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

[Venkman]

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.
...
Drama is going to happen with or without guild tools because you can't manage people with tools.

You're absolutely right in that guild drama is going to happen with or without tools (or because people are being tools). This isn't an attempt to solve personality issues. It's just to make the officer's jobs easier.

People do rise to these positions naturally, but they don't stay there forever. How long they stay depends on many factors, including the tools afforded them. But it's not just about people management. It's also about activity coordination. The more activities beyond solo grinding kill/collect quests, the more people can do their own thing and feel like they're contributing. And the better the tools the officers have inform and coordinate, the more likely they'll do so. It doesn't stop with GEM and Guild Banks. It starts there.

All of this happens already, through extra-game tools. That's messy for gamers. But that's not a good enough reason by itself for developers and publishers.

So how about the lost revenue opportunities?

Extra-game tools are eyeballs not on the game nor likely on the game publisher's websites. It's why SOE has tried so hard to internalize everything the player might want to do in a game into their system of games and web portals. More eyeballs for more stickiness for more ads and upsale opportunity. Otherwise it's other people leaching from your success (ie, Thott, Allakhazam, etc).

Doesn't matter to 40%-margin Blizzard (could they spent maybe 3% of that for patch hosting?!). But it's also something someone else is using as an advantage (EQ2 and :NDA: come to mind).

[SnakeCharmer]

So how about the lost revenue opportunities?

The way I'm reading you is that you see more of your AAA developers and publishers becoming (essentially) a Wal Mart of themselves? 

Basically, the sales pitch would be:
Your own guild forum server hosting?  You got it!
Need VOIP server hosting?  You got it!!
Every MMO under our roof available via one launcher?  You got it!!!

Sign up today for Station.com and get all of the above, plus exclusive podcasts, interviews, and more!!!!

Station.com....We've got your game!!!!!


As for the rest (guild tools)?  I don't know.  I just think it's fluff.  I'd rather devs spent more time coming up with cool game mechanics, interesting storylines, and whatnot than that.  Right now, the standard guild tools are fine.  Sure I'll admit - all of the above Wal Mart stuff are effectively cleverly disguised guild tools: get your guild on your SOE sponsored forums, using SOE sponsored VOIP, and having your guild automatically built into every MMO available via the station.com launchpad.

[Venkman]

This isn't about shifting focus away from content. Awesome guild tools in a game nobody plays is not a win But when you are successful and can buy a new car every 20 minutes for every one of your employees, well, yea, then you start looking at what can be improved.

Yes, I see more AAA developers and publishers pumping out microtrans features. There's this idea that people who make MMOs at a company and people who make web pages for that MMO at that company should be separated. That's old-school thinking.

Every single metagame site and addon out there proves there is a good percentage of players who do take the game beyond the game session itself. None of them would be needed if the current guild tools were "fine". Could you imagine any viable guild existing even without, say, forums? Or email? Or IM? Or (in some cases) VoIP? WoWWebstats? What about EQAtlas of old? These are all out of game tools, filling the need the game does not. That has advanced to services that make money from offering such things, so there's money to be made.

Yea, some of the stuff listed here is a nice-to-have rather than a requirement. But again, it's only nice-to-have because we already have it, in some other form, from someone else.

[Jayce]

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 ;)

The real risk here is that someone more intelligent would think up a way around anything you come up with :)

[DarkSign]

Show me a game without exploits and I'll show you ...wait, find one first.

[Jayce]

That's my point.   You said "If you did X, they couldn't Y".  That sentence has been said many times before, and the result is always woe.

[Venkman]

Generally that just starts the discussion though. You don't not progress down a path because of how it may eventually be exploited. You understand it'll happen and either make the experiene better because of the exploitation, or find ways to keep it from happening.

[Dren]

There has been a lot said here, too much for me to comment on in a worthwhile way.  So, I'll just add my own emphasis on what is important.

Guilds are what give players reason to keep subscriptions long after the "charm' has gone away.  MMO's have a limited amount of their own content.  When that is gone, it is the people that keep you around.  I've only quit MMOs because either I never grew attached to anyone (2 months or less -->AO, SWG, EQ, GW, DDO, LoTRO) or the guild I was in crumbled (UO, SB.)  I'm currently in WoW since launch and the only thing that has kept me is the guild I'm in.  I played UO for 7 years only because of the guild I led.  SB only got 6 months from me, but it was only due to the guild I was in, which happened to be the same people from UO.  Otherwise, I wouldn't have made it past 1 month.

Think back as a player.  When have you ever played a MMO and thought to yourself, "I could play this solo without a guild for a year."  You can play them for a few months like that, but a year?  Years?

By far, guilds are what devs should be looking at to keep their player churn low and steady.  Anything they can do to make guilds work better is worth their time.  Spending all of your time on mechanics, art, story, etc. is well and good, but if you ignore guild tools/development all that will be wasted on the players within a few months.

One idea I would like to comment on:  Anything you provide outside of the game will only help a select few in the guild.  I've found that getting players to participate in website, forums, voice servers, etc. are fought tooth and nail.  Players, in general, want to spend their free time in-game, not on websites and servers.  They will pour all the time they have in the game, and anything outside of that is taboo.

Make the voice and forum features in the game.  The forums can be link directly to their UI's.  If they want to know the topic of the day/week and discussions surrounding it, just go there while waiting on the boat or in-flight to that next destination.  All guild information/rules/etc. can be posted and read.

[Aez]

I am all for a guild metagame/endgame/extra coding/extra feature investment.  Balance it with solo content and feature.

Ex : mercenary contract, head hunting, stealing, mapping.

That way you please the Socializer, the Killer and the Explorer.

[waylander]

There has been a lot said here, too much for me to comment on in a worthwhile way.  So, I'll just add my own emphasis on what is important.

Guilds are what give players reason to keep subscriptions long after the "charm' has gone away.  MMO's have a limited amount of their own content.  When that is gone, it is the people that keep you around.  I've only quit MMOs because either I never grew attached to anyone (2 months or less -->AO, SWG, EQ, GW, DDO, LoTRO) or the guild I was in crumbled (UO, SB.)  I'm currently in WoW since launch and the only thing that has kept me is the guild I'm in.  I played UO for 7 years only because of the guild I led.  SB only got 6 months from me, but it was only due to the guild I was in, which happened to be the same people from UO.  Otherwise, I wouldn't have made it past 1 month.

Think back as a player.  When have you ever played a MMO and thought to yourself, "I could play this solo without a guild for a year."  You can play them for a few months like that, but a year?  Years?

By far, guilds are what devs should be looking at to keep their player churn low and steady.  Anything they can do to make guilds work better is worth their time.  Spending all of your time on mechanics, art, story, etc. is well and good, but if you ignore guild tools/development all that will be wasted on the players within a few months.

One idea I would like to comment on:  Anything you provide outside of the game will only help a select few in the guild.  I've found that getting players to participate in website, forums, voice servers, etc. are fought tooth and nail.  Players, in general, want to spend their free time in-game, not on websites and servers.  They will pour all the time they have in the game, and anything outside of that is taboo.

Make the voice and forum features in the game.  The forums can be link directly to their UI's.  If they want to know the topic of the day/week and discussions surrounding it, just go there while waiting on the boat or in-flight to that next destination.  All guild information/rules/etc. can be posted and read.

Yeah I think Dren provided a good short summary of why a lot of people hang around in games and its because of their guild.  The easier the guild is to run, manage, and help its members the longer it stays in a game.

I guess the question is why more development isn't going into making the guild unit more viable in today's games.

[Venkman]

Because it's still hard enough to make good content that retains individual players. Case in point is EQ2, which as mentioned in this thread has fantastic guild tools and a guild metagame. But that did not make up for the other nonsense that was in the game at launch. And at this point it doesn't make it different enough from WoW to jump ship to yet another DIKU.

So if you're deciding between spending time on content and stability or good guild management tools, you go the former, knowing that the viable guilds already do their own management through extra-game tools anyway.

[Dren]

As I've said you still HAVE to have the base game solid before even thinking about the guild aspect or everything is moot.  However, guild tools and enhancements CAN be patched in.  Basic gameplay and polish CANNOT.

The game has to first capture and attract players.  The guild functionality is there to retain. 

The emphasis on guild systems during original development should at least be enough to be functional, but built in a way that allows expansion and enhancement on good ideas at a later date.  Also, as others have noted, it could be put into the game in the form of buy-up features too.

If maintaining the higher end tools is more costly, then pass the cost along to the customer with some additional profit.  Tons of people would do it if it added to their pleasure of the game.  That also helps with the opinion that the tools aren't necessary.  If you feel that way, then don't upgrade.  Use the standard offering.

I'm always a proponent of making any tools/automations optional.  Allow the game to be as simple as your LCD, yet allow for the game to be as complex as your most rapid fanboi wants to be.  By the very least, make the game dynamics tranparent and available to all (see DKP idea below.)  There is a balance that has to be maintained between transparency and character anonymity, but I think it can be reached.  Seriously, a player gives up some of their privacy concerns when joining a guild.  There has to be a fundemental trust built while in a guild and it has to be built quickly.  Allowing a glimpse into what a character is about helps in that process.


**More mental masturbation below***
Take the DKP ideas for example.  Sure put some of those ideas in, but make them completely optional.  My feeling is that just allowing players to access data about characters and their contriubtions/rewards from each instance is enough.  I mean, if I could look up my character and see that I spent X hours in Karazhan and have received "Big Gun," "Big Sword","Shiny Helm," ect. that would be enough for my guild.  Maybe make it even easier by designating a point system to each item based its item level so it can all be added up.  Then you'd have a reward/effort ratio that could be quickly understood as above or below what you'd expect.  You'd be able to quickly see who rushed in and got their rewards and now are sitting and sniping at chances rather than helping the group as a whole progress.

All of this can be used as a spur of the moment decision on awards during the raid, or used during guild leadership meetings on participation during raids.  Since everyone can access this information, there would be no cries of "unfair," or bias.  Open and honest has always been my motto concerning guilds, build a system with that in mind.