Age of Conan guild discussion - need input from some veterans of MMO's. - Page 2

**Sarcoma** · 12-25-2007, 04:16 PM

IMO. Ill boil this down to the basics that I see.

You need palyers that will spend a lot of time online.
You need a solid core of leaders...who will spend a lot more time online.
A ton of rank and file.
You need brand/name identity.

The rest is frosting.

Sarcoma

**TheFatKidDeath** · 12-26-2007, 01:29 PM

As far as a player based city, from what I've read, a Battlekeep, which takes less resources and manpower to maintain, might be a good starting point for us. The Battlekeep has the longest turnover time, seven days I believe. Why not get out feet wet with something smaller than expand into a larger city?

**Tarenth** · 12-26-2007, 02:27 PM

So where did you read that? The information in the FAQ suggests that a battlekeep is basically a city with the notable difference that other players can take it from you. Towers are smaller constructs in the Borderlands that smaller less organized guilds can build.

A battlekeep's sole purpose would be to survive in the borderlands. It is only advantagous to us if it isn't destroyed and taken over by another group. A city's sole purpose is to provide resources and centralize guild activities. Defense is secondary since we have a set enemy as an NPC city that we can raid and knock down on occasion to keep things secure. Pitting NPC guards vs NPC raiders has more predictable results than NPC guards against PC seiges.

We could take over a tower and man that as well. That would get our feet wet into borderlands seige PvP.

**TheFatKidDeath** · 12-26-2007, 06:50 PM

Where did I read what? Less manpower/resources for a battlekeep or seven days turnover time? If those two, from here:

http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthr...ht=BATTLEKEEPS

I would agree with you that if we wanted to get our feet wet than a BattleKeep might be a good starting point.

**Gambit7** · 12-26-2007, 09:49 PM

Getting your feet wet taking a Battlekeep is only a good idea shortly after release IMO. After about 3 months or so (I suspect) it's bound to be near impossible to do w/o the resources a large guild with a city can provide (or tons of mercs or guild alliances). You have to remember, it's not a linear objective, it gets progressively harder as the game gets older.

And it definitely is not a substitution for a guild city, only a supplement.

I tell ya, the most exciting thing for me with Battlekeeps is the ability to hire or become a mercenary. The whole merc/pirate genre fits so well with Conan. It's tough not to get pulled into making a guild that caters to those tactics (ala Maelstrom Crew).

That being said, the guild will have to decide if it'll allow its members to engage in Merc tactics. As we all know, mercenary moonlighting can have a negative impact on the larger whole of the guild. It's something to think about.

Anyone know if alts carry the reputation and/or guild status of a main? It's conceivable we could field merc squads totally independent of the main guild (as alts). The money/resources gained would secretly go to the main guild.

**Tarenth** · 12-27-2007, 12:05 AM

Doing a bit of reading and watching the youtube video I don't see how you are getting similarities between PvE cities and Battlekeeps and I realize I've been making some incorrect assumptions as well.

Battlekeeps are not cities. They are capturable objectives similar to points in a conquest game of BF. There are 3 levels of capturable objects with resource nodes, forts, and battlekeeps. The 'turnover time' is apparently the amount of time you can set your keep as closed from assault and for battlekeeps can vary from 3-7 days. You get X bonuses over each 'turnover' period so the shorter the turnover the more you get per day. Somethings mentioned in the Youtube video are extra resources, gold, bonuses to XP, buffs, extra spawn points, and even guild bank access. So if you get 7000 gold over a 7 day turnover and you set your turnover to 3 days you will have 2333 gold per day as opposed to 1000 per day with 7 days. They also mentioned immortality, but I'm unsure how that's going to work.

The way an assault works is you have 3-7 days to build up defensive city structures before it becomes open for attack and attacking guilds can use this period to set up war tents to gather resources to build seige engines and hire NPCs for the assault. Its cheaper I suppose than a PvE city because you're focused on walls, towers, and barracks for defense instead of crafting stations, markets, or other guild improvements in the PvE city. However once your turnover passes you are open for attack and EVERYONE can run in and grab it from you. The battle is based on tickets and the guild who holds the most tickets at the end wins the battle. If you have more people/NPCs on the ground around the objective with all the defenses destroyed you gain tickets via numerical superiority, if you build something in the area you get tickets for it and for how long it survives, if members of your guild or group are killed you lose tickets. 'Defender' is a misnomer because the defender can change within the alloted vulnerability period. If you own the keep and it is taken from you, the person who took it is now the 'defender' and has to build up defenses while still vulnerable, meanwhile you can still counter attack and take it back by whittling down their tickets through kills in order to keep your own ticket count high from when you held it.

Vulnerability windows aren't gone into much detail beyond that it cannot be greater than turnover period. (No 8 day long Free For All for a battlekeep or 26 hour seige of a resource node).

That being said, there's another level to PvP that includes the strategic. Your battlekeep is only as protected as the number of forts and battlekeeps held by friendlies in the surrounding area. If a fort adjacent to you is taken then that can be used as a forward spawn to attack your battlekeep, however if the area around you is secure then attackers have to travel further from public spawns to rejoin the attack.

There will be 3 battlekeeps, 4 forts, and 6 resource nodes per region with 9 battlekeeps total per server. It can then be assumed that there will be 3 regions in the borderlands with 12 forts and 18 resources total as well.

No mention is made of alts, but I would assume that alts would work like a seperate character from your main (similar to WoW). You can have your alt join the same guild as your main and have it get the same benefits or you can put it in a different guild and get those benefits.

One thing I find really cool is that it mentioned taxes in the Guild FAQ. The guild leader can set a tax and that tax is automatically deducted from your earnings and sent to the guild. ^_^ No more begging cup hoping for donations from guildies to get revenue.

No mention is made of the 'after' from PvP combat so its up in the air if you have to rebuild everything from scratch with the new turnover or if you keep what was build from before. The Dev did mention that walls will remain and its up to the new owners to replace them. That means if you are losing a seige its to your advantage to stop trying to win and just try to do damage because the winner will have to spend more repairing and replacing what you took out.

**Gambit7** · 12-27-2007, 12:23 AM

There we go... the magical word. TAX!
I've been looking for that one thing that makes PvP and guild cities worthwhile to maintain, and that's the answer... "taxes"

Since there's taxes, players now have a definable reason to care about PvP (expanding resources) as well as maintenance and defense of the guild city, not to mention crafting. My concerns are now squashed. This also forces players into earning a living. They cant simply stand around idle playing wack-a-mole... unless there's good money in it.

The caveat is, many players wont like being taxed and will become rogue (perfect for mercenaries). Understandable though. Will definitely create an interesting game dynamic. I've always been a fan of taxation systems, but a little weary of it creating a virtual job.

Banyan · 12-27-2007, 01:21 PM

It probably would do some good to pick Wulfyn/Khul Drukath brain regarding the aspects of being a Merc as well as the parallels between running an EVE corp and how the guild system may work out in AoC.

I was a rabid DAoC player back in its hayday and am looking forward to this title to replace the fantasy RvR I've missed. I must admit, I've got a lot to learn about this title tho.

One thing to consider re: Mercs is the hidden costs, especially to leadership. The requirements can quite steep for ones time. There's the entire backroom politics thing, negotiations, constant grudge conflicts (you're gonna always piss someone off), etc. In EVE, we have no allegiance except to the almighty dollar. So once a contract is up, the people you worked for could and do become targets - some understand, some not so much. This may or may not be ok in AoC.

Meh, that may or may not haev been helpful, I'm bored at work and wanted to chime in since I'm keeping a keen eye on this one.

**Gambit7** · 12-27-2007, 02:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Banyan

It probably would do some good to pick Wulfyn/Khul Drukath brain regarding the aspects of being a Merc as well as the parallels between running an EVE corp and how the guild system may work out in AoC.

I was a rabid DAoC player back in its hayday and am looking forward to this title to replace the fantasy RvR I've missed. I must admit, I've got a lot to learn about this title tho.

One thing to consider re: Mercs is the hidden costs, especially to leadership. The requirements can quite steep for ones time. There's the entire backroom politics thing, negotiations, constant grudge conflicts (you're gonna always piss someone off), etc. In EVE, we have no allegiance except to the almighty dollar. So once a contract is up, the people you worked for could and do become targets - some understand, some not so much. This may or may not be ok in AoC.

Meh, that may or may not haev been helpful, I'm bored at work and wanted to chime in since I'm keeping a keen eye on this one.

If you're looking for fantasy RvR then you need to look at WAR (another Mythic project ala DaOC).

**Tarenth** · 12-27-2007, 04:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gambit7

There we go... the magical word. TAX!
I've been looking for that one thing that makes PvP and guild cities worthwhile to maintain, and that's the answer... "taxes"

Since there's taxes, players now have a definable reason to care about PvP (expanding resources) as well as maintenance and defense of the guild city, not to mention crafting. My concerns are now squashed. This also forces players into earning a living. They cant simply stand around idle playing wack-a-mole... unless there's good money in it.

The caveat is, many players wont like being taxed and will become rogue (perfect for mercenaries). Understandable though. Will definitely create an interesting game dynamic. I've always been a fan of taxation systems, but a little weary of it creating a virtual job.

Eh...not quite. To quote from the FAQ:

Quote:

9.5 Will there be guild vaults for players to store money and items?
Yes. We are quite aware that one of the benefits usually tied to being in a guild, is being able to put items or money into a guild vault that can be shared among all the members. There is also a taxation system in place for the guild to use if they want that, where the guild leader set a certain tax percentage that all members have to abide to. When a player gains money in any way – whether it may be through looting or selling items – that percentage of the sum will be taken from the player and put in the guild's treasury.

That means PvP will be detrimental because there will be no lootables to tax. You can also 'sit around and do nothing' as you say since a cut of 0 is still 0. It seems that system would mostly be for PvE interactions or trades with a in between. If you sell your goods via a guild market vendor perhaps an auction house system where your money is awarded from the game its likely the tax will apply. But I have serious doubts if they'll tax trades or person to person transations because that would wear down cash gifts to a bloody stump if done frequently.

Example: You kill a mob with 20 coins on it. If the guild tax was 20% then the guild would automatically shave off 4 coins and you'd get 16. If you sold something it dropped for 100 coins then the guild would again shave off 20 coins leaving you with 80. If you sat around picking your nose and just crafting stuff to give away then the guild tax of 20% would be enforced on your income of 0 and the guild would get 0.

Taxes won't make cities and PvP worthwild to maintain (PvP being a expense without benefit most of the time), but it will make it easier to maintain since everyone is throwing into the pot instead of the guild officers needing to go begging to fund guild activities.

Also, if you don't like the idea of being taxed a small amount of your PvE income for the benefits a guild provides (increased XP gain, increase Gold/Stone/Iron/Wood collection, increased mount speed, guild centers, and guild followers/NPCs) then you have to rethink what being in a guild means. Besides...having 10-20% shaved off drops is a lot less intrusive than rampent begging for funds to start new projects.

**Gambit7** · 12-27-2007, 05:07 PM

What I meant to say Tarenth is having a Tax means people will be more inclined to do things to generate income (to offset the taxes). PvP generates income due to the buffs and resources it provides (if you take over a keep). The same can be said for guild cities, vendor shops, etc.

It's the same concept with our own Income Tax system. 20% of a meagre $30,000/year income is extremely hurtful. Yet 20% of $3,000,000/year isnt going to send you to the county soup line.

In SWG when we were taxed to maintain the city (which was a lot of damned money mind you), in order to afford that snazzy new blaster I wanted to buy from a vendor next door... I had to make more money to do-so... to make more money I had to farm more lands, kill more mobs, maintain my store, etc.

**blackmain** · 12-27-2007, 06:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gambit7

In SWG when we were taxed to maintain the city (which was a lot of damned money mind you), in order to afford that snazzy new blaster I wanted to buy from a vendor next door... I had to make more money to do-so... to make more money I had to farm more lands, kill more mobs, maintain my store, etc.

True. I remember the first time my guild taxed our city. All of a sdden I had to increase the amount of flora i was harvesting and increase the amount of food I was producing. In the end it motivated me to improve my play and be more active.

Banyan · 12-28-2007, 09:18 AM

Increasing the size of the guild will allow for a smaller tax rate. Granted, guild size can be a problem to manage if it gets too big, but having a nice cross-section of play-types will help keep a reasonable tax rate. For instance, not everyone will be PvP-centric, so having some carebears in the guild (maybe players more focused on the City/Keep construction) will help offset the hardcore PvPers when it comes to income.

One thing I would warn about are "loans" from the guild treasury. I've seen this happen in other games where leadership would allow players to take loans. While it never totally came back to bite us in the ass, leadership should try to keep the finances as transparent as possible to the rank and file to avoid infighting.

**beep** · 01-09-2008, 02:08 PM

It's my belief that guilds as voluntary associations are created around the needs/wants of its core membership. These are largely defined by specific game structure and mechanics but can still show emphasis on a specific aspect of the game...PVP play, f'rinstance.

I believe that our World of Warcraft guild has evolved to suit the WoW "universe" as seen through the eyes of its leadership. The specialized evolution/adaptation to the game specifics makes me cautious about projecting the WoW-centric solution on a different game design.

There are a few principles to follow, however.
1. Consistency with the TG approach to gaming. Mature players, mutual respect, team-focused.
2. Transparency! There should be few surprises and no hidden agendas for the guild, no special treatment.
3. Fairness. While cliques are inevitable, guild leadership has to work hard at being fair with everyone and to constantly remind/coach/behave in a way that is even-handed.
4. Any guild associated with TG needs its leadership to be in communication with Apophis...with the main requirement that he "bless" the senior leadership if they are to operate with the TG identity in a game permanently based on a third-party server.

Another factor to consider is that you'll have many if not most guild applicants/members who will NOT come to you through the TG experience of gaming on TG servers. While you can and should require that guild applicants actually join TG, very few will have a broad appreciation of what TG as a community is about. Even fewer will be supporting members...AND the rest will likely view any attempts to convince them of the benefits of supporting membership as some sort of purely financial greed-based coercion. After long and bruising debate, we wound up in our WoW guild with the policy of not requiring supporting membership for some officer roles, even though the senior leadership of the guild (Luna, Orion808, Ricca and Beep) are all supporting members. None of us are "Game Administrators" in the classic TG sense.

FWIW, we operate with the following chain of command.
1. Guild Leader - one person
2. High Council - four people, including the guild leader. Responsible for policy/direction/conflict resolution/advising the guild leader.
3. Raid Leaders - four people who are the leadership core for the 10 and 25 person scheduled raids
4. Recruiting Officer - one person
We will create additional role-specific officer positions as needed, but have also abolished out-of-date positions that are no longer needed (e.g. Class Leaders) and Officers-at-large.

We have about 170 individuals with nearly 400 'toons (counting alts) in the guild (this is not exact, but my best recollection).

**TheFatKidDeath** · 01-09-2008, 03:50 PM

Good stuff beep (and to those vets who have posted with ideas). I'm not expecting AOC to have the player base as WOW does here at TG. Nor will the game come close to having the population of WOW in general. If we get a dozen or so of TG members playing AOC together than I will be more than happy.

One of the reasons I've had my eye on AOC is that it seems to be the anti-WOW (no elves, dwarfs, brutal world, camels

) I don't want to take anything away from WOW as 9 million players can't be wrong and it's the 900 pound gorilla of the MMO world. Most MMO's out today owe part of their success to WOW given the wide variety of features and gameplay.

Given the size of WOW here at TG I'm wondering if we can structure AOC in the same way?

12-25-2007, 04:16 PM	#16 (permalink)
Sarcoma Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: San Francisco Age: 36 Posts: 525	Re: Age of Conan guild discussion - need input from some veterans of MMO's. IMO. Ill boil this down to the basics that I see. You need palyers that will spend a lot of time online. You need a solid core of leaders...who will spend a lot more time online. A ton of rank and file. You need brand/name identity. The rest is frosting. Sarcoma __________________ Sarcoma.

12-26-2007, 01:29 PM	#17 (permalink)
TheFatKidDeath Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Santa Monica, CA Age: 39 Posts: 2,620	Re: Age of Conan guild discussion - need input from some veterans of MMO's. As far as a player based city, from what I've read, a Battlekeep, which takes less resources and manpower to maintain, might be a good starting point for us. The Battlekeep has the longest turnover time, seven days I believe. Why not get out feet wet with something smaller than expand into a larger city? __________________ \|TG-9th\| TheFatKidDeath "Born to Party, Forced to Work." http://www.theonion.com/content/node/55640 - Check me out on The Onion http://www.theonion.com/content/vide...ssfully_avoids - I'm on the local news!

12-26-2007, 02:27 PM	#18 (permalink)
Tarenth Join Date: May 2006 Location: California Posts: 2,118	Re: Age of Conan guild discussion - need input from some veterans of MMO's. So where did you read that? The information in the FAQ suggests that a battlekeep is basically a city with the notable difference that other players can take it from you. Towers are smaller constructs in the Borderlands that smaller less organized guilds can build. A battlekeep's sole purpose would be to survive in the borderlands. It is only advantagous to us if it isn't destroyed and taken over by another group. A city's sole purpose is to provide resources and centralize guild activities. Defense is secondary since we have a set enemy as an NPC city that we can raid and knock down on occasion to keep things secure. Pitting NPC guards vs NPC raiders has more predictable results than NPC guards against PC seiges. We could take over a tower and man that as well. That would get our feet wet into borderlands seige PvP. __________________ My sanity is not in question... It was a confirmed casualty some time ago. \|TG\|Tarenth Battlefield 2142 Mirra World of Warcraft Light, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of the people I had to kill because they ticked me off.

12-26-2007, 06:50 PM	#19 (permalink)
TheFatKidDeath Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Santa Monica, CA Age: 39 Posts: 2,620	Re: Age of Conan guild discussion - need input from some veterans of MMO's. Where did I read what? Less manpower/resources for a battlekeep or seven days turnover time? If those two, from here: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthr...ht=BATTLEKEEPS I would agree with you that if we wanted to get our feet wet than a BattleKeep might be a good starting point. __________________ \|TG-9th\| TheFatKidDeath "Born to Party, Forced to Work." http://www.theonion.com/content/node/55640 - Check me out on The Onion http://www.theonion.com/content/vide...ssfully_avoids - I'm on the local news!

12-26-2007, 09:49 PM	#20 (permalink)
Gambit7 Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Hollywood, FL Age: 31 Posts: 1,862	Re: Age of Conan guild discussion - need input from some veterans of MMO's. Getting your feet wet taking a Battlekeep is only a good idea shortly after release IMO. After about 3 months or so (I suspect) it's bound to be near impossible to do w/o the resources a large guild with a city can provide (or tons of mercs or guild alliances). You have to remember, it's not a linear objective, it gets progressively harder as the game gets older. And it definitely is not a substitution for a guild city, only a supplement. I tell ya, the most exciting thing for me with Battlekeeps is the ability to hire or become a mercenary. The whole merc/pirate genre fits so well with Conan. It's tough not to get pulled into making a guild that caters to those tactics (ala Maelstrom Crew). That being said, the guild will have to decide if it'll allow its members to engage in Merc tactics. As we all know, mercenary moonlighting can have a negative impact on the larger whole of the guild. It's something to think about. Anyone know if alts carry the reputation and/or guild status of a main? It's conceivable we could field merc squads totally independent of the main guild (as alts). The money/resources gained would secretly go to the main guild. __________________

12-27-2007, 12:05 AM	#21 (permalink)
Tarenth Join Date: May 2006 Location: California Posts: 2,118	Re: Age of Conan guild discussion - need input from some veterans of MMO's. Doing a bit of reading and watching the youtube video I don't see how you are getting similarities between PvE cities and Battlekeeps and I realize I've been making some incorrect assumptions as well. Battlekeeps are not cities. They are capturable objectives similar to points in a conquest game of BF. There are 3 levels of capturable objects with resource nodes, forts, and battlekeeps. The 'turnover time' is apparently the amount of time you can set your keep as closed from assault and for battlekeeps can vary from 3-7 days. You get X bonuses over each 'turnover' period so the shorter the turnover the more you get per day. Somethings mentioned in the Youtube video are extra resources, gold, bonuses to XP, buffs, extra spawn points, and even guild bank access. So if you get 7000 gold over a 7 day turnover and you set your turnover to 3 days you will have 2333 gold per day as opposed to 1000 per day with 7 days. They also mentioned immortality, but I'm unsure how that's going to work. The way an assault works is you have 3-7 days to build up defensive city structures before it becomes open for attack and attacking guilds can use this period to set up war tents to gather resources to build seige engines and hire NPCs for the assault. Its cheaper I suppose than a PvE city because you're focused on walls, towers, and barracks for defense instead of crafting stations, markets, or other guild improvements in the PvE city. However once your turnover passes you are open for attack and EVERYONE can run in and grab it from you. The battle is based on tickets and the guild who holds the most tickets at the end wins the battle. If you have more people/NPCs on the ground around the objective with all the defenses destroyed you gain tickets via numerical superiority, if you build something in the area you get tickets for it and for how long it survives, if members of your guild or group are killed you lose tickets. 'Defender' is a misnomer because the defender can change within the alloted vulnerability period. If you own the keep and it is taken from you, the person who took it is now the 'defender' and has to build up defenses while still vulnerable, meanwhile you can still counter attack and take it back by whittling down their tickets through kills in order to keep your own ticket count high from when you held it. Vulnerability windows aren't gone into much detail beyond that it cannot be greater than turnover period. (No 8 day long Free For All for a battlekeep or 26 hour seige of a resource node). That being said, there's another level to PvP that includes the strategic. Your battlekeep is only as protected as the number of forts and battlekeeps held by friendlies in the surrounding area. If a fort adjacent to you is taken then that can be used as a forward spawn to attack your battlekeep, however if the area around you is secure then attackers have to travel further from public spawns to rejoin the attack. There will be 3 battlekeeps, 4 forts, and 6 resource nodes per region with 9 battlekeeps total per server. It can then be assumed that there will be 3 regions in the borderlands with 12 forts and 18 resources total as well. No mention is made of alts, but I would assume that alts would work like a seperate character from your main (similar to WoW). You can have your alt join the same guild as your main and have it get the same benefits or you can put it in a different guild and get those benefits. One thing I find really cool is that it mentioned taxes in the Guild FAQ. The guild leader can set a tax and that tax is automatically deducted from your earnings and sent to the guild. ^_^ No more begging cup hoping for donations from guildies to get revenue. No mention is made of the 'after' from PvP combat so its up in the air if you have to rebuild everything from scratch with the new turnover or if you keep what was build from before. The Dev did mention that walls will remain and its up to the new owners to replace them. That means if you are losing a seige its to your advantage to stop trying to win and just try to do damage because the winner will have to spend more repairing and replacing what you took out. __________________ My sanity is not in question... It was a confirmed casualty some time ago. \|TG\|Tarenth Battlefield 2142 Mirra World of Warcraft Light, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of the people I had to kill because they ticked me off.

12-27-2007, 12:23 AM	#22 (permalink)
Gambit7 Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Hollywood, FL Age: 31 Posts: 1,862	Re: Age of Conan guild discussion - need input from some veterans of MMO's. There we go... the magical word. TAX! I've been looking for that one thing that makes PvP and guild cities worthwhile to maintain, and that's the answer... "taxes" Since there's taxes, players now have a definable reason to care about PvP (expanding resources) as well as maintenance and defense of the guild city, not to mention crafting. My concerns are now squashed. This also forces players into earning a living. They cant simply stand around idle playing wack-a-mole... unless there's good money in it. The caveat is, many players wont like being taxed and will become rogue (perfect for mercenaries). Understandable though. Will definitely create an interesting game dynamic. I've always been a fan of taxation systems, but a little weary of it creating a virtual job. __________________

12-27-2007, 01:21 PM	#23 (permalink)
Banyan Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Frederick, Maryland Age: 42 Posts: 277	Re: Age of Conan guild discussion - need input from some veterans of MMO's. It probably would do some good to pick Wulfyn/Khul Drukath brain regarding the aspects of being a Merc as well as the parallels between running an EVE corp and how the guild system may work out in AoC. I was a rabid DAoC player back in its hayday and am looking forward to this title to replace the fantasy RvR I've missed. I must admit, I've got a lot to learn about this title tho. One thing to consider re: Mercs is the hidden costs, especially to leadership. The requirements can quite steep for ones time. There's the entire backroom politics thing, negotiations, constant grudge conflicts (you're gonna always piss someone off), etc. In EVE, we have no allegiance except to the almighty dollar. So once a contract is up, the people you worked for could and do become targets - some understand, some not so much. This may or may not be ok in AoC. Meh, that may or may not haev been helpful, I'm bored at work and wanted to chime in since I'm keeping a keen eye on this one.

12-27-2007, 05:07 PM	#26 (permalink)
Gambit7 Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Hollywood, FL Age: 31 Posts: 1,862	Re: Age of Conan guild discussion - need input from some veterans of MMO's. What I meant to say Tarenth is having a Tax means people will be more inclined to do things to generate income (to offset the taxes). PvP generates income due to the buffs and resources it provides (if you take over a keep). The same can be said for guild cities, vendor shops, etc. It's the same concept with our own Income Tax system. 20% of a meagre $30,000/year income is extremely hurtful. Yet 20% of $3,000,000/year isnt going to send you to the county soup line. In SWG when we were taxed to maintain the city (which was a lot of damned money mind you), in order to afford that snazzy new blaster I wanted to buy from a vendor next door... I had to make more money to do-so... to make more money I had to farm more lands, kill more mobs, maintain my store, etc. __________________ Last edited by Gambit7; 12-27-2007 at 07:51 PM.

12-28-2007, 09:18 AM	#28 (permalink)
Banyan Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Frederick, Maryland Age: 42 Posts: 277	Re: Age of Conan guild discussion - need input from some veterans of MMO's. Increasing the size of the guild will allow for a smaller tax rate. Granted, guild size can be a problem to manage if it gets too big, but having a nice cross-section of play-types will help keep a reasonable tax rate. For instance, not everyone will be PvP-centric, so having some carebears in the guild (maybe players more focused on the City/Keep construction) will help offset the hardcore PvPers when it comes to income. One thing I would warn about are "loans" from the guild treasury. I've seen this happen in other games where leadership would allow players to take loans. While it never totally came back to bite us in the ass, leadership should try to keep the finances as transparent as possible to the rank and file to avoid infighting.

01-09-2008, 02:08 PM	#29 (permalink)
beep Join Date: May 2003 Location: Minneapolis, MN Posts: 3,409	Re: Age of Conan guild discussion - need input from some veterans of MMO's. It's my belief that guilds as voluntary associations are created around the needs/wants of its core membership. These are largely defined by specific game structure and mechanics but can still show emphasis on a specific aspect of the game...PVP play, f'rinstance. I believe that our World of Warcraft guild has evolved to suit the WoW "universe" as seen through the eyes of its leadership. The specialized evolution/adaptation to the game specifics makes me cautious about projecting the WoW-centric solution on a different game design. There are a few principles to follow, however. 1. Consistency with the TG approach to gaming. Mature players, mutual respect, team-focused. 2. Transparency! There should be few surprises and no hidden agendas for the guild, no special treatment. 3. Fairness. While cliques are inevitable, guild leadership has to work hard at being fair with everyone and to constantly remind/coach/behave in a way that is even-handed. 4. Any guild associated with TG needs its leadership to be in communication with Apophis...with the main requirement that he "bless" the senior leadership if they are to operate with the TG identity in a game permanently based on a third-party server. Another factor to consider is that you'll have many if not most guild applicants/members who will NOT come to you through the TG experience of gaming on TG servers. While you can and should require that guild applicants actually join TG, very few will have a broad appreciation of what TG as a community is about. Even fewer will be supporting members...AND the rest will likely view any attempts to convince them of the benefits of supporting membership as some sort of purely financial greed-based coercion. After long and bruising debate, we wound up in our WoW guild with the policy of not requiring supporting membership for some officer roles, even though the senior leadership of the guild (Luna, Orion808, Ricca and Beep) are all supporting members. None of us are "Game Administrators" in the classic TG sense. FWIW, we operate with the following chain of command. 1. Guild Leader - one person 2. High Council - four people, including the guild leader. Responsible for policy/direction/conflict resolution/advising the guild leader. 3. Raid Leaders - four people who are the leadership core for the 10 and 25 person scheduled raids 4. Recruiting Officer - one person We will create additional role-specific officer positions as needed, but have also abolished out-of-date positions that are no longer needed (e.g. Class Leaders) and Officers-at-large. We have about 170 individuals with nearly 400 'toons (counting alts) in the guild (this is not exact, but my best recollection). __________________ Beep Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do. - (Isaac Asimov) Last edited by beep; 01-09-2008 at 02:40 PM.

01-09-2008, 03:50 PM	#30 (permalink)
TheFatKidDeath Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Santa Monica, CA Age: 39 Posts: 2,620	Re: Age of Conan guild discussion - need input from some veterans of MMO's. Good stuff beep (and to those vets who have posted with ideas). I'm not expecting AOC to have the player base as WOW does here at TG. Nor will the game come close to having the population of WOW in general. If we get a dozen or so of TG members playing AOC together than I will be more than happy. One of the reasons I've had my eye on AOC is that it seems to be the anti-WOW (no elves, dwarfs, brutal world, camels ) I don't want to take anything away from WOW as 9 million players can't be wrong and it's the 900 pound gorilla of the MMO world. Most MMO's out today owe part of their success to WOW given the wide variety of features and gameplay. Given the size of WOW here at TG I'm wondering if we can structure AOC in the same way? __________________ \|TG-9th\| TheFatKidDeath "Born to Party, Forced to Work." http://www.theonion.com/content/node/55640 - Check me out on The Onion http://www.theonion.com/content/vide...ssfully_avoids - I'm on the local news!

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