Guildbook

[Slamz]

Random thought.....

Traditional MMORPG guilds do not do a good job of modeling real life social connections. Guilds are more like workplaces and have some of the same problems as workplace environments, namely: drama, because you have lumped a bunch of people together who do not necessarily all like each other and any disruption can disrupt the whole organization.

I like Bob. Bob likes you. I hate you. We're guilded together. Drama ensues.


What if a game came out that, instead of guilds, had something more like Facebook: a really nicely designed, well integrated friends list that gives profile pages and lets you get to know people (as their characters -- I am not talking about people's real-life persona) and open chat channels and so forth.

This actually replaces your guild interface. There is no "The Purge". There's just a Facebook-type interface. Which of your friends are online? What are they doing? Message someone and see what's going on. "Hey Slamz, yeah, I'm just over here grouping with Sally." Dammit, Bob. You know I hate that bitch. Lemme know if you're up for some castle sieging later, I'll be around Mordor.


I wonder if that would actually be a vastly superior solution to the concept of "guilds".

("The Purge" may well live on in this environment but it would be like a Facebook Group. Your connection to this group is fairly superfluous. Your friends list is your real social connector.)

[TinStar]

Random thought.....

Traditional MMORPG guilds do not do a good job of modeling real life social connections. Guilds are more like workplaces and have some of the same problems as workplace environments, namely: drama, because you have lumped a bunch of people together who do not necessarily all like each other and any disruption can disrupt the whole organization.

I like Bob. Bob likes you. I hate you. We're guilded together. Drama ensues.


What if a game came out that, instead of guilds, had something more like Facebook: a really nicely designed, well integrated friends list that gives profile pages and lets you get to know people and open chat channels and so forth.

This actually replaces your guild interface. There is no "The Purge". There's just a Facebook-type interface. Which of your friends are online? What are they doing? Message someone and see what's going on. "Hey Slamz, yeah, I'm just over here grouping with Sally." Dammit, Bob. You know I hate that bitch. Lemme know if you're up for some castle sieging later, I'll be around Mordor.


I wonder if that would actually be a vastly superior solution to the concept of "guilds".

("The Purge" may well live on in this environment but it would be like a Facebook Group. Your connection to this group is fairly superfluous. Your friends list is your real social connector.)

*shrug* Or you could just fire people who everyone hates

[Skelas]

Oh Tin, don't make us do that......

[TinStar]

Oh Tin, don't make us do that......

Meh, I'm not sure what you are implying but I'm pretty sure most people are apathetic towards me. I haven't done anything to make anyone hate me in a long time..

[strife]

Oh Tin, don't make us do that......

Meh, I'm not sure what you are implying but I'm pretty sure most people are apathetic towards me. I haven't done anything to make anyone hate me in a long time..

Skelas is just bitter because he thought ESO was a good game...

As for the OP... I'm not really sure what that would change. Right now all a guild is, is an enhanced friends list with a shared bank.... and basically every game already has a friends list with the ability to see where your friends are(at least to some extent).

What kind of profile information are you talking about? Like real personal information(obviously that you could censor)

Most of the recent MMO's have removed the importance of the guild anyways.

[Slamz]

*shrug* Or you could just fire people who everyone hates

Well, obviously. If there was someone everyone hates -- meaning literally everyone hates them, not just a few people -- then the job practically does itself. The harder case is the one that's far more common, which is a couple of people can't get along, but they each have common ties.

In real life, we all know how to handle this. You just sort of avoid that person. Game guilds don't let you follow the real life model, though (or at least, not very well). Guilds are more like your workplace. Don't like your coworker? Tough shit. Quit or hope he quits or wait for a rule violation bad enough to call HR, if you're into that sort of thing. That's basically how guilds end up operating too.

It is necessarily less friendly than your Facebook friends list because you have less control over it.


Basically this topic came up on the Camelot Unchained forums, along with a lot of other crazy ideas on how a lot of old MMORPG tropes could be rethought from scratch.

Like, what about just not having groups? What if the MMORPG was more like DayZ where you just kind of run around with whomever and there is no formal grouping structure? Or what if, instead of forming groups, you were able to select people to "monitor". Monitoring them put them up on your screen as if you were grouped (health bar, map location) but you aren't grouped -- they don't see YOU unless they also monitor you. This means that very large groups can more freely associate rather than having to form formal groups and warbands. This healer might have 12 different tanks on his screen and that's it. The tanks might be monitoring each other, or maybe they don't monitor anyone. It's a more flexible system.


So that got me thinking about guilds.

My "Guildbook" profile would kind of be like my Facebook profile, but for "Slamz". Here's a photo of my troll, here's my stat sheet, my interests are killing gnomes and defending castles. I have 87 friends, here's links to their profiles, you can post to my wall. Like me? Wanna group for stuff? Send me a friend request. We'll see who's online in our chat windows and hook up. No formal guilds.


I don't really expect any game to try this anytime soon but I thought it was an interesting idea on how a game might work the social aspect. The traditional "friends list" is too rudimentary and is barely useful, but a Facebook-style version could be so useful that you no longer need formal guilds, and the side effect is it's a much more natural way of letting people create social links.

[Vllad]

Sounds like a pain in the ass.

Now I spend gaming time managing a friends list rather than just joining a guild and having the guild pages do it all for me. Plus not all people are equal when it comes to socializing. Especially gamers who might be the most socially awkward people in the US. With the current system everyone can find a home. With a facebook system not everyone will.

Plus I don't equate guilds as the work place. Sure not everyone gets along but that is not a bad thing. Friction and competition make people better gamers which as a result makes gaming better not worse. Diggles and I fight constantly but my gaming experience is better with him than without him.

In order for a guild to work properly everyone needs to play different roles. Some of those roles are unpopular. You need enforcers, you need game detailist (yes I made that word up) and you need people who drive other people to do events. The games most enjoyable aspects requires these roles and they are not only unpopular but no one likes doing them.

With your facebook style in the future none of these roles will be played by anyone. Everyone will just hang out with people just like themselves and the gaming experience will be worse not better for it. It certainly would lead to dumbed down games which is already an issue in the industry.

[TinStar]

I dunno. In the last couple MMOs that I have been a part of, the in game social aspects were almost non-existent other than getting group invites. Everyone treats TS as a social tool and it seemed that any in game social interaction was completely gone. As far as the whole "guildbook" aspect of it, I don't think this is all that different of an idea other than the fact that you can customize what your character info screen says. I guess being able to look up their character screen through your friends list might be different but honestly, WoW did that years ago. I like the idea of not having formal groups, but that co-op play is really more of solo play with friends as you are depending on yourself to be able keep yourself alive. Adding a way to "monitor" another player is fine maybe? I would love a more dayz approach to grouping but I think that style of play leads to a short play life for most people as most people will only play so long before they quit a game in which they get killed ALL the time while their friends are standing there clueless of what is going on.

[Slamz]

Plus not all people are equal when it comes to socializing. Especially gamers who might be the most socially awkward people in the US. With the current system everyone can find a home. With a facebook system not everyone will.

That's a good point. Modeling real-life social connections might be a bad idea given your audience consists of people who are known for not being good at making real-life social connections (it's a stereotype but probably not wrong on average).

[Zirak]

I kind of like having a guild identity especially in a PvP game in which there are objectives that can be captured and claimed.

[TinStar]

I kind of like having a guild identity especially in a PvP game in which there are objectives that can be captured and claimed.

You just need a can of spray paint and you can make everyone know "Zirak wuz here"

[Airyth]

I like your idea of monitoring instead of grouping. Not being able to see everyone's status that you need to monitor is frustrating... it's also unproductive to be forced to monitor the status of 20+ people you don't need to be monitoring.

An issue may come from loot, unless you force everything into instances what's to stop Alann and Blizzy from coming along and engaging the same Boss or Event or Objective as you and having an equal chance at reward.

In regards to a facebook style friendship system instead of guilds I don't think this ideal works well when it comes to MMO and progression. So many events/raids seem to be tied to bottlenecks in terms of gear/keys that progressing with a guild works as a better system than a loose collection of friends based upon common links. This system may lend itself better towards a game like PS or League of Legends where there isn't so much progression tied to the status of content completion of your guild.