Almost all guilds with that amount of people are comprised of a ton of alts. It's still the same people. And if 1-2 people are online out of 300, the guild leader should think about kicking the inactive players that haven't logged on in a month + or some of the 10+ alts each player has in that guild...
With our guild, we spread over the globe and we have people playing 24/7. Yes sometimes it is a smaller group playing, being many of us are casual. But Gaiscioch is our home and we love having time to play together with different groups, not always in the same time zone. We also do big group events that are really fun. We like being a big guild. If we aren't in the same group, it makes it hard for us to play when we want. For us that play together with so many others and different people from day to day. Life never gets boring that way. Please don't put a cap on the guild size.
I have been with multiple guiilds with in rift and the problem i see with small guilds is that like stated the casual player gets left out. I myself have had guilds fold under me because of a lack of intrest in the game and many with in fighting because of poor leadership the amount of members in gaminging community guilds like GSCH have an established group of members( I am one Hgielak) that play and join social events sponsored by the group constantly keep things fresh and help very much in keeping away the Burnout feeling the idea of small guild alliances would bring the the co-op to the game but would not help one people have hit the burnout. many would lose intrest and they would fold up.
Many would lose interest in what? I'm also trying to understand how this concern fits in with the design of guilds, guild activities and guild impact/influence on nodes.
Also keep in mind that many guild perks won't be available if you max each guild. Your alliance might want to include some small guilds in order to gain some perks that would be unavailable for guilds that choose to max membership.
I'm not buying it. Alliances and alliance chat, which they've already announced is perfectly acceptable. They have not announced an alliance cap.
All youre doing is running the risk of alienating smaller casual gamers byway of forcing them to turn to massive guilds in order to stay afloat. People like me, do not want to be in a massive guild. I prefer smaller family guilds. In big guilds, you are just a number, another statistic. Much like family companies, juxtaposed to giant conglomerate corporations.
I am with Dygz, it seems like there is some sort of impression that there is no one to play with or raid with if they are not in your guild. Am I missing something? MMO's, I'll admit, are not my usual thing.
So, can you not raid with people not in your guild? If Dygz and I are not in a guild, or in separate guilds, but enjoy doing stuff together can we not raid together?
One of the primary things guilds will be focused on in Ashes will be gathering and shipping the resources required to build and expand the guild house and to help build up and expand the city. In addition to occupying Castles in order to gain the Castle perks.
All kinds of people may be interested in helping to defend the caravans that ship the necessary resources. I would think, for certain, friends in the same megaguild would want to pool their people and their funds to better protect caravans. And individuals not in the guild may also wish to pool their funds with a guild that's scheduled a caravan because that increases the chances of surviving a raid on the caravan.
If characters from the same megaguild are living in the same node and you're concerned about the number of people online - why would it matter if the in-game guilds only have a max of 300? The same number of people will be online and playing in the same area regardless of the size of the in-game guild.
Azatoth and I might join or defend the same caravan even if neither of us are in a guild, simply because we typically play at the same time and we're currently on at the same time.
Azatoth and I might join or defend the same caravan because even though I'm not in a guild, I'll be better off if I join his guild's caravan than I would be alone...and we're currently on at the same time.
Azatoth and I might join or defend the same caravan because we're in the same megaguild and we want to repair or improve Azatoth's guild house.
Perhaps we like playing with each other, so even though I play 8 hours per day and Azatoth only plays 2 hours every other day, we schedule a caravan run during the hours he plans to be online.
I don't recall the devs mentioning an alliance cap.
I think this is all being based off of the developer comments during the Q&As about node size restrictions. They mentioned that as a node developed that costs for citizens would increase for those that came later. To the point that sustaining a huge population at a certain point would become unsustainable, limiting node growth. I think people read this as "OMG, my friends may not be able to join me."
I doubt that they will go this way in development, but I hope they make absolutely no perks for joining a guild. The feeling that you HAVE to join a guild to get all the perks that are given out, or that as a guild increases in membership it gets perks that smaller guilds don't just pisses me off. For example, in FFX14 you have to join one of the more active guilds(FC) on your server to get experience and cost lowering buffs. Sure you can go guildless, and the Duty Finder will allow you to run content without a guild, but it is always in the back of your mind that feeling that you are missing out on the goodies because everyone else is getting perks you aren't because you decided you didn't want to see messages from Vajaina Alot (real character name in my guild) scroll by constantly. In Wow they have a similar thing, certain perks were tied to your "reputation" with the guild and if you swapped guilds, you had to grind out said reputation again to be able to get those goodies. Other games give a percentage of content ground out as money to the guild coffers, thus putting a profit motive in place for people to make the largest guild with active grinders as possible, because the guy running it is making bank.
So, make joining a guild a purely social thing that has no inherent benefit just for joining. You will get lean, active guilds based off of common goals, rather than bloated alt filled guilds that people join because they "have to join someone, because they have the 10 percent exp buff active for guild members."
I am with Dygz, it seems like there is some sort of impression that there is no one to play with or raid with if they are not in your guild. Am I missing something? MMO's, I'll admit, are not my usual thing.
So, can you not raid with people not in your guild? If Dygz and I are not in a guild, or in separate guilds, but enjoy doing stuff together can we not raid together?
Absolutely. Steven has said a few times that no content will be locked behind guilds. So I have to ask my question again why would caps make any difference if you can ally with other guilds on Discord or pug from the highest rated PvX players?
If you want to organize a 500 person siege on a metropolis, then you could pick from 5 of the best 100 person PvX guilds in your area. In this scenario, a small alliance cap will just force people out of the game to use other ways of grouping together.
Instead of hard caps, would it not be better to have game mechanics (such as certain perks to smaller guilds as @Dygz mentioned) to encourage more inclusive and challenging gameplay?
Many would lose interest in what? I'm also trying to understand how this concern fits in with the design of guilds, guild activities and guild impact/influence on nodes.
Also keep in mind that many guild perks won't be available if you max each guild. Your alliance might want to include some small guilds in order to gain some perks that would be unavailable for guilds that choose to max membership.
Well, it's exactly because we have in mind that the guild system is being designed to support alliances that people from large guilds, like me, are concerned by the 250-300 cap limit.
Being a large guild is exactly that, a large guild, not a collection of smaller ones. A large guild may have several allied small guilds, if they so choose to ally with the large guild. Pulverizing large guilds, and then forcing them into alliances is not what keeps a guild community happy.
So, it's easy to understand how all this debate fits into the design of guilds, guild activities, and guild impact/influence on nodes: large guilds must be allowed, and their presence accounted for into the game mechanics.
One of the primary things guilds will be focused on in Ashes will be gathering and shipping the resources required to build and expand the guild house and to help build up and expand the city. In addition to occupying Castles in order to gain the Castle perks.
All kinds of people may be interested in helping to defend the caravans that ship the necessary resources. I would think, for certain, friends in the same megaguild would want to pool their people and their funds to better protect caravans. And individuals not in the guild may also wish to pool their funds with a guild that's scheduled a caravan because that increases the chances of surviving a raid on the caravan.
If characters from the same megaguild are living in the same node and you're concerned about the number of people online - why would it matter if the in-game guilds only have a max of 300? The same number of people will be online and playing in the same area regardless of the size of the in-game guild.
Azatoth and I might join or defend the same caravan even if neither of us are in a guild, simply because we typically play at the same time and we're currently on at the same time.
Azatoth and I might join or defend the same caravan because even though I'm not in a guild, I'll be better off if I join his guild's caravan than I would be alone...and we're currently on at the same time.
Azatoth and I might join or defend the same caravan because we're in the same megaguild and we want to repair or improve Azatoth's guild house.
Perhaps we like playing with each other, so even though I play 8 hours per day and Azatoth only plays 2 hours every other day, we schedule a caravan run during the hours he plans to be online.
The main issue is whether or not there are things guilds do to complete together that require you to be in the same guild. An example is Guild Wars 2's guild missions. You have to be a member of the guild in order to get personal credit for doing them. Our guild isn't filled with alt characters. We legitimately have over 800 members in our family from all over the world, all playing at different times of the day. You can literally not be confined to your own primetime in order to have fun with people that you know and trust. Our community was started back in 2001 and is still growing. We don't want a cap to be imposed that will prevent us from (now or in the future) being inclusive to each other or to people of the game community.
The apprehension over huge guilds that will diminish the chances of success for smaller guilds is going to be there regardless if there is a 300 person cap. As was stated earlier alliances may not have a cap, and there is no way the game devs can stop people from using a large voip to do the same thing anyway. We just want to be able to play with our family and community without being restricted.
Many would lose interest in what? I'm also trying to understand how this concern fits in with the design of guilds, guild activities and guild impact/influence on nodes.
Also keep in mind that many guild perks won't be available if you max each guild. Your alliance might want to include some small guilds in order to gain some perks that would be unavailable for guilds that choose to max membership.
Well, it's exactly because we have in mind that the guild system is being designed to support alliances that people from large guilds, like me, are concerned by the 250-300 cap limit.
Being a large guild is exactly that, a large guild, not a collection of smaller ones. A large guild may have several allied small guilds, if they so choose to ally with the large guild. Pulverizing large guilds, and then forcing them into alliances is not what keeps a guild community happy.
Pulverizing small family guilds and forcing them to be in large guilds to stay alive is not what keeps guild communities or other casual gamers happy.
I didn't think I agreed with your points, but then I thought about it and holy crap you're right. I would still consider my self hard core, but I do fit in your demographic. It's crazy how accurate it is for myself and my friends. Honestly I do go more casual when "life" needs to take away my precious gaming time. One example I'd like to share, that happens all to frequently, that I discovered after reading your example/data.
ALL OF WHICH HAPPENED IN THE TOP MMOs LIST:
I join a pretty big size guild/alliance/clan and at some point the officers "purge" the people that we all refer to as casuals. They do this to get more active members. Well a lot of the active members like and missed the "casuals" that were booted, and in turn end up leaving. Then the great exit happens and a flood of active members leave. The guild becomes a shell of what it used to. I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me. I honestly don't even try to join a big guild now-a-days till the game forces me to or I can't play some content.
I'm not buying it. Alliances and alliance chat, which they've already announced is perfectly acceptable. They have not announced an alliance cap.
All youre doing is running the risk of alienating smaller casual gamers byway of forcing them to turn to massive guilds in order to stay afloat. People like me, do not want to be in a massive guild. I prefer smaller family guilds. In big guilds, you are just a number, another statistic. Much like family companies, juxtaposed to giant conglomerate corporations.
I don't get why people think that allowing large guilds will force casual gamers into massive guilds, not to mention to stay afloat. Won't there be alliances for that? Large guilds or not, alliances will form. We may have a 500 member guild, but there's nothing so far preventing alliances of more than that to form.
The question that seems to be eluding the debate is that the issue is the social aspect of guilds and their communites. And here I touch the most important word that has not been used in this debate so far: communites.
Gaiscioch is a gaming community, not just a guild. We are extremely well organized outside the games we play, so that we can meet up even before deciding what to play together. It's been like that for at least a decade.
It's been said that opening doors to large hardcore guilds is a bad move. I've played games with hardcore guilds. Most people have no idea what a hardcore guild is. Keeping a 50-player one is hard, 100-player really tough, larger than that, I'm yet to see one. Hardcore guilds don't allow stragglers in any form. In most MMOs, where dungeons and raids are limited to 25 players, a really hardcore guild will have no more than 30 or 35, members on rotation. I played in such a guild in WoW. We only accepted casual players if they were family, because you know, family... but NO raiding!
Most of the guilds people call hardcore are actually softcore ones, with some very commited players, and usually a lot of casual ones. So there shouldn't be any fear there.
I also understand your concern about feeling small when in a large guild. It can happen, for sure. I remember that happening to me in my first SWTOR guild. It was massive, extremely powerful. But all the ranks and hierarchy one had to go through to get anything done was overly detrimental to the experience. It was a kind of conglomerate, you're right on the spot there.
But there are large guilds and large guilds. As I said before, Gaiscioch is not a guild. Gaiscioch is a long established gaming community, that happens to have guilds in many games. And we do much more than just play games. Just check us out.
The last issue is in-game communication. While using alliance chat is a viable option in many cases —we did that a lot in the Warhammer golden days— having an actual guild chat that supports all guild members is paramount. Superb communication is paramount.
I'll close with an example. And I assume this was a really unexpected situation. During GW2 launch, we had more than 1500 members. Since the guild cap was 500, you do the math. We had to create 4 guilds to hold everyone. Even worse, without an alliance chat, we had no means in game —I repeat in game— to coordinate with everyone, so we had to have people in more than one guild coordinating the events. I don't expect we'll hit such a high number of players again so easily. Still, it wasn't an alliance. It was one single guild.
Chance are very good that I would have wasted the founder donation if GSCH isn't a part of this game.
I don't understand why creators of MMO's want to force people into a narrow box where guilds becomes a revolving door instead a place you can make a home.
Having experienced trying to cram a family of 1200 into rooms that only handled up to 500 of them at a time with no alliance setup along with an alliance chat channel, I have seen people whine they are in the wrong one or if something happens and they get reassigned they say they lost all their friends though they are in the same guild. It makes it feel like family that lives in different states even if in the same game and we can use voice chat.
Since I have seen all sorts of issues from passive aggressive take overs to outright anger due to having to split a community due to the game's guild size, I honestly have to say 500 really is a good number if it even needs a max and including a TRUE alliance system with a built in alliance chat channel in the game would be great. I foresee alliances going on because of the building of empires and if a community coming in, no matter how they play, find that one guild seems to get the benefit and another does not for whatever reason, they are going to be dealing with people wanting to be in the better room.
Having experienced trying to cram a family of 1200 into rooms that only handled up to 500 of them at a time with no alliance setup along with an alliance chat channel, I have seen people whine they are in the wrong one or if something happens and they get reassigned they say they lost all their friends though they are in the same guild. It makes it feel like family that lives in different states even if in the same game and we can use voice chat.
Since I have seen all sorts of issues from passive aggressive take overs to outright anger due to having to split a community due to the game's guild size, I honestly have to say 500 really is a good number if it even needs a max and including a TRUE alliance system with a built in alliance chat channel in the game would be great. I foresee alliances going on because of the building of empires and if a community coming in, no matter how they play, find that one guild seems to get the benefit and another does not for whatever reason, they are going to be dealing with people wanting to be in the better room.
Though, this game does have alliance setups and channels... So, the way I understand this is: you are a gaming community, not a guild. You are comprised of many guilds throughout many games. Yet, you want the ability to setup your entire community in ashes without having to go through alliance chat.
While you are trying to speak of a problem on divvying up who goes in what guild-you are leaving out the difficulties you will come across combining multiple guilds, and guild leaders from multiple games into a giant one on this game. I do not see the dynamics of organizing that being any easier. Especially when you can just use the alliance system and alliance chat that has already been announced.
I really don't see the ratio being that bad I'm pretty casual at most MMOs and I rarely have issues keeping a decent amount of my guild online. I'm not saying this is wrong by any means but really it just seems like something that would make it easier for people to abuse the large guilds. Sorta like the bullying that happens in Ark: Survival Evolved but that obviously is extremely open game play with 0 penalties to griefing.
As I see it guild limits provide grounds for guild to work together without having 1 cohesive mass of players taking full control of the entire spectrum of an alliance. If over half the players are in a single guild well... then no matter what people on the other side may want that guild has the say... Think of it sort of like the US party system it should really be 3 parties but it's not.
Instead you have one that typically has majority control and pushes things through rather than compromise and balance out with the whole. What I'm getting at here is if a bunch of groups have varying leaders, playstyles and numbers it's going to force them all to compromise rather than get forced into one prospective.
Major guild A might have backing from 3 other major guilds in the alliance they formed but if guilds B, C and D all have varying opinions it's more of a split than a ok 1 path 1 purpose or as Kane would say "Peace through Power."
Having experienced trying to cram a family of 1200 into rooms that only handled up to 500 of them at a time with no alliance setup along with an alliance chat channel, I have seen people whine they are in the wrong one or if something happens and they get reassigned they say they lost all their friends though they are in the same guild. It makes it feel like family that lives in different states even if in the same game and we can use voice chat.
Since I have seen all sorts of issues from passive aggressive take overs to outright anger due to having to split a community due to the game's guild size, I honestly have to say 500 really is a good number if it even needs a max and including a TRUE alliance system with a built in alliance chat channel in the game would be great. I foresee alliances going on because of the building of empires and if a community coming in, no matter how they play, find that one guild seems to get the benefit and another does not for whatever reason, they are going to be dealing with people wanting to be in the better room.
Though, this game does have alliance setups and channels... So, the way I understand this is: you are a gaming community, not a guild. You are comprised of many guilds throughout many games. Yet, you want the ability to setup your entire community in ashes without having to go through alliance chat.
While you are trying to speak of a problem on divvying up who goes in what guild-you are leaving out the difficulties you will come across combining multiple guilds, and guild leaders from multiple games into a giant one on this game. I do not see the dynamics of organizing that being any easier. Especially when you can just use the alliance system and alliance chat that has already been announced.
I would like to invite you to visit our website and browse around a bit if you would like to better understand our situation. The TLDR is that we do not have a mesh problem per say, but we do have trouble in games with guild caps and being able to include everyone in the community who would like to participate. Our leadership is a group of great, dedicated people across all of the games we play. So there's not as much difficulty as you might think in bringing people together into one game
Having experienced trying to cram a family of 1200 into rooms that only handled up to 500 of them at a time with no alliance setup along with an alliance chat channel, I have seen people whine they are in the wrong one or if something happens and they get reassigned they say they lost all their friends though they are in the same guild. It makes it feel like family that lives in different states even if in the same game and we can use voice chat.
Since I have seen all sorts of issues from passive aggressive take overs to outright anger due to having to split a community due to the game's guild size, I honestly have to say 500 really is a good number if it even needs a max and including a TRUE alliance system with a built in alliance chat channel in the game would be great. I foresee alliances going on because of the building of empires and if a community coming in, no matter how they play, find that one guild seems to get the benefit and another does not for whatever reason, they are going to be dealing with people wanting to be in the better room.
Though, this game does have alliance setups and channels... So, the way I understand this is: you are a gaming community, not a guild. You are comprised of many guilds throughout many games. Yet, you want the ability to setup your entire community in ashes without having to go through alliance chat.
While you are trying to speak of a problem on divvying up who goes in what guild-you are leaving out the difficulties you will come across combining multiple guilds, and guild leaders from multiple games into a giant one on this game. I do not see the dynamics of organizing that being any easier. Especially when you can just use the alliance system and alliance chat that has already been announced.
I would like to invite you to visit our website and browse around a bit if you would like to better understand our situation. The TLDR is that we do not have a mesh problem per say, but we do have trouble in games with guild caps and being able to include everyone in the community who would like to participate. Our leadership is a group of great, dedicated people across all of the games we play. So there's not as much difficulty as you might think in bringing people together into one game
Thanks for the information. Though, I do not see myself prowling around too much. I have been gaming for the the better part of 3 decades, and I have my own core group that moves from game to game. I understand the dynamics. If you have more than 1200+ From multiple guilds, and multiple games, that all agree on everything all the time pertaining to leadership, who gets what position and who goes where-that would really be something to see, though. Kudos for the feat. I still disagree on no guild limits.
The main issue is whether or not there are things guilds do to complete together that require you to be in the same guild. An example is Guild Wars 2's guild missions. You have to be a member of the guild in order to get personal credit for doing them. Our guild isn't filled with alt characters. We legitimately have over 800 members in our family from all over the world, all playing at different times of the day. You can literally not be confined to your own primetime in order to have fun with people that you know and trust. Our community was started back in 2001 and is still growing. We don't want a cap to be imposed that will prevent us from (now or in the future) being inclusive to each other or to people of the game community.
The apprehension over huge guilds that will diminish the chances of success for smaller guilds is going to be there regardless if there is a 300 person cap. As was stated earlier alliances may not have a cap, and there is no way the game devs can stop people from using a large voip to do the same thing anyway. We just want to be able to play with our family and community without being restricted.
I think the things we do in Ashes won't really work in such a way that you have to be online to get personal credit for accomplishments. Helping your guild progress provides guild perks for the entire guild. I think it will be similar to citizens contributing to the growth of the node. So, you contribute whatever you contribute when you're online. There will be stuff for soloers and casuals to do even with guild related tasks. Keep in mind that the nodes track all of our contributions.
I'm still trying to understand, I guess, why you wouldn't be able to play with your family and community if you're all playing in the same node.
Having experienced trying to cram a family of 1200 into rooms that only handled up to 500 of them at a time with no alliance setup along with an alliance chat channel, I have seen people whine they are in the wrong one or if something happens and they get reassigned they say they lost all their friends though they are in the same guild. It makes it feel like family that lives in different states even if in the same game and we can use voice chat.
Um. Trying to cram 1200 people into rooms in an MMORPG seems like it would be problematic regardless of guild caps. Seems easier to know which room you belong in if you have 5 guild houses in the same metropolis rather than one. And, you know, you might even have a family that large split among different nodes.
I think it really should be dependent on how big the server is going to be, say for instance if the server is 1000 people a 300 person guild would be just under 1/3 of the population. And game would end up stagnant. If it is a 10,000 person server 300 person guild would be 1/30. Maybe we should be looking at server size and asking for a larger server for the larger gaming communities?
I think it really should be dependent on how big the server is going to be, say for instance if the server is 1000 people a 300 person guild would be just under 1/3 of the population. And game would end up stagnant. If it is a 10,000 person server 300 person guild would be 1/30. Maybe we should be looking at server size and asking for a larger server for the larger gaming communities?
I need to think about this a bit more.
Well rough estimate let's say a few thousand as to many more than that could cause lag issues with the sheer amount of background stuff that'll happen. At least that's where I'd be on it.
So my low end would be 1k with the high end being 5k hopefully it leans somewhere to the middle or higher end of that. While also being beautifully stable of course!
I don't mean this in a negative way, but I'm wondering how many people who're agreeing are from the Gaiscioch community. If they not, then I'm pretty surprised at how many people seem to like the idea of Mega guilds.
Haha, I personally always thought casuals just joined guilds for various reasons, like fun people, having players to around to help, guild that provide free items, guilds where their friends are at, guild size, chances to meet familiar faces and friends (which having "smaller" guilds does help).
It's pretty strange to me to say that limiting guilds to a paltry 300 hurts casuals but I do speak from a position of someone never being in a guild that's been more than 80, so perhaps you guys have some magic formula going. Are mega-guilds with 800+ casuals common? Haha, wouldn't it be more efficient casuals just aim to join a guild with active gaming hours that matches them?
I don't mean this in a negative way, but I'm wondering how many people who're agreeing are from the Gaiscioch community. If they not, then I'm pretty surprised at how many people seem to like the idea of Mega guilds.
Haha, I personally always thought casuals just joined guilds for various reasons, like fun people, having players to around to help, guild that provide free items, guilds where their friends are at, guild size, chances to meet familiar faces and friends (which having "smaller" guilds does help).
It's pretty strange to me to say that limiting guilds to a paltry 300 hurts casuals but I do speak from a position of someone never being in a guild that's been more than 80, so perhaps you guys have some magic formula going. Are mega-guilds with 800+ casuals common? Haha, wouldn't it be more efficient casuals just aim to join a guild with active gaming hours that matches them?
From what I have seen, minus 1 or 2...almost everyone agreeing with this is from the community and made their accounts today.
Comments
400 people = 4 x 100 person guilds = 2 x 200 person guilds etc... so really what's the point of a hard guild cap or alliance cap?
Almost all guilds with that amount of people are comprised of a ton of alts. It's still the same people. And if 1-2 people are online out of 300, the guild leader should think about kicking the inactive players that haven't logged on in a month + or some of the 10+ alts each player has in that guild...
I'm also trying to understand how this concern fits in with the design of guilds, guild activities and guild impact/influence on nodes.
Also keep in mind that many guild perks won't be available if you max each guild.
Your alliance might want to include some small guilds in order to gain some perks that would be unavailable for guilds that choose to max membership.
They have not announced an alliance cap.
All youre doing is running the risk of alienating smaller casual gamers byway of forcing them to turn to massive guilds in order to stay afloat. People like me, do not want to be in a massive guild. I prefer smaller family guilds. In big guilds, you are just a number, another statistic. Much like family companies, juxtaposed to giant conglomerate corporations.
So, can you not raid with people not in your guild?
If Dygz and I are not in a guild, or in separate guilds, but enjoy doing stuff together can we not raid together?
All kinds of people may be interested in helping to defend the caravans that ship the necessary resources. I would think, for certain, friends in the same megaguild would want to pool their people and their funds to better protect caravans. And individuals not in the guild may also wish to pool their funds with a guild that's scheduled a caravan because that increases the chances of surviving a raid on the caravan.
If characters from the same megaguild are living in the same node and you're concerned about the number of people online - why would it matter if the in-game guilds only have a max of 300? The same number of people will be online and playing in the same area regardless of the size of the in-game guild.
Azatoth and I might join or defend the same caravan even if neither of us are in a guild, simply because we typically play at the same time and we're currently on at the same time.
Azatoth and I might join or defend the same caravan because even though I'm not in a guild, I'll be better off if I join his guild's caravan than I would be alone...and we're currently on at the same time.
Azatoth and I might join or defend the same caravan because we're in the same megaguild and we want to repair or improve Azatoth's guild house.
Perhaps we like playing with each other, so even though I play 8 hours per day and Azatoth only plays 2 hours every other day, we schedule a caravan run during the hours he plans to be online.
I doubt that they will go this way in development, but I hope they make absolutely no perks for joining a guild. The feeling that you HAVE to join a guild to get all the perks that are given out, or that as a guild increases in membership it gets perks that smaller guilds don't just pisses me off. For example, in FFX14 you have to join one of the more active guilds(FC) on your server to get experience and cost lowering buffs. Sure you can go guildless, and the Duty Finder will allow you to run content without a guild, but it is always in the back of your mind that feeling that you are missing out on the goodies because everyone else is getting perks you aren't because you decided you didn't want to see messages from Vajaina Alot (real character name in my guild) scroll by constantly. In Wow they have a similar thing, certain perks were tied to your "reputation" with the guild and if you swapped guilds, you had to grind out said reputation again to be able to get those goodies. Other games give a percentage of content ground out as money to the guild coffers, thus putting a profit motive in place for people to make the largest guild with active grinders as possible, because the guy running it is making bank.
So, make joining a guild a purely social thing that has no inherent benefit just for joining. You will get lean, active guilds based off of common goals, rather than bloated alt filled guilds that people join because they "have to join someone, because they have the 10 percent exp buff active for guild members."
You can't do everything.
Core aspect of the world being dynamic rather than static.
If you want to organize a 500 person siege on a metropolis, then you could pick from 5 of the best 100 person PvX guilds in your area. In this scenario, a small alliance cap will just force people out of the game to use other ways of grouping together.
Instead of hard caps, would it not be better to have game mechanics (such as certain perks to smaller guilds as @Dygz mentioned) to encourage more inclusive and challenging gameplay?
The apprehension over huge guilds that will diminish the chances of success for smaller guilds is going to be there regardless if there is a 300 person cap. As was stated earlier alliances may not have a cap, and there is no way the game devs can stop people from using a large voip to do the same thing anyway. We just want to be able to play with our family and community without being restricted.
ALL OF WHICH HAPPENED IN THE TOP MMOs LIST:
I join a pretty big size guild/alliance/clan and at some point the officers "purge" the people that we all refer to as casuals. They do this to get more active members. Well a lot of the active members like and missed the "casuals" that were booted, and in turn end up leaving. Then the great exit happens and a flood of active members leave. The guild becomes a shell of what it used to. I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me. I honestly don't even try to join a big guild now-a-days till the game forces me to or I can't play some content.
So thank you @foghladha for sharing this.
The question that seems to be eluding the debate is that the issue is the social aspect of guilds and their communites. And here I touch the most important word that has not been used in this debate so far: communites.
Gaiscioch is a gaming community, not just a guild. We are extremely well organized outside the games we play, so that we can meet up even before deciding what to play together. It's been like that for at least a decade.
It's been said that opening doors to large hardcore guilds is a bad move. I've played games with hardcore guilds. Most people have no idea what a hardcore guild is. Keeping a 50-player one is hard, 100-player really tough, larger than that, I'm yet to see one. Hardcore guilds don't allow stragglers in any form. In most MMOs, where dungeons and raids are limited to 25 players, a really hardcore guild will have no more than 30 or 35, members on rotation. I played in such a guild in WoW. We only accepted casual players if they were family, because you know, family... but NO raiding!
Most of the guilds people call hardcore are actually softcore ones, with some very commited players, and usually a lot of casual ones. So there shouldn't be any fear there.
I also understand your concern about feeling small when in a large guild. It can happen, for sure. I remember that happening to me in my first SWTOR guild. It was massive, extremely powerful. But all the ranks and hierarchy one had to go through to get anything done was overly detrimental to the experience. It was a kind of conglomerate, you're right on the spot there.
But there are large guilds and large guilds. As I said before, Gaiscioch is not a guild. Gaiscioch is a long established gaming community, that happens to have guilds in many games. And we do much more than just play games. Just check us out.
The last issue is in-game communication. While using alliance chat is a viable option in many cases —we did that a lot in the Warhammer golden days— having an actual guild chat that supports all guild members is paramount. Superb communication is paramount.
I'll close with an example. And I assume this was a really unexpected situation. During GW2 launch, we had more than 1500 members. Since the guild cap was 500, you do the math. We had to create 4 guilds to hold everyone. Even worse, without an alliance chat, we had no means in game —I repeat in game— to coordinate with everyone, so we had to have people in more than one guild coordinating the events. I don't expect we'll hit such a high number of players again so easily. Still, it wasn't an alliance. It was one single guild.
I don't understand why creators of MMO's want to force people into a narrow box where guilds becomes a revolving door instead a place you can make a home.
Since I have seen all sorts of issues from passive aggressive take overs to outright anger due to having to split a community due to the game's guild size, I honestly have to say 500 really is a good number if it even needs a max and including a TRUE alliance system with a built in alliance chat channel in the game would be great. I foresee alliances going on because of the building of empires and if a community coming in, no matter how they play, find that one guild seems to get the benefit and another does not for whatever reason, they are going to be dealing with people wanting to be in the better room.
So, the way I understand this is: you are a gaming community, not a guild. You are comprised of many guilds throughout many games. Yet, you want the ability to setup your entire community in ashes without having to go through alliance chat.
While you are trying to speak of a problem on divvying up who goes in what guild-you are leaving out the difficulties you will come across combining multiple guilds, and guild leaders from multiple games into a giant one on this game. I do not see the dynamics of organizing that being any easier. Especially when you can just use the alliance system and alliance chat that has already been announced.
As I see it guild limits provide grounds for guild to work together without having 1 cohesive mass of players taking full control of the entire spectrum of an alliance. If over half the players are in a single guild well... then no matter what people on the other side may want that guild has the say... Think of it sort of like the US party system it should really be 3 parties but it's not.
Instead you have one that typically has majority control and pushes things through rather than compromise and balance out with the whole. What I'm getting at here is if a bunch of groups have varying leaders, playstyles and numbers it's going to force them all to compromise rather than get forced into one prospective.
Major guild A might have backing from 3 other major guilds in the alliance they formed but if guilds B, C and D all have varying opinions it's more of a split than a ok 1 path 1 purpose or as Kane would say "Peace through Power."
If you have more than 1200+ From multiple guilds, and multiple games, that all agree on everything all the time pertaining to leadership, who gets what position and who goes where-that would really be something to see, though. Kudos for the feat. I still disagree on no guild limits.
Helping your guild progress provides guild perks for the entire guild. I think it will be similar to citizens contributing to the growth of the node. So, you contribute whatever you contribute when you're online.
There will be stuff for soloers and casuals to do even with guild related tasks.
Keep in mind that the nodes track all of our contributions.
I'm still trying to understand, I guess, why you wouldn't be able to play with your family and community if you're all playing in the same node.
And, you know, you might even have a family that large split among different nodes.
I need to think about this a bit more.
So my low end would be 1k with the high end being 5k hopefully it leans somewhere to the middle or higher end of that. While also being beautifully stable of course!
Haha, I personally always thought casuals just joined guilds for various reasons, like fun people, having players to around to help, guild that provide free items, guilds where their friends are at, guild size, chances to meet familiar faces and friends (which having "smaller" guilds does help).
It's pretty strange to me to say that limiting guilds to a paltry 300 hurts casuals but I do speak from a position of someone never being in a guild that's been more than 80, so perhaps you guys have some magic formula going. Are mega-guilds with 800+ casuals common? Haha, wouldn't it be more efficient casuals just aim to join a guild with active gaming hours that matches them?