requires tools it does not provide to participate and endure as a guild.  When guilds become work, players quit.  When addons are required to participate that is just another barrier built into the world, another opportunity to split groups apart or just quit the game entirely.  Since current models place limited resources only available to end-game guilds into the game, entire communities lose out when guilds quit.

Just look at the WoW example for a second.  Even if you aren't interested in raiding at all, there are crafting recipes and resources only available in the end game raids.  If your server has no end-game capable guilds you are at a disadvantage against players; for instance from other servers in your battlegroup in PvP.  If the end game capable guilds on your server fold up shop these resources become unavailable until some other guild can pull it all together.  With an established guild they are more likely to carry over an account of a player with these rare resources even if that player quits playing the game.  In the context of the game, these are important elements and resources, placing the important bits of your game in the hands of 3rd party support isn't a very sound design move.

...
2)  Why do you need tools beyond guild mail privileges to decide who is managing newbies?  Or scheduling/running raids?  Or PR for guild alliances?  Generally, the most effective people at such tasks rise to that position naturally, and all that is really needed to such is guildwide email privileges.  I'll concede the guild bank is important to a certain degree, but can be worked around with an alt just as effectively, and more securely.

I just don't see the point of trying to reinvent the wheel here.

Because these tasks you describe require real-time interaction when tools do not exist.  Real-time interaction basically requires each guild to supply 24-7 customer service to their membership or risk drama spiraling out of control.  That kind of coverage will burn out guild leadership.  A chat channel does not a guild make, the guild leadership is responsible for the ability of the guild's membership to enjoy their time in game - otherwise their guild will fail.  Even if they've ensured that their players can have fun there is no guarantee their hard work will pay off with a long lived guild.

Tools often help portray equity and fairness when dealing with other anonymous people on the internet.  That's really the advantage they provide to the guild leadership as the perception of favoritism is easier to accidentally create than the perception of fairness.  MMORPGs often schedule events, e.g. you need 20 people to kill Nefarion, or 40 to kill Naxx.  Coordinating the schedules of that many people without a built in scheduling system is just punishment for playing an incomplete game.  Once players have to start making real-world scheduling decisions based on in game events the game must provide some ability to coordinate that scheduled event across time zones and players.  In outlook I can send a meeting invite, and even check to see when people are available before I schedule my meeting.  In MMOGs the guild leadership picks a night out of the hat and if the right mix of characters is not on-line that event can still fail even if the required number of characters is in attendance.  

Is a request for better guild tools reinventing the wheel?  Given that many guild systems are just a chat channel I think not.  Integrating the lead provided by 3rd party tools is a good start, but certainly not sufficient to support what is an important cog in the customer retention plan for most MMOGs.  


Lum asked a question:

Why does your guild need to constantly recruit? Game system requirements (more troops = more wins)? Why not keep new recruits at a "we don't trust you farther than we can throw you" level and cause new recruits to earn (real life) rep to get promoted to a level where they can have access? In our WoW guild new recruits have to get an officer to mail them anything valuable out of the guild bank and we're an extremely casual guild. I'd think for a larger guild that'd be a requirement.

WoW is in the steady state and has been for a long time.  Player Churn is a non-trivial factor and due to end-game requirements it can make the loss of certain characters much more important than others (even discounting leadership churn).

• Because the main tank discovers Boobs >> WoW.
• Because the players have put in their 3-6 months and need something new.
• Because your guild can't get them the things they so desperately need.
• Because a real job is required.
• Because the Healers have discovered that DPS is less responsibility and more fun.
• Because they always have to sit out of the N character content.

In order to participate in the end-game certain numbers are required.  These are often concurrent numbers, which means if you have short no one gets to do anything and if you have extra you have to find a way to keep the extras logging on so that you'll never run short.  In many PvP oriented games raw numbers provide turn-batteries and ablative manpower.  In limited raids one needs particular characters, group compositions, farmed resources etc.  This means a guild is always on the lookout for newbies or newbies to the circle of trust. Routing resources and trust management through a person makes real-time demands on that person and creates a mountain of paperwork - paperwork that can be challenged by other players building that perception of favoritism.  LotRO has an option in the AH to provide the auction to guild members only, this should be a default option for any guild-banking system.  Anything to streamline loot/resource distribution in a transparent, fair, and hands-off way is a good thing for the guild.  Making these auctions expire is painful for the guild, but probably a concession to the implementation details of the auction system.

Vetting recruits is also a painful process.  There isn't a good way to judge new recruits outside of a dangerous situation, and dangerous situations cost the guild money and resources to screw up.  Requiring a real email address and screenshots of character screens was common in Shadowbane, but easily spoofed (it was really only an idiot trap).  Trust is boolean according to the guild systems in many games, which makes shared resources in a high churn environment a particular burden.

bbcode is hard

[Archimedian]

I just don't see the point of trying to reinvent the wheel here.

First I'll put in a caviat, if the game in question does not suck then these are value adds to most guild leaders.  Anything that reduces the amount of time maintaining and increases the enjoyment factor of those I consider the glue of a guild should increase their subscription time.

From Lums statements it seems people will subscribe when guilded for the life of a guild.  Most guilds usually tend to be cults of personality with a few shouldering the "work" load.  When they get to the point of thinking of it as work it's when guilds usually crumble.  So if game developers can assist (even if it's as simple as hey I don't have to cntrl-v cntrl-c dkp stuff) in reducing the overhead for people who actually maintain these social structures it should in theory ensure that these guilds have a longer life span.  Extrapulating it should mean longer subscriptions.

Does any game need it?  Nope but it sure would be nice to have.  I know established guilds don't want the wheel reinvented but as you get new generation gamers why not just hand them the wheel as opposed to asking them to build their own?

I do see the counter argument that most established guilds wouldn't use these tools because they are already either multi-game or have custom solutions that work for them.  But in reality most are using sites like guild portal to host their stuff and voip integration is simple enough specially if you can truely integrated into your UI (huge value add I would say).

From a business stand point making it difficult for a guild who becomes reliant on your tools to leave your game because the next game doesn't have this stuff I think is also a big bonus to retention.  As to should these be premium services which a game could charge for?  Well I think you could probably do a cost analysis and see benefits relatively easily.

My self as a consumer, once any game maker put them out in good or decent fasion, I'd expect all next gem games to have them by default.  Much like a good UI, once you play a game with a good modable UI, playing a game which has a shitty UI just makes you wonder (I'm looking at you Turbine).

[SnakeCharmer]

You have been critically hit by a giant wall of convoluted text for 12198347 points of catassness

Basically, you just sort of proved that what is the best solution is often the easiest.  

If you have to hold your fellow guildies hands, then you've got the wrong guildies.  They don't need 24/7 guild customer service - they aren't your customers.  What you're describing is essentially micromanagement that reeks of this guy.  Drama is going to happen with or without guild tools because you can't manage people with tools.

And further, you want to talk burnout?  If I, as a guild leader, have to wade through all these toolsets and UI and options, I'm going to say screw this and just solo it.

[waylander]

Why does your guild need to constantly recruit? Game system requirements (more troops = more wins)? Why not keep new recruits at a "we don't trust you farther than we can throw you" level and cause new recruits to earn (real life) rep to get promoted to a level where they can have access? In our WoW guild new recruits have to get an officer to mail them anything valuable out of the guild bank and we're an extremely casual guild. I'd think for a larger guild that'd be a requirement.

I am VERY leery of social tags that follow characters because I have seen similar systems used for abuse in the wider Internet and in an MMO the motivation for grief is increased hundredfold. I will admit to being somewhat hardcore about this opinion (and anonymity requirements in general) and I'm usually the outlier in internal discussions on this.

A guild that plans to stay in a game longer than 4 months and wants to retain a certain amount of actively playing gamers pretty much has to recruit and replace its membership every 6-7 months.  25-30% is pretty common, but there are times when masses of people quit very closely together and a guild has to basically rebuild. When that happens you could end up needing to replace 40-60% of your membership.

In LotD we may slow recruitment at times, but we almost never cease it.  Once you cease recruitment efforts, you tend to lose people, more often than not, who applied and got put on a waiting list.  A guild that ceases to recruit, IMHO, is simply a guild that will usually exit the game when they can't muster the manpower to play rather than rebuild.

Like you, I wouldn't want a system that would be abused and screw people from being able to join a build.  But on the flip side, it is very damaging to keep pulling in people and then seeing them drop after they got purples from "Raid A" and then go to another guild for stuff from "Raid B".  It makes the vets of both guilds not want to go out of their way to help new guildmembers because they figure they'll bolt anyway.  If the new member doesn't get much help from his guild, he'll leave anyway and everyone had their time wasted regardless.

That's why I suggested limiting a rep score assignment to the GM of the guild and maybe the senior most officers.  If they go around tanking people's scores, then they will create a bad perception of their guild.

On the player side maybe their rep could be a total score based on the GM point assignment + longeivity in the guild. I'd probably just keep it simple so that the player ended up with a A, B, C, D, or F rating.  Maybe the rating could gradually reset over time too so the player isn't permanently scarred.  But hopping from guild to guild to guild is a real problem, and there is virtually no way to screen for it.

[DarkSign]

I don't think either the system for getting to see one's past guilds or the rep system are bad at all. If you're not the sum of your experiences then who are you?
In the end, the tool is only as bad or as good as the person making the decision. If you apply to a guild and they wont join you just based on your history, are those the kind of people you want to play with anyway?  It's a tool that can be misused, but that doesnt mean the tool itself is bad. Used correctly it would be just one criteria or point of information for induction.

And what's our hierarchy of needs here anyway? I'd put guild needs over individual player ias regards some issues - this is one. If stability and longevity are really as important as they're made out to be in this thread, why let a few individuals who get unfairly treated outweigh the greater good for the entire population?

You know what will happen...getting a bad rep will be one of those things that turns into a badge of honor. The Rolling30s or C$O's of the world WONT let people in unless they have a bad rep.

[waylander]

Yeah there's not a lot of player privacy anymore. Many reputable guilds require applicants to submit a screenshot of their character screens that show all their characters.  In some games you can see right there if someone has a different guild affiliation.

As other said, you can't build tools to substitute for people skills. If you don't have them, then you shouldn't be running a guild or be surprised if if fails in an epic cloud of drama.

But we can all see the external tools guilds are having to design on their own to manage their organization for a particular game so just giving us a cloak, a tag, and a chat channel doesn't cut it anymore. There have been a lot of good suggestions and comments thus far.  I'm glad Lum decided to participate in the discussion, but find it odd that none of the other regular devs that haunt F13 have said anything considering guilds are big parts of their games.

[Rendakor]

The problem with your rep system waylander is that it's easily exploitable. Creating a guild is free and easy in most games. So if someone trashes your rep because you're a ninjalooting guild hopper, just make a few guilds real quick and bump your own rep up.

[DarkSign]

Ok, so require that it has to be upped by someone other than you, that the guild has to be X days old as well. Heck, even make it so that the same officer cant give you more than X rep points within so many days. There are ways to fix that exploit.

[waylander]

The problem with your rep system waylander is that it's easily exploitable. Creating a guild is free and easy in most games. So if someone trashes your rep because you're a ninjalooting guild hopper, just make a few guilds real quick and bump your own rep up.

Yeah you're right. I forgot its easy to make 2 man guilds in a lot of games these days.

Anyone have any other ideas?

[SnakeCharmer]

Not worry so much about a person's previous reputation that may or may not be deserved.  Generally, I think, that if someone really is a thieving, cantankerous twat their reputation will procede them and you'll know what you're getting into ahead of time.

Outside of that, put them on a probationary status within the guild for x days, etc etc etc.

[DarkSign]

Not worry so much about a person's previous reputation that may or may not be deserved.  Generally, I think, that if someone really is a thieving, cantankerous twat their reputation will procede them and you'll know what you're getting into ahead of time.

Outside of that, put them on a probationary status within the guild for x days, etc etc etc.

You must travel in smaller circles than I do. Often you have to put in a lot of time to know how your guildmates act if you're joining a new guild. Conversely if someone new is joining you you'd have to run into them and their friends many times and drama would have to occur. Oddly, its usually your friends that you can call on their bullshit...not your acquaintances.

[Tmon]

I wonder how long it would take for someone to set up a pay service to rehabilitate a person's rep?

[Mrbloodworth]

I wonder how long it would take for someone to set up a pay service to rehabilitate a person's rep?

How much you got?

Cuse ill say what ever you want me to if the price is right, shit, ill do it if the price is wrong, as long as there is a price.

[DarkSign]

I wonder how long it would take for someone to set up a pay service to rehabilitate a person's rep?

If you set up controls, they couldn't. As I said previously...set it so that the guild has to be X days old to give reputation changes. Set it so that a particular officer can only give a person a rep change once a week, once a month, etc. I'm sure someone more intelligent could think up even more than that ;)

[Tmon]

It would be a nice sideline for RMT folks, have your farmers  join the guilds you create and start charging.  Farmer guilds would find cycling people through officer slots to give rewards a heck of a lot easier than the real guilds would.  I'm sure that given time and resources the devs would come up with a system that was hard to game but all that would do is raise the price and while they are fixing the holes in the rep system they aren't fixing other bugs.