LotD is a long standing, multiple chapters guild and I've been apart of it for a few years now. I'd have to say it's simply a matter of games not being up too par recently, or rather that's the problem. These new games that come out, like Echo of Souls for example, are just like a dozen other MMOS only they're newer which is beneficial in terms of player count and negative in terms of in-game content. Playing the same game over and over with slight differences has finally worn out the MMO player base, now something "different" needs too happen. Wildstar was a clear sign that theme parks are a shell of their former selves because it does the theme park as good as possible yet the game is practically dead.
Now with all of that said if you want a time tested, relatively massive, amazingly active guild then here's the link http://www.lotd.org/index.php. Our next "mega" chapter would appear to be Crowfall but we'll also try other games that pop up along the way.
Perhaps it's a sign of the shift in our genre from group oriented to solosist. People no longer need other people, thus guilds are unimportant, and many people just go guildless, or join one of the massive 500 person guilds? I dunno, something seems to be up though. I've never had a problem finding a good guild like this before.
Or perhaps your results are linked to your methodology?
99% of all guilds discovered via chat-channel advertising, for example, are pure refuse.
Guaranteed to be filled with members asking not what they can do for the guild, but what can the guild do for them. We used to call them "leeches," but it's just "humanity," inevitable results of what you get when your guild leader does not lead.
Why i firmly believe the reason is the lack of game play elements that require grouping, something that hasn't been talked about is:
Free To Play.
Guilds in f2p games are hard to manage because your patrons come and go as the please. Which is their choice but it still end in situations like having 1 person online at a time or inactivity list that are 2 months+ if you don't regularly recruit new blood. Which in turn destroys your guild because everyone doesn't know each other, nor cares to.
The "old way" for what ever reason encouraged people to stay and play the game. probably because of the mental attitude that "if i don't play the game I'm wasting my sub money".
Still, it was easier to predict the participation of characters.
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Guilds are still an important part of an MMO experience. Some games, such as ESO, do have more solo content than older MMO's. But group-only content is still a big part of the endgame even in ESO and nothing beats the fun you can have while working together as a team in PvE or PvP endeavors. Guilds can also be a place you hangout after work instead of a bar. In mine we even have IRL get-togethers at gaming cons and such.
I look at a guild as someplace I can make new friends for life while being able to have a lot more fun in the game. However, many don't have that level of commitment and you only get out of a guild what the members collectively put into it. If it is run by 14 year olds, they may have other priorities in life and likely don't have the experience needed to manage a large gaming community. However, many other guilds do have decent leadership.
I run one of those 'massive' guilds, Brotherhood of Redemption, but we are not a trading guild. We have about 410 active members in the ESO branch, however we have a strong sense of community. We're mostly run by 40-50 year olds, we're not an elitest or power gaming guild, and we do have formal events most days of the week. We're not out to be at the top of the leaderboards, but for those unconcerned about that, guilds like us do exist.
We were formed 20 years ago as a pencil and paper and LAN gaming guild and went into MMO's soon after, and we have a branch in DDO still going since 2005. Our longevity helped us thrive, as we had over 225 members in the ESO branch before ESO even launched. We don't do blind invites, in fact, we don't normally even recruit from within game unless we quest with the person and enjoy their company, so the quality of membership seems to be better in part due to that, a hint for all you newer Guildmasters out there.
Our prime time is from about 7-11 PM ET, and during that time we see from 39-75 online at once as of this April. I'm not sure how other guilds are faring, but with the switch to BTP for ESO we've had our activity levels increase.
I think the fact that we don't 'shop' MMO's every few months and act rudderless is a help as well. I've seen other guilds where I'm not even sure the members know what the current games are that the guild is playing the most. I've seen guilds with crazy attendance requirements (ours is 90 days inactivity, with longer permitted for military etc but some have a one week inactivity), gear requirements, and of course, the immaturity. But there are a lot of guilds out there, possibly thousands just for ESO alone, so keep looking. We are in the DC faction so if you still need a guild in that faction, feel free to apply.
As far as a guild index of some sort, there are sites out there that do offer registries of guilds for ESO at least, I'm unfamiliar with the GW2 recruiting scene. Google search will help you find some. I find the Enjin one next to useless but others are reasonable.
In short, I feel Guilds are still relevant, good ones for many play styles do exist, just keep looking. Review their website carefully, if they don't even have one, that is a warning sign right there. You'll find one I'm sure. Good luck to you!
A lot of modern MMORPGers have developed the idea that they hate other MMORPGers or that they are in some way superior or special to the other players in the game, which has come from shutting themselves away in the solocentric play that modern design forces on us.
Community is formed or destroyed by system design. Build an interdependent social game and people will be social, and by being social they will rediscover that they actually like quite a few of the people that play these games alongside them, and guilds will get better.
Why i firmly believe the reason is the lack of game play elements that require grouping, something that hasn't been talked about is:
Free To Play.
Yeah, I have been saying this for years.
F2P creates a transient non committed player base
We now have a culture full of players that flit inbetween different titles on a whim, probably playing 2-4 at once. This, alongside other design choices, leads to a lack of social investment (why bother making friends when you won't be there in 2 weeks?) and a lack of peer policing (why do you give a shit what your reputation is when you won't be there in 2 weeks?).
No wonder a lot of people are shitty to each other.
A lot of modern MMORPGers have developed the idea that they hate other MMORPGers or that they are in some way superior or special to the other players in the game, which has come from shutting themselves away in the solocentric play that modern design forces on us.
Community is formed or destroyed by system design. Build an interdependent social game and people will be social, and by being social they will rediscover that they actually like quite a few of the people that play these games alongside them, and guilds will get better.
I couldn't agree more. While some level of community still exists, it's largely insular in and found in self contained groups, actual server wide community can definitely be improved through design, or harmed by it.
It's not the only factor of course, F2P as someone mentioned, changes in players gaming habits, (more bouncing around, less long term commitment, etc), gamers attitudes all contribute to the much less community minded atmospheres that most MMO's exhibit today.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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I truly believe the reason why people loose interest in playing games or get discouraged from joining guilds is due to the fact that world chat gets spammed with advertisements all the time with little to no conversation going on that encourages people to make conversation. And this may be due to what server you going in the game you play, but it seems lately that no one will talk or they prefer to have them in team speak or some other type of voice chat. Nothing wrong with that but some people like to interact on the chat boards more than voice chat where they can really be imaginative on how there and other peoples characters sound.
I agree with Jean-Luc_Picard on doing your research, that is becoming the best way to find a quality guild.
I would say it is due to the shift in how games are developed. It is why mmos today are almost a different game completly from mmos of yesterday.
Back in the day guilds were your lifeline to the end of the game. You litteraly could not progress past a certain point, at least with any relevant speed, unless you were part of a community working at said piece of content.
Think about it 40 man raids, Rare Drops and limited drops (20% chance of getting 1 a week that needs an allaince to take down), World spawns with 100s of people fighting over them. All of these things are what caused the guild to be formed. The organization made it work. People banded together and formed systems to do content that was near impossible to do alone.
Fast forward to todays mmos. The games are designed so everyone can participate equally, no one can dictate how another player progresses. Even in some mmo like FFXIV you have devs specifically say they cannot make guild focused content because those without guild would not be able to participate. Which is just a WTF situation but it seems to be the direction the genre as a whole is going.
Just look at your mmo you play, no matter what it is these days. Can you do the same thing with a solid Static of 8-10 ppl as you can do with a group of 30+? If you answer yes, then well what is the purpose of a guild. In some mmos can you que up for a dungeon/raid finder and clear the content without a static... then what is the purpose of a guild.
It is getting harder and harder to form a good guild these days because the games have nothing for the guilds in general outside of casual/social aspect which are simply not enough. The need for the guild has almost been lost. If you remove all the Guild buffs, guild housing, and the chat channels for your guild. You would find 70% at least of mmos to not even need the guild anymore. I have been in leadership/running an endgame style guild for over 10yrs now. It is 5-10xs harder to run a guild today as it was in the FFXI/EQ1/Early WoW days.
A lot of modern MMORPGers have developed the idea that they hate other MMORPGers or that they are in some way superior or special to the other players in the game, which has come from shutting themselves away in the solocentric play that modern design forces on us.
Community is formed or destroyed by system design. Build an interdependent social game and people will be social, and by being social they will rediscover that they actually like quite a few of the people that play these games alongside them, and guilds will get better.
The bigger issue than interdependency is reward structure. What did designers expect to happen when reward, acheivement and advancement are all individual. While you might accomplish some thing as a group all rewards are individual. The primary goal posts are still individual gear and individual level/skill points/AA points/ etc. Most Games don't even start with the premise that you are a community or even part of one, they start with the concept that you are individual with goals that are all personal.
Even if you bring back games with interdependancy it doesn't change the fundamental problem. You don't care if bob the healer next to you accomplishes his goals, they are completely independent of you own. He might convince you that he would heal better with a epic mace of greater nad regeneration but ultimately if katey the healer already has one your goals are served faster by taking her in your party. Thus as a player you don't care about others in terms of your goal, you just need a tank any tank that can actually do the job well will do, all so you can get your shiny new bow that X boss drops. Because community isn't the designed goal, individual advancement is.
Modern MMOs are starting to turn that around a little by having guild levels and advancement schemes. But those structures are still far over-shadowed by the individual advancement structures. And most of the rewards from guild advancment are simply ways to help individual advancement.
The entire advancement structure of MMORPGs is built around your characters advancement. Worlds, communities and guilds don't really advance or change in any decernable ways only individual characters do.
GW2 was heading in the right direction by riding us of the quest structure and replacing it for the most part with a community based event/quest/task structure. Players now cared what other players were doing,they could help each other without concern for xp stealing or taking anothers precious loot and players were actually working toward the same goal (even if reward was all individual). Layered on top of a wider World goal of WvWvW this was actually a fantastic system design.
Originally posted by maji MMORPGs require less and less teamplay and communication. So guilds are not as much needed anymore.
+1
MMOs are being designed to avoid player interdependence so team play and guild development has fallen away
I feel your pain, in the old days Guilds were part of the amazing fun of MMOs, before the recent trend of solo play, shared lobby, challenge averse, we all win story telling, crap we have to deal with.
An MMO has to be designed such that you either need people, or it's a good idea to have them around. Otherwise, why stop to talk?
Same principle goes for keeping a server pure (i.e., no cross-server nonsense). Server integrity is very important for maintaining thriving communites.
Its hard to keep a server pure when no one is willing to talk on said server. Been in many games where no one will talk on the server for hours. Best one I have seen where people communicate, even though it was wasteful banter, is Neverwinter.
An MMO has to be designed such that you either need people, or it's a good idea to have them around. Otherwise, why stop to talk?
Same principle goes for keeping a server pure (i.e., no cross-server nonsense). Server integrity is very important for maintaining thriving communites.
Why bother with single servers when players are playing multiple games? Just join a mulit-game guild.
You nailed it op,guilds are not important anymore,interacting with others is not important anymore and some guilds ONLY aim is to see how big they can get.
I can repeat likely 500x and still i'll see the same results,quit supporting those developers that have no clue how to make a MMO game.Yes i know easy to say because the very best Square Enix has proven that even though they know how,they still went the rushed WOW copy like design just to attract more players,more money.Point is we can't trust any developer,SOE did the same thing and almost every single new game is doing the same thing.
I guess that is pretty obvious as to why i am not currently playing any MMO,disgusted by all these slack developers,i won't give bad devs my money to keep on making bad games.
Sadly we cannot expect the trend to stop because we have already seen a huge push towards releasing totally unfinished games and giving us very little effort afterwards.
When you find that good developer let me know,i'll keep looking myself.This is not to say they are not a lot of quality single player offline games,but only to say that guilds and online play is a total bust.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Aperently final fantasy 14 is the same way. The guild (FC) I'm In now has recently got several new players and its more chatty again, but outside of the single end game static group everyone just does there own thing. Thers like 1 person that tries to get a FC group going for regular stuff, but that's it.
Its pretty much with ffxiv's guilds, your either in an end game raid static group, or you just do your own thing, only using the Guild as a general chat channel.
That's pretty simply. Games don't require people to have to work together anymore to succeed. When you did, the best people would sort of end up in the same guild to make that experience better. Now those same good people can do it on their own more or less. So when you do have guilds its just a mix of good and bad people and it has no bearing on progress.
Its going to take a game that truly requires people to work together (not the GW2 or FF zerg style) before you start seeing all the good people coming together again. Games where EVERY single person matters, if ONE person isn't doing their job the whole raid crumbles. We don't have games like that anymore they have all been nerfed where 5 people can carry a raid of 20.
An MMO has to be designed such that you either need people, or it's a good idea to have them around. Otherwise, why stop to talk?
Same principle goes for keeping a server pure (i.e., no cross-server nonsense). Server integrity is very important for maintaining thriving communites.
Why bother with single servers when players are playing multiple games? Just join a mulit-game guild.
Multi game guilds tend to be a bit 'odd' they don't tend to do things together, more often than not they're just about bragging about things they do in their own game to people in a different game, there is little to no actual cohesion so they are largely pointless.
Far better off joining a guild thats only focused on a single game, at least then you know that you will actually be playing in the same game together, so that if there are any events etc. you are more likely to be able to get people to participate.
The next things is really to find a guild that is is socially active, and into the kinds of things that you actually want to do, no point in joining a guild after all, if they are all into pvp and your not, same with RP'ing.
Guilds can be very useful, but you need to find the right one to suit your own interests, people who aren't socially orientated don't tend to do well in guilds, and they tend to be more of a handicap than an asset, this is probably why the more successful guilds tend to screen candidates rather than just accept recruits or spam invites.
1. The devs have to offer varied content for the single player - factions to quest for, campaigns to follow etc. When someone logs in, he's interested in his daily duties. Lots of options and content branching in lot of different directions is not always a good thing.
In the old games, you mostly had to grind in some specific spots and a world/dungeon boss spawn was an event, everyone went there. Old games made people massively group for rare events. For example, in Anarchy Online, three factions fought for a dragon's loot rights, in a pvp zone. Spawn time was 18 hours initially if i remember. Now i'm playing Neverwinter, so far (not max level yet) i've encountered 3 dragons, in 3 different zones, each on a 20 min spawn timer (also, each of those zones has a number of 40-50 instances, all with their own timer, you can change instance once every 3 minutes i believe).
2. The content has a short life. Once people eat all the content, they just move on. There's usually a fast paced grind from 1 to max level best gear, or even worse, the initial fast run is followed by an insane grind for some ultimate gear with a 2-5% stats increase (most people don't do that, but the thing is used as an argument by rabid fans "of course you have stuff to do! did you get your megaexalted weapon??")
It's because there are way too many guilds all chasing the same recruits. People don't want to give up their "power" so they continue on with the cycle while making things worse in the process.
Instead of like minded players consolidating themselves into guilds like they should, they stick around guilds that don't always fit their needs, out of loyalty.
At some point players need to come to grips with their own situation and work to improve it. Sitting around in a dead guild out of loyalty isn't helping. I'm guilty of this myself on more than one occasion.
In both ESO (DC) and GW2 (BG) I've been looking for a solidly lead guild for almost 6 months. For what ever reason it seems as though every guild I find is either lead by a 14 year old, or so unorganized and inactive they may as well not even be a guild. Is it a sign of the decline of our genre? I don't have any huge expectations or anything for the guilds I join, but I've been let down again and again the past few months.
Perhaps it's a sign of the shift in our genre from group oriented to solosist. People no longer need other people, thus guilds are unimportant, and many people just go guildless, or join one of the massive 500 person guilds? I dunno, something seems to be up though. I've never had a problem finding a good guild like this before.
It seems like sites like Enjin etc could really use a looking for guild tool built in. Something to filter guilds by games, play styles, activity, etc. Dunno, just getting quite frustrated trying to find a quality guild.
Maybe is related to the games you mentioned? Arent they be designed for friendly solo gameplay?
Im playing ArcheAge in Blood Company guild and its amazing, and im sure others have the equal experience in other guilds aswell.
Not saying to play ArcheAge, just sharing my current experience and try to show that not every game is around solo activitys and in a game with more group stuff where people really need others guild communitys tend to be better imo.
I played GW2 and TSW in a solo adventure, there wasnt no point for me in join a guild, then finally ArcheAge comes out.
Comments
LotD is a long standing, multiple chapters guild and I've been apart of it for a few years now. I'd have to say it's simply a matter of games not being up too par recently, or rather that's the problem. These new games that come out, like Echo of Souls for example, are just like a dozen other MMOS only they're newer which is beneficial in terms of player count and negative in terms of in-game content. Playing the same game over and over with slight differences has finally worn out the MMO player base, now something "different" needs too happen. Wildstar was a clear sign that theme parks are a shell of their former selves because it does the theme park as good as possible yet the game is practically dead.
Now with all of that said if you want a time tested, relatively massive, amazingly active guild then here's the link http://www.lotd.org/index.php. Our next "mega" chapter would appear to be Crowfall but we'll also try other games that pop up along the way.
Or perhaps your results are linked to your methodology?
99% of all guilds discovered via chat-channel advertising, for example, are pure refuse.
Guaranteed to be filled with members asking not what they can do for the guild, but what can the guild do for them. We used to call them "leeches," but it's just "humanity," inevitable results of what you get when your guild leader does not lead.
Why i firmly believe the reason is the lack of game play elements that require grouping, something that hasn't been talked about is:
Free To Play.
Guilds in f2p games are hard to manage because your patrons come and go as the please. Which is their choice but it still end in situations like having 1 person online at a time or inactivity list that are 2 months+ if you don't regularly recruit new blood.
Which in turn destroys your guild because everyone doesn't know each other, nor cares to.
The "old way" for what ever reason encouraged people to stay and play the game. probably because of the mental attitude that "if i don't play the game I'm wasting my sub money".
Still, it was easier to predict the participation of characters.
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Guilds are still an important part of an MMO experience. Some games, such as ESO, do have more solo content than older MMO's. But group-only content is still a big part of the endgame even in ESO and nothing beats the fun you can have while working together as a team in PvE or PvP endeavors. Guilds can also be a place you hangout after work instead of a bar. In mine we even have IRL get-togethers at gaming cons and such.
I look at a guild as someplace I can make new friends for life while being able to have a lot more fun in the game. However, many don't have that level of commitment and you only get out of a guild what the members collectively put into it. If it is run by 14 year olds, they may have other priorities in life and likely don't have the experience needed to manage a large gaming community. However, many other guilds do have decent leadership.
I run one of those 'massive' guilds, Brotherhood of Redemption, but we are not a trading guild. We have about 410 active members in the ESO branch, however we have a strong sense of community. We're mostly run by 40-50 year olds, we're not an elitest or power gaming guild, and we do have formal events most days of the week. We're not out to be at the top of the leaderboards, but for those unconcerned about that, guilds like us do exist.
We were formed 20 years ago as a pencil and paper and LAN gaming guild and went into MMO's soon after, and we have a branch in DDO still going since 2005. Our longevity helped us thrive, as we had over 225 members in the ESO branch before ESO even launched. We don't do blind invites, in fact, we don't normally even recruit from within game unless we quest with the person and enjoy their company, so the quality of membership seems to be better in part due to that, a hint for all you newer Guildmasters out there.
Our prime time is from about 7-11 PM ET, and during that time we see from 39-75 online at once as of this April. I'm not sure how other guilds are faring, but with the switch to BTP for ESO we've had our activity levels increase.
I think the fact that we don't 'shop' MMO's every few months and act rudderless is a help as well. I've seen other guilds where I'm not even sure the members know what the current games are that the guild is playing the most. I've seen guilds with crazy attendance requirements (ours is 90 days inactivity, with longer permitted for military etc but some have a one week inactivity), gear requirements, and of course, the immaturity. But there are a lot of guilds out there, possibly thousands just for ESO alone, so keep looking. We are in the DC faction so if you still need a guild in that faction, feel free to apply.
As far as a guild index of some sort, there are sites out there that do offer registries of guilds for ESO at least, I'm unfamiliar with the GW2 recruiting scene. Google search will help you find some. I find the Enjin one next to useless but others are reasonable.
In short, I feel Guilds are still relevant, good ones for many play styles do exist, just keep looking. Review their website carefully, if they don't even have one, that is a warning sign right there. You'll find one I'm sure. Good luck to you!
Guildmaster, Brotherhood of Redemption
http://www.borguild.com/
A lot of modern MMORPGers have developed the idea that they hate other MMORPGers or that they are in some way superior or special to the other players in the game, which has come from shutting themselves away in the solocentric play that modern design forces on us.
Community is formed or destroyed by system design. Build an interdependent social game and people will be social, and by being social they will rediscover that they actually like quite a few of the people that play these games alongside them, and guilds will get better.
Yeah, I have been saying this for years.
F2P creates a transient non committed player base
We now have a culture full of players that flit inbetween different titles on a whim, probably playing 2-4 at once. This, alongside other design choices, leads to a lack of social investment (why bother making friends when you won't be there in 2 weeks?) and a lack of peer policing (why do you give a shit what your reputation is when you won't be there in 2 weeks?).
No wonder a lot of people are shitty to each other.
I couldn't agree more. While some level of community still exists, it's largely insular in and found in self contained groups, actual server wide community can definitely be improved through design, or harmed by it.
It's not the only factor of course, F2P as someone mentioned, changes in players gaming habits, (more bouncing around, less long term commitment, etc), gamers attitudes all contribute to the much less community minded atmospheres that most MMO's exhibit today.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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I truly believe the reason why people loose interest in playing games or get discouraged from joining guilds is due to the fact that world chat gets spammed with advertisements all the time with little to no conversation going on that encourages people to make conversation. And this may be due to what server you going in the game you play, but it seems lately that no one will talk or they prefer to have them in team speak or some other type of voice chat. Nothing wrong with that but some people like to interact on the chat boards more than voice chat where they can really be imaginative on how there and other peoples characters sound.
I agree with Jean-Luc_Picard on doing your research, that is becoming the best way to find a quality guild.
I would say it is due to the shift in how games are developed. It is why mmos today are almost a different game completly from mmos of yesterday.
Back in the day guilds were your lifeline to the end of the game. You litteraly could not progress past a certain point, at least with any relevant speed, unless you were part of a community working at said piece of content.
Think about it 40 man raids, Rare Drops and limited drops (20% chance of getting 1 a week that needs an allaince to take down), World spawns with 100s of people fighting over them. All of these things are what caused the guild to be formed. The organization made it work. People banded together and formed systems to do content that was near impossible to do alone.
Fast forward to todays mmos. The games are designed so everyone can participate equally, no one can dictate how another player progresses. Even in some mmo like FFXIV you have devs specifically say they cannot make guild focused content because those without guild would not be able to participate. Which is just a WTF situation but it seems to be the direction the genre as a whole is going.
Just look at your mmo you play, no matter what it is these days. Can you do the same thing with a solid Static of 8-10 ppl as you can do with a group of 30+? If you answer yes, then well what is the purpose of a guild. In some mmos can you que up for a dungeon/raid finder and clear the content without a static... then what is the purpose of a guild.
It is getting harder and harder to form a good guild these days because the games have nothing for the guilds in general outside of casual/social aspect which are simply not enough. The need for the guild has almost been lost. If you remove all the Guild buffs, guild housing, and the chat channels for your guild. You would find 70% at least of mmos to not even need the guild anymore. I have been in leadership/running an endgame style guild for over 10yrs now. It is 5-10xs harder to run a guild today as it was in the FFXI/EQ1/Early WoW days.
The bigger issue than interdependency is reward structure. What did designers expect to happen when reward, acheivement and advancement are all individual. While you might accomplish some thing as a group all rewards are individual. The primary goal posts are still individual gear and individual level/skill points/AA points/ etc. Most Games don't even start with the premise that you are a community or even part of one, they start with the concept that you are individual with goals that are all personal.
Even if you bring back games with interdependancy it doesn't change the fundamental problem. You don't care if bob the healer next to you accomplishes his goals, they are completely independent of you own. He might convince you that he would heal better with a epic mace of greater nad regeneration but ultimately if katey the healer already has one your goals are served faster by taking her in your party. Thus as a player you don't care about others in terms of your goal, you just need a tank any tank that can actually do the job well will do, all so you can get your shiny new bow that X boss drops. Because community isn't the designed goal, individual advancement is.
Modern MMOs are starting to turn that around a little by having guild levels and advancement schemes. But those structures are still far over-shadowed by the individual advancement structures. And most of the rewards from guild advancment are simply ways to help individual advancement.
The entire advancement structure of MMORPGs is built around your characters advancement. Worlds, communities and guilds don't really advance or change in any decernable ways only individual characters do.
GW2 was heading in the right direction by riding us of the quest structure and replacing it for the most part with a community based event/quest/task structure. Players now cared what other players were doing,they could help each other without concern for xp stealing or taking anothers precious loot and players were actually working toward the same goal (even if reward was all individual). Layered on top of a wider World goal of WvWvW this was actually a fantastic system design.
+1
MMOs are being designed to avoid player interdependence so team play and guild development has fallen away
I feel your pain, in the old days Guilds were part of the amazing fun of MMOs, before the recent trend of solo play, shared lobby, challenge averse, we all win story telling, crap we have to deal with.
Its hard to keep a server pure when no one is willing to talk on said server. Been in many games where no one will talk on the server for hours. Best one I have seen where people communicate, even though it was wasteful banter, is Neverwinter.
Why bother with single servers when players are playing multiple games? Just join a mulit-game guild.
Many of the best guilds don't recruit by posting open invitations, they invite players they notice play well.
Besides, if you can't find a good guild like you want it you should consider making your own. Yeah, it is a lot of work but it is also very rewarding.
You nailed it op,guilds are not important anymore,interacting with others is not important anymore and some guilds ONLY aim is to see how big they can get.
I can repeat likely 500x and still i'll see the same results,quit supporting those developers that have no clue how to make a MMO game.Yes i know easy to say because the very best Square Enix has proven that even though they know how,they still went the rushed WOW copy like design just to attract more players,more money.Point is we can't trust any developer,SOE did the same thing and almost every single new game is doing the same thing.
I guess that is pretty obvious as to why i am not currently playing any MMO,disgusted by all these slack developers,i won't give bad devs my money to keep on making bad games.
Sadly we cannot expect the trend to stop because we have already seen a huge push towards releasing totally unfinished games and giving us very little effort afterwards.
When you find that good developer let me know,i'll keep looking myself.This is not to say they are not a lot of quality single player offline games,but only to say that guilds and online play is a total bust.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Aperently final fantasy 14 is the same way. The guild (FC) I'm In now has recently got several new players and its more chatty again, but outside of the single end game static group everyone just does there own thing. Thers like 1 person that tries to get a FC group going for regular stuff, but that's it.
Its pretty much with ffxiv's guilds, your either in an end game raid static group, or you just do your own thing, only using the Guild as a general chat channel.
That's pretty simply. Games don't require people to have to work together anymore to succeed. When you did, the best people would sort of end up in the same guild to make that experience better. Now those same good people can do it on their own more or less. So when you do have guilds its just a mix of good and bad people and it has no bearing on progress.
Its going to take a game that truly requires people to work together (not the GW2 or FF zerg style) before you start seeing all the good people coming together again. Games where EVERY single person matters, if ONE person isn't doing their job the whole raid crumbles. We don't have games like that anymore they have all been nerfed where 5 people can carry a raid of 20.
Multi game guilds tend to be a bit 'odd' they don't tend to do things together, more often than not they're just about bragging about things they do in their own game to people in a different game, there is little to no actual cohesion so they are largely pointless.
Far better off joining a guild thats only focused on a single game, at least then you know that you will actually be playing in the same game together, so that if there are any events etc. you are more likely to be able to get people to participate.
The next things is really to find a guild that is is socially active, and into the kinds of things that you actually want to do, no point in joining a guild after all, if they are all into pvp and your not, same with RP'ing.
Guilds can be very useful, but you need to find the right one to suit your own interests, people who aren't socially orientated don't tend to do well in guilds, and they tend to be more of a handicap than an asset, this is probably why the more successful guilds tend to screen candidates rather than just accept recruits or spam invites.
In my view, there are two reasons.
1. The devs have to offer varied content for the single player - factions to quest for, campaigns to follow etc. When someone logs in, he's interested in his daily duties. Lots of options and content branching in lot of different directions is not always a good thing.
In the old games, you mostly had to grind in some specific spots and a world/dungeon boss spawn was an event, everyone went there. Old games made people massively group for rare events. For example, in Anarchy Online, three factions fought for a dragon's loot rights, in a pvp zone. Spawn time was 18 hours initially if i remember. Now i'm playing Neverwinter, so far (not max level yet) i've encountered 3 dragons, in 3 different zones, each on a 20 min spawn timer (also, each of those zones has a number of 40-50 instances, all with their own timer, you can change instance once every 3 minutes i believe).
2. The content has a short life. Once people eat all the content, they just move on. There's usually a fast paced grind from 1 to max level best gear, or even worse, the initial fast run is followed by an insane grind for some ultimate gear with a 2-5% stats increase (most people don't do that, but the thing is used as an argument by rabid fans "of course you have stuff to do! did you get your megaexalted weapon??")
It's because there are way too many guilds all chasing the same recruits. People don't want to give up their "power" so they continue on with the cycle while making things worse in the process.
Instead of like minded players consolidating themselves into guilds like they should, they stick around guilds that don't always fit their needs, out of loyalty.
At some point players need to come to grips with their own situation and work to improve it. Sitting around in a dead guild out of loyalty isn't helping. I'm guilty of this myself on more than one occasion.
I have also found that a lot of people who join guilds do so with the sole belief that the guild will help them with everything.
They have that what will this guild do for me attitude and not what can I do for the guild.
To me it is a two way street. Sure the guild should be able to help you to a point, but in return you need to be willing to help the guild.
To many people do not want to help the guild and then moan when the guild won't help them.
Maybe is related to the games you mentioned? Arent they be designed for friendly solo gameplay?
Im playing ArcheAge in Blood Company guild and its amazing, and im sure others have the equal experience in other guilds aswell.
Not saying to play ArcheAge, just sharing my current experience and try to show that not every game is around solo activitys and in a game with more group stuff where people really need others guild communitys tend to be better imo.
I played GW2 and TSW in a solo adventure, there wasnt no point for me in join a guild, then finally ArcheAge comes out.
i find that silly.
It is much easier to just play soloable games, if the goal is to finish content. Others are just in the way of that.