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Guilds required?
Pantastic
Member Posts: 1,204
I've seen several posts mentioning stuff about forced guilding, things like you won't even be able to craft without a guild. Can anyone point me to some concrete information on whether and how much stuff will only be availible in a guild? I've been kind of looking forward to this game but haven't read that much of the news on it.
Comments
As it stands now, yes, you will be required to be in a guild to craft.
This is part of the Prstige Classes that they've come up with which you can read about here url=http://community.ageofconan.com/wsp/conan/frontend.cgi?session=75jb7ijl9fmzi85omh80ejbuqzzt4s&func=publish.show&template=content&func_id=1180&sort=PRIORITY&table=CONTENT
These are classes that pretty much make it a game requirement to be in a guild to experience much, if not all, the endgame content.
Everyone is still waiting on a definite answer on whether or not this means all crafting. There was one response from a board moderator that said it in fact did mean that, but to a lot of people it just doesn't make sense. But then more and more that we're learning about the game doesn't make sense either, so.....
Oh well, I had really been looking forward to this game. Looks like despite all of the smoke about drunken brawling and other fun stuff, it's really a game where you can't even choose a class without the approval of some 'leet guild leader.
Forced guilding is wrong. And I imagine they will lose many people who would have otherwise tried the game.
But I get the sense they are just to lazy and don't want to invest in enough content to provide anything but back and forth sieges as the endgame.
DaBearman and HyborianHero.
Please take a moment and read this; along with me:
"In Age of Conan there will be special Prestige classes available for players who join a guild to choose from. These are first available from level five and are in addition to your archetype and class! These prestige classes give the players extra abilities to benefit their guild. Being in a guild is always a key factor in any MMO and in Age of Conan prestige classes provide a deeper and actually meaningful way for players to contribute towards their guild!"
Let me draw your attentions to this sentence:
"These prestige classes give the players extra abilities to benefit their guild."
Now, my point in this is to first ensure you have re-read what has been stated. The above, and ask that you not draw a conclusion based upon reading your fears into what has been said. Instead, taking what has been said at face value. Within Age of Conan, there will be an "additional" line of character development.
This line of character development is designed with skills and abilities where by the content is geared to offer "additional" content to people who wish to be in a guild. Things along the lines of making seige engines for use in guild vs guild battles, or the ability to give the rest of your guild members buffs in said guild vs guild battles. So, if you are not in a guild you are not missing out on any content within this line of prestige classes as you would not be participating in the activities they are geared towards. If you are not in a guild you would not be participating in guild vs guild PvP, you would not have the need to construct a guild city, and thus would not need any of the skills offered to the guild related prestige classes.
With all of that said, and re-emphasizing that these prestige classes are in addition to the already present class advancement system, I hope you can see that people are not being excluded from any content if they chose not to join a guild that they would not already have been excluded from for having made that decission already. Nowhere was it said that you had to have the approval from a guild leader in order to persue a given class. If you feel you are losing out on content then make your own guild. No need for anyones approval but your own at that point.
Nor has anyone said that the end game content consists of back and forth guild seiges. Age of Conan has diverse gameplay from start to end of character development. It has diverse PvP elements from start to end of character development. It has extensive content for solo players from start to end of character development. It has guild content requiring people to use teamwork from start to finish of character development. And yes, at launch Age of Conan will have a finate amount of content. It is the developers job to ensure that the customer has enough content upon launch to keep them pleasantly occupied while additional content is being designed to ensure that once a player has exhausted the initial content they will have more to consume. This is not to say that all additional content is geared towards the end game. Some yes, all no. Sometimes in order to experince new content one will reroll. This content is just as important as the end game content as many players chose to reroll and it is always nice to have something new to explore in the world since the last time you were a certain level.
Yet further down on the page:
Doesn't sound like merely doing activities that are only relevant to a guild, it sounds like crafting requires guild approval, and that another prestige class gets an NPC follower to help them out. Hardly something only useful if you're in a guild.
I think what they wrote is pretty clear, and I think it will be like raiding in WOW - allegedly optional content that provides benefits that mean you either participate in it or get rolled in PVP.
Sorry, but you're off the mark there. I have read it over several times and read responses from FC staff on the forums as well. They've set the game up to be almost entirely dependant on guilds. There is no real endgame content mentioned other than these sieges, and with the way these prestige classes are set up no one will be able to participate that's not in a guild. So they've made the most attractive element in the game closed to unguilded players. Real smart that.
Where they had a wealth of possibilities, they've instead steered the game into a narrow little corner and they think by throwing in some quests that players can do solo, that should make the poor saps happy. They're showing complete arrogance in their words as well as their decisions. There's no real reason to do it the way they are, other than almost pure incomprehensible decision making. The world Howard created has a wealth of countries and regions that they could have used in an exciting way to generate conflicts that wouldn't be dependant on guilds calling the shots. They simply turned their back on it and went in the completely wrong direction.
Sure they've thrown in token content that's meant to keep the others happy, but the fact remains that the main meat of the game is almost totally designed around these guild vs guild conflicts, especially the end game. I think the other poster is correct in his opinion myself. They're wanting to make the game and walk away from it, leaving it up to guilds to create the high level action for them.
The othe thing for me is that the prestige classes seem to be tied to the guild, that you're only able to be a 'crafter' with approval and that it goes away if you ever leave the guild. Sounds way too much like a system to allow the petty control freaks that infest MMO guilds to keep you from leaving.
Hmmm?
"That's not the end of the character development either! In Age of Conan there will be special Prestige classes available for players who join a guild to choose from. These are first available from level five...."
***
Level five? At level five your character is NOT in the game yet -- you are still playing the single-player portion of the game.
This suggests to me that Funcom means "an NPC guild," which is merely making a choice of some specialized career path.
I could be wrong, but joining a "PC guild" would not even be possible until level 20 when you graduate to the online portion of the game.
Actually this sounds much more like DAoC where at level 5 you choose from among three "guilds" or "schools" -- which is essentially "your class" and includes access to NPC class trainers and the quests offered by them. This in no way prevents you joining any PC-made guilds.
Hmmm?
~ Ancient Membership ~
ruat caelum
Well, if you really want the game to be different than the Devs have planned, go to the games forums and tell them.
While they probably wont change thier design,it is possible they might, and than even if they dont, you will have told them what you'd like and maybe-just maybe next time they'll listen and not make the next game the same way.
While getting a MMO dev to admit they were wrong on a design issue is almost as hard as getting a rock to roll up hill under its own power,the effort none the less should be made if you ever want them to make a game thats worthwhile
First forced raiding in WoW now forced guilding. That sucks. I was really looking foward to this too. Unless new info to the contrary is released I doubt if I'll get into this. I'll still probably play up to lvl 20 just to see how it is though.
My problem with forced guilding is it has the potential to allow guild leaders to erase all the hours of hard work someone put into raising their crafting skills. Players shouldn't have that kind of power over other players. Imagine you put 20+ hours into raising you blacksmithing skills and you are really great and making valuable items and suddenly you are kicked from the guild and you lose your ability to make those great items. Basically all your hard work, all those long hours got shat on by another player. Why would any paying customer want to subject themselves to that? It would be like a new form of griefing.
Guild Wars 2 is my religion
The problem with that is that if you only game with your guild (which sounds like what they're encouraging), then the game ceases to really be MASSIVELY multiplayer, and becomes basically just a big lan game with you and your guild playing. IMO the biggest benefit of being in a MMORPG is that there are huge numbers of other players, and that benefit disappears if you have to sign your gametime away to a guild for most of the content.
Fish of tommorow