Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Guild Gathering #9 - Management Tools
Glorious Ashes community - we're excited to continue our new series called Guild Gatherings! Guild Gathering topics are a "reverse Q&A" similar to our Dev Discussions, where we ask you about your thoughts on everything related to guilds.
Our team has compiled a list of questions we'd love to get your feedback on regarding guild tools, gameplay, your previous experiences, and more. Join in on our Guild Gatherings and share how your gaming family is special to you!
Guild Gathering #9 - Management Tools
What administrative functions do you wish other games had in their guild management systems? Anything that you always feel like you’re missing as a guild leader or officer?
Keep an eye out for our next Guild Gathering topic regarding guild vs. guild politics!
Hi again friends! Thank you all for taking the time to stop by and share your thoughts on the management tools! We had a blast reading through them all! Check out some of the top notes you shared with us below:
- A considerable number of players would like the ability to create an unlimited amount of customizable ranks, roles, and notes with a fully customizable web of permissions, names, and rankings that can, in addition, be split into teams of guildmates.
- Many players would like logs for various functions, such as log in/out activity, PvP & corruption activity, crafting & gathering activity, and more.
- A number of players requested the ability to create guild jobs, missions, contracts, events, and message boards so that leadership and players can provide objectives for guildmates to complete for rewards.
- Several players would like a guild hall feature with guild banks, stores, taverns with minigames, and more - some suggested that they be able to do this with their personal freeholds if guild halls were limited to larger guilds.
- Players expressed interest in a shared guild calendar with the ability to create and share events, as well as a guild leaderboard where players can see other players’ achievements, contributions, PKs, and more.
We appreciate all of your feedback and we enjoyed this quote as well.
Visual Organization Chart would be nice.
So I know who to complain to.
4
Comments
1: Member inspection for character gear.
2: Indicators to mark the members interest such as PVP, PVE, ECON, or RP
3: Showing Account names. (ESO does this and it is helpful to keep track of potential spies or problematic members/ Alts)
4: Customizable ranks/ roles that can have all of their permissions changed and moved around.
5: Logs to keep track of when members log in and log out, when they use the guild bank, and other logs to ensure you can use the information to find when members are most active.
6: Sub ranks, what I mean by this is a lot of guilds have a variety of ranks that fall under similar ranks but for sake of immersion and organization want to call this rank by another title.
7: New World does something interesting by showing Guild Ranks next to the players name. I think this would be cool if Guilds could unlock custom titles to put in front of their members and officers names. For example: Gray Sentinels calls our PVP officer the Gray Marshal it would be cool to have to custom tags to unlock.
8. Guild jobs/ contracts. Basically making a quest board for a guild so members can complete content to gather materials to deposit in the bank to be exchanged for a certain material or currency.
9. Guild Leaderboards showing a variety of info such as PKs, guild contribution for gold/ resources, points for dungeon clears, and more
10. Members region location in game so you can team up with those near you.
This could look like a normal "apartment" style base which you can rent directly from the city/node you are in, or a bigger building that can be bought for a higher price than normal freeholds or buildings in general.
Inside said guild hall you could have unlockable content based on guild achievements like a trophy stand for cleared dungeons/raids featuring their clear speed records.
You could add a guild specific mission board on which officers of the guild or really anyone in the guild can post quests for others on a first come first serve basis like "I need 200 silver blossoms -- Reward: 56 gold" and the first person to turn in 200 silver blossoms gets the reward. This would give everyone in the guild extra quests, they can do on their way through Verra. Having those quests done will add to the social aspect of a guild in a way that makes players feel like they can rely on their guild mates even if they don't necessarily know them.
The guild hall could have a dedicated kitchen so guilds could hire chefs to join, in order to prepare special food and food buffs. Recipes earned only through guild activities.
Guilds in general are such a big and fun concept which hasn't really been explored, in my opinion.
There is a giant amount of possible content hidden within guilds and I'd love to see you guys utilize that!!
What administrative functions do you wish other games had in their guild management systems? Anything that you always feel like you’re missing as a guild leader or officer?
NOTE: The following list should be available in the game, on the website, and through an app.
1) A DKP system or similar point tracking/assigning system
2) Online/Offline communication system (being able to participate in Guild Chat or Officer Chat without having to be logged in)
3) Customizable officer permissions.
4) Sharable Guild Calendar (something that could integrate into Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook).
5) Guild Bank access or at least a GB listing
Correction: An optional DKP System because DKP Systems suck.
See when someone last logged in.
-Officer and regular note tagging:
The ability for officers and above to set notes that only officers and above can see but also a separate note that members can set themselves. I always find this is handy if members want to set what professions they are leveling, if they need to be away for a few days etc.
--Custom ranks
In games where there is only leader, officer, member and recruit, I find that limiting. My guild has plenty of members who have been with the guild for years but wouldn't want to be officers, it would be nice to have a custom role for Veteran. Another use case could be if your guild has limited ranks, maybe it would be handy set a "trial" role. There isn't really a set amount of predefined roles that would suit all guilds so it would be cool to have more customization for that.
-Custom Group Assignments / Invites for guild members.
This one may be a bit out there and possibly niche but I feel like it could be really useful for guilds if its implemented. Say if you have a guild of 50 people and want to do some organized play. Usually this would be done by assigning a team leader and then having said team leader invite people into their groups. I feel it would be handy if a guild leader or officer could create a "Guild Team" that would assign a leader to the group and when its time for organized play, the team leader would have the option to mass invite everyone who is apart of their team. It could also show the state of how many is in each group etc. It would save a lot of time with organizing groups and make it easy to see who is missing / what room is free in each group.
-"Ask a question" on the guild landing page
It would be cool to have a way to just ask a question to a guild without having to try and track down any officers online. Anyone could submit a question to a guild and within the guild window for officers there could be a tab in the dashboard (maybe it could fall under a recruitment tab) to see a list of asked questions and just reply. That way any officer who is online could easily reply to someone and if they had to log off, another officer could pick up the conversation.
-Guild Calendar
No explanation needed.
-Score-keeping System / DKP
A standard way to keep track of points for members in game so it can be easily even / spent when its time to designate loot drops.
Additional Notes:
I didn't really check out too much guild stuff in Alpha One but if its possible for members or alts to abuse a character name system (where you log on to a different character to keep harassing players, maybe a way to see account ID / account name
100% yes to this one! Swtor has this mechanic and it's very helpful.
Something else that I see a few games mess up is not showing how long someone has been offline for. Some games don't show that someone hasn't logged in for over 30 days and just lists them as offline and they are just taking up a guild slot.
Another thing that would be nice is an audit log of who accesses what when it comes to guild storage. If I deposit a weapon that is meant for someone else and find out later that is was taken by someone else, I'd like to know who.
Something that I don't think I've ever seen an MMO do is have a squad system that can be set up. Those guilds that love their PvP or players who want to form a party with anyone in their guild always have to invite by name. I think it would be nice to just have a tab where a party can be created and people can join or leave whenever they want rather than having to ask for an invite every time.
Player contribution and kill (pk or boss) log, as well as time logged in and info on which characters belong to the same account.
So I know who to complain to.
Guild leader of an officer could choose between a list of guild quests suck as kill a mob, recover some wood from trees, fish a few of a specific fish etc. The whole participants get a reward after the quest is done. Another plus: the participant who turn it first get a bonus reward. It’s could favorize participation and competition between members. Rewards could be in-game money. One time a month a specific quest could give a reward to the one who turn it such as a free cosmetic.
Guild Calendar
A calendar for guild officers or leader to put guild events. Peoples can let’s members know they intentions to participate or not to the event.
Custom Ranks
Some game has rigid ranks. Custom ranks are always the best. Let us have a generous number of ranks. Maybe 15 or 20?
Officer’s Chat
Enough said.
Guild Bank
A bank with multiple tabs that we can extend tabs and we can name them.
Note on Members
A member with the permission can set a short note on every member. Everyone can put a note on themselves but can’t edit a note set by a high rank.
Guild Ranks Permissions
Permissions are very important when time come to set a rank. A generous number of permissions let’s us to have something unique. Name ranks, invite members, kick a member, bank permissions, promote a member, Access to Officer’s chat, set message of the day, put notes on members, buy a guild bank slot, start a guild quest, rename guild, disband guild. An undeletable mute rank as a punishment role. This role prevents to talk or sign to an event if there’s a calendar.
Various Info on Members
The guild menu show various info about guild mates such as level, race, class, how many time he pk and got pk, his guild rank, members gear inspection.
Would be nice to see a latter system for rank within a guild depending on what youve done. If little bobby collects some abnormally large amount like 1000000 wood his effort should be able to be noted as other for distinction towards guild progress. Maybe allow guild leaders to set events or tasks that need to be completed (farming, pve, pvp, etc) with titles to be earned specific to the guild who set it like a title of (woodchuck, or Paul Bunyan.) Also to be able to set rewards with tasks and title would be nice. Whether a item or coin. Of course as a mmo i would expect some experience too when all is said and done but felt more like a given.
2. Custom ranks/roles - Having custom ranks or roles and the ability to assign art/logos for them allow for guilds to recognize players for their contributions to the guild even if they can't/ don't want to become officers. It also makes it easier for junior members to see who they can reach out to for guidance.
3. Guild calendar - Being able to plan events and have an in-game tool for members to see the schedule would be great for quality of life.
4. Guild message board - A place for members to post questions, requests, and advice for their fellow guildies I think would be great for cultivating esprit de corps within a guild.
5. Guild advertisements - Being able to advertise our guilds in a local building that players frequent will help more introvert players easily access information on local guilds without the pain of having to ask randoms without taking away from the social aspects of the game. It would also reduce the amount of recruitment spamming in chats as that tends to a large amount of global or area chat traffic.
I know these aren't revolutionary ideas but having these as a quality of life baseline will definitely help when the game launches as most guilds rely on discord or other third party solutions for games nowadays.
I was gonna make a post, but just everything this guys said.
I'd add maybe "Guild Currency", which could tie in with the "Guild Quests" and possibly even node related activities when the guild owns a node.
"Guild Quest" would be nice if a crafter can put up a crafted item as a reward for gathering the mats. The crafter gets mats to craft another version of the item which can then go towards another quest.
PS: Also from QC
at least 10+ customizable ranks for people to really own their title in the guild for their roll/niche
Guild Bank with many different levels of access for the guild ranks with detailed logs for all activity
Guild Hall with room that can be assigned to members giving them rights to access customizations for that room and access rights for guests to that room
Note tagging for both regular public notes and Officer only notes for each player
a form of high scores list for the guild to see what its members have achieved either within the guild or world.
1) *Specific Permissions Granting*: Instead of lumping permissions into guild ranks, it's really great to be able to be able to grant specific members specific permissions. If an officer has been accused of misconduct, it's nice to ensure that they can't kick the guild while the GL or other officers are offline. Along the same line, some members are long-term and trust-worthy, who just don't want to be officers; It's nice for them to be able to invite people to the guild, without having to keep an officer-rank.
2) A log of all members kicked, and who kicked them. However, the option to have everyone in the guild mailed about members joining/leaving should be a toggle; I remember 'member joined' and 'member left' mails in SWG being absolutely endemic, with no way to turn them off.
3) Legacy account bans. Never a good thing to have someone remaining in guild who was kicked for being terrible - because they have alts you had no way of knowing were theirs. Everquest (at least originally) and SWG both overlooked this; You just had to know whose alts were their alts - by memory and personal recollection.
4) Unlimited (or near-unlimited) Guild Ranks. Why limit this? What was the point, in previous games? I mean, if it can be used to overload the game's back-end systems or something like that, then *SURE* - but make it still relatively high, something like 30 ranks. Otherwise, why bother? SWTOR does this and it's quite annoying to only have 10 guild ranks. Why is this a benefit? Why is this good, versus more of them? Is imagination a bad thing, or something?
There's more I'll think of later. Yours truly is on work-from-home, atm.
-similarly an internal guild shop where members can buy gear/materials at reduced rates but not take the access to valuable stuff for granted
1. The ability to define level of access and customize access for that role
2. Guild bank
2i. Guild bank access levels
2ii. Guild bank auditing
2iii. Guild bank gold withdraws/restrictions
3. Audit log of guild changes - eg MOTD log , role changes, member add/removal The basic stuff
4. Communication channels (text) it would be nice to have at least a few channels (eg general talk, then trade, officer and PVP) where members can easily turn off/hide these channels if they dont want to see the spam. It just means you dont have to micro manage a discord on another screen.
5. Alliance management + Alliance chat
6. Integrated black list (Scammers) /Kill on sight list for PVP which officers can update? - A bounty board
7. Guild hall Customization.
8. Member list showing rank, how long they have been offline and an ability to set notes. Show how long they have been in the guild for as well.
9. Events system. Ability to put up prizes (from guild bank) and gold for certain events. (This is probably a bit of a random task but you could use it as an internal guild quest system as well).
10. Event Calendar and sign up (I know thats a huge ask)
Can you add a way to group alts together, so if I message someone's main character but they're on their alt - it automatically fwds the message to the alt?
This will never be a thing. They've stated each character is completely individual to allow for intrigue.
Management tools based on the ranks of each person in the guild
Each person in a guild is important but some fulfill a role that influences so much that it determines if the guild worsens, stagnates, can improve.
Guild Leader
Army general
Mayor general
Brigadier General
Brigadier
Colonel
Lieutenant colonel
Higher
Captain
Lieutenant
Second lieutenant
Ensign
Sub-ensign
Cadet
cannon fodder
Each administrative tool would be delegated by the guild leader (at his discretion) and his trusted men for efficient performance.
Administrative tools that could help these people improve the guild could be:
1.- Tool to manage mapping: To have a map design that indicates which zones are the most conducive to farming, danger zones, zones for rare mobs, zones for certain rare material, strategic zones for farm rotations, strategies of different routes for caravans , Etc.
2.-Tool to manage materials: To have a catalog of what materials are needed for the guild what materials are needed most urgently, what materials should not be farmed, organize the input of materials, logistics of materials, the function, use and productivity of materials, to be able to organize in a more correct way the entries, uses and purposes of the materials in aid of the guild , Etc
3.-Tool to manage missions: To indicate to the guild what missions are necessary for productivity, what mission rotations they should do to have greater profitability, what missions they should not do, what missions remain to be done, special missions that need more attention, hunting missions heads (pvp), missions to obtain necessary materials, etc.
4.- Tool to manage events: To indicate possible future events, possible wars, possible pvp, have a, possible secret missions, farming missions, pvp missions, special missions, calendar of events for the guild, etc.
5.-Tool to manage trade routes: To trace possible safe and unsafe trade routes, possible trade hot spots, scammers' areas, areas with a lower profit margin, areas with a higher profit margin, areas where it is convenient to buy, areas where it is convenient to sell.
7.- Tool to manage possible allies, enemies, neutral guilds: To be able to write information about other guilds, describe the characteristics of other guilds, their peculiarities, their weaknesses, so that the espionage content has more relevance, to have a notion of which guild is ally, enemy, neutral, to know with which guild it is you can trade even if this is an enemy or ally since you would have information about possible materials, etc.
8.- Tool to manage rewards : To manage the different rewards that are earned in the different contents and to be able to administer them correctly for the guild. Being able to classify the rewards, their usefulness, their benefits, their characteristics, their importance, to know if it is profitable to go for them again, Etc.
9.- Tools to manage bountys: To know which person to go hunting with the highest priority, to know which person in the guild is in danger, to know which person in the guild is in immediate danger, to know which person should be hunted, etc.
10.- Tools to manage war strategies: to organize the possible locations of the platoons in future wars, in any PVP encounter, be able to have options to visualize what the platoon commander general or the platoon manager is proposing as a platoon strategy, locations in the platoon, differentiate the platoon groups, the idea of this tool would be very similar to the style of warfare of CONQUEROR'S BLADE, AOE, CIVILIZATION, since it is understood that the leader and officers are possibly in the air directing the war.
11.- Tools to manage individual or group pvp strategies for practice: To have the option of practicing the strategies that arise for possible wars, pvp encounters or individually.
This tool would have the purpose of showing what a set, BIS, items, build, pvp style, character. character combos, combination of abilities, combination of various abilities of different characters, etc., could be done.
It is known that many are against damage complements, since comparing one with another can be toxic, but this tool to measure damage would only be for practice and training use to be able to perfect the different types of combinations that all 64 classes could do.
12.- Tools to manage communications: To be able to talk to a certain group of players when necessary, this would be thought of when there are wars and need to speak effectively with a group. This tool would allow to choose the players to form that group and have a communication, then the group could be dissolved and another one could be formed to have another communication.
13.-Tools to manage the economy: To efficiently manage the economy of the city, guild, group. Know how much is the income of anything that can positively or negatively affect the city, union, group. Have the ability to promote the economy of the city by strengthening the price of an item or weakening it, have the ability to make economic strategies for the improvement of the city, guild , group, be able to establish geo-economic relationships with other cities, have the ability to make financial goals in the short, medium and long term to evaluate how the growth of the city, guild, group is going.
14.-Tools to manage needs: To be able to manage the needs of the guild, whether group or individual. If a member of a guild needs certain things then this tool will give the possibility of saving that need as a pending task (if it is of importance for the person in charge of using this tool). If the guild needs any material then this tool will be able to save that information to have it as a pending task, in this way there will be an established control of the guild's priorities.
15.-Tools to delegate functions: so that the leader or officers can delegate the different functions that they create combined with the different administrative tools that they deem appropriate , either for pve. pvp.
16.-Tools to managing people : To organize the guild members correctly. That of the ability to have several templates to mark members' attendance to future events such as wars, pvp, farming, rais, caravans, etc. To have details if the members of the guild are fulfilling the assigned tasks, their own characteristics, birthdays, peculiarities, to be able to assign them ranks, promotions, abilities, responsibilities, etc. To have statistics of the improvement of the members, how the improvement of their skills is going, their gear, what they need, any type of peculiarity that can characterize and differentiate a member.
It would also serve so that the members of the guild know (to a certain extent and as far as their rank allows) the characteristics, needs of the other members of the guild.
All this tool would be designed to promote the management of people between them and that each one has a transparency in their work (as far as they and their rank allow) for the improvement of the guild.
All would have functions, all should support, speak, exchange needs, ideas, projects, farming routes, knowledge, etc., everything necessary for and for the good of the guild.
Everyone has a voice and vote, so the more transparent they are and can help each other, the greater the chances of improving the guild.
These are some of the ideas that I have been accumulating for my future guild.
Many of them most likely can't be done in AoC (a lot of development overhead), and it's understandable, but at least i can try to help with these ideas
Thank you very much for reading it, have a nice day
This.
2. Unlimited custom guild ranks.
3. Setup of teams, parallel to guild ranks, allowing leadership to set up strike teams or task forces from members across all guild ranks. Useful in sieges and at world bosses for example.
4. Member-level permissions. Inherited from guild rank, but adjustable per each member as necessary.
5. All the usuals, like guild bank, officer chat, message of the day, etc.
6. Calendar with rank-specific access. Like events only leadership can see, and events for all.
7. Map-marker tie in, to allow officers to set rendezvous points for specific guild ranks and/or teams.
8. Notes for each member. Notes the member can add themselves, and notes only accessible by leadership.
9. A tagging system where leadership can make tags (or use default ones) with words like "Miner", "Armorsmith", "PvP Focused", "Mariner" or whatever the guild needs. Members can choose one or more of these tags for their characters, and they should be visible in the guild roster
10. A visual indication of guild rank next to the nameplate would be nice. Only visible to other guild members.
11. Granular guild chat, allowing people access to only write to certain teams. The default should be everyone of course.
12. Recruitment specific tools, like some place the guild can enter their guild info and players can apply.
Also, if the guild leader and officers could create guild quests (like bring us 20 petrified wood for 2000 gold) would be really awesome. You could get necessary components and reward guildmates at the same time.
I am the head of the guild for over 20 years and would like to offer my ideas, for the development of this direction in the game. Suggested earlier ideas will not repeat, most of the written above ideas from other users support.
1. Guild level and the guild pumping tree. When joining a guild, each player gets a 5% experience tax (e.g. if player gets 100 experience for killing a monster, he gets 95 experience, and 5 experience will go to Guild experience). This tax can be increased by the guild leader or officers who have this option. After gaining the necessary amount of experience, the guild gets a new level, which increases the number of places in the guild for new members, as well as the guild gets 1 point of guild skills, which is used to pump up the guild skill tree. The skill tree contains mostly passive bonuses for all guild members:
- +% to experience gained per character level (this compensates for guild tax and the guild member actually loses nothing)
- +% to chances to drop rare resources from monsters
- +% to chances to drop rare minerals from resource extraction
- Other passive bonuses relating to various game mechanics.
To the active skills can be assigned:
- Recall guild members of the main guild(1-2 times a day) (by activating this skill, the guild head(or his deputies) calls all guild members from all corners of the world to himself. Each member of the guild, who is online, will have a notification on the screen and the guild member can accept it. Once accepted, the guild member will be teleported to the guild leader. Extremely useful for holding guild meetings and events, giving out merit items to guild members, and collecting for rare mass events).
- Setting up the guild banner (2-3 times a day). The guild leader or officers, can set up the banner. Within a large radius of the guild banner, all members of that guild receive significant bonuses to experience and other (within the balance. Not damage in PvP!). In this way, the guild may gather foraging for some glade, in order to accumulate resources or pumping. The banner is valid for 1 hour at a distance of 200-300 meters in radius from it. The banner can be destroyed by players with RED reputation in PvP (Player Killers).
Skills in the guild tree can be a huge variety, I just tried to indicate a vector of development for this mechanics.
Also, the guild interface should allow to see the amount of experience invested in the guild by each member of the guild. This would help to see how many active and passive players there are, which is important for guild officers, to encourage active members and exclude passive players.
2. Guild House. When a guild reaches a certain level, it gets an opportunity to buy a guild house. Only the guild leader can do this.
- In order to buy a guild house you need: gold (in-game currency, not just donated money), a guild minimum required level (e.g. 10) and a guild minimum required level in the "Nod" development (e.g. 500k experience).
- The guild house can be customised by the guild leader.
- Any member of the guild can teleport to the guild house 2 times a day from anywhere in the world for free.
- A feast can be held in the guild house and all participants of the feast receive buffs for a few hours (type of buffs and their effects depend on the type of the feast.) All gold and resources (food, drinks) are needed for the feast.
- In the guild house there is an area with trophies. The guild receives trophies for fulfilling various conditions and for participating in various events. Trophies are actually achievements. Trophies are given for example: the killing of 1 million monsters by members of the guild, killing 50 thousand members of the guild players, participation in 10 sieges, victory in the siege, participation in limited-time Event (eg Halloween), etc.
...a little later will write more ideas (urgently need to escape from the PC hahahahah)