Multiple Guilds For Each Character
August 27, 2011 at 7:17 pm | Posted in Guild Wars 2, mmorpg | 33 CommentsTags: Guild Wars 2, MMO, mmorpg
I saw an interview that came out of gamescom where I picked up on the following quote.
It’s a little bit different for Guild Wars 2, you can actually be associated with multiple guilds, you can choose which kind of guild you’re displaying at a particular time, beyond that we really haven’t talked about it.
Maybe I didn’t hype this enough or something, but this is actually a really big change in MMOs. Normally you are straightforwardly attached to one group of people at a time.
At PAX they more publicly announced it at their panel which I watched at Guild Wars 2 Live. The sound quality wasn’t the greatest and I couldn’t hear half of what was said, but they definitely confirmed that each character can decide which guild they want to display at a time and switch between guild chats and other functions as they please.
While the reaction on Twitter was generally positive, when I brought this up a few days ago in alliance chat, a half dozen people rebuked me and said it wasn’t possible, I was mistaken, and even if they did do it, it would be a horrible mistake.
“This is going to hurt guild loyalty” one person was quick to say. “This will screw up Guild Vs Guild” another responded, to which I said “Yeah about gvg….” but that is a whole other can of worms.
So what are the end results of this move, how will this positively or negatively effect Guild Wars 2?
The positive effects are easy to see.
You get far fewer guild hoppers, allowing people to get to know a guild or just associate with the people before making quick judgements about what guild they’re in. The pressure is off, there is no reason to leave, or hesitate to join.
Greater amounts of socialization. Obviously if nobody is on in your current guild, or maybe your time zones don’t always jive with guildies, you can join a guild that does.
Different guilds for different purposes. Maybe you like dungeons, and your guild is great at that. What if you like crafting too, but they don’t craft at all? What if your PvP guild doesn’t mix with your PvE preferences? Boom, join two guilds that fulfill either need.
How about negative effects?
I admit guild loyalty, to an extent, does take a hit. One of the best things about being in an MMO at times is that sense of belonging to a guild. Maybe its because you’ve bonded with your guild as a family, maybe it’s because your guild is prestigious because of their accomplishments, maybe you just belong. It’s ever so slightly harder to achieve that sense of belonging if you’re in a handful of guilds instead of just one.
Drama. I don’t even want to think about the drama this could create. If it’s one thing I know for sure, grown men can turn into 13 year old girls when it comes to protecting the sanctity and dignity of their precious guild. Couple in guild spies, trolls, jealousy, envy, and we may have a problem.
It seems like one argument might be that it is a lot harder to get to know people if you’re in a lot of guilds, instead of just one guild.
Finally, if you’re in multiple guilds, you’ll likely care less about any one of your guilds. If that happens, the quality of the people could become compromised. What happens if you’re in a guild that recruits tons of people, tons of people who don’t care how they act or don’t care who they interact with? What is to keep people in line?
So I certainly don’t think this move is without it’s pitfalls. However I am excited to see how it turns out. Guilds are part of the central infrastructure of MMOs, it’s so fascinating to see Arenanet mess with them. But not just mess with them. Where Rift and SWTOR divide up their player base, and ultimately friends, with factions and communication issues, Guild Wars 2 is thundering along in the opposite direction. No divisions by faction, the ability to easily switch servers, and now we can join multiple guilds on one character.
Let me know if you see any negative or positive aspects in the comments.
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Hi Hunter! Ubi from TT here,
In my opinion the innovations Gw2 is bringing have started a little innovation-addiction for the devs…
I love the idea of increasing socialization, being able to join multiples guilds surely pushes relations all over, we can finally NOT have to forcefully choose!!!
That said I strongly think there should be 2 kinds of memberships, an “active” one, for the main guild, and a “passive” one that allows you to do whatever in any other guild except from something (ie passive members bring points to guild but less than active members and cannot be officers…)
I think that Guild loyalty, membership, and GvG must be the pillars around wich to build the system…think about the guild leaders, the very name of the game…guild wars… Guilds deserve to be strongly addressed, gvg teams (let’s have more than 1 per guild!) Have to be recognise not by a name but by the guild…it’s the aoul of the game.
Abother point: drama
Whoever put some effort in trying to make 100 ppl live in peace knows perfectly how nasty guild drama can be….just think about cross-guilds drama!!!! It’ll be insane!
There has to be a strong separation from the main guild each account has and all the others ” passive” guilds that the same account can also join. For peace sake
Ciao!
Comment by Ubi Maior— August 27, 2011 #
Personally after playing Rift and being divided from people on the same server but different faction, and of course from being separated by guild from people I’ve wanted to get to know better in several games, I’m more intrigued than dismayed by this innovation.
I understand your concerns of course, but I’m more eager to see the results than not.
And you never know, some of your points may be implemented, we’ll have to wait and see what happens with the exact details.
Comment by Hunter— August 27, 2011 #
I like the idea of multiple guilds. Frankly, everything will come out in the wash. Multiple guilds gives people options they didn’t have before. People who are loyal to a guild will likely pick one and stick with it. Other people with varying interests (say PvE vs PvP) can join guilds that are specific to those interests. People can create RP guilds that are as welcoming or specific as possible (e.g., Charr only). No one is forcing people to choose a different guild for each character, but if that’s what you want to do then go for it. I agree that you’ll be less involved with any one guild that way, but if that’s how you want to play then that’s your choice.
The majority of my characters will be in the same guild. I’ll prolly join one guild for RP purposes and perhaps 1-2 more based on what is available. I think a guild with local friends and a guild with international friends is not out of the question depending on when you play. I wouldn’t mind getting a Talk Tyria guild going either
. We could even do a GW2 Blogger guild!
See, lots of options. I’d rather have options than restrictions. Right now I’m part of an open alliance where you can change guilds between alliance members. It’s as close as you can get in GW1 to what is being proposed for GW2 (that is, without having to have multiple accounts).
My 2 cents.
Comment by Belzan— August 27, 2011 #
Thats probably my main reason for being interested in multiple guilds, joining guilds that represent diverse social groups like a gw2 blogger guild, a general mmo blogger guild, a guild with lots of people i knew from the original gw, etc.
Less restrictions, more openness is a good way to describe it.
Comment by Hunter— August 27, 2011 #
I think people are forgetting to look at what he says between the lines.
“…you can choose which kind of guild you’re displaying…”
Now, why does he specifically mention a “kind” of guild, instead of just “which guild you’re…”? To me the answer is quite obvious. The multiple guild feature will limit guild memberships to categories. So, if ANet makes 3 categories, say, social, PvE and PvP, then you can at most be in 3 guilds, one from each category. Not that I expect the guilds to be created under a category, but rather, a person choses to join a guild with the intent to do *category* with the guild.
This would mostly avoid the problem of guild loyalty. Sure, you might PvP a bit with the guys in your social guild, but your main loyalty in PvP will lie with the people of your PvP guild. Of course, some people will probably just go with the intent of doing full-on PvP in all 3 guilds, and then their loyalty might be questionable.
But this is of course complete and utter speculation.
Comment by MMOtte— August 27, 2011 #
Interesting point, though it could just be wording, I’m not sure they’ll implement anything exactly like what you’re suggesting but they may do something similar.
But good catch, it is interesting wording.
Btw you reminded me of a post I made some months ago. http://huntersinsight.com/2011/05/16/different-kinds-of-guilds/
Comment by Hunter— August 27, 2011 #
Haha, I feel like I had a good whine about how we had no Guild information and then suddenly ANet start releasing some just to make me look like a fool! Curse them!
I am a little dubious about this idea though, I can certainly see the advantages. But I do feel like it further waters down the importance of the “Guild” and this, coupled with the death of GvG and fed by the long-standing lack of significance put upon the importance of the original “Guild Wars” in the lore, seems to erode away at the name of the game itself. What is Guild Wars when Guilds cannot go to war?
@Belzan – was thinking the same thing! A GW2 blogger guild, if only to give us somewhere to chat about articles and ideas whilst playing the game we love!
Comment by Distilled— August 27, 2011 #
Even though I completely agree, I have to admit at this point “Guild Wars” is and always has been just a name. Thankfully the siege of keeps and upgrades etc should make for interesting replacements for guild activities right?
Hopefully there is more coming that will alleviate our concerns, truthfully we don’t really know much yet at all.
Comment by Hunter— August 27, 2011 #
True, I said a while back that although the cake may be tasty, some of us are happy licking the batter from the bowl.
Comment by Distilled— August 27, 2011 #
/legal council for Lucifer mode on
There are certain fundamental behaviors that are commonly associated with “social” animals. One of the MOST fundamental of these is the principle behavior of forming groups and assigning a degree of exclusivity to the group that has formed.
)
It is the very nature of a group to exclude those who are not members of the group. However, although this principle is one of the most fundamental and active ones at work in group formation it is not always absolute.
For example;
I was a member of the US military (a very large group but, not as large as the “American citizen” group.) and within the US military group there are sub-groups one of which is the US Navy (to which I belonged.)
The various sub-groups of the US military frequently “act” in a confrontational and competitive manner toward one another (Navy vs Army vs Airforce vs Marines) even to the point of openly hostile actions at times.
Each sub-group prides itself on being superior to the other sub-groups (although obviously the Navy is the best of these sub-groups
However, even within these sub-groups there are further deliniations formed… special forces, battalions or fleets, the unit you are a member of, or what ship you’re assigned to… so, even within the sub-group of the “Navy” there is the sub-sub-group of the guided missile destroyer I served on the longest/last. (Which was quite obviously the most kick-@$$ boat afloat, for many reasons – not the least of which was the fact that I was a FC (Fire Controlman) on board her, and of course it should go without saying that the FCs on that ship were obviously better than the GMs, or ETs, or any of the other rates serving on board.)
The point;
Exclusivity in group formation is sought out by social animals even when it serves no other purpose than increasing the “feeling” of belonging and loyalty among members of the group. In fact, that very well could be it’s primary purpose.
The attitude of “we are better than you guys” is a natural part of being a social animal and member of one or more groups. It has no bearing on relative maturity levels. Even the most mature individual “feels” this… they merely express it in a more mature fashion.
Going only on my own personal experience I can state with conviction that if I saw a group of USN sailors being attacked I would rush to join the fight on their side without having to know anything further about the origins or purpose of the altercation… even if said altercation was vs a group of soldiers from the US Army. By the same token, I would favor each of the ascending hierachies of groups that I was (am) associated with as well. Those same soldiers and sailors wouldn’t hesitate to close ranks and work together vs any “outside” agency that assaulting the US military, and would likewise close ranks with non-military US citizens if another nation attack America.
Loyalty and the sense of “belonging” isn’t a cut and dried, black and white concept when you’re talking about social animals. There are always going to be “clicks” within a group but, those clicks will bond together with great rapidity if anything threatens the overall group.
So… membership in more than one Guild…
First, been there, done that is something that I, and everyone else can already lay claim to. I doubt if it’s possible to grow to maturity as a human being and not have some sense of that already.
The structure set up by ANet will be very important to how this will play out. On that particular point I have no immediate concerns even without knowing exactly the details of what they have planned. At every step of the way so far ANet has strongly favored design concepts that encouraged “positive” social interaction and bonding, and has designed out antagonistic systems and mechanics frequently seen in other MMO genre games. I feel very confident they will do so again in this instance.
For those who said TL;DR
membership in multiple groups is not inherently bad, however, hierarchies inevitably form.
(Man I hate it when I sum up one of my long-winded posts with just one freakin sentence like that!)
Comment by ArcherAvatar— August 28, 2011 #
Lots of people move between guilds often enough that although some people become very loyal to a guild, others do not. I can see how this system might help both parties.
I guess we’ll have to see how things turn out.
Comment by Hunter— August 28, 2011 #
I would like to point out that being able to join multiple guilds has been known about for a long time .. it’s on the gw2wiki ….and is mentioned in this interview from Feb 2010 !!! http://www.incgamers.com/Interviews/250/guild-wars-2-developer-interview/2
Comment by FlyingMonkeyBoy— August 28, 2011 #
There is some info in there like the guild calendar which I’d forgotten so thanks for posting it! However, the interview states that each character can join a different guild, not a single character can join multiple guilds.
Comment by distilled— August 28, 2011 #
As Will has explained, there is a slight difference in detail here, but thanks for the link because I had totally forgotten that calendar detail as well, This is a new detail.
Comment by Hunter— August 28, 2011 #
It’s a great idea, which is strange coming from me. Anything that strays much has generally not been great for me so far.
For me guilds have never worked, they have simply limited the people I can play with rather than helping to expand the game, and its many relationships in the game. It has helped to increase my relationship with a lucky few, but I’ve never understood why it was limited to just a guild. “I have a guild, everyone else I don’t know I can screw over”.
I believe it’s actually a great change in power, which is why some are upset about it. It moves the power from the guild to the individual. I am going to guess that by walking around with a certain guild on your actions go towards that guild at that time. This gives you the power to do something on purpose for a guild, rather than simply just handing stuff over by default. The guild is going to be there for you, rather than you tring to get with the guild. I like it, no default rewards either I hope like in WOW where you feel like you should put up with all the murlocs so you can get your 10% xp boost.
I was thinking of going off the track a bit and saying I hope this means we get to join certain story based guilds, but thats just dreaming/nightmarish?
Comment by Melski— August 28, 2011 #
I am also surprised that even people that have replied to this seem to think that GvG is still coming at some point. It’s not is it? I suppose there might be some sort of competition between them but I am assuming at this stages its just going to be leaderboard type stuff, rather than to the death on a battle ground.
Comment by Melski— August 28, 2011 #
I’m still holding out hope for some form of non competitive guild activity aside from the keep sieges but it doesn’t look like gvg or anything like it is going to happen.
I still think guild leaders have plenty of power, but this certainly equals the playing field.
Comment by Hunter— August 28, 2011 #
I’m actually 100% pleased by the guild information, because my standards coming in weren’t that exacting. ^_^
All I’ve ever hoped for in the guild stakes was being able to have a guild consisting of just me & my brother (who has never & may never joined a guild with anyone but myself), while also being able to be associated with a mature dungeoneering guild for that delicious challenging PvE content.
This system supports that perfectly, so earns a hearty thumbs-up from me.
The only dark cloud on the horizon for me is guild recruitment drives, for 2 reasons:
1] Boundless spam, now it is open season 24/7 regardless of whether players have a guild tag displayed or not.
This shouldn’t be a big deal as I’m not a public channel ticker, but I do foresee some times – such as WvW co-ordination, where I’d like to access broader communications – hard to see them not being swamped by guild ads.
2] The uncomfortably personal recruitment offers e.g. after a successful dungeon run, even with guildies.
A lot like “friend me!” phenomenon, but with guild points people have rather more motivation to ask than they do for simple friend lists.
Hopefully people will get robust pretty fast and be deterred by a simple “no thanks”, but I expect the first weeks could get uncomfortable with folks being wildly enthusiastic about their own personal guild visions.
Comment by Vorsakan— August 28, 2011 #
Hopefully they’ll have a guild recruitment chat that we can opt out of, some games do this.
But you do bring up an interesting point, maybe not everybody wants to join a dozen guilds, so what happens if a casual acquaintance asks you to join their guild but you’re already in a bunch and one more would be too much? How do you say no politely?
I really do want to see how this works out.
Comment by Hunter— August 28, 2011 #
Not sure what happened to my comment
I found some more info on guilds. They talked about them in the big panel. Elixabeth wrote a bit about them on Talk Tyria: http://www.talktyria.net/2011/08/28/gw2pax-day-2/
The panel is up on the Pax thread of GW2guru. They start talking about guilds in the third link. http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/ultimate-pax-thread-2011-t20870.html
There are dev quotes and tweets further down the page as well. Apparently you can join as many guilds as you want and doing stuff with guildies adds to guild influence that functions as currency for all kinds of things including guild upgrades and experience flags that can be dropped in game to provide an AoE XP bonus.
The panel also apparently talks about changes to the trait system. I haven’t listened to the whole thing so I’m going to do that now.
Comment by Belzan— August 28, 2011 #
Yeah i watched the panel live as i said in the post, and some of the things they mentioned were known and some unknown, and some are kind of predictable, like guild xp bonuses.
Oh and your comments disappeared because posting links, particularly more than 1, in a comment is a big flag to aksimet, the wordpress anti-spam software.
Comment by Hunter— August 28, 2011 #
Ah, I’d forgotten about that magical spam filter. That makes sense that it sent my posts to moderation.
Comment by Belzan— August 28, 2011 #
I’ve never understood why games don’t do this. If you want your guild to be unique, just join one guild. If you want to join every guild under the sun, go nuts. Being able to join say, a guild for your hardcore late night PST crew and a guild for your huge zergy love in guild, and a guild for certain skill levels or crafting possession, hell why not. This way you could be a member of a roleplaying society, a crafting guild, a raiding party, and a pvp crew all at once and not worry about people in them not getting along with each other. I really see no downside.
Comment by SlothBear— August 28, 2011 #
I am also surprised nobody has rally tried this in a big way before. And i have to give credit to anet for taking a chance on messing around with a central game mechanic, the guild, that has been little touched over the years.
Comment by Hunter— August 28, 2011 #
Do you join multtiple companies for work? And switch between the two who compete against each other?
n-n-n-n-no.
This plus no GvG, starting to look real crappy and catering to the casual 13 year old.
Not digging this at all. Guild loyalty exist in all genre. Guild hopping is a NO. The whole point is to associate with the clan you want, people you enjoy being with and ect..
Not going OH I WANT TO PVE AND NO ONE WANTS TO SO ILL JUMP TO MY OTHER GUILD, AND THEN ANOTHER.
Sorry, this is awful.
Comment by Awwfull— August 29, 2011 #
Lots of people hold down more than one job. Some people even take on a volunteer job without pay. Your analogy doesn’t really work too well.
Guild Wars caters to the casual player too, or do you not play it? It’s essentially the perfect game for casual players because you can jump in and out and theres tons of content with no sub.
I understand your concerns but I’m excited about the possibilities.
Comment by Hunter— August 29, 2011 #
soooo if you don’t like being in more then one guild…..dont be in more then one guild
Comment by KaleDruitt— August 29, 2011 #
I agree to an extent. The problem is I think people are more concerned about what other people are doing, although I’m sure there will be people who have guild rules that include only belonging to one guild, so maybe they can join one of those guilds.
Comment by Hunter— August 29, 2011 #
I think what will be the sticking point for this “multiple guilds” issue is just HOW many guilds one person can join. If it’s limited to, let’s say, two or three, then the implementation of this will be pretty safe as far as the possible pitfalls go. But now that I think about it, most of these issues will probably solve themselves anyway. If a guild is looking for loyal, active members, they will find them and kick the ones that aren’t, filtering out the casuals and the flakes and finding people who belong there. If a guild is casual and doesn’t care about making a “family” then they will get those like-minded people. It’ll all sort itself out in the end. Search your feelings, public, you know it to be true.
Comment by Nicholas Deathguard— August 29, 2011 #
There is the possibility that this whole thing would regulate itself, and I’m not sure whether the right path would be to limit these types of guilds or completely be unrestricted. I’m sure there are plenty of people at arenanet who’ve brainstormed this more than us.
Comment by Hunter— August 30, 2011 #
Yeah, probably, we would hope so anyway lol. I’m sure they think about the implications that this could lead to, and probably will test this in beta, just to see.
Comment by Nicholas Deathguard— August 30, 2011 #
Seems like a good idea and the benefits definitely outweigh the potential downsides. Plus it is keeping with their idea of a social game.
Couple interesting thoughts though.
- I can imagine some guilds will become the equivalent of facebook groups i.e. someone thinks of a funny name and people join then just forget about it. But that doesn’t really detract from ‘serious’ guild business.
- Also, I wonder if any servers would try to make a server-wide guild. If guilds get rewards from every person doing ‘just about anything’, then if everyone is part of the same guild, everyone would get access to all the rewards quicker.
I’m sure there would be some restrictions to this though.
Comment by Yossarian— August 31, 2011 #
The one big difference will be that you can actually do stuff with your facebook group, if that is what it becomes. It’ll be much easier to stay in touch with guilds I had in the original gw, which is something I’ve been looking forward to.
After having been in large guilds before, trust me when I say a server wide guild will not appeal to most people.
Comment by Hunter— September 1, 2011 #