9. GUILDS

Will there be some sort of guilds?

I'd want to make groups, factions, clans, guilds, etc very important. This is the reason people stick around a game that they are bored of - the people they meet. I'd want to give them lots of reasons for joining their guild and contributing to it (especially since there is no world wide guild chat - get thee to your guildhall instead). Guilds would be the basis of free cities and kingdoms. When a guild had control over a certain number of cities then a kingdom would be formed. Guilds could set their boundaries on a large scale map once various explorers have made the maps. Other guilds may lay claim to the same territories. This would lead to war. In the case of overlap (there would be other borders shown so you don't do it by mistake) then war might (need to test) automatically be declared. Big surprise for the huge kingdom when a smaller kingdom suddenly lays claim to a valley! Joining different groups can both give and take away skills (not like in AO where they promised to give skills but that function was not implemented anywhere close to their launch). Once a free city (one city ruled by one guild) is held then only certain people will be able to perform certain functions. The leader of the city cannot command the guards directly (except for his private guards if he rented them) - the captain of the guards would need to do that. Having various positions appointed by various people will force the players away from the MMOLG thing of "I don't need other people, I can do it all myself." There would be a lot of jobs available for PC's in a city as NPC's could not be hired for most of the jobs. It is the stated goal of the game to have PC's filling every job.

I have to be in a guild?

You may instead be a wanderer. Life could either be tougher or easier on a wanderer. If you wanted to be PVE and never PvP, you can do it - you cannot own property though. Unless you managed to hire various builders (who may also be wanderers) you probably wouldn't have a house. If you did build a house and a kingdom claimed the land you might be 'at war' with them (or owing them taxes) without even realizing it till you get the message on your screen. (If a soloist does want to set up a house do it in a real remote crappy area). It is highly possible and potentially well paying to just wander around and explore, etc. All PC's would initially start either in the GM city (which will go away after several PC kingdoms get formed) or from a PC kingdom. [Carry over PC kingdoms from beta are also a very real possibility.]

What are the ranks available within a guild?

Depends on what package they have rented. Anarchy (everyone is just in the guild and nobody is in charge) is pretty cheap. Oligarchy (council rule) is much more expensive. Guilds which have lots of titles (king, duke, etc all the way down to stable hand) are the most expensive.

How do we keep the riff-raff out of our guild while trying to get new members?

The guild would then make the quest for full citizenship. It could range from something as simple as 'hailing' the guy who stands near where you spawn to as difficult as a multi-tiered quest - that would give the guilds a great deal of flexibility in who they accepted and did not accept.

Why would anyone choose a more expensive guild package?

In the bigger packages, more powers are given. For example: Someone takes the 'Free City' guild package (because they own a city). The guild leader then becomes the 'mayor'. The mayor can then elect (among other things) a 'Captain of the Guards (COTG)'. If the mayor chooses to elect himself the captain of the guards instead, the whole thing would collapse as it is leaderless and the process must be started over. No refunds. If the mayor elected someone else to be mayor to get rid of that title, then the new mayor could elect the old one to be the captain of the guard. The captain of the guards gets (among other things) an overlay on their map that shows where citizens are reporting non-town members to be. If there is a combat, they get a blip on their map showing the area combat is going on in. This is to represent the peasants telling him of the combat, etc. This power only works in the town the COTG is the COTG in. The captain of the guards may also send messages to their sergeants telling them to deploy troops to the location of the battles. Sergeants can then send a message to their troops. Troops cannot send a message to anyone. We will make the larger guilds (and the cost associate with them) worthwhile. Note, in order to use most of the various guild packages, one must have the right sort of buildings set up in the town as well as the right number of members in the various functions. In order to have a 'captain of the guards', there must be at least four guardhouses (one per quarter of the city). There must be at least 20 guards and 4 sergeants of the guard. The guard houses must be at least X distance apart and at least X in size.

What does someone have to do to be in a guild?

Whatever the guild asks. It may be as little as asking to be in the guild or they may have you fulfil tasks, etc.

What if I don't like my guild? Can I quit?

Something I would like to have is the 'newbie care pack'. If you take it, you cannot renounce (or change) citizenship for 30 (real) days. If you choose not to take it, you can renounce it whenever you'd like. If you are making a new character, you would be able to check out several different kingdoms. Some may only allow certain races (or one race) to spawn there (example, elves only). After finding several cities that do allow your race, you can compare newbie packets. They may offer nothing or whatever they wish. Example: Bruce has built a mighty kingdom and has accumulated way too much 'phat l33t'. He needs more citizens so that he can build a new style of building. He decides to offer a 'newbie packet'. He needs to put them up in groups of 20 (or more) so he can't offer unique loot. He decides to go with offering each person one backpack, one full suit of leather armor (in the backpack), a sword, shovel (he needs more miners), a miners helmet (the tinker's guild hard at work) an a compass (he doesn't want them to get lost). Bruce then calls together several of the guild leaders (leather working, sword crafting, blacksmith, tinker's) and tells them he needs 100 of each of the items delivered to his city newbie greeter. By Tuesday next. So (after much grumbling, heavy bribes, promises of a lessening of taxes) the guild leaders all go off and round up their guilds to make all of that stuff. The city newbie greater (or whatever clever title) is an NPC (rented by Bruce). The quantities it has and the price it pays for items can only be checked by a minor city administrator (insert clever title here). He discovers that no compasses were put on the 'newbie NPC' and can either adjust the price offered by the city treasury for the compass or ask the captain of the guards to send round a couple hard boys to collect. In all games, newbie stuff eventually becomes junk. Example - silver jewelry in EQ is pretty much not available for sale because nobody wants it. It is, however, necessary to work in silver before moving up the ladder to something worthwhile. The 'newbie greater' can pass along all of this stuff to new people joining the city automatically. Takes out a lot of the problems of finding newbies and giving them the stuff. Plus, it is great for building your city population, making the newbies happy, etc.

Renouncing your citizenship from a kingdom means you no longer have to pay taxes to them unless they come asking for them and have the might to back up their request. But the automatically deducted taxes will be gone.

Yes. If you have guild secrets they may hunt you down like a dog. Up to them. I suspect that there will be a bit less 'guild switching' than there has been in other games. It would be hard to walk away from your home, shop and friends to go live in another distant town with other people. I can see small guilds getting absorbed or perhaps even conquered by large guilds.

Who can start a "guild" and what form will they take in the game?

One type of 'guild support tool' we will have is a timer. This can be programmed by an officer to give a countdown (days, hours, minutes, seconds) till the next 'guild event'. The officer can also add text. For the timer to be more exact than 'days' the guild members will need to possess some sort of accurate time telling devices.