Guild Prestige

Narkari

This topic came to me when watching the newest Q&A that was released today. Jeromy Walsh talked about how they plan on having some kind of forum games where guilds will compete against each other to earn prestige and establish their dominance before the game even releases . This could help guilds and their members get into the game with Early Access if they are active members of the community and build up their member base and power. They might have more influence in the game with this mechanic at the release. My question is what do others think of this and has any other game done something like this? Will this kind of system not allow smaller guilds to have much say in the world and what kind of "games" could they possibly have on the forums? We know that we can expect a Design Journal on guilds, organizations, and school in the near future but will it even expand on the above mentioned mechanics?


Please discuss.

Vucar

I wouldn't worry too much about competition to get into early access favoring large vs small guilds. My bet is its going to be first and foremost about individual community members and how their influence rates them and their contribution to the game. 

The idea with the guilds coming in as an entity I think may be related to the plan for there to already being an established city before release: someone has to run that city, right? A small clan cant run a city, but they can easily be in subservice to the larger clan, perhaps in a kind of feudal system.

Zultra

Exactly what Vucar said and plus it is a bit of fun. 

Timberhick

Size matters in CoE.
Well, and willingness to plop down some serious backer cash.

If you have a 300 player guild it doesn't matter if that 50 player guild got a 6 month headstart, you'll eclipse them day one.

Zultra

It does yes, also depends on how they function well together a cohesive force of 300 will most likely smash a cohesive force of 50, but a not-so-cohesive force of 300 could very well lose vs a cohesive force of 50

Narkari

I do not like the idea of a guild given control of a city right off the back. How would that even work. The leader of the guild would own the land the town is on? I think something like the owner of a starting town should either be based on luck or a reward given at Kickstarter. If anything I would like the influence given by these forums games to be land where we desire it , blueprint for guild halls or even supplies to build. Maybe some starting influence in the Kingdom we reside in.

Even in early access competition will be a large part of the game both for guilds and individuals. we will be exploring land and people will be fighting over who controls what and trying to take good spots of land. Not to mention guilds will start trying to be the "best" in their chosen field which is going to create story and conflict. This is going to happen just a little earlier because of the forum games.

I do not think this idea is a bad one and I honestly look forward to trying to face off against other guilds in some way. I am more worried on how it will be worked into the game.

As for size being important, I do think that a larger guild will have a advantage but a small guild who has time to prepare in early access will be no push over. They will have had time for their members to be familiar with the game, hopefully have a safe base, and know how to deal with problems that are arising.

Vucar

Nothing is set in stone. The answer to most of your questions are unknown and will be elaborated on as we get closer to this forum competition and alpha.

The point behind it is that when the game releases, there needs to already be structure in place. The game is driven by players, not npcs. That means there needs to be an established town of players already filling a busy city, complete with infrastructure and sustainability (farmers supplying cooks that feed the town including the soldiers that defend it, along with the king who rules it, etc etc). 

I am extremely against the idea of a KS backer reward being "own the first city in alpha". Thats a straight pay-to-win scenario that I dont think anyone wants. 

TylerGesselman

I don't think they mean dominance in terms of controlling any particular piece of land. I'm sure it will just be community events like "create a trailer for your guild" type things. Both creating hype for the game and getting players in your guild.

VictoriaRachel

I have looked at the livestream several times and I wonder if some of it is just a poor choice in wording:

Can a PC guild be recognised or employed by a Kingdom, PC or NPC run, and if yes how?

Absolutely. We are going to be talking more about guilds in our upcoming design journal. But our goal is to try get a lot of these guilds into the game early, and by into the game I just mean into the community, doing some content stuff on our website. I am ultimately looking for some forum games, and some other things we are looking at fleshing out to allow guilds to start to assert their dominance on the website, the community website, even before the game launches. So when the game does launch not only will these guilds be in early access and have an opportunity to build up their guild numbers then, but just because they have gained prestige ahead of time allows them to have more influence on the world when it begins. So it is entirely possible that guilds or organisations will be in the service of governments and vice versa.

I think a lot of the confusion comes the words 'prestige' and 'influence'.The more I re-listen the more I can not tell if they are using the terms prestige and influence in their traditional meanings, or refering to reward systems. I am pretty sure prestige is not a 'currency' and just that people will have respect for them and knowledge of their existance. But if participating in these events gives influence points or simply due to your standing you are goingto have an effect on the world I can not tell. Consistent nomenclature and not using terms that could mean something else is something the developers need to work on, though I am sure that is tricky when it is live.

As for early access that doesn't appear be an exclusive club! It is not something you gain with influence and the like. It is a time they are using to build up the world before an official launch and they are hoping to get a lot of people in and get those populations up. (More here http://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/General-Discussion/1319-Streaming?post=14212 )

So in the end this feature just appears to be away for guilds to 'bond' to have something to do together before launch. If it earns influence that is fine by me as there are a lot of ways for inderviduals to do the same. Do I worry big guilds will squash littles ones? Yes. But my conerns about that continue well after launch due to the patent system and I do not not think this really make that problem any worse.

Vucar

VictoriaRachel said:

I have looked at the livestream several times and I wonder if some of it is just a poor choice in wording:

Can a PC guild be recognised or employed by a Kingdom, PC or NPC run, and if yes how?

Absolutely. We are going to be talking more about guilds in our upcoming design journal. But our goal is to try get a lot of these guilds into the game early, and by into the game I just mean into the community, doing some content stuff on our website. I am ultimately looking for some forum games, and some other things we are looking at fleshing out to allow guilds to start to assert their dominance on the website, the community website, even before the game launches. So when the game does launch not only will these guilds be in early access and have an opportunity to build up their guild numbers then, but just because they have gained prestige ahead of time allows them to have more influence on the world when it begins. So it is entirely possible that guilds or organisations will be in the service of governments and vice versa.

I think a lot of the confusion comes the words 'prestige' and 'influence'.The more I re-listen the more I can not tell if they are using the terms prestige and influence in their traditional meanings, or refering to reward systems. I am pretty sure prestige is not a 'currency' and just that people will have respect for them and knowledge of their existance. But if participating in these events gives influence points or simply due to your standing you are goingto have an effect on the world I can not tell. Consistent nomenclature and not using terms that could mean something else is something the developers need to work on, though I am sure that is tricky when it is live.

As for early access that doesn't appear be an exclusive club! It is not something you gain with influence and the like. It is a time they are using to build up the world before an official launch and they are hoping to get a lot of people in and get those populations up. (More here http://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/General-Discussion/1319-Streaming?post=14212 )

So in the end this feature just appears to be away for guilds to 'bond' to have something to do together before launch. If it earns influence that is fine by me as there are a lot of ways for inderviduals to do the same. Do I worry big guilds will squash littles ones? Yes. But my conerns about that continue well after launch due to the patent system and I do not not think this really make that problem any worse.

That's a good point. It could just be miscommunication. 

I almost wish these Q&As weren't live so that Caspian had time to really pick the wording on his answers carefully. It might come off as less honest, but I think the answers to the questions would be better thought out and prevent possible unintentional spread of disinformation.

Zultra

There are no starting towns. 

Maygus

Zultra said:

There are no starting towns. 

Not in the typical sense no.

But there will be established town/cities/kingdoms in the world.

VictoriaRachel

Zultra said:

There are no starting towns. 

While it is not like previous MMOS where everyone throughout time starts at the same point, I think we can still say that there are starting towns.

There are towns that are there at the start of the game, already built and with NPC populations. They will be used to concentrate the player population so we are not spread out all over the place. While there will be different towns available in different regions, we are ultimately talking a bout a few town where guilds could make a really large impact if they are already in charge from the off.

Grelf

I really hope they change the influence system, because as it is currently it's just a popularity meter, which means streamers will have an edge over everyone else, and regardless of their actual participation in the community. For example, currently a more popular streamer leads the chart with thrice the amount of influence of the second place (Bicyclewalrus) for just barely mentioning Chronicles of Elyria in some video.

VictoriaRachel

While it is partly a popularity contest, they have got that many people to look and sign up to the community and you can not discount that. However, there are visible changes coming soon for example any recruitment Influence Points are not added until that person becomes a contributing part of the community themselves. There are also other ways of earning Influence Points. There is more about it here: https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/General-Discussion/791-A-Note-on-Influence-Points-and-cheaters

The timescales on that post are a bit off though I think the changes are coming with the new website upgrade with will be 'soon'.

Grelf

VictoriaRachel said:

While it is partly a popularity contest, they have got that many people to look and sign up to the community and you can not discount that. However, there are visible changes coming soon for example any recruitment Influence Points are not added until that person becomes a contributing part of the community themselves. There are also other ways of earning Influence Points. There is more about it here: https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/General-Discussion/791-A-Note-on-Influence-Points-and-cheaters

The timescales on that post are a bit off though I think the changes are coming with the new website upgrade with will be 'soon'.

I can't discount that, but it's essentially bringing real like perks into the game, and unlike BicycleWalrus he's not really producing content for the game. So in a sense your out-of-game influence is translating into in-game influence, which I don't think is the way most people would like to play a fantasy game. The game is going to grow more popular e eventually, and it may turn out streamers make all of the top positions of the influence rank. I'm looking forward to the changes to even the playing ground a fair bit, because it seems impossible to keep up otherwise. I'm not talking about BicycleWalrus, because he actually produces a lot of content for the game, but more people like Vuxxy are eventually going to find out about the game, and while they do deserve influence for bringing their followers, they really should be required to be an active part of the community and contribute in other ways rather than simply existing in order to be the highest influence in the community.

Wizardry

I like the movie "Prestige" but when i hear the term i auto think of that rubbish known as Skyforge.

I honestly don't like forms of bragging in games,it is suppose to be about fun.We already have an entire gaming industry focused on bragging from ranks/ladders/esports it is not cool in my books.I rather or prefer to see games bring players TOGETHER instead of always pitting them against each other.
I also see the faces and mindset of these types of gamer's,they become angry and obsessive with winning and totally lose focus to what gaming should be about.

Narkari

I really hope they are challenges like that Tyler. It would bring more hype to both the game and the guilds.


As for the others, I do not know if what Caspian said can be taken as face value but we can still predict what kind of games on the forums he has in mind and how it will effect the community. I predict many guilds starting to have enemies and others working together and coming out stronger for it. I think bragging in games is never going to go away especially in a mmo environment but it can still prove useful to the community.

The influence system is just a whole other can of worms on how it can effect players and guilds. I like the ideas of people working to bring more members to the game and yes its not really fair if streamers get more influence but the whole idea about the game is risk and reward. The people taking the time to stream the game and make videos for it are helping the most so they get rewarded for it and their are still plenty of other ways people can earn Influence

Vucar

Grelf said:

VictoriaRachel said:

While it is partly a popularity contest, they have got that many people to look and sign up to the community and you can not discount that. However, there are visible changes coming soon for example any recruitment Influence Points are not added until that person becomes a contributing part of the community themselves. There are also other ways of earning Influence Points. There is more about it here: https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/General-Discussion/791-A-Note-on-Influence-Points-and-cheaters

The timescales on that post are a bit off though I think the changes are coming with the new website upgrade with will be 'soon'.

I can't discount that, but it's essentially bringing real like perks into the game, and unlike BicycleWalrus he's not really producing content for the game. So in a sense your out-of-game influence is translating into in-game influence, which I don't think is the way most people would like to play a fantasy game. The game is going to grow more popular e eventually, and it may turn out streamers make all of the top positions of the influence rank. I'm looking forward to the changes to even the playing ground a fair bit, because it seems impossible to keep up otherwise. I'm not talking about BicycleWalrus, because he actually produces a lot of content for the game, but more people like Vuxxy are eventually going to find out about the game, and while they do deserve influence for bringing their followers, they really should be required to be an active part of the community and contribute in other ways rather than simply existing in order to be the highest influence in the community.

After several weeks of reading dev journals, watching Q&As, being on the CoE forums, generally learning and engaging with people, I finally got around to looking at the influence rank and my first thought was

"Who is Vuxxy?"

I had to google him to find out who he was, and found him mention CoE in games to look forward to in a video. He otherwise has been completely absent from the game and the community at large to my knowledge, so i was shocked to see such a staggering difference in influence between him, and BicycleWalrus who bends over backwards trying to gather support for CoE.

There's something to be said for popularity-lending from established names, but it seems a bit unfair to BicycleWalrus, from my perspective.