141 replies to this topic

[Araliun]

Due to popular demand - OP has has removed article.  Have a nice day.  LOL.

Edited by Araliun, 08 July 2012 - 06:15 PM.

[Shock_Treatment]

HOLY KITTEN!

is there a short version?

[Lumm]

Short comment: Given WvWvW there needs to be a maximum size of guilds and alliances (since it is the same number alliances are taken out of the equation) or WvWvW will be dominated by a pure oligopoly on each server. There is still this risk with the caps that ANet is contemplating given that Teamspeak and similar does not have the same limitations - however then there is alot more organization involved.

I have a very hard time seeing that a cap of for example 150 will be a problem for 99.9% of the MMO population so I cannot come to any other conclusion than that you are exaggerating alot.

TL:DR: I do not agree with you.

[Matsumori]

I see where you are coming from but I do have full confidence that Anet will make the guild/social system better. according to recent leaked notes and interviews Anet seems to be on par with adjusting/fixing class issues (and hopefully BWE3 will prove that. I dont see any reason they wouldnt put the same kind of dedication into improving the guild/social system.

I mean, this is GUILD wars...if they keep the system the way it is it will suck and they probably are aware of that.



Plus, I read somewhere after BWE2 that they are still adjusting guild stuff like cap size, so I am positive it is being worked on.

Edit* I think if they bring back the Alliance system from GW1 that would help fix alot of the issues with the guild system. I loved the alliance system

Edited by Matsumori, 08 July 2012 - 03:36 PM.

[Mister_Smiley]

Shock_Treatment, on 08 July 2012 - 03:31 PM, said:

HOLY KITTEN!

is there a short version?

Don't know, something about guilds and how they are two small and hes pretty much saying the way they are put together in GW2 suck and it will cause Gw2 to fail. But it seams people forget that before Factions game, there was no alliance and guilds where single, no alliance and only 100 people, giving that anet has increased the cap already is a improvement and i'm sure we may have no seen everything Anet has to offer to Guilds yet.

Edited by Mister_Smiley, 08 July 2012 - 03:36 PM.

[Dhag]

TL; DR

But, a lot of the things you mentioned do not take months to code, test, polish, optimize.

• Guild Cap Size -  Fix is easy, change the variable in the DB/Code/etc
  
• No Alliance Functionality - May need to wait post launch, or may be part of an internal build
  
• No Alliance Chat - Easy to implement, not much time needed and can easily be done between final BWE and Release
  
• No In-Game Group Communication Features - If your talking Voice/VoIP, TS3 et al are MUCH better.
  
• Limiting "awareness" to the point of almost extinction! - Again, TL;DR so no idea what you mean there.

[FITE]

OK wow thats alot of text. I read the first half and skimmed the rest.

I completely agree with you that there are issues with guild management as you have addressed, but I dont believe that it is "by design" as you say, or that A-Net wont be willing to fix them. If enough people want it, they will change it. Chat groups, alliances etc definitely shouldnt be too dificult to impliment.

Remember in previous games you may have had a much higher cap on guild members, but this was done on a character basis not on unique accounts like in GW2. If the cap is at 300 and each account has say 4 characters each you are straight away looking at 1200 chars in the guild which I would say is more than most games would allow you to have. I highly doubt you have over 300 unique members, if thats the case then I would ask both how and more importantly why.

You have valid concerns but they are by no way completely gamebreaking as you are making out.

Edited by FITE, 08 July 2012 - 03:41 PM.

[Dhag]

Lumm, on 08 July 2012 - 03:34 PM, said:

Short comment: Given WvWvW there needs to be a maximum size of guilds and alliances (since it is the same number alliances are taken out of the equation) or WvWvW will be dominated by a pure oligopoly on each server. There is still this risk with the caps that ANet is contemplating given that Teamspeak and similar does not have the same limitations - however then there is alot more organization involved.

I have a very hard time seeing that a cap of for example 150 will be a problem for 99.9% of the MMO population so I cannot come to any other conclusion than that you are exaggerating alot.

TL:DR: I do not agree with you.

Guild I'm looking to join is looking to have a few hundred to play the game.

[Matsy]

Guild cap - They are increasing it...qq less
Alliance crap - They havn't said they arn't putting it in
In-game communication - TS3.....vent...etc
Limiting awareness....NO idea what the hell you mean.

[Dove]

It's one thing to question guild/community functions that are currently in the game and another thing entirely to say that ArenaNet and Mike O'Brien are intentionally targeting large game communities. Making the game at least playable by an individual with no connections is high on their priority list and they've done a great job of it.

But, you are correct in that if ArenaNet wants to become "the best" and achieve an audience of critical mass, they shouldn't ignore gamers from anywhere on the spectrum, from individuals to fully immersed and active members of large gaming communities. It's no small factor that guild and chat functionality sucks right now, but I do think it will be high on their priority list to improve and refine before release.

Most of the issues that have been brought up from previous Beta Weekends have been addressed or at least have been given some modicum of acknowledgement from ArenaNet, and their fixes seem to be pretty decent and workable so far.

To sum it up, I think you're totally justified in being concerned and even vocal about this, but I would hesitate to say you should be worried and very hesitant to say you should be critical of the game designer's intentions.

[Matsy]

Dhag, on 08 July 2012 - 03:38 PM, said:

Guild I'm looking to join is looking to have a few hundred to play the game.

And the guild size will be big enough to have hundreds, they even suggested it might be capless.

[Gilles VI]

1) Add a summary and more people would actually read your rant.
2) You lost me at the phrase where you say "GW1 had alliance functions, alot of people expected it in GW2 too"..

• They added alliances in GW1 with the first expansion, not the actual first game.
  
• They are planning alot for post-launch, just look at Guildhalls, they will have a huge live-team..
  
• It's not because you are in such a big community that they should really cater to that, 99% of the guilds wouldn't ever reach those 300 members cap..

[Hedge]

Honestly, I see your point - and it is very well written might I add (though slightly offensive and presumptious).

But I just don't see a problem with it. But it might be because I always loathed huge guilds. The sense of belonging to a guild is lost when you don't know the half of them. And seriously, you can't know the half of them if there are 1000+ members in one guild. The friendly close-knit network is completely lost.

And it hardly spells disaster for the game. I mean, for one thing the game appeals more to the soloist than the hardcore pvp'er and raider. As such, there are people who are really content with small guilds or none at all. I doubt this will be a problem for anyone besides a small 10-5% for the entire GW2 population.

While I see that it is a problem for huge guilds - a problem easily fixed by Anet as there is still two months till release - I really don't see the gamebreaking aspect. But then, I've never been a guild fanatic.

Edited by Hedge, 08 July 2012 - 03:44 PM.

[Megera]

You say you are a GW1 player. Then let me ask you, do you remember what the guild cap was in GW1 in 2005 and when the alliance system was introduced? Because I was there and I remember that the cap was exactly 100 people per guild (thus we had to send many of our members to other guilds and kick those that were inactive for longer periods) and the alliances weren't introduced until a year later.

I'm not saying that it should be that way, by all means go and complain about it on the official forums once they go live again.

However, I have a hard time accepting posts spelling doom the way yours does. Communities even back then found ways to organize themselves and overcome whatever obstacles were in front of them. If you're a really serious community, you'll manage until those features are introduced into the game. I'm already seeing new alliances being formed for GW2, perhaps you should go ask them how they are doing it, if you're not sure how to proceed.

And while I also miss the freedom of switching between regions (which was also introduced much later in GW1) and playing with everyone (which you can still do regardless of server through the guesting feature, if you don't mind not being able to play WvW together) I understand why they had to introduce servers and server transfer fees.

I'm sorry, but I really can't stand behind sensationalistic topics like this one.

Edited by Megera, 08 July 2012 - 03:50 PM.

[AndrewSX]

Not getting one thing. You're telling us that enormous gaming communities won't have proper tools, which, in some ways, is true.

But you're totally missing the point on cap: Gw1 had 100 ppl cap on guild, and no possible ways to enlarge it. None.

But there were alliances, which, i must agree, can't understand why are they gone. Simply put, why.

Then you say "Guild should have 1k player cap, ally 10k".
Sorry to burst your bubble, but servers have like 3-5k estimated population cap.
And WvW maps cap is about 150-200.

(w/o talking abouthow idiotic could be have a such large gaming community - it's simply impossible to manage.)

So, can actually agree that at least cross-guilds channel or, better, alliances should be ingame.

But you're totally overexaggerating the issue.

[SunRoamer]

Your concerns are surely valid, but kitten jesus christ that WoT was unnecessary. While reading, it felt more like you were simply pouting about having spent your time in preparation for the transfer and are now personally hurt by the fact the game may or may not facilitate that transfer.
Like I said, your concerns are valid, and your dismay as well, but writing that rant will only invite negative comments.

Not to mention that this problem will concern how many players exactly? Only a minority (a very vocal one, thanks for the display!), and I'm sure that the large part of even that minority won't care too much in the end (in a huge alliance of 1000 people most players will probably have a group of players they like to play with, but in the end they don't care about the other 980 or so. Meaning, this problem will most probably mostly affect the officers and leaders).
Claiming the game is heading towards disaster is the cherry on top that will make sure that it's THIS THREAD that is heading towards disaster first (as can be seen by the "16 replies have been added!" every minute or so while writing this post).

[Shock_Treatment]

Mister_Smiley, on 08 July 2012 - 03:35 PM, said:

Don't know, something about guilds and how they are two small and hes pretty much saying the way they are put together in GW2 suck and it will cause Gw2 to fail. But it seams people forget that before Factions game, there was no alliance and guilds where single, no alliance and only 100 people, giving that anet has increased the cap already is a improvement and i'm sure we may have no seen everything Anet has to offer to Guilds yet.

Oh, thanks

I know I'll get flamed for saying this... but.

I'd rather they didn't put this in.  I'd like to see many more smaller guilds.  I have a whole bunch of reasons for this, but I don't want to spend the time worrying/arguing about it.

/Dons flame retardant fuzzy bunny slippers.

[Selaris]

To the OP: We've actually been discussing this very subject for a while now: http://www.guildwars...rom-gw1-to-gw2/

This doesn't effect only 'large' or even 'gigantic' guilds or alliances though. It will also effect smaller guilds and alliances ,that wanted to remain seperate entities but maintain contact. The simple way to solve this on the part of Anet would just be to create a better chat system for multiple guilds.

[Dream Catcher]

Is this thread a joke?, it seems likely to me that you may just be exagerating a wee bit. GW2 is not going to fail because it doesn't give in to masochistic guild leaders.GW2 is built from the ground up to be a social game, do you remember that little acronym that accompanies this genre MMO. All increasing guild size excessively and adding alliances does is split the community more than it already would be with the current guild caps. Anything that increases the size of these closed off groups is going to be detrimental to the social cohesion of servers.

[xarallei]

How do guilds work exactly? Does a single character join a guild or is it account based? Because such a low cap will certainly be problematic for someone who rolls many alts if it's character based. I already see this as a huge problem in Tera, where the cap is at 300. People are left putting their alts in alt guilds. Kind of silly to me....

Edited by xarallei, 08 July 2012 - 03:52 PM.

[borovnica]

TL; DR is needed for this post.

Like Megera said, Prophecies didn't have alliance, they added it with Factions... and guild were capped at 100 people, that is why they introduced alliances. If you spend enough time reading gw2 forums, you would have known that guilds are capped @100 only for BWEs.
For communication use teamspeak, vent, w/e... and I don't even know what Limiting awareness means  

[FITE]

Must say im bloody glad im not in your guild.

I wouldnt even want 50 unique members.. Let alone 300+. Its better to have an elite group of say 20 core members that play together regularly. You will get more back from the game in terms of general enjoyment, progress and friendship.

Good luck to LaZy but I dont see the point tbh

[Tilcir]

Was there any servers in GW?

The way I see it, the alliances functioned like servers there. Because everyone was together, you had the option to create smaller communities.

This works out somehow, because we as human beings have a hard time seeing ourselves as part of a group that are too large (like everyone in GW)

You know have the option (or rather are forced to) choose a server. I am not sure you have played any other kind of MMO, but servers DO work as a community, especially when there are no factions fighting each other.

I am sad that you feel so upset about this change, but the mechanics for guilds have changed, since the game have changed.
And the mechanics for alliances have changed, because we are not all going to be on one big server anymore.

Having a community consistent of 10.000 players... on one server?
Wow, just wow. Isn't this pointless? 10k players will never in any way feel like a community, other than in a very limited way, say like if you sign up for yahoo mail and expect to be close with people there.

Accept that this is not the same game as GW. Make your smaller communities and then use yours to effect the bigger community that is a server.

[orcish]

I'm not going to dismiss the OP because it's clear he's passionate about this, but this topic is by no means a deal-breaker for GW2 as a game.

It's a chat functionality issue and a guild management issue, both of which can be adjusted by Anet at their discretion.

At some point, however, Anet has to determine where to draw the line. How big should a guild be? 100 members, 300 members, 1000 members? At what point does it stop being a guild of friends questing and fighting together and start becoming...something else entirely?

[Dhag]

Matsy, on 08 July 2012 - 03:40 PM, said:

And the guild size will be big enough to have hundreds, they even suggested it might be capless.

Last I heard he cap is set at 100.  If we have 200+ looking to join (not including NEW recruits, we already exceeded the cap for two guilds.

[The Comfy Chair]

They are working on the guild system, it wont have a 100 player cap...

So it may have been worth googling a little more before ranting, it's a valid rant though. I recommend watching the last guildcast for anyone saying the equivalent of 'QQ more', since one of the 'panelists' (Scott Hawkes) talks about the issue and why it's so annoying for those communities.

It is an issue and should be addressed, it is the only flaw gw2 really has at the moment. BUT it is not a deal breaker by any stretch of the imagination for the majority of players. Hell, out of those 1k communities, you'll only have about 50 core members at best usually. The rest are just there for easier partys.

Edited by The Comfy Chair, 08 July 2012 - 04:01 PM.

[Nukk]

My guild in GW1 had 30 players... but then we were a PvP guild. Any more and we would have lost a lot of cohesion I believe.

For PvE, I can see the benefit in having more in the guild but 300 is excessive and a 1,000 player alliance just sounds ludicrous to me. If you need more players for parties then instead of staying in your 1,000 player sub-community, why don't you get involved with the entire community as there will be plenty of players available there.

What you want, a server with 15 x 1,000 player alliances that only ally invite? Is that good for community?

Edited by Nukk, 08 July 2012 - 03:53 PM.

[FITE]

xarallei, on 08 July 2012 - 03:51 PM, said:

How do guilds work exactly? Does a single character join a guild or is it account based? Because such a low cap will certainly be problematic for someone who rolls many alts if it's character based. I already see this as a huge problem in Tera, where the cap is at 300. People are left putting their alts in alt guilds. Kind of silly to me....

FITE, on 08 July 2012 - 03:38 PM, said:

Remember in previous games you may have had a much higher cap on guild members, but this was done on a character basis not on unique accounts like in GW2. If the cap is at 300 and each account has say 4 characters each you are straight away looking at 1200 chars in the guild which I would say is more than most games would allow you to have. I highly doubt you have over 300 unique members, if thats the case then I would ask both how and more importantly why.

[SouleaterJak]

I read through 3/4 of the text and all I gotta say is that you are exaggerating a lot. You make it sound like Anet had been onto their players for years and just want to mess with guild leaders to prevent them from playing their game. Like others said, it's not something set in stone, nor will they have to delay the game just to fix these issues.

[Ghostwing]

I never understood the point of humongo guilds, especially with wanting a cap of 1000 players per guild. At some point, you might as well be guilded with the entire server, at which time it's the same as not being in a guild at all.