GW2 Guilds (Joining Multiple Guilds)

Discussion in 'Guild Wars 2: General Discussion' started by Xerran, Jan 18, 2012.

  1. Orien

    Orien Member

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    RE: Multiple Guilds

    I understand to those that are used to a one guild type of system this can be a bit off putting at first. And bring to mind ideas of being an impediment to having a solid "core" of guild members if they can constantly be bouncing between guilds.

    But let me bring in the same concept from a previous game that was very successful and explain how it worked in that game's "e-society".

    FFXI is a game that has been around for a long time. In FFXI you dont have guilds but "linkshells". Now you can belong to as many linkshells as you can hold in your inventory really. This system worked in that Linkshells were not a catch all for all group activity as Guilds have developed into over more recent years. But rather a group of link minded folks who had a mutual goal that they wanted to get accomplished on a schedule that worked for everyone in that Linkshell.

    This allowed people to do MORE content while being LESS reliant on a single group of people's time limitations.

    For instance, I played FFXI from 2002/3 (JP Release) through 2011. In that time I had 1 linkshell that I picked up my 2nd month of playing and had it until I stopped playing. I was very close with a lot of those people to the point of them being almost an "in game family". We shared a lot and did a lot of things together. One thing that was nice was that we were from all over. We had Aussies, Americans, Euros, JP/Asian players that all did a lot of things together. But because of the clearly vast differences in time zones we were not all necessarily on at the same time to always be doing the more time sensitive content (open world boss spawns at specific time windows and if missed have to wait for next spawn window, etc). To this end we had other smaller groups set up and even joined other smaller Linkshells with friends from outside our "home" linkshell in order to get that sort of content done.

    Thes linkshells usually had fewer people and were only active during times of scheduled activity. We would switch to the other LS (Linkshell) about 30min prior to the event to make sure we had people on and make sure nothing had come up IRL to prevent too many folks from being able to play at that time. Then we'd go about doing our "raid" whatever it might be (Salvage, Sky, Sea, Einharjer, Abyss, etc) and within 30 minutes of us being done the LS would just about empty aside from stragglers who were chatting about this or that.

    This system was/is wonderful because it doesnt limit you because of your guild choice. It allows you to do more than what one guild might be focused on at a certain time.

    This is just a scenario where a very similar system worked in a way that benefited pretty much everyone in game. It also helps create a much greater sense of community in the game as you get to know more people through mutual friends/guildies and the whole community becomes enmeshed rather than the cold standard of today which seems to be "my guild or gtfo" where its Guild v Guild for no other reason than bragging rights. Thats all good and fine but when furthest a relationship between two players stretches is gloating about who got what gear first then it creates a community of tension in game which tends to be a little less fun. With the ability to have multiple guilds you can still have the friendly competition of who got what first but instead of saying "damn that doucebag DantheMan beat me to it" you might know "DantheMan" better and say "i gotta catch up to him so he doesnt leave me in his dust". Its just a little shift in perspective that makes the community a bit nicer to be a part of.
     
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  2. Xerran

    Xerran Senior Member

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    Very interesting, and true take on what 'could be'. I played FFXI myself, but never found the link shell system to be that fruitful. Then again, I myself, am not a very social person...

    I guess my problem with multiple guilds, is more of a stand point of the guild leader, rather than the individual. I look at this like Capitalism, where its a free market and ppl can choose where to go for their needs. The problem with this, is that some 'markets' get so big, everyone just goes there instead of anywhere else. Im seeing guilds getting so popular that other guilds become obsolete. It'll be very fustrating having 'x' amount of players in your guild, yet no one wants to do anything, because they're busy doing events with other guilds.
     
  3. Orien

    Orien Member

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    I understand that worry entirely. And it is feasible. What I am saying is that in the case of a game like FFXI you saw less of that and more of people breaking things down based on their time availability.

    It may not work that way in this scenario. FFXI was very different type of mmo and had a different type of community than a lot of the current generation mmo's do. I just dont think it's something to fret over before we see how it works out when implememented in this case.
     
  4. Zsolaith

    Zsolaith Member

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    I'm against the joining of multiple guilds as it does not support the building of a strong team of players that work together. :)
     
  5. Orien

    Orien Member

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    There's no proof of that at all. In fact in any game where you can join multiple guilds it works to create an atmosphere of team work amongst the whole server not just on a intraguild level.

    FFXI is a game thats operated for almost 10 years with a system of multiple guilds. And of any MMO on the market requires the most coordination because of the way the end game is set up.

    Dont let fear of the unknown cause you to make statements that are completely baseless.

    You may have to market your guild in a way that becomes more attractive to people but hey as a guild leader you should always be working to create the best and most condusive atmosphere for your guild members as possible. There are a lot of guilds/leaders in current mmo's that are lazy. They are lucky in that they might have a good core of people who carries people through content with little to no input from them at all. This is lame and not what a guild should be all about. In this game if people find this to be the case they can simply switch to another guild to get other things done that their other guild leaders dont care to do or dont care enough about to help arrange for his/her guild members.

    No longer being stuck in a certain guild because you dont want to start all over w/ dkp, attendance, etc or because you like the people in your guild but not the attitude of a leader about things they arent interested in should not be look at negatively but rather as giving us more options to get things done.

    As I layed out in that post about Linkshells multiple groups of people to work on specific tasks can be a great thing. MMO's are vast. Not everyone wants to do all of it. Some guilds might not be into running dungeons or "raids" (or whatever end game content turns out to be in GW2 on the PvE side) but rather is only PvP oriented. So maybe you can never find 3 or 4 other people in one guild to run dungeons with. Well join a guild that does do that. Or hell start your own guild with 10 or 15 of your friends who like to do PvE stuff and just have it as a side not where you guys can switch over to and talk about what you're doing at the time without interrupting what's going on in other guild chat.

    More options in this case is just more opportunity to work with different people to get more content done.
     
  6. Dawnwarden

    Dawnwarden New Member

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    While I understand what they are trying to do I am of the mind of many others on this topic.. I know the community that I am part of has "no other guilds on faction/server" at this point and I really don't see that changing any time soon.