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Star Wars: The Old Republic: Guild Headquarters= Awesome
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Not too long ago, Bioware and the Star Wars: The Old Republic dev teams announced that guilds could pre-register on the official site. This allows guilds to get set up and running as well as gives them the ability to take advantage of cool guild features on the site. MMORPG.com Community Manager Mike Bitton says this is AWESOME! Find out why and then leave us your comments.
Once created, guilds can be fully managed from the Guild HQ as BioWare’s basically given each guild their own space on the official website. Each guild essentially gets their own page with both public and private forums (which can be moderated), the ability to set their own Message of the Day, Mission Statement, and the option to select from a multitude of characteristics such as dedication level (hours per week), activity focus (PvP, endgame content, social, etc), the level of role-playing expected by guild members, whether voice chat is required, and much more. Even the guild roster can be managed and sorted; members can be promoted, kicked, sorted by name, rank, class, and the guild leader can even abdicate leadership to a selected member.
Read more of Mike Bitton's SWTOR: Guild Headquarters= Awesome.
Comments
not impressed......SOE did something like this......and made people pay for it......lets wait for a while now......hehe get yer checkbook rdy
4 guild members need to pre-order, is that much? don't think so.
if thats all it takes...then no.
For the fans sake i hope they offer it cheap but most of the time this is just a stunt for collecting more money from subscribers.
Nice way to get pre-orders too
Guildhalls INGAME would have been way cooler imho (like AC2 had)
Guild ships will be in at launch/soon after. The guild HQ is not meant to replace this.
lets hope soo, the fact that they are doing this (guildwebspace) doesnt realy make me think they will implement this guildhall feature (in any form) ingame soon.
But thats just my toughts......hope they do for the fans.
Looks great, offers a lot of convenience and I agree on it being a smart move from a lot of angles. Nice write up, thanks.
My brand new bloggity blog.
I, like many others, am not impressed. SOE did this with EQplayers & EQIIplayers (EQIIplayers is free, not sure about EQplayers anymore though). Not only is this "essentially" the same thing, but it barely does anything for your guild that your own website won't do just as well (if not better).
Live player stats can be linked via API keys from your account to your guild's website (that you built, not one from this "service" they'll provide). So i still don't see a reason to use this?
-Faded
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
Maybe you don't but there will be those that will see the benefit and reason for using it. Even if SOE did it before...who cares? You named one company that has done so. Heck, maybe there are even a couple more. But is it really common to get such a resource from the developer? No, it isn't. And that is the point. It's not something they had to do at all. The fact they are willing to take a step to make things more convenient or offer more to their customers is something to be applauded.
But we, as usual around here, seem to seek to find the negative and a way to say 'So what!'. Objectivity is not a bad thing folks.
So a guild website will put your guild on a server and attempt to locate you with allied guilds? I think this system is a lot deeper than you think.
Have Played: FFXI, WoW, Aion, DCUO
Waiting For: TSW, World of Darkness, SWTOR
Currently Playing: KOTOR
Tried: Matrix Online, Rift, Xsyon, LOTRO, EVE, Guild Wars
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....and I, like many others, am impressed. Who cares if SOE did this, it's no where near the same, nor was SOE's offering nearly as comprehensive. If your own guild website can attempe to place you on a server of choice(within limitations) and with your guild allies - then use your own website. I think it's great for the people who use this feature.
-not jaded...
There's probably so many SW fans who've bought into SWTOR already, it makes sense, plus it looks v neat.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
They have stated that guild ships (hall) basically WILL be in the game. At launch or not is still up for debate but if it isn't launch they have stated it will be very soon after.
It is also apparently a massive point of discussion at Bioware. The implementation of this system isn't trying to replace guild ships(halls) in anyway.
26k+ guilds made so far. most probaly only have 1 or 2 people but thats still an insane amount
holy cow! 26k??? thats crazy! This game is gonna be HUGE. And to the guy up top, don't ever compare SOE to BW. They're not even in the same leagues. BW is in the majors while SOE is lucky to be the water boy. SOE just bombed another incredible game (DCUO) because after a decade they still don't know how to run a successful game.
Cool or not, there's still something wrong with forcing people to pay for a game upfront like this. (4 people in the guild need to preorder to set this up)
This is only working for them because they have Star Wars attached to the title. They haven't even gone to closed beta or have a release date yet..
Tactics like this concern me. Is the well running dry and are they required to get some $$ asap??
If 26K guilds is correct.
26000 x 4 pre orders x ~$50 = $5,200,000
That's a lot of scratch for not a lot of game.
If people are willing to pay for a service then logically isn't the merit of that service justified?
See, I view this as more of a "here is a special treat for those who have/will pre-order" rather then a "if you don't pre-order then you are missing out" kind of thing.
The difference is subtle, but as with all things it's the subtleties that truly define a thing.
I was under the impression that nothing has been paid yet.
In phase 3 which is shortly before the game launch guilds that have 4 members who have pre-ordered will be created immediatly so that on game-launch your guild name is reserved. When the guild leader logs in the server detects his account and gives him the option to activate the guild.
In the earlier phases there's no requirement for pre-orders ( are there even pre-orders yet? ). And I doubt all 26.000 guilds will want to pre-register their guild instead of just using the forums and such available. Anyone can set up a guild and join guilds. Only if you want to insure your guild is available right on launch day with the name you reserved do you have to pre-order. Otherwise I'm sure you can make the guild later, just with the possibility of not having the name you wanted.
So unless I'm very much mistaken Bioware hasn't received any money yet. It's just an option for fans to create guild forums for free at the moment. Nothing more, nothing less.
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yes no money has been payed yet(unless you haved payed gamestop or something with their placeholder dates which bioware has said they dont recoginize). the pre-orders thing only matters in phase three when it comes time to have the guild imported into the game. so if you weren't pre-ordering its unlikely you would even need that.
edit: from the dev tracker
DavidBass Guild Hall -> Phase 3 - Deployment (pre-order issue)
We have not announced our pre-order details yet, however here's the basic idea - all pre-orders will have a code that you will enter on the site to confirm your pre-order, and that's how we'll know who has and has not pre-ordered.
We'll give you all the information you need regarding pre-orders once the time comes, so don't worry too much about it for now.
edit 2: oh and one more thing. the guild leader doesnt have to be one of the 4 pre-orders. it can be any 4 members. its just the guild leader will have 2 weeks to log in and activate the guild or leadership will be passed to someone else in the guild
I like this so far but it seems that most guilds are forming around the idea of being ONLY one faction. I am planning on playing both faction's characters so I want a guild that supports that.
Let's party like it is 1863!
I don't see how anyone feels it's "forced".... It's not necessary to do this in order for your guild to play the game. If you don't want to preorder you can just assemble your guild the way its been done in mmo's all along. If you're preordering, which I'm sure a ton of people are going to whether this guild HQ was in place or not so this is just an added perk. You're not really gaining anything by getting your guild set up this way other than saving yourself a headache of trying to organize it all on release day.
I have already made one
Steel Creed if somebody interested write an application 
First, the game has been in closed beta for months. If you doubt, go look it up. Second, no one has had to pay a dime yet. I have no idea where you got your totally incorrect information because you aren't even in the right ball park. The only thing that is correct is no release date yet. I am in one of those 26K guilds and not one of the 14 players has paid any money yet. That phase comes later on, I expect it to happen once open beta starts and a release date has been set.
All the preorders will really do, besides give BW money upfront but then preorders are a part of every game I ever played, is ensure that when everyone in the guild logs in for the first time, we are all on the SAME server and are given the opportunity to auto join our guild with the first toon we create. If 4 peeps don't preorder, no worries, we just figure out what server we want to be on, and create the guild the old fashioned way after we log in. There's no need to get all paranoid about BW trying to make money off a game that hasn't released yet. Could BW stoop that low? Sure, but I really doubt it. Just take a deep breathe, hold it to the count of 10 and exhale very slowly...
They are not forcing people to pay, it's just a feature that makes life easier to guild masters and also helps people to find guilds. You can always wait for the game to come out and buy it, and then form a guild. But there are others that already have guilds formed for months or even years! If a guild have 50 members only four of them have to pre-order the game, it's not that much so i don't understand all the whining.
Also no 26k guilds is not correct! Alot of them only have 1 person in the guild, that is not really a guild is it?! That is why you have requirements in order to be transfered to the game.
lol yea 1 person guilds cant really be counted, i was just posting the search results that come up.
i believe the largest guild i have seen listed has 489 people
Looks good to me, but I thought it meant a guild HQ like you get in AoC. Not one of those funny big houses like in Lotro, a proper bastion of the guild.
Guild utilities are helpful, but a symbol of the guild (does SWTOR have guild cloaks for example?) and an in game base really elevate the guild concept.