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I agree with the principle drdoak007 is stating, just not the specifics. The size of a guild shouldn't matter, or what their purpose is, just activity. His numbers just seem a bit harsh. I also don't think levels should be an issue (I am completely opposed to the current level system, it should be replaced with missions to get actual "licenses," like a driver license).
Maybe what should happen is that guilds are officially (in-game, for roleplay purposes) "registered" with their government/faction. To register, you must pay a fee to your faction, and to stay registered there is a monthly fee. This would encourage guilds to recruit more active members and collect dues, because a small guild would split the fee between fewer members. This would also encourage an inactive guild to disband themselves, so that their collective funds don't go pointlessly to paying fees. If a guild is inactive for a long time, then they go bankrupt, and a bankrupt guild should have one week to get their funds to a certain level before they are automatically disbanded.
This would take awhile depending on how rich a guild was before they became inactive, but it would do the job automatically. It would also (assuming we get a real economy soon, with money tied directly to available resources) mean that an inactive guild's money would go to that guild's faction, and go back into circulation. If you just have a couple friends and want to start a company, and don't want to pay the fees, then just don't register your company as a guild, handle it all yourself. The advantage of having a registered guild would be a collective "bank account" to hold the guild's funds, of course the private chat channel, and extra space at your faction's capital to store stuff for the guild (assuming in the future that storage space will be limited to prevent stockpiling and add to realism). Also, this would be one more thing money would be useful for in this game, since it's pointless now.
Maybe what should happen is that guilds are officially (in-game, for roleplay purposes) "registered" with their government/faction. To register, you must pay a fee to your faction, and to stay registered there is a monthly fee. This would encourage guilds to recruit more active members and collect dues, because a small guild would split the fee between fewer members. This would also encourage an inactive guild to disband themselves, so that their collective funds don't go pointlessly to paying fees. If a guild is inactive for a long time, then they go bankrupt, and a bankrupt guild should have one week to get their funds to a certain level before they are automatically disbanded.
This would take awhile depending on how rich a guild was before they became inactive, but it would do the job automatically. It would also (assuming we get a real economy soon, with money tied directly to available resources) mean that an inactive guild's money would go to that guild's faction, and go back into circulation. If you just have a couple friends and want to start a company, and don't want to pay the fees, then just don't register your company as a guild, handle it all yourself. The advantage of having a registered guild would be a collective "bank account" to hold the guild's funds, of course the private chat channel, and extra space at your faction's capital to store stuff for the guild (assuming in the future that storage space will be limited to prevent stockpiling and add to realism). Also, this would be one more thing money would be useful for in this game, since it's pointless now.
"Guild Bank" - faction registered guild member..... but how does the money get transferred?
if faction requires weekly funding (according to guild size).
50 members @ 1000c /ea. = 50,000c / week
or
5 members @ 10,000c /ea. = 50,000c / week
this could work. something along these lines would be viable. but no real incentive for guild growth. make it maore expensive for smaller guilds, and cheaper for large guilds.
breaks the amount of registered guilds ingame, and encourages recruitment.
so if it costs 5 member guilds 500,000c/week, and 50 member guilds 50,000c........
if faction requires weekly funding (according to guild size).
50 members @ 1000c /ea. = 50,000c / week
or
5 members @ 10,000c /ea. = 50,000c / week
this could work. something along these lines would be viable. but no real incentive for guild growth. make it maore expensive for smaller guilds, and cheaper for large guilds.
breaks the amount of registered guilds ingame, and encourages recruitment.
so if it costs 5 member guilds 500,000c/week, and 50 member guilds 50,000c........
Just for reference, TGFT has required it's members to pay a weekly "dues" for a long time now. It's not too steep and was originally implemented to let the guild save up for big future purchases. However, we soon discovered that by pruning those who don't pay (after a generous grace period), it helps us maintain a more accurate list of who's active. In addition to the grace period, we allow members to go "on leave" for a while, during which time they don't owe dues, because we don't want to penalize them for real-life absences (vacation, injury, etc.)
I think that something similar, whether it's based on money, gaining a certain quota of XP/kills, or another measure of activity, might work well for determining which guilds have fallen by the wayside and are good candidates for pruning.
I think that something similar, whether it's based on money, gaining a certain quota of XP/kills, or another measure of activity, might work well for determining which guilds have fallen by the wayside and are good candidates for pruning.
By having the guild's bank account automatically charged until it's empty (and then disbanding them automatically) means no manual pruning is necessary, and there's still a use for the guild even if they're not doing anything, which is that their saved up money is being pumped back into the system.
I think that a set fee regardless of guild size is incentive enough for guild growth, especially if it's a large fee. Numbers are irrelevant until we see what a real economy does, and tweak the numbers later. This would be a more natural alternative to a "minimum guild size," since you wouldn't want to split a large fee 50-50. A bigger guild would have more manpower to bring in the cash to pay the fee, kind of like getting more roommates to split rent.
Contributions to the guild's bank account would have to be worked out and enforced by the guild. If only dues are required, then have the guild members deposit the dues directly into the account. Of course, we'd need a system to log deposits and withdrawals, to check that they actually did pay. If someone doesn't pay their dues, then deal with them your own way, with anything ranging from a non-binding UN resolution to guild expulsion to capital punishment. Anyone in the guild would be able to deposit money into the guild's account, but initially only the commander would be authorised to withdraw money and view the balance and logs, but would be able to grant other guild members any account priviledges, either individually or by rank.
Disclaimer: Serco High Command is not liable in any way for the security of your funds. Also, any member of Serco government is authorized to use funds from any account if said person is out of change, and in need of coffee during a five minute break. Your account also may be used to buy Professor Chaos a new MacBook Pro.
I think that a set fee regardless of guild size is incentive enough for guild growth, especially if it's a large fee. Numbers are irrelevant until we see what a real economy does, and tweak the numbers later. This would be a more natural alternative to a "minimum guild size," since you wouldn't want to split a large fee 50-50. A bigger guild would have more manpower to bring in the cash to pay the fee, kind of like getting more roommates to split rent.
Contributions to the guild's bank account would have to be worked out and enforced by the guild. If only dues are required, then have the guild members deposit the dues directly into the account. Of course, we'd need a system to log deposits and withdrawals, to check that they actually did pay. If someone doesn't pay their dues, then deal with them your own way, with anything ranging from a non-binding UN resolution to guild expulsion to capital punishment. Anyone in the guild would be able to deposit money into the guild's account, but initially only the commander would be authorised to withdraw money and view the balance and logs, but would be able to grant other guild members any account priviledges, either individually or by rank.
Disclaimer: Serco High Command is not liable in any way for the security of your funds. Also, any member of Serco government is authorized to use funds from any account if said person is out of change, and in need of coffee during a five minute break. Your account also may be used to buy Professor Chaos a new MacBook Pro.
Leebs : I still think that one should just NOT display guild members on the webpage.
softy2: why? ...isn't membership a matter of public record?
I'm against having to pay credits to keep a guild active. If a given guild wants to charge for membership, that's fine, but I will never EVER pay dues just to keep a guild alive.
I would, however, be amenable to a "minimum activity" requirement/quota.
Say, if a particular guild drops under some given number of hours per week of guild-wide activity (say, somewhere between 40 and 50 hours) for a set number of weeks (say, 3 or 4), the guild would be given a warning (how exactly I don't know, maybe a guild contact email or something) and after another week or two, if the activity isn't up, the guild is disbanded.
Unfortunately, this does not take into account those guilds who have bots active, such as SSC, TGFT, ST6 and VPR. The solution in that case is to either:
- Let the guilds-with-bots remain as they are, as it would be pointless to have a bot running anywhere near 24/7 if there wasn't ingame activity from the guild to justify it, or
- "handicap" the amount of hours per day a given character can give to the activity quota to something on the order of 4 hours, which would require that the members spend some time ingame to make up the rest of the quota.
EDIT: thurisaz, I think what softy2 is saying is that if a guild doesn't meet the minimum requirements for activity or dues or whatever, they are simply not shown on the online guild list. They retain their status as a guild and the online roster, but the roster is just not linked to on the page.
I would, however, be amenable to a "minimum activity" requirement/quota.
Say, if a particular guild drops under some given number of hours per week of guild-wide activity (say, somewhere between 40 and 50 hours) for a set number of weeks (say, 3 or 4), the guild would be given a warning (how exactly I don't know, maybe a guild contact email or something) and after another week or two, if the activity isn't up, the guild is disbanded.
Unfortunately, this does not take into account those guilds who have bots active, such as SSC, TGFT, ST6 and VPR. The solution in that case is to either:
- Let the guilds-with-bots remain as they are, as it would be pointless to have a bot running anywhere near 24/7 if there wasn't ingame activity from the guild to justify it, or
- "handicap" the amount of hours per day a given character can give to the activity quota to something on the order of 4 hours, which would require that the members spend some time ingame to make up the rest of the quota.
EDIT: thurisaz, I think what softy2 is saying is that if a guild doesn't meet the minimum requirements for activity or dues or whatever, they are simply not shown on the online guild list. They retain their status as a guild and the online roster, but the roster is just not linked to on the page.
SSC, TGFT, ST6 and VPR have BOTS working for them?
Wow ! and HOW ?
Wow ! and HOW ?
Erm, wrong kind of "bot", GRAIG.
These bots perform activities such as guildchat relays, databases, banks, etc, and are NOT the kind of "bot" you are thinking of.
These bots perform activities such as guildchat relays, databases, banks, etc, and are NOT the kind of "bot" you are thinking of.
Hrmm... now why in the world are there guilds in that list that are completely composed of players without levels (ie nonexistant)? What kind of person has the TIME for something like that? Sheesh. Also.. i was looking through some guild too see how many were active and there's a guy that's ~500-9000 k/d! That's amazing.
Just to clarify: TGFT does not have a bot. Broma Trez would sometimes be left logged in for long periods of time to allow people to pay dues, but that's just a player alt.
As for monitoring activity, it doesn't have to be with money. It could be accumulation of XP, kills, online time averaged across multiple players (with abnormally large play time excluded so as to avoid bot issues), number of wormholes crossed per week, etc.
As for monitoring activity, it doesn't have to be with money. It could be accumulation of XP, kills, online time averaged across multiple players (with abnormally large play time excluded so as to avoid bot issues), number of wormholes crossed per week, etc.
mmm... guild-owned stations would make this whole debate a lot easier; any guild that can't or doesn't pay the rent and feed the goldfish gets disbanded..
That would be pretty cool. Also not paying the upkeep would make them more vulnerable to being taken over or becoming derlict.
I think having a Guild and owning a station shouldn't be tied to each other. Specially since that would mean no new players could make a Guild, since they'd lack the money to even acquire a station to begin with; please think thoroughly before making such ^^ suggestions.
Also, imagine a Guild having the bad luck of losing its stations due to, say, being attacked one day when only one or two members are on, and immediately being disbanded for that.
Really people, you were all given brains; please use them.
Also, imagine a Guild having the bad luck of losing its stations due to, say, being attacked one day when only one or two members are on, and immediately being disbanded for that.
Really people, you were all given brains; please use them.
Jex, you're a pompous ass.
Pot calling the kettle black, tumble, from what I hear.
Us pompous asses love it when we're right, though. And boy, are we ever!
Seen the 1.7.2 will change the dynamics of Guild Creation; now, of course, we have to create a Guild to test it.
Seen the 1.7.2 will change the dynamics of Guild Creation; now, of course, we have to create a Guild to test it.
Don't believe everything you hear carrot.
Does seeing it count?
Heh.