@Noaani - Just to point out the obvious, Intrepid has not turned a profit for years, and won’t for a few more years, and they still exist. I get what you’re saying overall, but worth mentioning.
Hm… what would cause me to completely walk away from Ashes? Blandness. If all the great ideas we’ve been discussing & arguing over the past few years are just ‘okay.’
Noaani - Just to point out the obvious, Intrepid has not turned a profit for years, and won’t for a few more years, and they still exist. I get what you’re saying overall, but worth mentioning.
Splitting hairs here (even for me), but Intrepid has turned a profit, Steven has not.
If Intrepid hadn't taken in more money than it had spent (even if from Steven), then they wouldn't be able able pay their staff.
The one thing that makes me lose interest in a game would be having to log in everyday to stay caught up. I want to be able to take a break and play something else without having to worry about being horribly behind when I return.
If Intrepid hadn't taken in more money than it had spent (even if from Steven), then they wouldn't be able able pay their staff.
Heh. Not necessarily. It would just be a cost center. Plenty of companies operate ok and lose money for years.
Uber comes to mind here.
But even then, the investment + income coming in still has to be more than the expenses (Uber is, after all, primarily a pyramid scheme that also operates as a taxi service).
Companies that have been around for years and built up some capital are able to then lose money for a while, but only because the money to cover it is in the bank.
A company can't pay staff with money they do not have, so one way or another they need to get it from somewhere.
Operating expenses are separate from profit. You pay bills in a certain order. It is possible to operate at a loss and stay in business (usually through debt.) It is possible to operate at break even and make no profit. You are confusing revenue/income and profit.
Profit is 'the amount of money left after all the bills are paid.'
You do not pay staff with profit as they are by definition an expense and profit is what you get after paying all expenses.
Most businesses pay staff usually by contract or law (depends on where you are operating your business obviously) before they pay other expenses. To not do so can be considered wage theft in many places unless the contract states otherwise and wage theft has extreme penalties compared to delaying payment on other types of bills.
On a different note Cash on Hand is not in fact income. It is a liquid asset. A company can keep profit from a previous year as cash on hand if all other debt obligations are accounted for. A company can issue debt to create cash on hand as well but that is a separate matter.
Long story short assets are not revenue even if you can use them to pay expenses. Revenue is something created by making money off your normal operations or through debt. There are a lot of other things that fall into the category of revenue and honestly you are half right here depending on if you are talking about accrual accounting or cash basis accounting. So I am not going to say you were wrong on this point but that you definitely said something that was a misrepresentation of how exactly businesses actually work on a financial level.
Operating expenses are separate from profit. You pay bills in a certain order. It is possible to operate at a loss and stay in business (usually through debt.) It is possible to operate at break even and make no profit. You are confusing revenue/income and profit.
Oh hey, you're arguing with me again just because it's me.
Yes, a business can go in to debt for a period of time.
However, as I am not writing a dissertation on business management, nor am I writing an autobiography on my own experience running businesses, I don't see it as a valid point to make here.
In order to go in to debt, a company needs to demonstrate an income that is high enough to cover that debt. That income needs to be somewhat assured - a consistent income over a period of time is generally the only way to go about this.
If Steven walked in to a bank now looking for a business loan (edit; for Intrepid), he would be laughed right back out.
There is no point in even discussing that here, other than you wanting to argue against me.
As to your point about revenue and profit being different, no shit Sherlock.
However, again, we are talking about Ashes, not business in general. The point here is that Intrepid need to make a profit from Ashes in order to keep the game running.
Steven has said he expects a profit, and has suggested he *may* sell the company/game if that is the only way he will see that. He did not give a timeline.
So sure, go off and argue that profit and revenue are not the same thing. No one cares, it has no place in this discussion as Intrepid need to make a profit on Ashes
I just left "Dual Universe" due to the alts account advantage thing. A game I loved and supported since their Kickstarter.
They basically put in a system that clearly made it so that having more alts accounts makes it, so you can make a lot more money per week.
I will leave in a heartbeat if I see them doing something that clearly incentivizes alts accounts when less alt account friendly options could be used.
I will leave in a heartbeat if I see them doing something that clearly incentivizes alts accounts when less alt account friendly options could be used.
Curious. What is your take on someone getting a second account for a second freehold?
To me, this is the only real in-game incentive for a second account. Most other incentives are not in-game (challenge of multi-boxing and spying on rival guilds come to mind immediately).
Curious. What is your take on someone getting a second account for a second freehold?
To me, this is the only real in-game incentive for a second account. Most other incentives are not in-game (challenge of multi-boxing and spying on rival guilds come to mind immediately).
I know that, within reason, there is nothing that can or should be done about multi-boxing.
I would hope that free holds take more effort than time. I don't want to see having two freeholds just double your production.
Like, if at the end of the day, both take the same amount of effort from the player to get the same amount of production. Then I don't care.
If the devs choose to make it so that my reasonable course of action is to own multiple accounts, then I am out.
If the devs choose to make it so that my reasonable course of action is to own multiple accounts, then I am out.
Fair enough.
My suggestion - based purely on how I expect things to end up - would be to stay away from growing crops then. If you do this as your primary income source, owning multiple freeholds would likely be required.
This may also be the case for Animal Husbandry.
However, if you do either or both of these activities for fun rather than in game profit, it shouldn't matter.
When it comes to crafting, I don't see there being any gain from owning a second freehold over top of having a friend with crafting stations and such that you may want to use.
I just left "Dual Universe" due to the alts account advantage thing. A game I loved and supported since their Kickstarter.
They basically put in a system that clearly made it so that having more alts accounts makes it, so you can make a lot more money per week.
I will leave in a heartbeat if I see them doing something that clearly incentivizes alts accounts when less alt account friendly options could be used.
Yep, Alts Advantage is a hell of a problem, i was recently reminded how big of a problem it is by playing the recent Kakao Archeage(a.K.a AltAge), specially in P2P games it becomes a P2W advantage that not only damages the community aspect of the game, but also the player base at servers competing for server slots with alts.
I get that gardening should be a thing, but it would make the most sense to me if the best plants were out in the world as something to be fought over.
Let's say the game launches with 5 tiers of mats. The stuff you can grow on your freehold should be limited to tier 1 or 2 and the remaining three tiers should require time and effort to find in the open world. Growing stuff would still be valuable, but not as valuable as actually doing real work.
Herbalism, cooking, and alchemy are all still valuable skills, but passively harvesting should not be the end game. At least that is what I am hoping for.
I get that gardening should be a thing, but it would make the most sense to me if the best plants were out in the world as something to be fought over.
Let's say the game launches with 5 tiers of mats. The stuff you can grow on your freehold should be limited to tier 1 or 2 and the remaining three tiers should require time and effort to find in the open world. Growing stuff would still be valuable, but not as valuable as actually doing real work.
Herbalism, cooking, and alchemy are all still valuable skills, but passively harvesting should not be the end game. At least that is what I am hoping for.
I would expect either all or very nearly all plants that can be harvested in the wild to also be able to be grown in a freehold.
Keep in mind, the risk associated with this kind of thing in Ashes is mostly in transporting it, not in collecting it.
As long as the caravan system is needed, nothing is passive.
I was stunned to learn that there were people on the Dual Universe forums with "40 alt accounts". Keep in mind that this is a voxel based "block game" we are talking about. I never even considered the game to be competitive, but I guess I was naive.
I would was expecting the number to be maybe 3 or 5 alt accounts for a game like DU and maybe 5 to 10 for a game like ArcheAge... again I maybe be naive.
That said, I do hope the caravan system is helpful in making it so that things require actually in game play time to make things valuable. Still, I would want the top tier plants to be out in the world.
I know part of the design idea is to have low tier mats be used to make high tier mats anyway. So even if you can't out right grow the best plants, you should be able to build them up into top tier mats with processing and crafting.
I was stunned to learn that there were people on the Dual Universe forums with "40 alt accounts". Keep in mind that this is a voxel based "block game" we are talking about. I never even considered the game to be competitive, but I guess I was naive.
I would was expecting the number to be maybe 3 or 5 alt accounts for a game like DU and maybe 5 to 10 for a game like ArcheAge... again I maybe be naive.
That said, I do hope the caravan system is helpful in making it so that things require actually in game play time to make things valuable. Still, I would want the top tier plants to be out in the world.
I know part of the design idea is to have low tier mats be used to make high tier mats anyway. So even if you can't out right grow the best plants, you should be able to build them up into top tier mats with processing and crafting.
40 accounts is a bit ridiculous.
That is something the developers had to have done on purpose.
My take on crop growing is that it should be it's own playstyle. This is why I was against the recent idea someone posted here about trying to make it more like Animal Husbandry.
When it comes to things like that, you only need to participate in it if it is something you enjoy doing. If you don't enjoy doing it, you are probably not going to do it.
What this means to me is that if crop growing is best served using two or three accounts, then only those wanting to use two or three accounts should get serious with it. There are enough other things for players to do that does not involve growing crops, and no player is going to be able to do everything.
I don't see someone seriously growing crops having any advantage over any other profession at all. As such, it is something that should be easy to avoid if the gameplay doesn't appeal.
As long as it's not overpowered to the point that I feel like I should be doing that instead of actual end game content.
Like, if a guy is generating like 200 gold per farm per week, but I can make 200 gold per hour or two doing end game stuff. Then let him have his scraps if he wants to pay extra for them.
I don't know where the line or balance is. That example could be way off. I just know when I feel like buying more accounts is more productive than playing the game, I have to find another game.
So, I was testing, I was in the starting area with a newbie character. I had gathered some wood and was trying to turn it into an NPC in town for a quest. A guy came up to me who was relatively high level (I was I think 5, he was in his 20s) and starts attacking me. I can't even get a shot off before I'm dead.
Okay so I didn't get what you meat because you didn't make it very clear.
Yeah there are legitimate types of ganking and then there is just a toxic kind, such as a player 4 times your level harrasing you again and again.
Since the game is designed to have the legitimate type and indeed the legitimate type is the most common one, I adressed it and not the toxic exception.
Either way, we don't disagree, the corruption system should exist and should be efficient, but not to the point it hinders the game's PvP orientated nature.
We wouldn't want to see what happened to New World happen to AOC wouldn't we?
Now you know this, feel free to ponder the implications of that in regards to a hypothetical Ashes without the corruption system.
I never suggested an AOC without the corruption system so there's that.
It's just that at the end of the day AOC is a niche PvP game and it should stay like that.
Ganking will be and it should be part of the game.
Atama seems to have been refering to the toxic type (for example, lvl 20s farming lvl 5s, which is obviously unreasonable and an abuse), which is generally a very small % of all pvp.
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AtamaMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Since the game is designed to have the legitimate type and indeed the legitimate type is the most common one, I adressed it and not the toxic exception.
Either way, we don't disagree, the corruption system should exist and should be efficient, but not to the point it hinders the game's PvP orientated nature.
We wouldn't want to see what happened to New World happen to AOC wouldn't we?
What happened to New World won’t happen here. It’s too essential to this game, they can’t afford to neuter PvP.
My point was that if corruption doesn’t work then toxic play will run rampant, and that would cause me to quit.
Not only am I okay with regular PvP, I look forward to it.
I just created a post on this topic.
I would hate that the classes just feel generic and lack the fantasy of their given name.
I want the Shaman to feel like one, same for the Falconer or the Oracle and each other classes.
I think the way to achieve it and avoid the Archeage mistakes, is to grant 2-3 unique skills upon combining the archetypes. For example, when combining Ranger+Summoner=Falconer, so you get the unique skill to summon a falcon familiar.
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AtamaMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I think the way to achieve it and avoid the Archeage mistakes, is to grant 2-3 unique skills upon combining the archetypes. For example, when combining Ranger+Summoner=Falconer, so you get the unique skill to summon a falcon familiar.
Well we know they won’t be doing that. You don’t get skills from your class, just archetype. Instead you’ll get augments.
But what if a Falconer augment changed an existing skill to summon a falcon, and have the skill effect come from it rather than the Ranger? Would that work? And it wouldn’t be just cosmetic; you could position/send the falcon to enemies, maybe for a melee range skill.
Curious. What is your take on someone getting a second account for a second freehold?
For players with multiple accounts so that they can have multiple freeholds, the issue comes with Node siege and subsequent looting.
Case 1: Lets say both the freeholds are under same Node. This will result in less defenders during a siege and more risk if the battle is lost.
Case 2: Lets say both the freeholds are under different Node. How will a player defend two places at once if a situation arises or will have to do multiple caravan quests which will increase his overall risk.
So as the player would be playing double the amount and putting in more effort into the game, I don't see an issue with this as it is same as playing double on 1 character and achieving more with some extra benefits. People playing less cant blame others for their lack of commitment or drive.
To me, this is the only real in-game incentive for a second account. Most other incentives are not in-game (challenge of multi-boxing and spying on rival guilds come to mind immediately).
As far as spying goes, it is quite independent of owning multiple accounts. Spies can simply be hired or information traded for some goods or other services.
Will I do it? No, I wont have enough time for anything other than my main char.
Do I mind if others do it? No. Its their prerogative.
As far as spying goes, it is quite independent of owning multiple accounts. Spies can simply be hired or information traded for some goods or other services.
Sure, you can outsource your spying, but I wouldn't do that.
A trade may work, but if I trade information on a rival guild, I would make the assumption that the guild in question knows I have that information (and they probably had a hand in exactly what that information is).
If I am hiring someone to spy, I have no way at all of knowing if they are working for me, or if they are a double agent and just taking my money. If I actually want to spy on a specific rival guild, I am putting someone in there that I trust.
Likewise, I would assume any rival wanting to spy on me would do the same.
I have two specific methods of telling if a character is on the same account as a member of a specific guild, if I suspect that guild may want to spy on my guild. As such, the only way a rival guild could spy on me with any effectiveness is if they have someone in the guild that the leadership trusts, that has a second account.
For players with multiple accounts so that they can have multiple freeholds, the issue comes with Node siege and subsequent looting.
Case 1: Lets say both the freeholds are under same Node. This will result in less defenders during a siege and more risk if the battle is lost.
Case 2: Lets say both the freeholds are under different Node. How will a player defend two places at once if a situation arises or will have to do multiple caravan quests which will increase his overall risk.
I don't see these as issues, simply because not all players are going to be present for a siege.
When talking about a metropolis level node, there isn't even scope in the game for every citizen of the node to be present.
I just created a post on this topic.
I would hate that the classes just feel generic and lack the fantasy of their given name.
I want the Shaman to feel like one, same for the Falconer or the Oracle and each other classes.
I think the way to achieve it and avoid the Archeage mistakes, is to grant 2-3 unique skills upon combining the archetypes. For example, when combining Ranger+Summoner=Falconer, so you get the unique skill to summon a falcon familiar.
Welcome to the club Thorny.
Sadly, Intrepid messed up and is using the word ''class'' where it just isn't justified.
I just hope ''classes'' will be at least as diverse as wow specs.
Comments
Hm… what would cause me to completely walk away from Ashes? Blandness. If all the great ideas we’ve been discussing & arguing over the past few years are just ‘okay.’
If Intrepid hadn't taken in more money than it had spent (even if from Steven), then they wouldn't be able able pay their staff.
Heh. Not necessarily. It would just be a cost center. Plenty of companies operate ok and lose money for years.
Ye... MMOS don't have to be that way.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
Uber comes to mind here.
But even then, the investment + income coming in still has to be more than the expenses (Uber is, after all, primarily a pyramid scheme that also operates as a taxi service).
Companies that have been around for years and built up some capital are able to then lose money for a while, but only because the money to cover it is in the bank.
A company can't pay staff with money they do not have, so one way or another they need to get it from somewhere.
Profit is 'the amount of money left after all the bills are paid.'
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/profit.asp
Linking this since it is a great site for people actually interested in finance.
You do not pay staff with profit as they are by definition an expense and profit is what you get after paying all expenses.
Most businesses pay staff usually by contract or law (depends on where you are operating your business obviously) before they pay other expenses. To not do so can be considered wage theft in many places unless the contract states otherwise and wage theft has extreme penalties compared to delaying payment on other types of bills.
On a different note Cash on Hand is not in fact income. It is a liquid asset. A company can keep profit from a previous year as cash on hand if all other debt obligations are accounted for. A company can issue debt to create cash on hand as well but that is a separate matter.
Long story short assets are not revenue even if you can use them to pay expenses. Revenue is something created by making money off your normal operations or through debt. There are a lot of other things that fall into the category of revenue and honestly you are half right here depending on if you are talking about accrual accounting or cash basis accounting. So I am not going to say you were wrong on this point but that you definitely said something that was a misrepresentation of how exactly businesses actually work on a financial level.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
Yes, a business can go in to debt for a period of time.
However, as I am not writing a dissertation on business management, nor am I writing an autobiography on my own experience running businesses, I don't see it as a valid point to make here.
In order to go in to debt, a company needs to demonstrate an income that is high enough to cover that debt. That income needs to be somewhat assured - a consistent income over a period of time is generally the only way to go about this.
If Steven walked in to a bank now looking for a business loan (edit; for Intrepid), he would be laughed right back out.
There is no point in even discussing that here, other than you wanting to argue against me.
As to your point about revenue and profit being different, no shit Sherlock.
However, again, we are talking about Ashes, not business in general. The point here is that Intrepid need to make a profit from Ashes in order to keep the game running.
Steven has said he expects a profit, and has suggested he *may* sell the company/game if that is the only way he will see that. He did not give a timeline.
So sure, go off and argue that profit and revenue are not the same thing. No one cares, it has no place in this discussion as Intrepid need to make a profit on Ashes
Catering too much to casuals who claim to have 10 kids, 6 jobs and only 5 minutes to play once a month.
Poor optimization / non-smooth gameplay
Bad combat system
Poor effort at banning botters, gold sellers AND gold buyers.
Slap on the wrist non-punishments for any of the above mentioned.
Aren't we all sinners?
I just left "Dual Universe" due to the alts account advantage thing. A game I loved and supported since their Kickstarter.
They basically put in a system that clearly made it so that having more alts accounts makes it, so you can make a lot more money per week.
I will leave in a heartbeat if I see them doing something that clearly incentivizes alts accounts when less alt account friendly options could be used.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
Curious. What is your take on someone getting a second account for a second freehold?
To me, this is the only real in-game incentive for a second account. Most other incentives are not in-game (challenge of multi-boxing and spying on rival guilds come to mind immediately).
I know that, within reason, there is nothing that can or should be done about multi-boxing.
I would hope that free holds take more effort than time. I don't want to see having two freeholds just double your production.
Like, if at the end of the day, both take the same amount of effort from the player to get the same amount of production. Then I don't care.
If the devs choose to make it so that my reasonable course of action is to own multiple accounts, then I am out.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
My suggestion - based purely on how I expect things to end up - would be to stay away from growing crops then. If you do this as your primary income source, owning multiple freeholds would likely be required.
This may also be the case for Animal Husbandry.
However, if you do either or both of these activities for fun rather than in game profit, it shouldn't matter.
When it comes to crafting, I don't see there being any gain from owning a second freehold over top of having a friend with crafting stations and such that you may want to use.
Yep, Alts Advantage is a hell of a problem, i was recently reminded how big of a problem it is by playing the recent Kakao Archeage(a.K.a AltAge), specially in P2P games it becomes a P2W advantage that not only damages the community aspect of the game, but also the player base at servers competing for server slots with alts.
Aren't we all sinners?
Aren't we all sinners?
I get that gardening should be a thing, but it would make the most sense to me if the best plants were out in the world as something to be fought over.
Let's say the game launches with 5 tiers of mats. The stuff you can grow on your freehold should be limited to tier 1 or 2 and the remaining three tiers should require time and effort to find in the open world. Growing stuff would still be valuable, but not as valuable as actually doing real work.
Herbalism, cooking, and alchemy are all still valuable skills, but passively harvesting should not be the end game. At least that is what I am hoping for.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
I would expect either all or very nearly all plants that can be harvested in the wild to also be able to be grown in a freehold.
Keep in mind, the risk associated with this kind of thing in Ashes is mostly in transporting it, not in collecting it.
As long as the caravan system is needed, nothing is passive.
That is kind of the point of the caravan system.
I was stunned to learn that there were people on the Dual Universe forums with "40 alt accounts". Keep in mind that this is a voxel based "block game" we are talking about. I never even considered the game to be competitive, but I guess I was naive.
I would was expecting the number to be maybe 3 or 5 alt accounts for a game like DU and maybe 5 to 10 for a game like ArcheAge... again I maybe be naive.
That said, I do hope the caravan system is helpful in making it so that things require actually in game play time to make things valuable. Still, I would want the top tier plants to be out in the world.
I know part of the design idea is to have low tier mats be used to make high tier mats anyway. So even if you can't out right grow the best plants, you should be able to build them up into top tier mats with processing and crafting.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
40 accounts is a bit ridiculous.
That is something the developers had to have done on purpose.
My take on crop growing is that it should be it's own playstyle. This is why I was against the recent idea someone posted here about trying to make it more like Animal Husbandry.
When it comes to things like that, you only need to participate in it if it is something you enjoy doing. If you don't enjoy doing it, you are probably not going to do it.
What this means to me is that if crop growing is best served using two or three accounts, then only those wanting to use two or three accounts should get serious with it. There are enough other things for players to do that does not involve growing crops, and no player is going to be able to do everything.
I don't see someone seriously growing crops having any advantage over any other profession at all. As such, it is something that should be easy to avoid if the gameplay doesn't appeal.
As long as it's not overpowered to the point that I feel like I should be doing that instead of actual end game content.
Like, if a guy is generating like 200 gold per farm per week, but I can make 200 gold per hour or two doing end game stuff. Then let him have his scraps if he wants to pay extra for them.
I don't know where the line or balance is. That example could be way off. I just know when I feel like buying more accounts is more productive than playing the game, I have to find another game.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
Okay so I didn't get what you meat because you didn't make it very clear.
Yeah there are legitimate types of ganking and then there is just a toxic kind, such as a player 4 times your level harrasing you again and again.
Since the game is designed to have the legitimate type and indeed the legitimate type is the most common one, I adressed it and not the toxic exception.
Either way, we don't disagree, the corruption system should exist and should be efficient, but not to the point it hinders the game's PvP orientated nature.
We wouldn't want to see what happened to New World happen to AOC wouldn't we?
I never suggested an AOC without the corruption system so there's that.
It's just that at the end of the day AOC is a niche PvP game and it should stay like that.
Ganking will be and it should be part of the game.
Atama seems to have been refering to the toxic type (for example, lvl 20s farming lvl 5s, which is obviously unreasonable and an abuse), which is generally a very small % of all pvp.
What happened to New World won’t happen here. It’s too essential to this game, they can’t afford to neuter PvP.
My point was that if corruption doesn’t work then toxic play will run rampant, and that would cause me to quit.
Not only am I okay with regular PvP, I look forward to it.
MTX of any kind.
The game is built on cosmetic MTX.
This is a fact Intrepid could not change now, even if they wanted to. - which they don't.
I just created a post on this topic.
I would hate that the classes just feel generic and lack the fantasy of their given name.
I want the Shaman to feel like one, same for the Falconer or the Oracle and each other classes.
I think the way to achieve it and avoid the Archeage mistakes, is to grant 2-3 unique skills upon combining the archetypes. For example, when combining Ranger+Summoner=Falconer, so you get the unique skill to summon a falcon familiar.
Well we know they won’t be doing that. You don’t get skills from your class, just archetype. Instead you’ll get augments.
But what if a Falconer augment changed an existing skill to summon a falcon, and have the skill effect come from it rather than the Ranger? Would that work? And it wouldn’t be just cosmetic; you could position/send the falcon to enemies, maybe for a melee range skill.
For players with multiple accounts so that they can have multiple freeholds, the issue comes with Node siege and subsequent looting.
Case 1: Lets say both the freeholds are under same Node. This will result in less defenders during a siege and more risk if the battle is lost.
Case 2: Lets say both the freeholds are under different Node. How will a player defend two places at once if a situation arises or will have to do multiple caravan quests which will increase his overall risk.
So as the player would be playing double the amount and putting in more effort into the game, I don't see an issue with this as it is same as playing double on 1 character and achieving more with some extra benefits. People playing less cant blame others for their lack of commitment or drive.
As far as spying goes, it is quite independent of owning multiple accounts. Spies can simply be hired or information traded for some goods or other services.
Will I do it? No, I wont have enough time for anything other than my main char.
Do I mind if others do it? No. Its their prerogative.
A trade may work, but if I trade information on a rival guild, I would make the assumption that the guild in question knows I have that information (and they probably had a hand in exactly what that information is).
If I am hiring someone to spy, I have no way at all of knowing if they are working for me, or if they are a double agent and just taking my money. If I actually want to spy on a specific rival guild, I am putting someone in there that I trust.
Likewise, I would assume any rival wanting to spy on me would do the same.
I have two specific methods of telling if a character is on the same account as a member of a specific guild, if I suspect that guild may want to spy on my guild. As such, the only way a rival guild could spy on me with any effectiveness is if they have someone in the guild that the leadership trusts, that has a second account. I don't see these as issues, simply because not all players are going to be present for a siege.
When talking about a metropolis level node, there isn't even scope in the game for every citizen of the node to be present.
Welcome to the club Thorny.
Sadly, Intrepid messed up and is using the word ''class'' where it just isn't justified.
I just hope ''classes'' will be at least as diverse as wow specs.