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Where Does The Power Really Lie? Guilds or Nodes?
I've been thinking lately about how the intersection of guilds and nodes (citizenship, governments, etc.) will play out in the power/influence dynamics of a specific server. Do you see guilds and their leaders exerting more of an influence over the land, or do you think more influence will be brought about by the citizenry and government of various nodes?
I personally feel like guilds will ultimately be the movers and shakers of server politics and influence. On one hand, I see the nodes looking towards the plethora of guilds that their citizens are apart of to organize and defend the interests of the node as well as deliberate with them on what policies should be implemented, meaning that "power" rests more in the hands of the guilds.
On top of that, guilds will most likely be more focused and organized than a collection of random players that make up a node and my not be as loyal to their government as a guild member is to his/her leader(s). Also, it is not as if guilds are tethered to nodes as they can conquer castles and "own" the three respective nodes in that castles ZoI.
Where do you think most of the power/influence will lie? Guilds? Nodes? A mix of both?
I personally feel like guilds will ultimately be the movers and shakers of server politics and influence. On one hand, I see the nodes looking towards the plethora of guilds that their citizens are apart of to organize and defend the interests of the node as well as deliberate with them on what policies should be implemented, meaning that "power" rests more in the hands of the guilds.
On top of that, guilds will most likely be more focused and organized than a collection of random players that make up a node and my not be as loyal to their government as a guild member is to his/her leader(s). Also, it is not as if guilds are tethered to nodes as they can conquer castles and "own" the three respective nodes in that castles ZoI.
Where do you think most of the power/influence will lie? Guilds? Nodes? A mix of both?
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Maybe not in military nodes where one person can win control with a tournament victory.
Let's do some rough quick maths on this. (Disclaimer: this is not to be taken serious please, it's just some random quick maths thought process)
Currently planned are 10.000 people per server. Let's say a server has 9.000 actual players. It all ranges between semi active to active players.
There are 5 achievable metropolises that need maintenance to stay a metropolis.
Let's say every other activity not directly involved with nodes divert attention and in turn maintenance away. That would be the 5 castles and quite honestly I can't think of anything else since even those are connected to nodes. Crafting with all it's precursors, dungeons, regular task/quest PvE, and so on directly involve the node.
Just RP and wilderness exploring could be considered completely cut of from maintaining a node actively but yeah let's call that a 1000 strong population that will never contribute to the maintenance, just because.
I wanted to bring the number down but as you can see, that's quite hard. For the sake of argument, let's say that all those activities that do not involve doing quests/task for the node give reduced maintenance.
Let's just cut it in half for that to 4.000 people. Spread them around and we are at 800 people per Metropolis Zoi.
So quick mathing this you could assume that around 800 people should be around any given metropolis. Depending on how harsh you want it to be to maintain a metropolis you could assume to need 300-800 people that semi-actively to actively contribute to the maintenance of a node. (after all I did to bring the number forcefully down)
I would be quite amazed if there are enough guilds around that could maintain a population inside their guild large enough to sustain a metropolis at least.
Conclusion: Something smaller, probably for sure but then the node is automatically inferior to a metropolis and thus making the guild less influential.
Power is always distributed over different factors. Some of the power will lie in nodes and their leadership, some of the power in guild leadership, and some of the power in each individual player.
Power will also shift dynamically, so amount of power that different parties (or individuals) have will rise or fall over time depending on circumstances.
So while on one server most power may lie in certain node, on another server it might be different story. And over time this all can (and will) change.
That said, it's going to be a significant challenge to implement something where massive guilds, even if divided by membership caps into smaller allied guilds, won't be the dominating factor wherever they chose to focus their influence. Nodes grow by activity. Very large organized groups have both the ability to more quickly level the node(or nodes) they are currently focusing on and hinder the growth of adversary nodes or nodes made up of unorganized small groups and individuals. Or simply outright siege and take or destroy a node with overwhelming numbers.
Look to recent PvP oriented games like Archeage, Albion Online, Black Desert Online, etc. - even with some intentional developer attempts to tamp down zerg tactics, large groups of organized players(guilds and alliances of guilds) are the overwhelming dominating power. It's just the basic nature of these types of massively multiplayer games.
My hope is that there are enough smaller guilds to counterbalance the forces in Economic and Scientific nodes. Forcing those that are node leaders to not listen to just one guild, but as many guilds and players as possible. In the end, if you don't like the way a node is going you can move. Enough players move and the remaining guilds and government will stagnate.
As for the Religious and Military nodes, I both expect and kind of desire a single guild with alliances to control those nodes.
Ideally for me, guilds will have enough stuff to do with content, castles, and religious/military nodes to be less effective (as a single power at least) in the economic/scientific nodes.
Either way, I am going to be happy to see it unfold, change, and play out.
We the Masters of the Universe guild have the power, as plan our next moves in the Guild hall of Castle Grey Skull. HAHA
Anyway, think on the lines of Game of Thrones when it comes to the power, and I believe the guilds will hold that power, and the nodes are only the tool to use for that power.
As both are no better than their members, I would say yes.
A guild can never be any more powerful than the nodes they exist within. If the node fails the guild fails (in game at least). If the node doesnt keep all its members happy it will collapse or stagnate and many of the node members will not belong to the guild anyway. Especially as it grows. Node membership does not require guild membership, anymore than being a resident of a nation requires belonging to a political party.
So as said above, i see guilds as political parties too. Groups of people with their own agendas that will try to get as many people as possible to support their agenda. They will try to shape the node in their image. If the residents agree, they will succeed. If the residents dont, they wont.
Most power lies with the sandal enterprise.
More precisely with the players who know how to use their brain and play smart and organized. And then playing skills are an extra bonus.