One guild per character in EverQuest Next? Or more?

I just want to see ONE pc-controlled guild per member, but I'd also like to see other set chat channels available for other interests. I.e., you could join an "armorcrafting" channel, an "enchanters" channel, a "Followers of Innoruuk" channel, and a "Thieves' guild" channel as well as your guild and general chat. If you want. But I don't particularly want to be part of multiple guilds...I find one guild can be plenty demanding enough (and I've always gravitated to very easy-going guilds to start with.)

I agree one guild is enough unless you spend the majority of your time on line, I like to help build the guild and help struggling members if possible, you can not do that with multiple guilds unless your superman/woman.

have a set number of guild channels available.
Example could include:
1-raiding
2-leveling
3-tradecrafting
4-lore
5-questing

each character would be allowed to join each channel...so, a guild leader concerned with espionage might select all 5 therefore limiting its members to ONLY have one guild, a more relaxed guild may only select 1 and 2, so its members could join another guild with only 3 selected, and another with 4 and 5.

the tools would be there to allow people to join multiple, but depending on what your guild leader has chosen, multiple guilds may be limited.

It is very important that allied groups can chat with each other through channels yes
And these different channels would allow players to discuss what they want while asking for help at the right place when they need something without disrupting the conversation on other topics
I found this pretty interesting picture too


Kingdom
* Unique royal mount
* Monthly salary
* Fortifies royal town whose appearance can be tailored and can be populated by defensive works, temples, workshops,..
up-gradable wheels for carriage,...

Legion
* Unusual weapons and armor

Guilds
http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Alliance

So what happens when you're a member of three guilds and they all turn on channel one? Do you talk to all three guilds at once? And how will that let a leader know you're a member of another guild, unless you're answering questions no one in that guild is asking.

As for "espionage". Honestly, out of the thousands of guilds that will be created, how many do you think give a rat's behind about stuff like that? 95% don't raid at all, and the ones that do do it every third Thursday with pick up members to fill out the roster.

Trying to make mechanics thinking of things only a very few raiding guilds will care about isn't the way you make most of the guilds - and thereby most of the players, happy.

That's the great thing about allowing multiple guilds. Players that want to be a member of just one guild will. No one will be pressuring them to join more than one (I don't think...).

Players who want to be members of more than one can as well.
It really fits in very well with the "Play Your Way" mantra.

good question, I picture a game mechanic that wouldn't allow these to be changed, its something that is chosen when the guild is started. or maybe if it is changeable, it would be something that is talked about prior to the guild leader changing it. members of that guild would have to make a choice on which guild to drop. this choice might incline guild leaders to just leave it the way it was created, but also make it changeable if absolutely desired.

You're looking at it in terms of player behavior (guilds 'talking about it' and 'making choices'). I'm looking at it purely from a game mechanics perspective - a character is a member of three guilds. One of them has channel one active. Then a second guild makes channel one active. What happens?

You can't say the second guild can't turn on channel one because one of its members is already on that channel - that would just be insane. So we've got a player on channel one of two guilds at the same time. Do they all just go into one chat box with the messages from the player being sent to both guilds? Will the player be able to choose what guild to send the message to?

That's where I think your idea breaks down.

What is a guild? Mechanically, it is a group of people with a shared chat channel, shared bank, and potentially a shared guild hall. That's really about it. Anything more than that comes from the players. "Loyalty" is not a game mechanic, so isn't something the devs can be overly concerned about.

There should be no issues with a character being a member of more than one chat channel (they can do that already with the various channels I'm sure will be in game). So implementing separate tabs or channels for 'Guild 1', 'Guild 2', 'Guild 3' should be almost trivial.

You can only access one "bank" at a time if EQ 2 is a guide. In that game, when you talk to the banker you choose 'personal' or 'guild'. It shouldn't be hard to make it 'personal', 'guild 1', 'guild 2', etc...

Certainly being able to enter more than one guild hall won't be a problem as again, you can do that anyway - the only thing that changes is your permission level, which determines if you can move things around, pick things up, and use the guild amenities.

I don't see any mechanical difficulties with implementing multiple guilds. It gives players more options, let's them play "Their Way", and doesn't hurt the players and guilds who want the "one player, one guild" system.

"Espionage" is another thing that isn't a game mechanic (and I don't think really exists often enough to worry about anyway), so isn't something the devs need to keep in mind when implementing the guild system. If you're that interested in doing it, you can just roll another toon and join the other guild anyway.

The days when guilds needed to "protect their strategies" are long gone - and nothing I've heard about Next would indicate that 'need' coming back.