Support your local guild leader

Guilds can be the lifeblood of an MMO - so why don’t they get much support from developers?

Running a sizable guild is a full time job (as Constance explained in her Commwork presentation (which also includes a Cognitive Science 101)). There are events to organise, assets to mange, web sites to maintain, egos to sooth… And guilds do a _lot_ for an MMO: they can drive narrative, provide induction for n00b’s, give the space a depth of social structure that you just don’t get out of the box etc.

Given the importance of their function guild leaders seem poorly served. Developers could provide all kinds of tools and support, but they don’t – why?

Well I can think of three reasons:

1) Is there a real ROI? Guilds create this stuff anyway so why take time away from coding the core game to add these kind of bells and whistles.

2) Being a guild leader, creating the tools, putting in the graft – it’s all a meta-game, so why spoil the fun?

3) Guild leaders are a self selecting bunch - the fact that it takes effort means that only the determined get to run big guilds, but only the determined should run big guilds, making it easier might just reduce the stability of the guild structure.

Comments

[DivineShadow]

1.

"1) Is there a real ROI? Guilds create this stuff anyway so why take time away from coding the core game to add these kind of bells and whistles. "

Yes there is an ROI. A hard-to-measure one in most games (measured in terms of community). Now if someone were to, say, take me up on my suggestion here: http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2004/05/the_dam_breaks.html and sell the guild-creation capability, then the ROI would be in plain sight.

[greglas]

2.

Just fwiw, I thought I'd note that Cory Doctorow of the popular BoingBoing blog categorized Constance's PowerPoint slides as "positively mind-blowing". Link.

[ren]

3.

>categorized Constance's PowerPoint slides as "positively mind-blowing".

... and positively mind expanding if you were there.

[greglas]

4.

We must scrupulously observe the mind blowing/expanding distinction, Ren, musn't we?

[Chek Yang Foo]

5.

In my opinion, how much work is involved (and whether the game becomes fun anymore) depends on the kind of guild you're setting up. I was, coincidentally, talking about in the context of virtual communities to a group of students last week, and running off my mind again, some of the kinds of 'new' guilds could be:

a) A high level or ‘uber’ guild
b) A factional based guild (e.g. Imperial vs. Rebels)
c) A player-killer or griefers’ guild
d) A player-justice guild (to actively counter the griefers)
e) A ‘role-playing’ guild

and more social reasons etc. The loose, purely social kind of guilds seem to be the easiest to run, since often you leave the members to fragment into smaller groups and interact on their own.

One guild I setup was at EQ in May 1999 and it was about the role-playing sort. At its height, the amount of managerial work I had to do was overwhelming, even though I had a "day manager" to assist me. So much so that of 8 hours a day I could be in the game, nearly all of that time could be spent arranging guild events, interviewing new candidates for admission, speaking to my middle-level managers to get their input on these candidates, resolving member to member bickering (usually over event loot), and maintaining inter-guild relations. It was not surprising that within months, the fellows in my guild had far overtaken my avatar's level.

Hence, it's interesting you brought up this topic, Ren - because both my co-manager and myself felt strongly that our time in EQ was no longer fun, but honestly, more like work.:)

CY

[ren]

6.

greglas > We must scrupulously observe the mind blowing/expanding distinction, Ren, musn't we?

At all times!

My point was that Constance did a great job making some fairly abstract theory seem clear and tottaly relavant to MMOs.

[greglas]

7.

ren> Constance did a great job making some fairly abstract theory seem clear and tottaly relavant to MMOs.

Oh, I'm sure she did -- I was just playing with the words! The PP slides are great & I hope to catch one of Constance's presentations some day.

[kelly]

8.

It is commonly agreed that guilds are the lifeblood of MMO's. The time invested in managing the goals of so many others can take away from the 'fun' element of gameplay for those steering that content for their members. While my experience has shown that many who chose the role to lead have found it 'fun' - I have also seen many a' good guild crumble do to the 'work' involved.

In terms of content management, there continues to be a solid line that seperates what the game is and what the game becomes for the players.

That being said, the industry has made some efforts to help guilds in the managerial sense.

EverQuest and Horizons have guild management tools built into its interface, as does Lineage with their clan system. This organizational tool allows guild/clan leaders to post members information, levels, skills and many other pieces of important information - even raid schedules and links for out of game use. Prior to these in-game tools, most guilds kept track of their activities on message boards, excel spreadsheets etc.

These tools help take SOME of the 'work' out of the 'playing' of the game, and at least is a step in the right direction.

[Edward Castronova]

9.

Seems to me that there's a design opportunity - how do you set things up so people self-organize? interfaces and tools are important, but what about incentive schemes. a subway system requires lots of organization, and it has leaders - they drive the trains - yet nobody has to tell anybody what to do.

[kelly]

10.

>Seems to me that there's a design opportunity - how do you set things up so people self-organize?

Isn't the gameplay design of raids, epic adventures etc implicit in its intent of requiring some level of self-organization? The incentives are the rewards doled out by the challenge which is only possible through cooperation.

Although it could be argued that the adventures could be had by random groups of people, it is unlikely to be able to control the 60 people necessary for the raid without some form of self-imposed hiearchy such as a guild...

[Alan Stern]

11.

One of my favorite things about DAOC was the alliance system. A group of guilds would come together and form an alliance. The alliance leader was (assumably) one of the guild leaders of the leading/forming guild. In DAOC, there was a whole chat window for alliance talk. Some management issues were structured around the chat interface such as who gets to speak over the alliance channel. The DAOC alliance I remember had requirements along the lines of level 25/30 to listen, level 40 to speak. Thus, you didn't have 'newbies' or low levels or recent recruits spamming the channel. In an ironic twist, while the policy came from on-high, the implementation of it was handled on the individual guild level by rank privileges.

The greatest thing about the alliance structure was that you no longer needed a large guild. A small guild could provide you with some of the similar benefits (i.e. access to crafters, reduced prices, trading and banking of items, group outings and trips, etc.) if the small guild were part of a big alliance. My DAOC guild was medium-sized (varying from ~50 to 100 members) but provided access to *many* events and hunting parties, largely due to the organization and planning of fellow guilds in the alliance.

This system offers a way of socializing some of the costs and expenses of running a guild. If each guild in the alliance were assigned a week and told to organize x hunting trips or crafter-gatherings or such, then by rotating through the guilds no one guild would be overly burdened. I hope more MMOGs make use of similar systems to offer alternatives beyond the single-guild structure.

[magicback]

12.

I think guilds are getting sufficient support from developers in general. Nevertheless, with bug fixes having higher priorty over new guild features, the perception may differ.

Also, tools and incentives do not help much with most difficult aspect of guild management: managing and mediating personalities. So, do we need a tutorial on managing people and guilds?

Another factor is that the VW design prefers smaller groups to larger guilds and the expansion schedules reflect this design decision.

My last factor is the notion that supporting guilds is as much work as managing guild. Developers should get their basic game right first. Guild leaders already get lots of "soft-dollar" benefits for being able to influence the migration of the guild to different VWs.

Frank

[Doccus]

13.

More guild support definitely influences the purchasing decisions of our guild (www.the-legion.com). We've been together (some of us) for over eight years, through many different games. The games that had better guild support are ones that we gravitated towards ... well, that and PvP :) The games in which we fully support usually garner most active players, with 1-3 accounts per player. That can work out to well over 150 accounts, just from one guild.

As for the comment above:

"c) A player-killer or griefers’ guild"

Player killing is not griefing in a PvP game. Griefing is the act of hunting people of vastly lower levels (no challenge, no fun), waiting on spawn or translocation points (no challenge, no fun), or other cowardly actions meant to actively hurt other people's gaming experience.

Player killing is the act of killing other players. If you don't like that, by all means don't play a PvP enabled game :)

Sorry, just one of my hot buttons.

As long as we're discussing ways in which guilds can be supported, most of the MMORPG developers could (and should) do a better job. You may never know if the ROI is greater if you don't do the work. If more people are involved in guilds, and those guilds are supported well in-game, will that lead to more retention? I tend to think so. Being in a guild is akin to always having friends online; always having something to do and people to adventure with. It helps to keep people (me, at least) from getting bored with a game's content or levelling treadmill.

I partially agree with the comment "I think guilds are getting sufficient support from developers in general." made above. However, there are many avenues of guild management that are not explored by many MMORPGs touting their "community building" appeal. A community is not just a chat channel, nor is it just the ability to see other people online. It's nice things like a decaying list of when folks visited, the ability to declare the enmity (or lack thereof) between guilds and display it graphically, ownership of in-game real estate, and many other facets that build a stronger connection between a group of people.

D

[Staarkhand]

14.

For many players, both "serious" and social, guilds have become the largest factor in determining enjoyment and longevity in MMOs. I can't imagine developers not doing everything they could to support guild leaders.

Tools to help guild leaders seem to be difficult to concieve (usefulness, balance, ease of use, discourage vs encourage time spent on administrivia) and easy to code. I'd be interested to see what guild leaders think they need based on past experience, i.e. let them do the development. Then your ROI should be very positive.

No comment on (2).

(3) is an interesting point. I don't like "leadership" as a play-defining skill or class, which doesn't allow for natural leaders to discover themselves. Why should I wait for a "level 10 group leader" to log on, leadership is about stepping into situations, etc. I say leave leader controls/abilities for everyone, which encourages a more organic and effective leadership development.

As far as the "leadership should be hard" sort of social darwinism, I say a great leader will be better than a mediocre leader regardless of the effectiveness of their tools. Or even more so given more options to realize their leadership vision.

[weasel]

15.

I'm not of the guilding type, so I have to ask: what tools do guilds really need beyond what current games offer? (DAoC/WoW/EQ/etc)

For me, the more interesting thread is along Mr Castronova's line of questioning. How do we make the core design encourage natural organization, such that the fun and richness that guild experiences provide are a part of the default experience for every player? That's certainly a challenge to wrap your mind's design around. (slightly more interesting to me than building a better guild roster system)

I think a 'haunted hayride' analogy is perhaps more appropriate than a subway though. The 'guild leader'/'subway conductor' would be the driver on the hayride -- having the means the drive and the knowledge to facilitate a fun excursion into the woods.

I would think that organizing a hayride would have to be a complete game unto itself, such that the driver's fun doesn't hinge entirely upon waiting for riders. As such I believe it requires an abstraction of playstyle - being the guide of the experience should be a game unto itself, not simply a metagame activity.

Similarly the early adopters for the hayride must have other preparatory tasks they can be assigned to perform, while everyone waits for a critical mass of riders to arrive.

Definitely a fun train of thought for the evening commute. (though I will be certain to check out the presentation in question as well)

[B. Smith]

16.

Has anyone ever considered designing two different types of playstyle options for a game?

For example, you could offer a new player the option of being either an "adventurer" OR a "player-GM".

The adventurers would go around seeking monsters to slay and damsels to save, while the player-GM's would be provided with the tools to expedite the organizing of events, guild administration, etc.

I don't know if this would work, but is it possible that this might allow those who have the temperament to enjoy organizing things to do what they really enjoy, without forcing them to choose between letting their main character "fall behind" on the level treadmill/status ladder?

Just a weird thought. But I have found that some people actually seem to enjoy planning and preparing things more than doing them. And some other people prefer to be surprised and simply react to the world around them as it changes in unexpected ways.

[Staarkhand]

17.

Actually that's exactly what I was saying I think is a bad idea. It disallows emergent or situational leadership, and many players see it as a penalty for wanting to run a guild. Guild leader "bots" or "mules" are teh suck.

Aside, a game like NWN can pull it off because of the low investment cost in characters relative to classic MMOGs as we know them.

Give the tools to everyone and let the required time, effort, organization, and natural leadership ability (as in charisma that isn't given by a number) be the deliniating factors. The high time requirement alone gives the effect of there being "leader" and "player" types, without the pigeon-holing brought on by a leadership class, i.e. whenever possible empower instead of limit.

[Abalieno]

18.

*How do we make the core design encourage natural organization?*

With a gameplay that takes more into consideration the "massive" aspect of these games. The players gather and cooperate when the game provide reasons to do so. I believe that this also add a whole new dimension to the game.

And this dimension has been surely understimated till now. Completely in my opinion.

-HRose / Abalieno
http://www.cesspit.net/

[Gor'bladz]

19.

Many current games have a lot of content specifically designed for guilds. You aren’t going to solo a keep on the frontier of DAoC. You are not going to complete an Epic Quest in EQ by relying on chance invites into pickup groups. But while guild design and tools have become progressively better, they have definitely lagged behind other advances in game designs.

I’ll give a short list of some of the guild features that you hear requested whenever the topic comes up. Not all games need all these features. The design of the game and the game’s content certainly influences what guild tools are needed.

- Ability to form guilds of large (unlimited) size.
- Flexibility in delegating guild administrative functions to a group of leaders, as opposed to investing all guild administration powers in a single guildleader character.
- Ability to invite, dismiss, promote, and otherwise manage membership without requiring the member to be online or present.
- Offline tools to allow guild administrators to manage membership and guild assets from a web interface, or something similar.
- Tools to allow guild administrators to track certain aspects of the members of the guild, such as location, level, wealth, activity, faction, etc.
- Convenient and obvious methods to visually identify guild membership, such as uniforms, colored clothes and armor, insignia, and banners.
- Guild supported ownership of assets, such as housing, guild treasury, and guild storage, as well as mechanisms to manage those assets.

I could go on and on. Basically, if you can imagine a tool, some guild somewhere could use it, and probably wants it right now. I honestly can’t see any sort of downside to providing tools to the players for use in organization and management.

The degree to which different games support guilds varies greatly. One extreme is probably DAoC, which meets a good many of the criteria I’ve listed above. On the other extreme you could list UO, whose sole guild management tool has literally been broken and only half functional for over 3 years.

Guilds are certainly not for everyone, and most games should not be entirely designed to cater solely to guilds. But guilds are very important for establishing a rich, stable, and colorful culture to game communities. Even if you aren’t in a guild, the success and stability of the guilds within the game provide an enjoyable backdrop and context from which to participate. It is only the rare and exceptional individual that can achieve any sort of large-scale recognition in these games. Thus, the role of well-known hero or villain is a lot easier to attain as guilds. Anything games can do to facilitate such guilds organizing and running smoothly is good in my opinion.

[Staarkhand]

20.

DAoC is indeed a great example - but one player can take low-level keeps. Just for the record. :)

Along the lines of what you were saying, the most needed tools are the ones that account for the fact that guilds are made up of people with diverse schedules and varying levels of participation.

Guild leaders should be able to:
Set system messages to announce, promote, and remind about events
Assign events to players' events calendar (if they accept, Outlook style)
Communicate with/manage players who are offline (in-game email and ability to manage offline accounts)

Just to name a few.

[magicback]

21.

The features listed by Gor'bladz and Staarkhand are great, but which one would you priority over fixing or enhancing basic game design and gameplay?

Frank

[Staarkhand]

22.

I'll call that a false dichotomy.

Sure it's icing on the cake, but in today's crowded market it is exactly the sort of thing that will keep players happily paying fees instead of getting annoyed/burned-out and moving on.

[Gor'bladz]

23.

You question doesn't make sense. Those features, and guild tools in general, ARE basic game design and gameplay.

Whenever any feature or design in a game gets discussed, invariably someone pops up and says "Yeah, that's all well and good, but what is the point wasting time on those features when the game developers could be spending time on X (bugs, new content, class balance, etc)?"

That argument isn't convincing. There is ALWAYS something more important to work on. Bugs always exist. Balance always needs tweaking. New content is always desired. There are some features in a game that are just never going to find themselves #1 on the priority list. But that doesn't mean that you can just ignore them forever. You can't allow some portions of the game to deteriorate or atrophy simply because they aren't the #1 most desired or complained about item.

UO is a perfect example of this mindset. Guild tools in UO have been broken practically from the moment they were patched in. UO knows this, they want to fix it, and they admit it is hurting the game. But they can never manage to get it bumped up to the top of the priority list. There is always necromancy, gold dupes, PvP balance, new skills, the next expansion, housing, and a litany of other things that players are screaming that they want fixed RIGHT NOW. So guild fixes are always promised soon. Next patch. Right after the expansion. Maybe.

[Abalieno]

24.

On a side note I'm imagining the design of my "dream mmorpg" based on the Stormbringer setting by Michael Moorcock and yesterday I wrote down a complete guild system that revolves around a factional PvP.

In this case the organization of the players is the major focus of the game. The whole world (idea hinted and developed from Dave Rickey's design) is completely open to factional PvP and guilds have a major and concrete role in the land. You don't have NPC faked cities but just a territory that guilds and houses can manage.

I tried to imagine a system where a guild not only works to bind the players in strong groups but also give them a concrete, real purpose in the game world. Everything in this game world is designed as a tool and not just as a static element like a background.

I think that these system could really develop interesting solutions becuase we go over a model where the gameplay is always faked and the real, dynamic elements are restricted simply to a power-grind related to your character.

I pasted the guild system reasoning here:
http://www.cesspit.net/foolies/archives/2004-05/guild_system.html

But it's tied to a factional PvP rule system that, more or less, I've hinted here:
http://www.corpnews.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=484

Sorry to take place with something noone could care about :)

[Young Freud]

25.

One of the features I would like to see in a MMORPG is hierarchial guilds, i.e. a guild contains the leaders of other guilds, who can fill out the lower ranks or invite other guild leaders of low ranking guilds. Your basic guild will still be the same, but it's leader can be a member of another, higher ranking guild, which in that guild's leader could belong to another high level guild, etc., until it gets to GMs or is left alone to the players.

This would allow for much of the dispersal of administrative workload from one guild leader to many while also allowing for a large organizational structure like a military, corporate or government bureacracy (or other structures, like resistance networks or terrorist cells) to form and for characters to play in. Missions and material can be given from higher guilds to down the chain of command, there could be political infighting between factions within the meta-guild, and even coup d'etats and revolts within the guild structure.

I'll second Gor'bladz' comment about guild-identifying clothing, armor, insignias and banners. These are real easy fixes to any game. Just set a basic pattern for the clothing (I'd stick to brassards and armbands), insignias and banners and flags, and have the guild leader ONLY upload to the server for moderation and input. Since most of this stuff is a mesh on an existing model, it should be completely easy, although I'm pretty sure I wouldn't know how to code this in.

[magicback]

26.

Gor'bladz,

I buy your arguement that they are essential features for many MMORPGs and if they are going to do it then they better do it right.

I was attempting to separate the extras with the essentials such that the essentials are part of the game and extras could be financed and sold as premium add-ons.

My rationale that if the game's basic gameplay sucks, I'm not going to worry about the super guild functions.

Personally, I think hierarchial guild functions are essential to support larger guilds and other civil institutions. Adding a new level of guild functions to games like DAoC could bring to the next level of gameplay.

Frank

[Abalieno]

27.

Magicback, now tell me how damn a more complex guild system could bring DAoC to the next level. Next level of what?

What you say is more coherent when you point the gameplay as a more concrete value than guild functions, but the point is exactly here.

In a game like DAoC the guild is basically a way to communicate, in many other games guilds are just that. If you don't add a guild-related gameplay an hyper complex guild system is simply worthless.

If you imagine a complex game where the guilds can own part of the terrain, rule villages, manage resources and build alliances, THEN you'll see how much a more complex guild system is needed. HERE a hierarchical guild system can be useful. But because you involve the guild mechanics inside the fabric of the game. A guild becomes a solid entity in the world, both for who is part of the guild and for who is outside and will have to consider who owns the land where he is passing.

A "guild system" isn't an absolute element. We can discuss it properly only if it's placed in a context. I have the preception that everyone here loves to fly around abstract concepts that have no grip on the reality.

[Brask Mumei]

28.

I think the important thing to consider is something *less* than a guild.

Guilds have some serious flaws for describing social networks:
- Exlusivity. You belong to only one guild.
- One Leader. There is one guild leader.

A lot of human relationships are not in that mold. One may have a group of friends which one often engages in LAN parties together. No one leads the group. Membership of the group does not preclude membership in the chess club.

Online games sometimes succeed in building these. The bazarr in EQ where everyone knew to go to do trading is an example. In UO, The Mage Tower was built on this principle. There was a location, and at that location people would meet and do stuff (drinking games, dungeon crawls, etc). Being part of the Mage Tower was not exclusive of being part of other organizations. Leadership of events was emergent (the people who showed up would decide on a course of action) rather than having a fixed hierachy.

This sort of casual-guild, IMHO, is a better setup for casual players. And, I think, better tools could be designed for it.

SWG seems to have the ability to make chat groups, which theoritically means you could setup a chat group for a casual group and organize that way. However, I'v had much pain in setting that up, and does not seem to be persistant across character logins.

There seems to be a strong and artificial division between:
Guilds: Long term, high commitment, larrge size, social groups
Groups: Adhoc, short term, low commitment, small size, social groups.

What about the very large short term groups? Ie: I want to have a treasure hunt open to the public and 100 people show up? What about small long term but low commitment groups? Ie: my fellow merchants in my physical area, who may occasional talk about price fixing, etc? Or large long term, but low commitment, groups such as The Mage Tower?

We need *easy* tools (as in, as easy as grouping to go adventuring) to form persistant named groups. We need to break this many->one relationship of player->guild and change it to many->many to reflect the true nature of human behaviour.

There should be NO "unguilded" players. Currently, I suspect many remain that way as they don't want to commit to a guild. This is because the nature of guild membership means no one wants to have dead weight in their organizational chart. There is a high cost to each member of your guild, so you must make sure you have good members. Conversely, players have only one choice of guild, so demand much from the guild system.

The newbie channel, I think, shows the right thought process. The trick, which may not be posisble, is to have channels like that created in a self-selecting way by the players. The newbie channel should not be a hardcoded exception. It should have spontaneously arose.

- Brask Mumei

[magicback]

29.

Abalieno,

I did not suggest to add "a more complex guild system" to DAoC, but rather suggest that additional guild functions requested by Gor'bladz or yourself could do well for games such as DAoC, wherein large group vs. group gameplay form a large part of the gameplay.

The 'next level' for DAoC is to breakout of the three realm paradigm. How about the ability for players/guilds to create fourth, fifth or six realm? How about tools to support democratic voting process? How about Brask's suggestions? Anything is possible, but what is useful within the context of the game? The jury is still out on this.

Brask,

You are on-spot about tools to support loose associations. I think the need for these tools are currently higher than the need for guild tools.

Frank

[Abalieno]

30.

**The 'next level' for DAoC is to breakout of the three realm paradigm. How about the ability for players/guilds to create fourth, fifth or six realm? How about tools to support democratic voting process? How about Brask's suggestions?**

Yeah, I anticipated you. If you look my first post here you find a link to a guild system I was designing and you can find exactly that. But as I said you need then to give a purpose and a role to this new group. If a guild system isn't related to concrete gameplay we have just "fluff". The guild system comes *after* the gameplay. A good guild system can be designed only around a particular game. That's why I said that we cannot speak about abstact concepts.

Brask, instead speaks about another part. In general what he asks is about an "LFG" (looking for group) tool. Even here the system depends on the gameplay: if you want the players to gather (friends or not) you need a gameplay that focuses on communal objectives (i.e. gaining exp in a certain level range). Then you can have a panel where you set your purpose and search other players around that match your same purpose (DAoC has this).

In World of Warcraft you have public, zone-wide chat channels where you can chat about everything or ask whatever. So I guess that matches perfectly what you want.

My idea when DAoC started to collapse with ToA was about creating in-game boards where you could "publish" raids and so have a single, server-wide way to build events easily.

At the end it's just about accessibility and communication. You need a way to manage the level of "disorder" inside the game. Communications tools like a good "lfg" function, a good guild system or public in-game boards are ways to confine that disorder. It's about the entropy of the system.

-HRose / Abalieno

[magicback]

31.

I agree about accessiblity and communication, and that gameplay comes before required tools.

What I want to emphasize now is whether there is a need to provide something like a tutorial for aspiring guildmasters in the area of people management?

I think tools and assistance in this area is lacking. However, should devs explicitly support this area?

Frank

[Brask Mumei]

32.

"Brask, instead speaks about another part. In general what he asks is about an "LFG" (looking for group) tool."

I disagree. I was *not* talking about some better LFG tool. I was trying to point out that human relationships exist in different forms than Guilds.

It's sort of the converse of your: "You must look at the reasons to group in game to determine what good tools are". I would claim that humans will group even without a reason. Indeed, the whole *REASON* to play an MMORPG is to group with people!

Rather than designing tools to allow grouping in fashions that fit your gameplay, you should allow the users to build the tools to allow grouping in fashions that fit *their* gameplay. [1] I don't think any MMORPG has had players play it the way the developers wanted/expected.

The ability to create *persistant* world wide chat is a good start. Other things that would be useful:
1) Stop the one-person in one-guild craziness. Or, allow users to create "club"s (or SIGs?) that are less than guilds, and allow multiple memberships.
2) Allow each SIG (special interest group) to have its own set of chat channels. Allow it to be public (anyone can sign in), or moderated by one _or more_ people.
3) Make sure these tools scale well with number of users. Ie: is very easy to create adhoc groups for 2-5 people, or permament groups for tens of thousands.

I think it is important to remember that players will group for non-game related reasons. If grouping does lead to stickinesa and better game play (which I think it does), these non-game motivated groups should be encouraged.

- Brask Mumei

[1] I don't suggest that the players start writing C++ or scripting (though more scripting is better, as the players who can will distribute to those who can't), but instead of building your guild tools as on monolitihic entitity, build it out of components which the users can put together.

[Matt Mihaly]

33.

Brask wrote:
>1) Stop the one-person in one-guild craziness. >Or, allow users to create "club"s (or SIGs?) >that are less than guilds, and allow multiple >memberships.

I've never understood this myself. Text MMOs have known not to do this for years. Our games allow up to 15 separate guild memberships in some cases (although we call them clans, they're exactly the same thing as what you mean by guilds.) People use clans for anything from para-military groups to families to special interest groups, etc etc.

>2) Allow each SIG (special interest group) to >have its own set of chat channels. Allow it to >be public (anyone can sign in), or moderated by >one _or more_ people.

This depends on the context I'd say. I know of literally no clan in our games that would wish to allow anyone to sign in. A group of everyone is a meaningless group, particularly as we already have globally-available chat channels.

I also think the trick isn't to just have "a moderator". It's to have various responsibilities that can be arbitrarily assigned to arbitrarily-created ranks. So, for instance, you might decide your clan/guild has 5 different types of ranks, each with 3 levels within that type, and each with a graduated set of responsibilities and powers.

--matt

[magicback]

34.

The tools suggested so far can also be found in Yahoo Groups among others. Other models to look at is Network Administrator tools as the developers will have to effectively give some power and control to clan leaders to provision rights, access, etc.

Organized players use a bunch of third-party tools. But, a simplified portfolio of tools would make it easier for less technical players to network.

Frank

[Doccus]

35.

One of the features I would like to see in a MMORPG is hierarchial guilds, i.e. a guild contains the leaders of other guilds, who can fill out the lower ranks or invite other guild leaders of low ranking guilds.

The game exists, and is called Shadowbane.

D

[1nt3rlect]

36.

ur fucking GAY peple suk my cock u bunch of n00b heads ban me send me to prison im fucked up in the fucking head!!!

p.s. u sucked on ur mums niplets

[foko]

37.

I dunno