One guild per character in EverQuest Next? Or more?

If you want to do traditional guild stuff with someone in your crafting guild have them join your traditional guild. Or just group with them outside the guild. Chat options are cool, of course, and there should be lots of them. But focusing what guilds do for a player is a good idea, it means they will be better at their particular aspect. If you only have to worry about keeping stuff in the guild bank, as with a crafting guild, rather than having to do a little of everything, you're going to do it better and be able to offer more to your members. If you only have to worry about keeping membership up so your members can find an easy group, you are always recruiting and not micromanaging how everyone gets along because they have a social group for that, you'll be better at that. Making alliances means most guilds can afford to stay relatively small and still come up with a raid force, so you don't need to join a mega guild to get to good content. All good ideas.

I am just hoping that they are not going so extreme with multi-guilding that is winds up to penalizing people who want to just stay in one guild.

For example, I do not want to join a guild to build, a guild to craft, a guild to socialize and a guild to raid. They had said in the video I can stay in one guild if I choose but I do worry that different types of guild could get specialized perks. For example: building guilds get an increase to gathering resources, crafting guilds get bonuses to crafting, raiding guilds get an increase to boss fighting, and socializing guilds...hmm I dunno they get a cool bar to hang out in lol. So then you are not forced to join these separate guilds, however by not specializing do not get the perks that come with being a do-it-all guild. I would rather see people join for the guild themselves and not for their perks.

I have spent many years in guilds that do it all and do it all really well, and I would like to stay that way without feeling like the game is pushing me to multi-guild or that I am loosing out if choose not to.

@Zarriya

Even if guilds had separate type of perks there is still the need for members to even achieve the perks. If many gamers are members of multiple guilds, some guilds are simply not going to be leveling up that fast if a player is no representing them. Even if you can represent multiple guilds at the same time, the guild is likely not going to get all of the guild exp the multi-guild member just gained. They will probably only get a part based on the amount of guilds you represent. If that is so, then if a guild restricts you to being in one guild only is going to always get full share of guild exp from its members and they can likely achieve all different type of perks at about the same rate as more specialized multi-guilding guilds.

I absolutely dislike multi-guilding but I don't believe it is going to make it harder on one-guild per character guilds to get perks. Heck, based on the poll I believe the vast majority of players will not be members of multi-guilds anyway.

Yes, I hope if the perks are implemented, that they are implemented the way you described, and to me it would be fair.

I just hope that once a crafting guild is formed - it is not a separate entity from a raiding guild and thus can never have raiding perks. Jut my little worry that I am conveying to the devs that I hope scan these forums

Sigh, I do not think you get it, your a guild leader right? So all your friends that you done great with, running countless raids or dungeons with the same people over and over, which alot them will come here I imagine and following you. Then, once again you will be dependent on them same people and running countless Everquest Next content with them is not what I want to see. I want to see a world where people are curious, and players embrace others they do not know to accomplish something epic. Not run with the same people over and over cause they are in the guild you are in.... Maybe I am wrong, but a failed guild has nothing to do with anything, Iv been in guilds that have been great and that have downed countless server 1st bosses with me being apart of. Where I am going has to do with the Everquest Next community/people. Guilds lead to elitism jerkest most the time. An most of the time guilds do not care about how long you have been with them,the min you miss a deadline we are replaceable, and forget players shouting for help... they are not in my guild and neither do I know them or want to know them cause I got everything I need here. Again, I do not want see crap like this in this game. I would d like to see something players new and old could work together on and meet each other and be social, that is the experience, not the game, the players make a up a huge %. Not being guild dependent, instead involve everyone willing to help or be social, or willing to see new content. Not just cause they passed a application to join a elite guild and do awesome content should others be so unfortunate not to be able to see the same thing and get to experience the game with hundreds or new people? Maybe you all just do not get it and want to continue playing games everyone else has seen and experienced before just diff content.....

What you are describing is more of a function of top-end (or at least striving to be top-end) raiding guilds.

Those guilds tend to see playing as a "jobs", and there's nothing wrong with that. So long as everyone in the guild understands what's expected of them, things work out (there's always going to be "drama" so long as you let RL humans join).

Many raiding guild people either don't know, don't understand, or just don't want to acknowledge that most guilds don't play the game that way. Most guilds don't even raid at all, or if they do it's only casually, if there are enough people on they'll try something sort of thing. These are the guilds that don't care if you group with and help out other people, and don't expect you to devote 100% of your playing time to their guild.

Being able to be a member of a 'family' guild and a 'raiding' guild lets a player have the benefits of both. Same with crafting guilds. Lots of raiding guilds have crafters, but that's not the same as a guild that focuses on crafting, just like how that crafting guild may raid every 2nd Tuesday of the month is very different from a guild that focuses on raiding.

Well....before I was a GL I was... a guildie! - for years and in more than a handful of guilds (hmm how can you hold a guild in your hand.. ) As I mentioned before I had positive experiences in guilds as just a guildmate .

I made lots of new friends (inside and outside the guild). I am still friends with people from previous guilds and my best friend, who lives across the country from me, I met in a guild . Guilds brought me together with people I would have never met otherwise. Even in my own guild, I am always grouping with different people - its not like I have a clique and that's it. I enjoy mingling.

You said "guilds lead to elitism jerkest most of the time" I wouldn't join a guild with an elitist jerk atmosphere - you have a choice. And most guilds I have seen do not have that attitude. You and I have different perspectives about guilds based on our previous experiences.

You have a good point there - there are lots of different types of guilds. The positive experiences I had were because I picked a guild where I felt they promoted a social and warm environment but they did raid. I just made sure I joined a guild that was both friendly and raided.

Like many others have said, "A guild should not be chosen lightly". Having multiple guilds people can join defeats the whole purpose of a guild. A guild is a group of like minded people enjoying all facets of a game. You join a guild to be with friends that you enjoy hanging out with. I can see having multiple facets within a single guild, like these people are the crafters and these people are the raid people. Breaking this up defeats the purpose of a guild. I think many guild will fall apart because you are allowing guilds to break apart their roles. After watching the video I was so disappointed with the EverQuest Next team. Its great to be innovative, but there comes a time when enough is enough. With this multi guild vision, it just spreads guilds thinner and thinner until you have a handful of people adventuring with you because everyone is making their own and joining their own raid, adventure, craft, explore, lore, RP, nose picking, drama, flower picking, building, styling, etc guild. There is an endless limit to the stupidness. "Hey what guild are you in?" "Oh well it depends on what day, time, hour, minute, second" "Well how many guilds are you in?" "Oh about 1200 guilds at this moment" "That's the total of guilds so far in the game" "Exactly" "Whats the point of guilds then?" "There is no point, that's the point

This isn't something new that the EQN team just thought up. Final Fantasy XI has been running this way since launch. You had a 'linkpearl' in your inventory for each 'linkshell' (guild) that you were in. Only one could be active at a time, so you were only in one guild chat channel at a time.

It didn't break up the community; it enhanced it. You want to be in a raiding guild? Fine you can do that. But you can also chill with people who like to take the game at a slower pace as well. In real life do you only have one group of people that you interact with? Whether you particularly do or not, many (most) people have different groups of friends for different 'parts' of their lives.

You say a guild is " a group of like minded people enjoying all facets of a game. " Do you really think that's true of hardcore raiding guilds? Do they all play all the facets of the game together? How about crafting guilds? Do they all get together to play the high end raiding facets of the game together?

A guild is a group of people gathered together for some common purpose. That purpose can be as simple as "having nice people to talk to when you play" or as specific as "becoming WW best HM raid guild on the server." Depending on how crafting works (I hope we can 'discover' recipes through experimenting - I love that) crafting guilds may have one purpose or another. If fishing gets implemented in a meaningful way there can fishing guilds.

So what does one person do? Well, on Saturday morning she may fish with her fishing guild for a few hours, or whenever the moon/elements align if they put in a meaningful calender. Monday evening she may check in on time for a scheduled raid. Thursday evening they do the same thing, but with a raid on 'farm' status. During the odd hours, she has a nice relaxed guild who love to do all the quests and explore every little corner of the world, so she talks and may help someone out, or form a group or duo/trio to get some quests done.

Who is she hurting with a week like that? All the guilds have members that genuinely want to be there and help whatever goals the guild has (there will always be problem people and drama as long as you let RL humans join). All the guilds are able to meet their goals and have the camaraderie that you get from playing with other people.

What you don't have is one guild claiming a monopoly on a character's time. The character - and by extension the player - is now in control of how they want to spend their time and who they want to spend it with.

Personally, I think that's a Very Good Thing(tm).

Social Groups are great. More then one kind of Friends List is fine. but when it comes to guilds. I think alot of things..

All thoughts are my opinon yours may be differnt and I understand that.

1. Making a guild should be VERY hard to do. Example: It will take 10 or more people working together a week in order to just have the chance to make a guild. This will keep out the 3 people guilds.

2. You can only be in ONE guild at a time. If you leave a guild you will not be able to join another guild for 48 hours. Maybe more.

3. There should be dungeons or missions/quests that only guilds can do. You must be in a party and only your party leaders guild will be able to do it. These things will give the Guild EXP or influance, something to make it worth it to the guild. I am not talking about getting the best item in tha game. but thinks like the guild gets a bigger plot of land. or bigger guild hall.

These thoughts are not to be done to make social groups go away but guilds should be guilds. IDK if this is a "Hard Core" way of thinking. I am not a hard care player.

Social Groups should be...

1. Groups that any one can make and join.

2. You can be in as many Social groups as you want.

All thoughts are my opinon yours may be differnt and I understand that.

Guilds are one of those things everyone has different opinions on.

I'm in pretty much a "guild of one" in EQ 2 - my wife and one other family member play with me from time to time. So far, I've managed get the guild up to mid level (should hit 45 this weekend - hit 50 in another month or o), have my own guild hall (will upgrade to tier 2 when guild hits 50) with amenities, and so on. I like the challenge of it.

What I didn't like was having to group up with six strangers just to get my guild registered. Wasn't too much of a pain, and didn't cost me much, most people being friendly and all, but still a hoop for me to jump through.

I think making a guild should be easy. Having dozens or even hundreds of little guilds does nothing to hurt the big ones. It isn't like they are going to be lost in the crowd or something. I don't have problems with quests for guilds with guild rewards. I think that's a great idea.

I do have a problem with shutting off a whole dungeon to nothing but one guild groups, but I don't think you were saying that.

Some (most really) guilds are social groups. No reason they shouldn't be able to have a guild hall and enjoy the same amenities that raiding guilds get, and many reasons why they should.

The key is that people who feel the way you do will still only join one guild and act pretty much the way they always have. But being able to be in more than one guild gives other people more options. More options = more happy players = more money being spent = better game for everyone.

Branch the guild system. Single player house/mansion. Guilds where players can join more than 1. Finally a server guild where everyone is a member. The server guild is a giant hub castle where players can get into the community. Server guild keeps leaderboards, how many crafters, what types of crafters, most active social times, most common zones, all positive stuff. Community is key and it's vital for players to feel connected day one, rather than lost and alone.

One more thought on guilds - Many people here seem to think Everquest is the 'gold standard' by which games shall be judged. As far as guilds go, it's one of the easiest to create a guild I've played. Just click on the guild tab and there's a field for you to type in your guild's name. Press a button and congrat's, you're a guild leader! Both WoW and EQ 2 are much more difficult in this regard than Everquest.

Why would it need to be more difficult than that?

From a role play perspective, it be nice to for guilds to have more functionality built in. Something that allowed the guild to be separated into sub-guilds that players have to gain rank in. Maybe some quests that can be created by the guild leadership for their guild members to earn points in to gain rank. I don't want the guilds to have a leveling structure though. More so, what you put into the guild is what you can get back. Such as status points or something that can be used to add on to the guild. Quests that allow guild members to build their guild halls.

Another function a Guild may provide for the game is sponsorship for various amenities in a city. The more prosperous and influential the guild the more this would increase the effects or benefits of the amenity. For example, Guild A sponsors the smithing establishment "Hammers R Us" this increases the number of smithing stations available there, Guild R also sponsors this place and this increases the success chance of crafting combines. Both guilds have blacksmiths in the guild, by increasing the number and or mastery of the smiths this also increases the benefits of the establishment sponsored.
The benefit for the guild could be cheaper resources provided by the establishment, quests or tasks unique to the establishment, recipes...the benefit to the city is a better tradeskill station more would want to use.
Guilds C, G, and M sponsor a different smithing station "The Smoldering Anvil", because it is more convenient or the faction their members have worked on allows them better access. The Smoldering Anvil has better success chance, but fewer stations, depending on the choices the guilds made for their Sponsorship Buffs.
Now you have market competition in the city, in essence, economical PvP, without actually going out and griefing other players. A player made environment and a REASON for a guild to exist besides another chat channel.
Please also add guild banners, emblems, tabards to the game so you can at times identify people at a glance. Guilds should have or bring reknown.

I kinda like the idea of being part of a guild and an alliance, I can see those two options co-existing together. Being part of a regular guild for grouping, raiding and socializing and then a trade alliance dealing in a trade skill or resource gathering sounds interesting. Two of the same should be a no no though. 1 guild, 1 alliance etc.

Why?

Why should one organization have a monopoly on your characters relationships (at least 'structured' ones) in the game?

It doesn't even come close to anything like that in real life, so why bring that sort of limitation into the game?


Even guilds of the same 'type' (which is a misnomer right away since most guilds do more than one thing). If Joe can manage being in two raiding guilds and their schedules don't conflict, what's the problem? Or a raiding guild and a 'casual' guild that raids now and then but mostly groups up and does quests?

I don't think the 'one guild' system was really a design choice - it was just simpler to code that way and nobody really thought about alternatives (this is true of a lot of things in the older games - not just MMO's, and software in general TBH).

I suppose I never felt the need to be part of 2 guilds at once, if I didn't like the one I was in I would move on. I would be interested in belonging to multiple groups for different purposes though so your point about raiding and casual guild is valid. My interest would be in developing a trade alliance as a second option whilst working with my guild on progression and content.

Guilds are an interesting subject, and I have too many ideas on the matter to list them all in a single post without people's eyes bleeding from reading too much , so I'll do my best to be polite and save some space by presenting some of my basic thoughts.

Guilds are a social aspect that turned online gaming into WoW's version of facebook. Now, to anyone who might disagree with me, consider this... when you logged into WoW, what was one of the first things you always did... "Hmmmm, I wonder who's online [opens social tab], shucks no one's online, well I guess there's nothing to do, so I may as well log off." This was extremely common place in WoW, after all, if you're friends weren't online to play or socialize with, what's the point? This would often lead to people finding another guild (which could be a chore at times, to find somewhere you feel you belong), or simply quitting the game altogether.

Granted, I hope EQN doesn't have intentions of using WoW for comparison purposes, but that doesn't mean there isn't value in examining WoW's results.

Perhaps there isn't a perfect solution, but I think I may have some ideas that would be helpful.

You have some players who maybe don't even like guilds and want nothing to do with them, and then you have social butterflies who just want to hang out with people all the time, so where is the happy medium?

My idea is based on a player-driven concept: Contracts

Players would be able to view, create, accept, or decline contracts, or simply ignore them entirely.

Contracts could be filtered based on many criteria...
Character Level - some contracts may only be able to be completed by players of a certain level.
Class/Race - some contracts may only be able to be completed by those with certain specializations.
Objective - objectives may vary greatly from killing NPCs to collecting building materials, or even killing other players.
Location - many contract objectives might only be able to be completed by players in certain areas of the game.
Reward - in searching for a contract to accept and complete maybe you only want contracts offering currency or certain items.
Time - of course contracts would need to have some kind of time frame on them, if a player creates a contract and another player accepts it, you can't just hold onto the contract for 6 months and not do anything about it (unless of course the contract's allotted completion period is 6 months).

Other filters may apply, but you get the general idea.

So, how do Contracts work in practice?

Simple, from the moment you start playing the game you can create or accept contracts through, of course, the Contracts tab.

Maybe you just started playing the game for your first time and you kill a <random NPC> and the mob drops <bug juice>, you can create a contract for <whatever item or task> and offer <bug juice> as a reward. Of course, the chances of someone accepting the contract and completing it probably aren't very high, but you could do it.

Similarly, you just started playing the game, and just minutes in you find the contracts tab (or perhaps there's a popup showing you <about contracts>) and decide to accept a contract made by <player name> to collect some <building materials>. Well, once the contract is completed, you'll have to find the player to turn in the materials and collect your reward (or, possibly, there could be contract holders, so the person putting the contract up doesn't necessarily have to be the character you turn it into, this could function many different ways).

So, you might be asking, okay... Contracts sound like a half-decent idea, but how does this have anything to do with Guilds?

So glad you asked!

Contracts create social interaction, and social interaction promotes... you guessed it... further social interaction. By creating contracts and accepting contracts you will inevitably end up associated with players who have similar interests--those interests naturally being the objectives set by whatever contracts you're creating or completing. These social interactions, in turn, would set the scene for prolonged forms of friendships, potentially resulting in guilds or alliances. Alternatively, players may very well also choose to ignore contracts completely, and play the game in their own way only encountering players as they run into them randomly throughout their travels.

In terms of the arguments related to "only one guild per person/character" or "as many guilds as I want"...

Well, you have a number of models to choose from, but, ultimately, you have to ask one very important question, "What are guilds supposed to mean?" What are guilds designed to indicate in EQN?

Are guilds supposed to exist to build reputations? Such that wearing a guild tag/banner/<whatever> indicates a group of <elitists> or <carebears> that you belong to?

Are guilds supposed to provide nothing more than a hangout? Such that, being in a guild would be the equivalent to joining some form of world/trade chat where you could socialize with just about anyone you wanted to?

Or are they for collections of interests, such as "clothier's guild" or "shipbuilders guild" or "fighter's guild"? Such that choosing a profession, trade, or craft would line you up for being part of a worker's type of coalition?

Or all three? Or reasons I didn't even list?

The bottom line is... there isn't really a "right" or "wrong" answer, there is only what will work best with EQN, and what won't. At the end of the day, players will figure out how to make a guild be significant, and, often, the most significance is achieved through exclusivity. Allowing players to be in multiple guilds might work, and if a guild leader of a certain guild sets a policy that guild members aren't allowed in multiple guilds or they get kicked... problem solved. You see, you implement the tools and players will find a way to make the tools work toward their ends.

2 guild per one toon. Keeps it simple but still gives some people some options.