Guild Problems #1 - Definition

[Rufus]

I'm going to start posting a series of threads rehashing the problems that surround the global guilds on Graal, allowing people to express their feelings towards individual subjects in hope that we can create a resolve. Rather than just throwing them all into one thread, I'm going to post each problem individually so that we can have a greater focus for each topic addressed. A lot of these issues have been brought up in the past, but as the situation has seemingly gotten worse (you'll see) I think it would be better if they were readdressed, especially now that we have a new Global Guild Administrator. I’m proposing these problems as a player who is heavily involved with guilds and has been for quite a while. If you feel as though what I'm posting is incorrect or a misrepresentation of the reality then feel free bring it up because I can't speak for everyone. Our emphasis should be on improving global guilds for the current and future generations, while retaining a large degree of the 'old' guild feeling to avoid alienating older players.

I'm sure we each have individual ideas on what a guild is, so I think a good starting point would be defining the following:

• What is a guild? and what do you think the purpose of a guild is?
• What do you think guilds used to be? Have they deviated from how they are now?
• What should guilds be?
• What type of guild do you find the most "fitting" for a guild?

You may or may not know, but I'm leader of the guild US and have been for some time. Our guild is a collection of like-minded (but way different) players and we all get along pretty well like a social group would. We don't just sit and talk all day however; we spar, we PK, and we play events together in a competitive nature on Classic. According to Master Storm we're "generally mischievous" but I don't see where he's coming from; we just don't take ourselves seriously. So that's our guild but obviously not everyone is the same, so what about you?

[xnervNATx]

a guild is a group of person in the same group/clan
the purpose of a guild in my opinion is to have fun and being competitive(my bad grammar)

[Clockwork]

* What is a guild?

A group of friends that play together that you feel more open with, or it could be more of a clan, to work towards certain goals together with others.

* What is the purpose of a guild?

To have players around you that are ready to help you, talk to you, to share clout. (I feel like I answered a lot of this question in the previous question X3! )

* What did guilds used to be?

Guilds used to be a name for popularity. Groups that would get famous for certain traits that all of them would have. Groups today also follow this suit and tend to only let certain people in, and since it is a game, freinds lists with these groups usually fullfill any feel for a need of group of friends.

* What should guilds should be?

Guilds should be playing the same game, and working to help each other become better than other guilds while having fun. Games are competive, and beating other guilds in certain area's can provide a sence of acomplishment. Guilds should not be detrimental to the player, they should help quickly to provide support in many ways otherwise would be slow or near-impossible alone.

[Luda]

I've been in many types of guilds.

Serious Guild- You are only allowed to be in this guild sometimes with the exception of a family guild, you follow your leader, do what he/she says. The guild is serious about events and sometimes clothing.

Casual Guild- You still act like a Serious Guild but are given a little more freedom. Allowed to use other guild tags, choose whether you want to participate in an event..ect.

Family Guild- Pretty much just an extra guild tag, it really depends how serious the family is.

Fun Guild- A guild made just for fun, do whatever you like. Although I have been in Fun Guilds which turn into Casual Guilds.

Themed Guild- Members of the guild are dressed up to match the theme, can be from serious to casual to fun.

Guilds make their own purposes. They're not really the same now though because everyone is spread out. I've had fun in a lot of different types of guilds, but the one I think is most like a "guild" is Casual Guild.

[jacob_bald6225]

Originally Posted by Luda

I've been in many types of guilds.

Serious Guild- You are only allowed to be in this guild sometimes with the exception of a family guild, you follow your leader, do what he/she says. The guild is serious about events and sometimes clothing.

Casual Guild- You still act like a Serious Guild but are given a little more freedom. Allowed to use other guild tags, choose whether you want to participate in an event..ect.

Family Guild- Pretty much just an extra guild tag, it really depends how serious the family is.

Fun Guild- A guild made just for fun, do whatever you like. Although I have been in Fun Guilds which turn into Casual Guilds.

Themed Guild- Members of the guild are dressed up to match the theme, can be from serious to casual to fun.

Guilds make their own purposes. They're not really the same now though because everyone is spread out. I've had fun in a lot of different types of guilds, but the one I think is most like a "guild" is Casual Guild.

Adding to your list holmes:

Prestige Guild- Before Kevin Azite recruited a bunch of noobs and ruined it-- this is how I was running US. Basically was a status symbol that showed how cool you were and you were in US. Since Classic had mostly died nobody new really got recruited and it was more of a symbol of awesomeitude.

[Crono]

What Luda said.

[Rufus]

Originally Posted by Luda

Serious Guild- You are only allowed to be in this guild sometimes with the exception of a family guild, you follow your leader, do what he/she says. The guild is serious about events and sometimes clothing.

Casual Guild- You still act like a Serious Guild but are given a little more freedom. Allowed to use other guild tags, choose whether you want to participate in an event..ect.

Family Guild- Pretty much just an extra guild tag, it really depends how serious the family is.

Fun Guild- A guild made just for fun, do whatever you like. Although I have been in Fun Guilds which turn into Casual Guilds.

Themed Guild- Members of the guild are dressed up to match the theme, can be from serious to casual to fun.

Do you think guilds are one or the other?

[napo_p2p]

Originally Posted by Luda

I've been in many types of guilds.

Forgot fake guild.

Dr. Acula ~1st Boss~ {Infested Practitioners}

[DustyPorViva]

What is a guild? and what do you think the purpose of a guild is?

Right now guilds are a crippled attempt at trying to form cliques.

What do you think guilds used to be? Have they deviated from how they are now?

Before Graal went multi-server, guilds served a huge purpose. Instead of starting guilds just to have a group of friends, guilds were mainly for PK. When it was just Classic as a server, if you were in another guild you were a potential target of other guilds, whether you wanted to be or not. However, as more servers were introduced, guilds were stretched between servers and basically died. With over 100+ servers, and many people spending time on their own servers instead of others, guild saw very low activity on main servers.

What should guilds be?

Guilds should be unified again. In-game control should be added, in-game message/notice board needs to be added as well. It's impossible to get news to your guild because no one hardly visits the site control. Cross-server toguild messages need to be implemented. That is a necessity. Overall, less reliance on the site control and introduce an in-game control panel to allow guilds to relay information effortlessly.

What type of guild do you find the most "fitting" for a guild?

PK. I always thought of guilds of more of a, "prove your worth" sort of thing. I already told you this before, but I think they need to introduce another method similar to guilds to allow players to form social cliques and groups -- clans. Clans will have all the basic features of guilds, such as mass messaging to your clan, except no tag and can't be disabled on servers(like global guilds can). They would merely be a method of communication, and would probably eliminate most of the guilds that are currently there.

I think the fact that guilds serve a purpose between PK guilds, community guilds, learning guilds, family guilds and such shows just how disjointed and disorganized guilds really are.

[Nelm]

* What is a guild? and what do you think the purpose of a guild is?

To me, a guild is a collection of like-minded players who share similar interests in the game or have similar goals. The purpose of a guild is to accomplish things that you could otherwise not do on your own or to otherwise improve on your interest(s) that made you join the guild in the first place.

* What do you think guilds used to be? Have they deviated from how they are now?

Guilds were cool. They actually used to mean something because there was a fair amount of loyalty among their members. That time has long since passed. However, active leaders make active and loyal guild members, and there aren't many active guild leaders. The ones who are active actually have members who wear their tags.

I'm not sure that they've deviated much. The current system allows for members to not be loyal. If anything, the player mentality towards joining one guild and sticking with it is what has changed.

* What should guilds be?

Relevant. There are very few servers that attempt to make guilds anything other than a quick way to chat with friends. UN has CW, which is actually pretty boring and really has no reward other than bragging rights. Other than that, there isn't much that I've seen for game play geared towards guilds.

* What type of guild do you find the most "fitting" for a guild?

Any type is fitting. As Luda stated, there are many types of guilds and reasons for joining. My problem with guilds does not lie within the different types, but with the fact that there is no guild loyalty, or any incentive for guilds to be active on most servers.

[Hiro]

luda has put it perfectly, with the exception of family guilds, which is not just "an extra tag" but more a way to distinguish yourself individually aside from being in guilds because it becomes more of a symbol with a set of expectations along with it, rather than just another guild. in a way, family guilds have more importance than just normal guilds because of the symbolism that gets attached to them: players inside a family also tend to bond more as friends than in a guild, because it's more personal. aside from that, all other guilds fit into the categories luda has said.

as for whether guilds have deviated or not, the answer is obvious. of course they have. on what server does being in a certain guild actually mean anything anymore? nowadays, people won't stick to one guild, they'll hop around because no one guild can sustain the emphasis of power that guilds used to have. guilds don't tend to war anymore, and if they do, it's very impersonal, with the winning guild being the one that doesn't log off.

if guilds had more of a focus into the game play of graal, more server supported guild-related activities and events, then maybe they could become more relevant. people would want to join certain guilds because of their performance in those events - right now, theirs no reason other than friendships to join any certain guild; while being a good reason, it shouldn't be everything: families are more designed for friendships, guilds are more designed for performance in PKing or sparring.

[LordSquirt]

I agree to pretty much everything Luda said as well, however, his ideas about families. In regards to that I would tend to agree with Hiro more.

Originally Posted by Hiro

luda has put it perfectly, with the exception of family guilds, which is not just "an extra tag" but more a way to distinguish yourself individually aside from being in guilds because it becomes more of a symbol with a set of expectations along with it, rather than just another guild. in a way, family guilds have more importance than just normal guilds because of the symbolism that gets attached to them: players inside a family also tend to bond more as friends than in a guild, because it's more personal. aside from that, all other guilds fit into the categories luda has said.

I always believed that families were more of an importance than a guild. For the most part, anyone can just join a guild, however, for a family it's different. You need to be friends with most, if not all, the members in the family and you tend to have a closer bond to them then you would have with a fellow guild mate. Families define people for what kind of person they are for the most point.

However, i'm getting off tracked. What guilds used to have that doesn't seem to exist anymore is competition. Constant PKing between guilds and constantly trying to see who has the dominate guild. You would be pretty hardpressed to find this in today's community. Most players have no loyalty to their guild and they tend to be a 'guild hopper'. Going from one guild to another. Overall, guilds need this competition back and then players would strive as an individual to show that their guild is the best.

[fowlplay4]

Suggestions:
- Make global guilds manageable from the Graal client.
- Add the following script function: isglobalguild(guildname), so servers can prevent local guilds from overwriting/impersonating global guilds.

[Bell]

I pretty much agree with both Luda and Dusty on what they said and really don't have much to add.

I completely agree though with the fact that guild loyalty anymore is rare. I didn't mind that some multiguilding was allowed at first since it gave you the option to decide which guild you wanted to be loyal to. It also added to the fun of guild takeovers but todays player cries harassment or want someone else to 'fix' it if a rival guild puts spies in place and goes through all the work to take over someone elses guild. People take it all too personally. Of course, you can't find good spies anymore either but I blame that on the lowered playercount and the fact that everyone knows everyone else a lot better now.

Local guilds are a problem too, Why bother with a global one if a local one will do. I for one as a global guild leader have no respect nor even recognize a local guild as being a real guild. It takes no effort to make one nor maintain one.

[Rufus]

While some of you are missing the focus of this specific thread and are throwing in other problems that are unrelated to the definition, I think it has become pretty clear based upon the responses to the actual questions that the term "guild" has become rather ambiguous. The word is thrown around, everyone understands what a guild is, but they can have very different purposes from one another.

Amongst the defining of different types of guilds, Dusty made a pretty interesting point:

Originally Posted by DustyPorViva

I think the fact that guilds serve a purpose between PK guilds, community guilds, learning guilds, family guilds and such shows just how disjointed and disorganized guilds really are.

We have many different "types" of guilds like those outlined: families, fun guilds, casual guilds, and PvP guilds, but this isn't noted anywhere unless you place it in your guild charter. Fun guilds can be more active than PvP guilds, but that wouldn't make sense as they don't have very similar purposes at all. This brings up two interesting questions:

• Should guilds be defined better?
• Should we perhaps be asked to define our purposes from a selection of broad categories in our guild settings?

The type of guild could be sorted into individual lists, and it could possibly make future developments such as limiting multiguilding (x per y type, anyone?) much more appropriate on a guild-by-guild case. What do you think?