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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
It's not an argument, it's a clarification.
The Ashes, in-game guilds play a crucial role in dynamically changing the world.
All of the mechanics, including guild mechanics, feed back into the devs' Four Pillars for the game design.
Guild membership is optional, but there are strong incentives to joining guilds. In-game guilds have a strong impact and influence on the game world. Guild friction drives Meaningful Conflict. Meaningful Conflict changes the world.
Meta-guilds who are here mainly to RP or goof around in chat rather than enjoy Meaningful Conflict may wish to choose a different game.
RP chat is not one of the Four Pillars.
There are lots of people who just want to PvE and not participate in PvP combat, too.
People will have to adjust to the game design and decide whether the components of the Four Pillars create a virtual world where they truly wish to live or if it doesn't meet their requirements for a fun experience.
I was simply trying to add another alternative into the mix. One that maintains the focus on the game principles, but also doesn't disenfranchise sections of the community.
The four pillars are good principles, but dynamism does not just come down to design and game mechanics, it is also driven in a very fundamental human way by individual choice and playstyles. Without people who want to make crafting their primary focus, or fill the streets and taverns with idle banter and community spirit, or range like a ghost through the trees ganking unwary wanderers *ahem*, this game would not seem as complete to me.
So far IS have demonstrated a willingness to accommodate many play styles in Ashes (apart from the ganking). I'm pretty keen to see how the game systems will be designed to make human diversity a part of the game experience.
It's also possible a sort of diminishing returns logistic penalty is associated with huge guilds (assuming the cap is raised significantly higher) so that the hardcore would find difficulty in abusing it for world domination, but casuals might not even notice, as it may not be relevant to what they are doing.
Depending on game mechanics.
If game benefits from guilds are confined to a guild instead of an alliance (I.e castle benefits for a guild vs. Castle benefits for an alliance), having a large number of players benefit from the actions of a few.
In the case of a non gsch type guild, this could lead to a large number of players amassing a large benefit. Discouraging competition in the server.
You could say that the game mechanics could work a different way and big guilds could make no difference. Another player might point could another set of hypothetical mechanics or factors that supports the positive factors of the large guild.
But because no one knows the game mechanics, arguing for or against this is pointless since we have a near unlimited number of variables and factors people could use to support "for" or "against" arguments.
I am definitely a non-conformist.
I love the Meaningful Conflict concept even though I'm not sure that I can deal with it 24/7.
So, I may not end up actually playing Ashes for progression. I may only participate as a kind of reporter chronicling the evolving stories of a couple servers.
It's likely I would actually prefer a PvE-server with PvP combat disabled.
Backing the Four Pillars is actually more important to me than my zeal to play the game.
If the PvP-combat is too much for me to enjoy playing, I won't play and that's fine.
And I'm saying the same thing about Gaiscioch. It may be that the game design is not one that the community will enjoy.
But, we won't know until we're able to play.
Currently my position is the same as those who would prefer a designated RP server - I'm going to see if we can create an unofficial PvE server with comparatively low instances of PvP combat.
Which is similar to Gaiscioch creating sub-guilds and forming an Alliance.
IS is also accommodating ganking, they just aren't catering ganking and are striving to ensure it's not a gankbox.
The devs are accommodating guilds and PvE and RP - just not in a way that is necessarily the most comfortable fit for any of those playstyles.
We won't really know whether we feel disenfranchised until we actually play the game as designed.
STEVEN: Castles exert control, to a degree, over the economies of Nodes under its influence. There are, as it stands now, 5 castles in the game and those castles have a domain that they control, to a degree.
Owning a castle, the guild may be able to allocate some of those taxes for increasing defense spending in Nodes separate from the Node's taxation policies and coffers, they may activate certain events and abilities that can progress citizens of certain Nodes, they may unlock certain types of buildings.
Castles have dedicated nodes around the castle that exist outside of the Node system that's buildable to a certain stage (Stage 4?) by the guild that owns the castle and the guilds that are in an alliance with that castle.
There are a lot of different mechanics that relate to our castle system.
I'll post that one if/when I find it.
Hopefully, the guilds in alliance helping to build those dedicated nodes receive some of those castle perks.
One thought I had was to name the Alliance Gaiscioch , assuming alliances have names, and then use other names for your guilds. That should make all of your members feel a part of the whole for the most part. I trust that if you can manage the community you have created then the difficulties that the guild/alliance system present can be overcome, probably using tools that you already have to manage your community. I hope that the in game tools for alliances/guilds compliment this and provide the environment that your community needs. We will just have to wait and listen for dev updates for guild/alliance tools. Tools such as Alliance chat, Alliance rosters to see who is online, etc. would go a long way to enabling your community. The ability for other alliances to toggle these tools may be useful as well.
Now for the dangers of megaguilds and server domination. This is something that actually caused me some concern until I remembered that leading people is like herding cats. This game will lead to servers that are being dominated being boring which will either lead to the break up of the megaguild, through in fighting. Or the migration of the rest of the population to different servers. Good luck moving a megaguild to a new server if the original server depopulates. That would be terrible for everyone that had to move but hopefully manageable. The other solution is to just wait it out. Group dynamics shows that the larger a group that a single person leads the more autocratic the leadership style. This leads to group friction or disassembling the leadership by hierarchy. Both choices would provide the dynamic world that the dev's talk about over time. The autocratic leadership style stifles creativity and disallows change which leads to stagnation within the group. Given that this is a game that people play for fun and have to pay for that any group adopting an autocratic leadership style will splinter or simply dissolve. Disassembling the leadership through hierarchy will usually have the same result as egos clash and the difficulty of maintaining focus for all the small groups becomes overbearing.
The balance between the advantages of being in a large guild and the difficulty in managing it may be the game mechanic that allows communities like Gaiscioch to thrive and a megaguild bent on server domination to fail. @foghladha has mad respect from me for creating and maintaining a community that has overcome these issues. Part of that is the benefit of Gaiscioch is the community. A megaguild bent on server domination has to manage reward distribution, player egos and many other things to remain cohesive.
TL:DR (in a style akin to @Umji )
Big groups not last
people = drama
more people = more drama
Big groups splinter like broken spear.
However I also agree that part of the perks should go to guilds that helped somehow, based on level of contribution.
I am not saying I have a perfect idea how to implement it, just that it would be nice if it would be possible to reward contribution depending on contribution level.
There will be incentives to stay small (as a guild) in form of power boosting abilities that you take over additional membership slots. They will also have mechanics geared toward small guilds. Now how this will all play out will be seen in testing. They might add a cap to alliances so guilds don't just create smaller guilds to game the system for the power perks. They could also tweak how ownership of castles work. We'll probably see multiple tweaks and iterations until IS gets it right, it's up to us as testers to make sure we give them feedback and try and game the system.
Some games require a fair amount of people. Either recruit more or learn to be happy with playing the game with some content out of reach.
I would just love to add something to think about as well:
Ashes of Creation will be (and I am very happy about that) very different than any other game so far.
Thus, whatever numbers other games had, means nothing to me, and should mean nothing for Ashes of Creation.
That being said, should anything greater be implemented I believe it must be in proportion to the server capacity to avoid a mono-culture
This punishes gaming communities that come into the game together, and want to start playing in a guild together from the get go.
Then annoyance of creating multiple guilds, common chat channels, than as one guild grows, move people to it, close down clone guilds... it's just bad.
I think guilds should have larger caps from the get go, and then as they level up, other perks should grow in power. Guild member cap should be larger right away.
What I want to say is... that guild caps should not too big. A lot guilds have a high "membercount" including alts. But nobody talks at all. Nor even help eachother or have fun together.
The other downside to having high guildmember cap is that in some scenario's, people will all join the 'biggest' guild, because the sheer amount of numbers overpowers the rest. Of course I think that guilds should feel stronger if there are more members, but not to the point, they are "best" and only win by sheer numbers, instead of tactics or teamwork. Which is mostly not fun at all.
I think a member cap of 200 accounts per guild, should be good enough, if not even already a bit too big. Of course guilds should be able to have more "alts". But... I want to advise to look towards an account cap. Max. 150 or 200 accounts per guild. Unlimited alts per account in a guild.
Why not have goals to work towards, and if the group are a group, then they can goal it and achieve it!
L2 worked this way and it was a great way to differentiate the guilds that worked together and had substance versus the guilds that filled their ranks with randoms for the sake of numbers and little else.
Rush to have all at the beginning and the game quickly fades to monotony. Have it also have the capacity to be taken away then it means even more to achieve and retain it!
There are pitfalls to either situation, and the limitation on guild sizes is generally because you want to avoid the zerg mentality.
It also depends on how the alliance system works, and how the guild system overall plays into the game.
PUGS flock to Leadership. It doesn't matter what guild their in, they will come if the leader can herd them well.
Guess we are going to just fight today huh?