Idea: Sub-Guild System

Kleator

Socialising in MMO's are one of the key aspects to keep players playing the game.
In recent years MMO's, that tend to have an guild-system that caps the member size at a certain point, often had sister-guilds for different playstyles and ways of progression.
May one guild is exclusively for the hardcore pvp members while another guild for members that like to do mainly pvp but are not that much into it (becouse of different reasons). Also may the guild also have another sister-guild for their pve base / crafter / farmer and trader.
All those guilds beloging to one single guild probably on its own are not any near of reaching the member size cap (as often guilds are capped at 50 or 100 members) but are split to have:
a. A seperated guild chat, that allows members to quickly and easier find members to join their interested way of playing the game
b. To show which member belongs to which guild-wing by their (often) slightly different guild name
c. To hold more players (for AoC more unrelevant, as the cap of 300 is more than double of which many MMO's restrict)

Given the fact, that those sister guilds are commonly created nowadays, becouse the game often doesnt allow to adress the above mentioned points in a single guild itself, I would like to suggest the following sub-guild system which will mostly prevent guild-slitting and would finaly adress a modern and much needed overhoul to the comon guild-system:

Be able to create sub-guilds inside your own guild (it can be designed very simple - very comlicated; it just depends what systems will be build on top of that - it may starts with different sub-guild permission systems and extends from there on...)
- Sub-guilds sounds like diffent guilds, but its just one guild where players can be organized into different groups
- Sub-guilds should be able to be freely named (like "T1", "T2", "PvE" for different tiers and playstyles) (May optional public and internal sub-guild name display option--> more on that on the next point)
- Sub-guilds name may shown over the players head besides/under the main guilds name (this gives players a better overview of the person they are playing with - probably only shown internaly to other guild-members, but with an public display name it could also be displayed to everyone. Just a design choice. But a internaly display is basicly a must have, otherwise a sub-guild system to directly identify each other is meaningless and sister-guilds will pop up)
- Sub-guild chats which members are automaticly sorted into if they belong to the group (no need to create an extra chat tab - guild lead / officer may can overview all guild-chats)
- Possibility for an future permission system based on sub-guilds (additionaly to an fully customizeable permission system based on player ranks)

- Newly created guilds should start with an basic group in which every new member will be sorted into (Named "Member" for example - ofc freeley renameable)

I havent played the game yet but didnt found any infos that points to the existence of such an system. Also found no other thread suggesting this system. So here we go.
Based on the fact that smaller guilds will profit from less players I assume sister-guilds will indeed commonly exist in the current state of guild-design. This is may a first step to more provent this from accuring. Still the guild-membersize-developting should be adressed in some sort to fully prevent sister-guilds.

Hope the idear will find interest.

Cheers
Kleator

Caww

Anything AoC can do to help guild management directly in the UI will benefit the game as a whole. Categories within the guild structure, which could be an off-shoot of the Officer rankings, would help everyone know their place in the guild.

Dygz

I think, in Ashes, these would basically be separate guilds that form alliances.

Vaknar

What scenarios do you think large alliances of sister guilds could get themselves into? I personally imagine lots of drama (not that that is a bad thing!) ^_^

Dygz

I'm playing a game right now where we have a bunch of people in our gaming community have chosen to focus on farming.
In Ashes, I could see there being that faction being large enough that they wish to pursue the perks available from being a small guild rather than being forced to just go with the perks available from a large guild. I think they would still aid the progress of our community, but would be happier focusing on specializing in what they love to do.

On the flip side. I could also see alliances of small guilds form because they all share the same religion or social org.
It would also be awesome to see what kinds of small-guild perks might be available for a specific race or class or augment school.

Solvryn

I would not mind the ability to organize a guild onto squad levels.

Noaani

I see value in a few aspects of this.

I've always thought that the monolithic rank structure in guilds in most MMO's is weird. While it does fit some guilds, it is probably more accurate to say most guilds end up fitting in around that structure. Allowing guilds to set up multiple rank trees (a tree for raiders, a tree for crafters, a tree for PvP'ers etc - though left up to each guild to do with as they see fit) each with their own ranks and permissions, and a chat channel associated with each tree, seems to me to be a fairly easy to implement feature that could be fairly useful.

I don't see a need for each branch to have it's own guild name (this just leads to confusion - and if you want a different guild name you can always just use the alliance system).

Having branches like this could be a guild perk that those guilds that see value in it can select.

CROW3

This would be handy especially for large guilds that require some additional tools to help organize multiple raiding groups.

Though I know some despotic guild master will create a squad for the scrubs. The soundproof bad kids room anyone raised Catholic will recognize.