As Vendetta grows, as we all know it will, guilds are going to become and have become more and more important in the structure of playing. Someone said once, that even the name Guild Software shows this to be true. A guild is one of the the basic building blocks of the entire Vendetta Community. A strong guild structure enhances the game more than any other part of the game. When a new player joins a guild, there should be a sense of "I am joining the best" when they join. This alone (and other things) can attract many players to our game and keep them around.

During our regular Council Meeting last night, we discussed things we would like to see in the game. Granted, with over 25,000 messages in the Suggestions section, it's likely some of these have been suggested before. However, I would like to suggest those again.

Suggestions for Guilds

Guild Ranks - Although there are Lieutenants and Council Members, some form of ranks within the guild would create a sense of progress as a person plays within a guild. These ranks could be prepended to the persons character. Only main characters could be promoted, as alternate characters would "follow" the main character.

Guild Council Chairperson - This guild rank would be considered to be lower than lieutenant, but somewhat higher than regular council nembers. It could be appointed by the commander, or the other council members could vote to decide who the Council Chairperson would be. The Guild Chairperson might also be allowed to recruit new members into the guild.

Guild Lieutenants - With a lot of guilds, having only two lieutenants can become restrictive. This is most noticed when a player wants to join a guild, and the 2 lieutenants or the commander is not around. As the guild size increases, so should the number of lieutenants. It would seem reasonable to think that one lieutenant for each 25 guild members would be correct.

Guild Statistics - Possibly using the same kinds of stats that each player has. When a player does a task, say mining, then the guild's mining stat would increase by some small amount proportional to the amount of mining a player does. This could also go along with the number of deaths and kills a guild has cumulatively experienced.

Guild Pools - The guild would gain credits from a percentage of the trade and combat credits earned by the guild. Guild members could also contribute to the guild pool if they had the desire to.

Guild Missions - Where a guild could (for example) kill 50 bots of a particular type. Beings as the types of bots are generic across the whole galaxy, guilds that had different races within the membership could have all members participate. These kinds of missions would increase the guild stats at a greater rate than normal guild play.

Guild Challenges and Guild vs. Guild Combat - When one guild would challenge another guild to a war. This could enhance large scale combat and provide a goal for the entire guild. To keep it fair, each guild could only have one ongoing challenge at a time. This would stop several guilds from ganging up on a single guild.

Guild Bounties - If a guild sets a bounty on someone, then the guild would pay the bounty. The council or the commander and lieutenants would make the bounty and make sure the funds were available for it to be paid out of the guild pool or through contributions from guild members. When the bounty is set, the funds would be placed in "escrow" until the bounty was satisfied or withdrawn. Faction and/or XP losses upon the target of the bounty would be the same or similar to what they are now.

Guild Radar - The radar would show guild members differently than non-guild members. I know this is "yet another" radar suggestion, however with some guilds containing members from all three races, the simple red and green dots we have now sometimes tend to having guild members killing or injuring each other.

Guild Dates - On the detail guild listing on the web page, it could show for each player a guild join date and a last login date. This would help commanders do guild membership housekeeping. It might be also useful on the guild list page, to show guild inception dates.

Best Regards

WC

Couple of question:

1) why would players from opposing nations join the same guild? If the two nations are at war, this could be considered fraternizing with the enemy, and I would think it would hurt your home team faction standing.

2) Were you thinking of the contributions to the guild pool to be a tax (i.e., 10% of income goes to guild pool)? Or were you thinking of it as a bonus (extra 10% to pool).

3) who would be able to draw from the guild pool, and how?

4) When you join a guild, do all of your characters join it?

5) how do you designate the "main" character?

Another idea that may have been mentioned before...

*Guild members can access equipment/ships left at a station by another guild member (or some other way to allow them to transfer equipment).

*perhaps guild powers could be designated specifically per player, so someone could be designated as a recruiter and could allow people to join, another could be a treasurer and have access to the guild pool. The guild leaders could grant those powers to specific players. Something like /grant guildfunds "player".

As for ranks, except for those that have access to guild functions, the ranks could be completely administered by the guild and promotions given out by the guild leadership.

Overall some very good ideas.

most of them are mentioned in the pinned thread at the top of this forum tho. :)

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/6494

I do like the idea of a guild bounty, thats a new one. IMO however it should not include any XP loss, because player created bounties of any sort that would cause XP loss lead to problems. The ability of any individual or group of individuals to force a player to regain XP is dangerous.

@furious: trading guilds created and run by the UIT could potentially attract members from all 3 nations.

They could, but would their home governments like it?

I would think you could have serco/UIT or itani/UIT mixtures fine, but serco/itani/UIT should cause problems. Have I missed something?

"1) why would players from opposing nations join the same guild? If the two nations are at war, this could be considered fraternizing with the enemy, and I would think it would hurt your home team faction standing."

--Actually, from the viewpoint of the whole game, players of different nations in the same guild are quite useful. In the guild I belong to, we have had characters from all three nations with no difficulty at all.

"2) Were you thinking of the contributions to the guild pool to be a tax (i.e., 10% of income goes to guild pool)? Or were you thinking of it as a bonus (extra 10% to pool)."

-- That is a good point Furious. I would believe that a bonus would be a good idea, rather than a tax. After all, we are talking about virtual money here, there is an endless supply. :)

"3) who would be able to draw from the guild pool, and how?"

-- I would think that any guild member should be able to draw from the pool. Of course, it would have to be administered by a commander, lieutenant(s), or council members. I would see this pool as an advantage to new players, where you could drop 25K in their account (with the traditional /givemoney command) to help them get started, and have a new player that is happy and not struggling.

"4) When you join a guild, do all of your characters join it?"

-- I don't believe so Furious. When I start up a new character, it is not associated with a guild. However, it is associated with a nation.

"5) how do you designate the "main" character?"

-- I would think that possibly the "main" character is the first one on the list that you see when you login. However, it might be better to say that the "main" character is the one with the most in game experiences and time playing. I know this is kind of a hard area to get a handle on... but a player has many characters, so the "main" character I was writing about is the player themself, not a specific alternate of them.

I really like the idea of being able to transfer equipment and ships between guild members. I am sure some consideration would have to be given to keep from giving a level nine Itani Valk to a level 1 new person... However, even with that said, that's a good idea too.

Best Regards,

WC

"--They could, but would their home governments like it?

I would think you could have serco/UIT or itani/UIT mixtures fine, but serco/itani/UIT should cause problems. Have I missed something?--"

That depends i suppose. From the backstory the Itani would be all for a guild that allows them to interact with the serco in a non-violent manner. They would say it allows a better chance for peace and understanding. I dont neccesarily know if Serco pilots joining said guild would fit the backstory, but then again the backstoyr is itani-centric and possibly paints the serco in an unfavorable (and maybe not 100% accurate) light.

"--"2) Were you thinking of the contributions to the guild pool to be a tax (i.e., 10% of income goes to guild pool)? Or were you thinking of it as a bonus (extra 10% to pool)."

-- That is a good point Furious. I would believe that a bonus would be a good idea, rather than a tax. After all, we are talking about virtual money here, there is an endless supply. :)
--"

The only problem with this is "how is it calculated?" if an extra % is generated when the player sells an item, whats to stop a player with lots of cash from just buying then selling an item within a station. unless the pool only recieved bonus cash when players completed a mission. (eg the mission rewards a player with 25,000 credits, and an additional 2500 credits is added to the guild pool)

I'm more in favor of a tax that the guild commander could set however. Once again only on missions to prevent exploiting. Then if a player earns 25000 from a mission, a % of that is given to the guild, and the player keeps the rest.
Additionally there could be guild specific missions that deposit the reward funds directly into the guild pool.

Until they fixed the duel problem where players from the same nation couldn't duel each other, the SAF created an Itani character that could be used to train the newer players against Itani ships. But now that players from the same nation can fight each other, he's become somewhat obsolete.

I still think you should take player's standing into consideration, for guild standing modifiers. So that Players would take advantages/disadvantages as long as they're in the guild.

For example, take all the corvus standing in a guild, add it up, take 2% of it and add it to each player's standing as a modifier.