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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.
Metropolis Ranks and Guild Ranks
ArchivedUser
Guest
A friend of mine and I are planning on posting a thread (in the next few days) in the Guild recruitment tab, about a Guild that we want to create. We have a very solid idea of what we want to accomplish, but we don't know if the in-game systems are going to allow it. I'll break down what we want, and then break down why we're unsure if it will be conceivable.
What we want:
We'd like to have a guild/metropolis, that has separate ranks, departments, and titles. For example: We'd have the actual guild itself, and within that guild, we'd have a PVP department, a Gathering department, Crafting Department, Economic Department, Recon Department, and a Governmental department. Each player would have a title or rank as a guild member, and then also have a sub-rank within the guild/metropolis that limits what they can do. For example: Gathering department members would be able to place crafting materials in the guild bank/vault, and only certain people in certain departments (i.e, crafting, economic, governmental) would be able to withdraw the resources and use them to either make gear for other members, or sell them for profit.
Another example: Gatherers collect resources, (maybe smelts or processes them for experience) and then puts them in the vault for other guild members to use. A crafter then takes out the processed materials and creates potions, gear, or some other items with them (for experience) and then puts the items back into the vault. At that point, a PvP member can take out the consumable, and use it during a siege, or caravan attack; or an economic member can take them out to sell them for profit. But at the end of the day, certain departments have certain responsibilities and certain permissions. So how are we going to be able to organize all of that?
The main question behind all this is, what will be the difference in 'ranking' systems be, between guilds and metropolis's (metropoli?)? Personally, I don't think you shouldn't be FORCED to be in the same guild as those who run the city. If you want to have a small guild with some RL friends, you should be able to do that and be a citizen of a city at the same time. So where's the divide? If it's necessary to have a guild to achieve an organized city, but isn't necessary to be part of that guild to be part of, or help form the city, then where do the city ranks/titles/departments fit with/around the guild ranks/titles/departments?
Would breaking members up into different departments be a metropolis setting, or a guild one? Or maybe both? The issue that I'm seeing is the communications.. If the departments aren't able to talk to each other (i.e, different guilds in W.o.W to achieve this same type of department system, that have different guild chats), then there will most certainly be issues within the Metropolis, and guild. Which can ultimately cause turmoil, unrest, and revolt. And if different guilds within a single city aren't able to effectively communicate to others, then there will be issues arising from that as well.
What if a small guild of PvP dedicated players wanted to join our city? Awesome. Though, I'd like them to be part of my PvP department, but they don't want to disband their Guild, and I don't want to have to force them. Is there going to be a way for them to be part of my PvP department chat, without joining the guild? This goes back to the question of will these settings be in the metropolis or guild.
I'm not really sure how to solve this concept, or if it's even going to be an issue, it's just mainly a concept that my friend and I were tossing around, and we ran into this issue. So I decided to throw it up here and see what everyone else thinks as I know there are other guilds thinking along the same lines.
** I understand it's in development, and I understand only so much can be answered, but I'm too excited for this game not to ask questions hahaha **
What we want:
We'd like to have a guild/metropolis, that has separate ranks, departments, and titles. For example: We'd have the actual guild itself, and within that guild, we'd have a PVP department, a Gathering department, Crafting Department, Economic Department, Recon Department, and a Governmental department. Each player would have a title or rank as a guild member, and then also have a sub-rank within the guild/metropolis that limits what they can do. For example: Gathering department members would be able to place crafting materials in the guild bank/vault, and only certain people in certain departments (i.e, crafting, economic, governmental) would be able to withdraw the resources and use them to either make gear for other members, or sell them for profit.
Another example: Gatherers collect resources, (maybe smelts or processes them for experience) and then puts them in the vault for other guild members to use. A crafter then takes out the processed materials and creates potions, gear, or some other items with them (for experience) and then puts the items back into the vault. At that point, a PvP member can take out the consumable, and use it during a siege, or caravan attack; or an economic member can take them out to sell them for profit. But at the end of the day, certain departments have certain responsibilities and certain permissions. So how are we going to be able to organize all of that?
The main question behind all this is, what will be the difference in 'ranking' systems be, between guilds and metropolis's (metropoli?)? Personally, I don't think you shouldn't be FORCED to be in the same guild as those who run the city. If you want to have a small guild with some RL friends, you should be able to do that and be a citizen of a city at the same time. So where's the divide? If it's necessary to have a guild to achieve an organized city, but isn't necessary to be part of that guild to be part of, or help form the city, then where do the city ranks/titles/departments fit with/around the guild ranks/titles/departments?
Would breaking members up into different departments be a metropolis setting, or a guild one? Or maybe both? The issue that I'm seeing is the communications.. If the departments aren't able to talk to each other (i.e, different guilds in W.o.W to achieve this same type of department system, that have different guild chats), then there will most certainly be issues within the Metropolis, and guild. Which can ultimately cause turmoil, unrest, and revolt. And if different guilds within a single city aren't able to effectively communicate to others, then there will be issues arising from that as well.
What if a small guild of PvP dedicated players wanted to join our city? Awesome. Though, I'd like them to be part of my PvP department, but they don't want to disband their Guild, and I don't want to have to force them. Is there going to be a way for them to be part of my PvP department chat, without joining the guild? This goes back to the question of will these settings be in the metropolis or guild.
I'm not really sure how to solve this concept, or if it's even going to be an issue, it's just mainly a concept that my friend and I were tossing around, and we ran into this issue. So I decided to throw it up here and see what everyone else thinks as I know there are other guilds thinking along the same lines.
** I understand it's in development, and I understand only so much can be answered, but I'm too excited for this game not to ask questions hahaha **
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Comments
I would say that all those departments would probably fall more under a guild hierarchy, but we also don't really know anything about guild ranks either.
--Kid Rock and Joe C.
Also just my tought but I don't think the metros will have any social system (like clear rankings between people or any distinct roles) like in all mmo's there is nothing binding you down, the nodes make up the entire (or most of) the world we play on so even if you are a citizen of a node that doesn't mean that you have to participate in the workings of that node (unless you are under a siege or other big events) correct me if I'm wrong though.
@AutumnLeaf Well it should be run by a collection of guilds and decided by them. Currently some of the systems they have in place aren't going to be used in most cases. It just comes down to the fact that feudalism is what is most likely to occur with what they are describing and the artificial barriers they are putting to prevent that.
They have stated that all citizens are going to participate in the election process if they want to, so this makes meta gaming easier for other factions. The only thing I am tracking that is binding any citizen down is the properties you have in said city. You being an auxiliary to the guild defenses is still a choice for you.
Voting, fighting, finance, questing...all things 2-3 coordinated guilds of 300 will easily be able to accomplish. A single larger guild that is split into 2 guilds 200-300 in size will likely be able to control an entire metro themselves once they crack the min/max secrets to leveling and sustaining a node.
Anyone who thinks large guilds won't be ruling these metros is being willfully naive. It's what they do...it's all these people do with their lives. The only hope more casual gamers have is that the game mechanics force these large guilds to "play nice" with the rest of the server...the likelihood of that happening is certainly questionable. For example, there is nothing stopping a 1000 member mega guild split into 3-4 in-game guilds from simply controlling their own node. There is nothing stopping that guild from sieging every single node that hits the village stage just to cut all potential competition off at the sapling state.
As for the systems that will be around to coordinate logistics...who knows. I assume those systems will be open for suggestions and tweaking during late Alpha.
More like a feudal structure where yes people are required to build up the encampments to settlements and etc. But it is the guilds, that own the surrounding land from their castles that the cities has to bribe, finesse, or out right kill to insure their compliance. This might also be some buildings and etc that guilds can have in the city or homes etc to give them some skin in the city. So it makes it more like Game of Thrones where it is social relationships that might get one guild to work with or against you.
This opens up the possibilities that your average citizens might cause riots and work against the city or even a coup by guild located in a castle few miles away.
Most of the battles are going to be taking place around castles as that helps you from getting people running out from spawning killing your guys and ambushing you as you march on the cities with your massive coalition army.
While that is almost certainly going to be the case, at least the game mechanics won't make it the only possible scenario.
There is going to be plenty of drama between guilds simply because they that's how MMOs always work out.
Some people tend to forget that this is a game, not a medieval simulator
There is an alliance called Curatores Veritatis Alliance (CVA) actually patrols space for pirates (PKer's). The reasoning is so that any neutral players can take advantage of the null sec rich space and do as they please. The reasoning for this alliance to do it is purely RP reasons as no other alliance does it in Eve and there is no in game mechanics to enforce alliances to let neutrals into null sec. Surprisingly most alliances run a not blue shoot it (NBSI) which means anyone that isn't an ally must die.
So why do I bring this up? Well here in Ashes they are implementing in game mechanics that actually behooves a coalition of guilds to insure safety for the city denizens. Citizens of city A thinks guilds in control of said city are douche bags and fascists so they leave > triggers less revenue for expansion > which leads to weakness > easier picking for another city/faction (simplified). The issue is fundamentally it is going to take guilds input to insure that these cities are safe and pkers are hunted down to continue the growth of said city.
@AutumnLeaf Well to be honest casual players aren't going to be affected at all just like the casual Eve players in high sec. Just comes down to if you have no skin aka mansions/free holds and etc it really is irrelevant of the politics and war that goes on around you. Nothing is going to prevent you from doing your quests and carrying on minus your home being burnt down.
Regardless if you think it is a game and not a medieval simulator there is always people like me that will treat it as such. You would be surprised how many people enjoying running organizations in a game world and so far I think this is what Intrepid is going in their direction with player managed cities. People seem to not know or forget that stories are created from such content and is basically free marketing. Just look at CCP, people has been saying that Eve was going to die and 15 years still has a stable population of 35-40k and this is after 15 years?
There will be nothing casual players and small guilds can do to stop it. They simply won't have the organization or play time required to do so...because they are casual players. Even 3k casual players won't be enough to topple a node run by 1000 no-lifers. Any node that starts to grow close to becoming a threat will simply be wiped away with a siege. At some point there will be a "rule" that no node can be leveled past village, or else it is wiped.
This is simply a fact, and is how these huge guilds operate (not even mentioning the fact they will discover and abuse every bug/exploit possible). The only hope casual players have is that there won't be enough mega guilds/coalitions on a server to completely lock down the entire game world.
If this guild size cap is how Intrepid intends to limit the influence of mega guilds...well...they have already failed.
Problem is in a PvP game, these tribes can ruin an entire server. How many servers will there be at launch? If they want to target a typical ~5k players online at once, and assuming a 25% play rate that's ~20k players per server, probably more. How many games sold? A few hundred thousand? Meaning they need ~15ish servers?
What happens when the server you picked at launch is suddenly overrun by one of these guilds after the first 2-3 months? Are you going to pack up and start over on another server hoping the same thing won't happen there? Guess what? It will.
All servers in all PvP games will have an "alpha" guild. The success of AoC relies on how well Intrepid manages the amount of influence each alpha guild has on its home server.
One idea would be to have "casual" servers. Where these servers get all civilization wiped clean every year or two years, or that have certain things in place that would allow casual players to enjoy the game more. I'm not exactly sure what they could be, but it's a vague idea.
Maybe they will monitor how big guilds get, or the influence they have, and try to limit them to a single metro or server. Or, maybe intrepid will monitor all of the "mega guilds" and say "hey, we applaud you all and your hard work, and we think you need a challenge. So we're making an "extreme PvP" server, and ONLY the "mega guilds" are allowed in. And if you choose not to be a part of it, then you must leave your current "mega guild" to stay on your server. Otherwise, everything you've collected and built will be transferred to the new server.
I understand what you're saying, and yes, it is a worry to me too. I just kind of took it as a fact of MMO life. That's why I'm trying to recruit for my own guild now and get ahead of the curve. It is what it is.
Unknown-Yesterday at 3:50 AM
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