There should be some way for guild commanders to set things like 'leans serco' or 'leans itani' rather then just serco/neutral/itani.

I think that's something that people would just put in their description-blurb, for now. Getting into the nuanced classifications of guilds (which could easily evolve) is not something I want to dig into at this time.

If we get to a point where people really need a way to sort quickly, then we'll look at that later.

Oh boy, this thread makes me gitty. I'll just start off by expressing enthusiastic support for this sort of system. In my experience, the most effective thing to improve new player retention is guild membership. I know the game is supposed to be made in such a way that solo game play is viable, and it absolutely is. But learning the game is unarguably easier when you're in a guild or stick with a group.

I would like to point out to some, this system wouldn't be the sole means of guild recruitment, presumably. So, new guilds would still be able to do their own recruiting and build themselves up. Sounds like the primary intention of this isn't just to improve guild recruitment overall, but actually improving recruitment of new players with the purpose of having them stick around a bit longer. So, I think this thread should really stick to that stream of thought, so that things don't go all over the place. Seems like all the other veins of thought likely deserve their own threads. Inc please correct me if you do not agree with this.

Having said that, I'll ramble on the topic a bit.

I think adding a system that allows a newbie to <i>quickly</i> and easily join a guild is long overdue. I think Inc is spot on when he says simplest is best. To that point, I see no issue with a new player being able to apply to multiple guilds at once. This will maximize the chances of them getting into a guild during their current play session. This is the goal. Any guild that will be eligible to join the list (more on that topic below) will likely be a good start, regardless if the newbie ends up staying with them. I think the focus should be getting a newbie in a guild as quickly as possible.

As far as eligiblity to be put on the this, this is key. My opinion and arguements for requirements are as follows:
- 3 months existence -> I would argue that this time should be a minimum expected time for a new guild to get themselves in a position to make them capable of actually contributing to player retention. I actually don't think 3 months is long enough to learn the game fully, but any more than 3 months seems exessive, so this is how I came up with this number.
- 20 players online last month -> I think that a guild should have, on average, at least 2 pilots logging in daily. This will ensure that there will likely be <i>someone</i> around when an application comes through. Almost guarantees that it will be answered within 24 hours.
- 500,000 credits monthly -> This is a service that will benefit the guilds that uses it. This should be something that is paid for. The majority of the guilds that will utilize this will have a trident owner in the guild. It costs 500,000cr for insurance for tridents. Wanted to pull a number that currently exists in the game. I think this is still extremely cheap, yet still creates a barrier that most joke/alt guilds like wouldn't want to invest in.

As far as implementation of the board goes, I actually really like Luxen's mock-up. And the ideas of everyone wanting to add cool filters to the guild selection interface, is pretty nifty, but I think for now, literally every suggested metric to add as a field for the guild to fill out, could easily be included in the description for now. Again, going back to idea that this is primarily, initially intended to get newbies into a guild, we don't need to restrict access to applying to a guild just yet.

I have more thoughts, but I've rambled enough for now. Thanks again, for going in this direction. I'm not sure if there is any other player that has put as much thought into this topic as I have. I certainly appreciate this effort.

I actually don't think 3 months is long enough to learn the game fully, but any more than 3 months seems exessive, so this is how I came up with this number.

This presumes that only newbs create guilds, which I think is quite a departure from reality.

Something that would help raise awareness around guilds existing, and could help inform new player decisions, is having Guild Tags on in chat by default. It would really help clarify some of the politicking that happens in 100, and would establish more name reputation for active guilds.

Incarnate, could you post what you are considering now, specifically? It might help to have an idea of what your current thoughts are for us to add to.

As I'm sure you're aware, many other games have started using a Guild/Clan ranking system, whereby as a Guild ranks up they gain certain perks. I'm not really sure how something like that might be incorporated into VO, but you could make access to the recruiting board be one of the Guild rank perks, rather than trying to use a hard guild age minimum. Active guilds could be automatically given the rank allowing them to access this feature.

Yeah, tying into a guild-ranking system could be interesting as well. Although, I think the "baseline" of entry that we've been discussing here is a pretty low bar, that's probably sufficient for now. But a "ranking" could be another way to promote one's guild to the top of a list, or something like that.

But, guild-rankings in general are really a topic for a different thread.

I worry that guild a guild ranking system will encourage a level of meta-gaming that may create an administrative headache for Incarnate. It may also increase the level of general nastiness beyond what may be considered acceptable.

Personally I'd probably find the meta-gaming a lot of fun, but I don't think it'd be actually good for the game.

Edit, somehow screwed up and lost the rest of my post, so here goes.

The same competitiveness driven meta-gaming I worry about with a guild ranking system is also something I worry about with setting the bar terribly high. I fear there will be accusations, both public and private that so and so guild is 'gaming the system' at best, and 'just cheating' at worst.

Okay, well, I wouldn't worry about it for now. This is all pretty orthogonal to a Guild Ranking system.

This is a great idea.

Start simple. A guild can put a lot into its blurb about what kind of player it will accept, so that the new player will know which ones will be a better fit. Resist the temptation to make everything too rigid and automatic.

I think an expansion of the in-game messaging system would help this process a lot.

I dont want new players in famy, but happy to see them in TGFT, ITAN, and TRI. ;)

Thanks biretak, works for me. I think this planning ahead by the devs is very positive. I hope this noob mission shows up rather soon.

regarding the supposed mission... we already have one that could be cleaned up, yeah? At combat license 3, you get a mission called "Where to go from here" or somethign like that. It explains the military and other mid-game stuff. Might be a good place for guilds?

Otherwise, it could be added in to the Tutorial V, if you wanted it earlier. Having the soon-to-retire teradon captain recommend new pilots join a guild for their further learning would be a rather fitting way to bump them to the interface.

Basically, I'm going to be re-writing the entire early game. All tutorials, all concepts.

Right now we're focused on the.. really-really-really early game, like "loading the game". Which is actually extremely relevant to newbie retention.

Anyway, that's a different subject.. but going to the guild-recruitment board, it'll probably be its own "thing" (instead of a mission), a separate interface, and have its own location, and there'll be some kind of tutorial that drives people to directly use it. But, I don't know how it'll play out.

Yes, we may make a version of the recruitment interface before it gets put in-line in the new user experience, so it can be tested a bit. (Of course, I might A/B it a bit, by jamming it in front of newbies on one specific platform, with instrumentation and analytics; like how I've been using Android as a "test-lab" lately, to see how new users behave under varied situations).

The early feedback is to help with the design process, and make sure I consider factors that come from existing guild members and leaders.

"Of course, I might A/B it a bit, by jamming it in front of newbies on one platform, like how I've been using Android as a "lab" lately"

yes.. but to itan and tgft, thanks.

yes.. but to itan and tgft, thanks.

Eh? This is already asked-and-answered. The system proposed is opt-in. No one is forcing you, or your guild, to participate in anything.

Rule #8, if you aren't willing to read the previous dev responses in a discussion, then don't post.

> Anyway, I'm looking for feedback and thoughts here from existing, experienced guild leaders and members.

Personally, I am a big fan of the way that TRI handles guild recruitment: you message a bot who automatically invites you to join the guild.

So, here are my suggestions:

1. If we're trying to lower the barriers/complexity of the system, then rather than waiting for a CO to accept the application, the noob should be automatically be added to the guild that they select. That way, they're playing the game, ready to take on the verse, and they're like "wow I'd really love to be a trader, I'm going to join TGFT!" and then boom, they are a part of TGFT and can immediately interact with the online players, ask questions, get help, etc.

2. In order to prevent abuse, there needs to be a "noob" guild rank, with severely limited capabilities. I'm talking chat-only and access to the guild message of the day. I don't want sneaky alts joining TGFT so they can see who is currently online. Probably should also be rate-limited in their chat, so some nefarious player cant join a guild and just spam chat with nonsense. Also, don't alert them when members log-on, etc.

2.5 Maybe too complex, but perhaps there could be different "guild channels" so there could be a "general" chat that all guildies could see, and a "member" chat for regular members, and possibly an "officer" chat for CO, LTs, etc. That way, you can still talk about guild matters within your guild without alerting the noobs (i.e., I could say in member chat -- need help in Odia M14 -- without alerting all the noobs to my location and possibly getting them killed and/or outing my online status to a "pretend" noob looking for traders to kill.

3. As mentioned earlier, guild tags should automatically show up in general chat, and should be an "opt-out" feature rather than "opt-in"

4. Bad actors may also try to auto join a guild such as TGFT, and then start agitating pirates to make them want to hunt down TGFT or killing TRI noobs to harm guild relations, or some other bullshit. So, perhaps some way of identifying a new recruit, such as an asterisk after their guild tag (e.g., [TGFT*] Tsreknor: blah blah blah). Of course, I hope most guilds handle complaints of bad guildies by talking to COs about offending members to try and diplomatically resolve the situation.

It might be good to have a way to define days/hours when a guild is more active, and to try to match prospective members to guilds that are active when the player is likely to be on.

I envision an interface that allows the player to select their availability using their local time zone, and then the interface would convert to GMT and suggest guilds.

It would probably be easiest if the Commander defined the guild active times, though the information could become inaccurate if it was not maintained. Another idea is that individual guild members would define their active times, and then the guild active time could be aggregated. There's also the idea that the game would track the active times itself.

The only problem with that Whistler is that it would prevent guilds from recruiting people in timezones they lack (what guild wouldn't want a greater presence across time zones?).

inc might not like this, but the time zone and activity by different days makes this not plausible unless it's automatic... like tgft and itan just chooses to accept newbs. i'm not not trying to cause trouble... but tgft and itan might not be online when newbs are. So why not let the opt in be automatic? for the guild the player chooses?