Guild System ideas thread

Red asked that we compile ideas about what needs to be in the core guild system.. So, have at it ladies and gents; ideas here!

I'll kick it off with a few of my own ideas:

Guild experience and growth;

• Gain exp to level the guild up through grouping with guild mates or salvaging magic items inside the guild house; byproduct of salvage = guild materials which could be used in sieging castles, create furniture for your guild house or spent in the guild vendor
• Guild experience also unlocks more slots for your guild to grow, upon a certain level you will be able to take guild castles - more on that down below
• You could also add guild loyalty levels to prevent guild hopping and collection of all the unique cosmetics, the longer you're in a guild the more cosmetics are available for purchase

Guild houses

• Guild housing, with unlockable vendors depending on various things such as but not limited to:
• What castle your guild currently owns if any (enables purchase of a castle or town-specific items such as a uniquely coloured baldric and potentially a similarly themed dye, can only be purchased with the guild materials mentioned above)
• What level your guild is will unlock various cosmetics, dyes or guild housing/home items (generally less awesome looking than castle dyes and cosmetics to give a feel of growth as you progress through the system)

Guild Wars (no, not the game)

• This would tie in to the castle system once guilds are high enough level to be sieging castles, but prior to that - or for those guilds not big enough to take part in castle sieges, there should be a map which is sort of like this:
  
• Short description on there. Essentially 2 guilds get thrown in to this event whenever two parties of 6 of opposing guilds are queued up. There would have to be a risk factor in losing, perhaps losing exp or guild materials so as to prevent win-trading.
• Guild wars could also just be open world events, teleporting to a certain "war zone" (as red mentioned on disc) and after a certain time the guild with the most kills within the zone are rewarded.

Guild Castles

• Some or all towns would have a local castle, this castle would be able to become sieged and owned by guilds
• The castle would yield gold to the guild in the form of tax from the local town, and weekly or monthly loot crates from the surrounding dungeons (creating more and less valuable castles). Essentially free bounty chests(?) depending on the wealth, size and amount of content your guild is clearing together.
• The castle raids would only happen monthly or weekly (to synchronise with loot crates) before they can be scheduled again, and should have quite a long time from declaration of war to the actual raid

Cosmetics

• Guild specific cosmetics, such as a customised baldric, would have to be fairly basic in design, but so you can easily tell who is who in guild wars. These baldrics would only be available to design for guilds that are able to take part in guild wars and sieging so as to stop many many many guilds just creating tons of baldrics and having infinite custom baldrics. There has to be some limiter on their creation. They should also be required to take part in guild wars or castle siege and should be irremovable once inside guild wars or castle siege. - This idea could also be simplified to a "red and blue team" concept; so if you're taking part in a war of any kind you must be wearing the appropriate baldric in order to attack someone wearing the opposite colour, only one colour would be available for purchase for attackers and defenders.
• Other cosmetics include town-specific baldrics and or dyes, so you are incentivised to hold each castle at least once to gain the baldrics. These special baldrics should be bound upon purchase to stop you buying them for people who have not held a castle, and also you should have to be in a guild for a certain amount of time before you can purchase one so people can't collect them all by guild hopping. Loyalty should be key in a good guild system.

That's all I got now but I hope you guys contribute some good stuff.

For me, stage one would be:
Guild tags under player names when highlighted.
Additional tab for chat and tab for player profile showing guild information. (May a roster with the guild name)
May a special dungeon that can only be run by people in the same guild some kind of trial dungeon.

Stage two:
Guild specific housing
Guild housing upgrades (NPCs, master mage, baldrics, leveling system with guild cosmetics) maybe 10% of all XP earned by members of the guild goes toward guild XP or guild kills rankings, which causes guilds and guild housing to level up.

Stage three:
Increased population/game growth - guild vs. guild PvE and PvP content

I am supportive off all of the suggestions as they would be fun and interesting ways to interact with your guild, which is an area of the game that has not been explored much.

Although many of these ideas are exciting, I would imagine they pose a significant technical burden on the development staff. However, it is very useful to them to propose these concepts which may receive consideration and potential development down the road.

I will follow in Rookie’s steps by mentioning what I think should be the prioritized steps:

I agree with Rookie that step 1 should focus on guild tags, guild tabs, and I will add guild baldrics here. DAoC was the first game to introduce this concept via customized cloaks and I always loved the aesthetic combined with comradery.

The next step would be guild housing and upgrades, as Rookie stated as well.

For step 3, I would put guild castles and/or guild-specific PvP, as these areas would require a significant amount of development in both creation and balancing.

Additional concepts: guild house training room where you can test your weapons or spells on NPC dummies that take damage but auto-regens, guild house pets, guild house dungeon (which could serve as a good initiation ritual room), guild house crafting room (cauldron for alchemy, anvil for armor/weapon-smithing), guild house library with bookcases for spells (with guild rank locking so new recruits cannot steal the rare spells), guild house vault (with guild rank locking and/or passwords).

Stage 1:

1. Character Sheet should have a Guild tab added. If you are a member of the same guild you can see their guild information. If you are not then you can see their guild name and nothing more.
2. Chat Tab specifically for the guild that shows all current online members on the side
3. Increase of 5% for every guilded member in party (stacks on other bonuses)

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Stage 2:

1. Guild Halls - Features should include an entryway that is public, a main hall, a storage room, a meeting room, a training room (I love the idea about the training NPC)
2. Guild Shop - Buy things for your guild!
3. Guild Experience - Level up your guild within the game. Experience should be gained from the 5% bonus that was included in Stage 1 (you have to team up with guildies to level your guild! The bigger the team, the faster the growth!)

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Stage 3:

1. Guild Bonuses - Based on your guild level you can get things like access to better guild shop items, increased guild XP bonus, and other such things.

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Ideas I think are awesome… but not too likely

1. Guild Baldrics (we are already limited in colors and style)
2. Guild Castles (sure, probably, but yeah… probably not)

@Endal
I wonder if they could create a guild baldric system where you can design a crest. Similar to either the old housing crests, or the T Sash circle crest baldric and then when you design a baldric you pick a color + it has a circle crest for the guild on it. That would allow them to use more mundane colors (basic blue, red, etc.) but be unique by having a crest or badge on the baldric itself, this has already been done to some degree but I guess a customization system would be pretty time consuming to make.

One more gimmicky and easy way to do this would be to just have a set of 5-10 color baldrics with a gray crest on them, then the crest just reads "This is a member of "x" Guild" might be easier to design/introduce.

@Rookie
Yeah, that's pretty much the only way I can think of doing it. Each item has to be drawn, so we can't just have a MECH icon on one and a WOLF on another. Having a fixed color would work, but the color palate is very restrained. Having the Crest would be nice, though, but again, it would be the same crest for everyone.

Yes, that baldric system would work incredibly well. Having the crest on the baldric would identify it as a guild baldric, so basic colors could still be used. For example, an azure baldric with a crest is easily identified as a guild baldric and not a sentinel.

Yeah, thinking on it a Guild Baldric system would work. Get the crest on the shoulder and then set the colors in. It would be awesome if the Baldrics could simply be dyed, though.