Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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
I thought casual players play the game to experience the story, develop their characters, socialize with people, experience the world etc. If looking for other players to play with the is argument, then I just thought joining a community with an active timing that's similar to yours seems to tick more boxes than a giant guild.
Many of the people who were hardcore challenge/hardcore time in their younger days are now hardcore challenge/casual time.
Yes.
I made Some points earlier on That most casual gamers, like me, do not want to be in a massive guild. If you read my original posts, it was against their logic, not for limiting. However, what I see here-and I could be wrong-but this isn't so much about "coming together and helping casuals", as Ashes have announced the alliance tools and chats. This is more about trying to integrate an entire community of multiple guilds from multiple games into a massive one with thousands in its ranks onto a single server that would not only upset the balance of said server, but made to dominate all.
The dominating part is fine. There is always going to be top guilds. I do not, however, agree that would in anyway help casuals whatsoever, nor do i agree that it's the right thing to do. I feel alliances and alliance chat should be adequate if they want to make such a move.
The question could be looked at from the angle: Why does Intrepid want to limit guild sizes? Do they have pretty valid reasons to want to do so?
If it is just to "help prevent zergs" or server domination well then the same workaround for large guilds splitting into a smaller number of "allied" guilds kind of wrecks the effort put into a solution to those perceived problems, doesn't it?
If that is the logic behind the whole thing then another question would be: Why spend time creating limits if you leave easy workarounds to them?
Intrepid is promising quite a few marvelous things in their Minimum Playable Client, just by itself. If setting limits and having to do extra work to empower ALL guilds from small to maximum takes up more time than no limits, they should bag all of it into the waste basket, IMO.
Let the sandbox be a sandbox and let players decide how large their guilds can be.
It is all a matter of scale which is determined by a lot of different factors, the larger the scale the more work it is in the development side, especially when trying to keep smaller guilds relevant to the grand scheme of things.
My question to IS is how many players are you planning on making the map to handle, and how many people are you designing nodes/town/cities ect to hold?
As for my members posting here I asked them to read it and voice their opinions one way or another. They too are looking forward to this game. The biggest concern right now is if we'll be able to play together or if the game is going to force us to split. Which historically (GW2, ESO, BDO, AION) has done very bad things to our community and their enjoyment in a game.
Keep in mind that my articles, and my perspective come from leading Gaiscioch for nearly 16 years across a journey through 5 different games. I've seen guild systems thrive such as in Rift, and I've seen them annihilate player bases like ESO. We've had great launches like in Rift that were smooth sailing and everyone was happy and we've had not so great releases like bringing 1,700 people into ESO to have most of those people quit within the first 6 months because they couldn't communicate across the guilds. You might not see the long term effects from your perspective but I have lived them. I have seen them at work, and I have listened to countless members feel like outcasts because they aren't in the "main" guild which they perceive the other one to when in fact the one their in is actually the most active. It's been a challenge to make work and while many eastern games are cutting guild sizes below 100 we hoped, that Ashes of Creation would be different and not punish people for wanting to play together.
Time will tell what the cost will be. If there's an alliance chat, you can bet Gaiscioch will be here full steam. We just want to be able to play together and not punish people who can't commit 5+ hours a week to playing games. It's not how we roll.
Foghladha
Why do any of it if creating the limits requires extra work and those limits have very easy workarounds?
If it ends up that there aren't easy workarounds, somehow, then any arguments "to not worry because you can make small allied guilds" is an invalid solution to the OP's main point.
As I see it guild limits provide grounds for guilds 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."
This argument is sound but only includes the perspective of one type of alliance decision making process. There are many, many ways that alliances decide major courses of action and goals.
For me however, In a server of 12k players, I'd find it a little... Unpleasant to see about 10% of the players from the same guild. But that's just me. I like variety. It could end up being a server community health vs. Gsch community health issue.
Personally, I would probably find a different server.
I do not see it as a "punishment for wanting to play together." I see it as a balancing issue.
@foghladha
When I play, I'm typically also monitoring and communicating via twitch and twitter, so I don't understand why you wouldn't be able to communicate with the entire guild.
twitch can hold thousands of players in chat. twitter allows you to communicate with thousands if not millions of people.
Aye. Your basically asking to control a server. It's really not fair to the rest of the gaming community. I'm not telling you it's wrong to be organized with good leadership or run a massive guild but they tend to lend towards takeover rather than camaraderie.
As for the comment about it being one perspective way to run things... It's really not. All guilds lend towards a leader class maybe some officers then delegation falls off to less and less from there. Regardless of what decision making system you think your doing in the end the top are always the final say. Sure some are run more or less fairly by a small group working for their members.
However at the sizes your implying your basically rending any form of balance a server could manage. Now if we were at the tech level to cost effectively have servers with 50k players in a massive world then sure that's all fine and dandy have your 800-1200 member guilds. At least in that scenario you can't just dictate how the server does things on a whim because X small guild pissed you off.
As a final note I am a casual gamer. I play a lot of different games but I never really focus on stuff entirely. With that being said a mega guild vs. a myriad of small guilds does not appeal to me. It shows a lop sided build design and crushes any ability for small guilds to stand a chance. I will again quote myself with what typically happens with mega guilds
I'd have to agree with that... I rarely see mega-guilds unless it's some Korean raid/PvP swarm fest MMO. Even then their not that common and typically split into subsections that do their own thing. The last major one I saw actually got disbanded forcefully by the devs because they caused major issues and were "trading" PvP wins for gains.
Again to reiterate I'm not telling you it's wrong to have a massive guild or a large "family" of players. However when you get to that size in the current server number limitations in play you simply ruin the balance and tip the scales entirely in your own favor.
No Ninja I totally agree with what your saying my wording was probably a bit off. What I mean is as it handles it mechanically and world based. If it's roughly set for 2k people sure that's what the server should be to give everyone breathing room. The main problem we have now is not knowing jack about it. =P
I didn't mean to imply any kind of disagreement I just wanted to expand the train of though to farther flesh out the discussion
Now, this same community, mostly the same players, join in when a new chapter is opened in a new MMO. So we are not talking about alliances. We're talking about the same people, the same voices and faces, all members of the same community, forming a new guild in a new game, willing to explore a new world, to brave the challenges devs devised to be faced and tackled. Together, as a community, once again.
Put it another way, the community existed first, and the guilds were created by the community, not the other way round. And we are only forced to create more than one guild in the same game if there are guild caps.
Also, we do offer alliances, our community is open that way, and allies can participate in community events. However, alliances are in no way mandatory —this word, in fact, is not part of our daily vocabulary—, and those alliances need not be in game, or solely in game.
We are a community where you "play what you want to play, the way you want to play it". The fact is, as a large community, we tend to prefer to play together.
In the end, we tried to explain with numbers, with facts about how good it is to be in a community that's been around for 13 years.
The fact is, we are a large group of players, members of the same community, who like to play together... in the same guild. It's simple as that.
As I said in another post, it's logical that communities who've been playing together for a long time, would love to keep playing together, as one guild! The banner of the community carried by all of its members.
And now to @lexmax comment: "why would caps make any difference if you can ally with other guilds". Well, because communities will prefer to stay as a single group, a single guild. And that doesn't prevent alliances to be made. Or for a 500 person siege to be organized with mixed players from the large guild and smaller ones, allied or not.
If the design of the game mechanics punishes smaller guilds for being small, and culls larger ones so they do not become to powerful, perhaps a re-balancing is in order. As @Dygz and @lexmax posted perks or other mechanics my be a good answer for smaller guilds, without preventing larger ones to exist.
But this just my 2 cents, if your story is different, great! This just what I have picked up since internet came out.
I do love your article and evidence, but I'd love to see the server cap for each of those games you mentioned in the last section of your post.
10k limit means they should go even lower than 300, maybe even to 150 to keep the servers healthy.
If the server limit was like 50k, then there would be choises to make guilds bigger. But for now, 300 max feels too high already.
we don't know yet but i'm sure something will come of benefit from being in an alliance other than just the fact you are "allies".