If it isn't a problem to ask the same question over and over again why is it a problem to respond with what the dev answer has been to that question?
One thing I do agree with is that I feel 12 is a pretty good cap for a group of real, independent players. For the intended, original purpose of a fellowship, 12 is probably more than enough. I doubt that there are many fellowships with 12 actual people in them. I would guess most fellowships are just made up of one or a small number of people with their boxes and alts in it totaling 12. Trying to manage 12 actual people in a fellowship-type group is typically going to be an exercise in frustration. I think that would just get harder with 15, 18, 24... real people in it. It would probably be better to have an actual guild for those 12 or more real people. If you're a boxer with dozens of alts, then it doesn't matter the limit. But 12 real people is probably just about the limit of what can be managed in a fellowship. However, since boxing is very common, it would be nice if there was a fellowship-like ability for boxers. I would guess that boxers are primarily just using it for the campfire teleporting. If a campfire-like feature could be done another way, I would guess that the people wouldn't care as much about the fellowship limit.
I am relatively certain that devs posted about this not being a trivial thing to accomplish, and that it was some what based / depended upon the 32 bit system. I very well could be wrong. But for some reason I seem to recall this being the case. From a video prior to one of the betas of the previous last couple expansions was it ?
This is the alternate answer (real solution was posted by Tucoh). Just sell this feature, like they do Key Rings. Fellowships can't function like guilds anyways. There's no bank, no trophies, no guildhalls, no neighborhoods, etc.
Staff are not the only one who can respond to messages to say what the devs have publicly said many times before. If you are waiting on the devs to say something you are going to be waiting a very long time as they have not responded to these types of questions in a good while.
What? I'm not saying include those. I'm saying it doesn't make sense to be afraid that they'll become mini-guilds when they lack the functionality of a guild.
People want them for the transport feature and the devs have stated that if you want more people you should be forming a guild not a fellowship. You need to convince the devs of this not me. I am not shooting down conversation, just stating what the devs have said on this subject many times. Considering the devs are not responding to these threads at all the only answer they would get otherwise is silence.
I think, the best route would be to add additional means for quick travel to a group. Fellowships (campfires) are a very powerful tool. In many ways, they are arguably more powerful than guild banners. There have been several ideas passed around when it comes to this. I know I've gotten shot down on the forums for "attempting to change the game into a different game" (paraphrased) by adding ideas. I do believe, however, that there are other alternatives. Adding an out-of-combat type CoTH to more classes, that only works to summon FROM a given zone location. I think this thread brought up the group-level campfire, where the Group leader could put one down instead of the fellowship requirements (I like it, but I think it might be overly powerful... without requiring in-zone or specific location use only). I feel the devs stop responding to the rehashed topic... because it's never addressed differently. Fellowships deal with shared XP and have a port to campfire every 15 mins.. from anywhere in game. I'm 100% sure that they'd be willing to take another look, if enough (valid) alternatives are presented. What if there was a unique portal added in the lobby, that allowed a TP to group/group leader only. What if there were CoTH alternatives. What if there was a long CD "join friend" login option. And things like that don't have to be mutually exclusive either. But yeah, these repeat threads just asking to boost the member count for Fellowships... that won't go anywhere. It's been decided.
I agree with you on that as it would be very helpful if there was more ways to get to a group quickly. I kind of like how WoW does it in that 3 group members can work together to summon other group members to them.
As someone who plays Rogue and Mage I would MUCH prefer porting to leader instead of bothering me to drag/rezz/coth just to play with friends.
I'm sure that if the devs ever agreed to change the things with fellowships that people are asking for, the trade off would be an increase in time for the port clicky or limitations of how often you can join a fellowship. You all know that people would absolutely exploit any and everything they can, and if they remove or lessen some of the requirements that have existed in fellowships then people would take advantage of it. This is why we can't have nice things.
Exploit them how? To save a couple minutes of travel? There's a reason the 15 minute guild banner lockout was removed: this is imagining problems that aren't real problems, in my opinion.
And there is a reason why the cooldown on the campfire click has not been removed. They likely removed the lockout for the banner because it is used in raiding and the lockout didn't make sense for that.
I admit it's easy for me to forget the lengths to which people exploit things. Without some restrictions we'd have regular campfire ferries etc. I still don't think a size increase would be bad though.
