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 want to join the chorus of people who don't want the standard leaderboards as a measure of success. It won't actually give a real picture of successful guilds, it'll just show the guilds who fit whatever criteria is set on the leaderboards, which by its very nature is a very narrow way of looking at success.
People will be motivated to play AOC for a variety of reasons. People want til chill, relax, get thrilled, excited, immersed, engaged, etc. in a variety of ways and in varying amounts. Guilds exist to to try to provide everyone what they want, within a set of compatible parameters. They exist to foster a sense of community with compatible people. The ONLY success worth measuring is how good they are at that. It truly doesn't matter what they do, as long as they do it together and have a blast. A flower-picking guild can be much more successful than the toughest PvP guild on the server.
In order to quantify a successful guild, you have to look at various factors and weigh them differently. The guild size should matter to some extent, but the ratio of active vs inactive members should count the most. How often they log in to play. This shouldn't be weighted too much, but it can be a measure of success. When they are online, do they group up and actively play together? This one should weigh a lot. Guild retention should also weigh heavily. Measure stuff like that, and you'll get a much more accurate assessment of a successful guild.
The guild should be able to provide the resources to complete that focus to a reasonable degree, like potions for guild raids, crafters to repair and craft gear for pvp.....stuff along that line in my opinion. It should also be fun for it's members first and foremost.
So what would I like to see from the guild system in AoC?
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Although all these are important factors to measure the success of a guild I would argue that the most important is the fun and in-guild relationships that can be developed. If a guild can give all of it's members something to remember for years to come then imo is a successful guild.
2) Epic open-world bosses, that guild have to actually contest, not only vs boss, but also vs other guilds. WIth real epic drops. That will justify weekly preparations, massive ogranisation and epic combat. The ones like Antharas/Valakas in la2 or world bosses of Archeage...
Westerners would probably not understand what I'm talking about, but in early WoW (vanilla/classic) there also were some world bosses that lots of people fought each other for hours to secure the kill, so you might get a clue for that.
3) Announces in global chat about which guild declared/won/lost war on which and taken( or lost) which fief. It will help greatly to promote guild fame, and also will help new solo players to learn who is who in-game, without reading through 100500 pages of pointless banter on forums.
How do you qualify success in your own career - is it how much you earn? Your employer's accolades and the fact you are employed by them? Or is it you simply love your job and the people you work with?
For me, and my guilds, it's the latter. It's not land, titles, achievements, or notoriety.
I've run multiple highly competitive (PvP and PvE) guilds over the years in almost every game I've played, and as I've learnt, thankfully, while we achieve top levels of play or in-game achievement, real success is the desire for guildies to play with each other, day after day, year after year, simply because it's fun.
I know many guilds define success as being the first, or being the greatest - and I've run guilds that have achieved notoriety and great things, but ultimately those things mean very little without the people you achieved them with.
I know if a guild I've run is successful when a conversation starts with "Do you remember when...", and it's a retelling of some epic or hilarious moment in the guild's history. Newer members may have not been there at the event get to hear the first-hand retelling of a great yarn, while longtime members remember events fondly and everyone has a good giggle.
Even now, four or five years after we "down tools" from a game, the broader diaspora of members still play games together and check in with each other, usually being the first port of call when something new is on the horizon. A lot of the team have their own little gaming groups with people they would never have otherwise met without being in the guild. That is a big success - the world and games may move on, but a guild that fosters friendships is priceless.
I believe myself to be very fortunate - I have never run a typical hierarchal guild, with Officers and GM's flexing power to keep people in line, even in large raiding guilds. I try to instead focus on guild culture, commitment to a common goal, and the fact that teamwork makes the dream work.
Ultimately, I think players or guilds that focus too hard on the goal of achievement set themselves up for destruction once they hit a roadblock. Too many guilds fail to focus on the journey of player and guild improvement, failing to realise that achievements are the end result of that journey.
But, how can you (Intrepid) help measure this in-game? Honestly, I have no idea. I know how you can help foster it, but to measure a metric as elusive as fun, is hard.
I know guild only leaderboards/killboards (EVE Online) can do a great deal for member engagement. It's pretty cool to wake up, see an especially juicy PvP kill (showing all its drops and loot) logged on the 'boards by your corp mates, or an epic fight. Things like this can spur excited discussions for days and can make everyone feel good for their luck or achievement. This doesn't quite get captured in an unasked for retelling of "we had a big fight", or can get lost in the lack of mention.
This can go beyond a killboard though, like who logged the most lumber in a week, or a month, the biggest monster killed, etc. This helps improve guild visibility into each other's achievements and activities "Oh you killed this monster, I need X from this monster and you need Y, we can go together". Personally, I've always enjoyed seeing guildies get loot, and it's nice to show who got what - sometimes someone is hoping for a drop for months and it's nice to see them get what they were desperate for.
An in-game to out-of-game text chat helps to include those who are at work, or not online, participate or be included in the minutiae of the going-ons. It's one thing to have a Discord, but to have the ability to syndicate an in-game channel with an out of game channel provides massive engagement and inclusion for those unable to be online and does further improve the experience of those online as well.
Benefits for grouping with guildies could further enhance the experience. Sometimes it doesn't make sense to group up for a task - like farming for drops. The experience is significantly improved with someone to grind or talk with, but often they can "rob" your drops or XP, and there is little incentive grind with you if there is no reward aside from companionship - they could do their own thing and hang out, but it's not really playing together at that point.
I think first few things people would look at when measuring guild's success: number of active players, amount/grade of unlocked guild perks, guild house, territory, guild achievements.
For some more hardcore players a proof of ability to commit to a guild, guild grind, guild objective such as scarab lords in world of warcraft could be appealing.
For more casual players a decision for joining could be made rather easily based on immediate reward (like guild perks) or setting a goal for themselves with example of unlockable cool guild-specific armour cosmetic/mount/(worst case) guild tabard.
It could be possible to gauge guild members satisfaction levels with a simple star system but this could lead to toxicity within guilds and pressure from guild officers to force on people five star rating on the guild so I am not going to defend this one, was just a thought, although in a different time one way to figure out if the guild was for you was to ask one of the guild members their opinion/satisfaction or other people about its reputation.
One possible issue with this type of system is as the game goes on and power creep makes old raids much easier that times will get lower and the actual act of optimization will be less and less interesting and the actual challenge of the raid lowers. One way to fix this would be to simply archive old raids leaderboards as you add new raids and then add some form of badge that guilds have more being one of the fastest to complete each raid after it has been archived.
This creates more team oriented content for high level players and guilds and allows for player expression as people who gravitate towards speed and optimization have something in the game that fits their play style. Also allows raids themselves to be more interesting for guilds for a longer period of time as instead of doing relatively the same thing each time they will be encouraged to complete the raid in new ways to push down their time.
An anonymous survey function within the guild. It's a hassle to have third party applications.
Much love ❤️
Guild Notoriety/Guild level.
As the level goes up you get more guild capacity and benefits or access to more stuff.
Theres a lot of talk about guild halls and i think It could be cool to have it grow as your guilds notoriety level goes up.
Interacting with the world in various ways causing your guild to slowely accumulate xp.
Maybe with other actions or failures causing it to decline in Xp.
I'd say a successful guild is one thats able to interact with the world enough that they are able to become a max level guild with full benefits.
- Creating a community that can succeed and fail together. Community Reputation. In-game accomplishments.
What kinds of things would you like to see in Ashes of Creation to help you measure that success?
- A place to display guild accomplishments/achievements, both internal and external to community. In game scheduling and guild calendars. We shouldnt need any 3rd party addons to assist in game guild mechanics/organization, for example; loot trackers, sign ups, attendance, forms/surveys.
I think guild quests can come in many many flavors covering all gameplay styles, and add a lot to the sense of accomplishment to a guild.
Of course, this requires good game mechanics as well. It would be a good idea to set up a "Guild academy".
How would it work? Around 10% of the guild's maximum capacity is reserved exclusively for low-level players. When they reach a certain level, they "graduate" and become part of the main guild, as well as contribute reputation points to the guild. This can work together with the mentor system.
(Idea inspired in "Clan Academy" from Lineage 2).
I find that providing more activities for low-level players like academy, using siege weapons, minor guld tasks, etc, promotes interaction with all players, and prevents guilds from imposing demanding requirements to join them that only undermine social interaction with players in general.
1. Are people enjoying the game?
2. Is it drama free?
3. Are guildies cooperating/communicating?
Answer yes to all 3 and you have a successful guild. The fashion in which you achieve them changes from guild to guild.
Size of your guild.
Achievements.
Fame.
All mean nothing without my 3 metrics.
The only thing i would like to see is member contributions to guild project and as im writing this, i'd add a tool to plan and measure projects.
Say for instance, you have a guild war that you feel is coming and you wanna shore up on siege gear, i would like to know who contributed how much towards said goal. Maybe its from personnal experience, but seeing that everyone is contributing towards a common goal and that not only the same 10% are always doing 80% of the work shows how engaged towards the guild your players are.
How might this work in terms of game mechanics you ask? Well, lets look at social, titles, achievements, and abilities, and access to systems. Every week a season changes. The server automatically checks for a player who has opted in for the Avatar of the Elements quest line. An algorithm is put in with a depreciating value for previous Avatars. Those with the "highest score" become the Lord of Winter, Lord of Summer, Lord of Spring, and Lord of the Fall. If a Lord of Winter is in a biome snowy or glacial biome weather affects and resources spawn at an increased rate. People in the area value the players existence. However, if the "Avatar" dies once, three times, or however many the developers decide the title is lost and so is the area wide bonus and affects. Perhaps a different regions quest is to kill the "Avatar".
Allowing players to earn a title in their name is another way to measure success. Dragonslayer, pacifist, alchemist, Slayer of Abominations, King slayer, Assassin, and more. These titles or classes can be attached to mobs and players to give dynamic questing. When a mob or player isn't of sufficient ratio alternate elite mobs can be spawned to make up for player tags.
Titles help give some players an identity or role in their community. Players typically conform to certain roles they enjoy playing PvE, PvP, or to certain classes. Giving players an ability to learn the mechanics and increase their skills in questing help players feel more successful and validate their identity as a member of their class. Main class quest should understand what classes they are naturally weak or strong against.
No point in having a guild outpost if there is nothing happening at it. Id rather hang out in an active guild hub than a city AH all day long.
Id love a better connection between guild crafters/gatherers and guild combat classes.
Having guild shops, setup and ran by guild crafters would be awesome. That way the crafters are getting support from the combat classes and vise versus.
Basically any model that drives guild members to a centralized location baded on various activities.
A successful guild is able to make new members feel like they bring value to the guild through their contributions.
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So your guild is created. Upon creation the guild leader has a page to track achievements. There are, say, 100 of these. They range from PvP, PvE, Crafting, and a smattering of others. To make this system scale with guilds large to small, each guild leader will be able to pick 15-20 of these. These allow the guild to focus on things they want to focus on. A crafting guild may only focus on the crafting achievements, while a PvP guild will focus on those.
The different selected achievements will be tracked internally. Only your own guild can see them and they are not check boxes, they are long term, continuing goals. If you are at the top of one of these "leaderboards" you will have maybe, a title that is viewable only by guild members, or your name on a leaderboard on the guild tab. Below find some examples. %null% is simply where you could program in the specific guild name to fill.
Crafting/Economy:
Most trees cut
%null% 's best chopper
Richest in the guild (most gold)
%null% Gold Baron
PvE:
Downed Frost Dragon 19 Times-
XXX Downed Dragon 14 times- [%null% Frost Dragon Slayer]
PvP:
Most guild pvp matches won
%null%'s Deadliest
Something like this would measure success in a guild, while allowing the entire guild to focus on similar guild wide objectives. Imagine the fun competition of two people trying to become the richest in the guild, or run the most of X dungeon while it is still available in your local node.
Just a very basic idea, but something I think would work, and would help maintain engagement and concurrency.
As a mainly solo player in MMORPGs, I would measure the success of a guild on quality and communication. Too many guilds go for numbers but I enjoy a guild more to have camaraderie and dynamic fun. Guilds take themselves too seriously when they should feel more of a group towards a goal that help the newbs get better and the veterans to their end game. One thing I'd love to see is for a solo player to INTERACT with guilds in a meaningful way. That a solo player can matter just as much as a guild to the growth of a node and server. Granted, I'll be trying to RP my way into being part of change moreover than fighting.
If this were also available as a general thing in the Guild Freehold, to solo players, they could walk in, check what the guild is broadly up to, what they are about, etc, and decide if they want to join, or, as noted... not join, but use the Guild's current focus as a guide for their own decisions on how to help, oppose, or even if they are a traveler looking for an area run by a guild whose values align with their own, without wanting to commit to actually joining it and taking up a slot (perhaps they don't play often).
It would help immersion and RP players too, since they would be able to 'imagine the story of the Guild' without having to find a recruitment thread or such, which smaller guilds are less likely to have. Could be even more interesting if members of other non-Allied guilds specifically could not see this information, or if the Guild members or officers could decide if to let someone in to see the stats, or decide to close off the 'Guild Archives' room to anyone but themselves.
Also some sort of Guild Bulletin Board that is also either 'left open' or 'closed' that members can use to leave one or two persistent messages for others who aren't online, without needing to use external messaging apps of any kind. If this gets connected to the game's planned external app, even better. This is also technically a way to measure success in a different way, because players can outright tell each other what they think of recent outcomes, in small messages, and this can be very encouraging in lots of ways that leads to players being able to measure success.
Just log on, go into Guild Hall, check the stats if it is a 'rollover' day, check the Board for anything anyone's left, if it isn't.
I would rather completely leave it up to the guilds themselves to track and come up with what they believe are their greatest accomplishments. Much like many other systems implemented in modern MMO's I believe it takes away from player and guild agency.
How do you measure your success as a guild in a game? What kinds of things would you like to see in Ashes of Creation to help you measure that success?
Two fold answer.
Off game
Personally, i would say that you end up with a group of people that all share a common respect for both new players, as for old. That opens up a Discord or such for people to just hang out in, and that gives a safe and warming home to all, without discrimination.
In game
Same there of course, but more along the game systems, i would wish for
* Systems in the guild that do not just highlight the PVP side
* Ability to donate to factions in the game world and earn fame, glory or the hearts of the people
* Existence of ranks for all as PVP often has ( but now also for crafters, traders, miners and woodsmen etc )
* Some cosmetic options for all to establish their home in a guild depending on rank and playstyle
* A guild calendar and a reminder set to send a message of the day once logged in from the GM
* If possible, an ingame voice communications option ( like a discord )