Make Guilds Valuable to Players

I've been playing Guild Wars for more close to 2 years now and I'm a bit disappointed by how unimportant the guilds in the game are. There is little incentive to find a guild and stick with them.

If I could change anything anything in the game, I would improve the guild structure and try to make them more valuable to players.

1. I would add a title that would reward guild leaders (and officers) with points everytime a member stayed in the guild for 30 days (1 month) and played at least 1 hour in that month. The titles would also have a special reward attached to them, such as free access once per day to FoW (even without Favor), access to unique weapons…etc. The guild itself would also earn points for each member who played for 30 days which could be cashed in for special features (i.e. all members of the guild would be given special consumables that give +10 energy and +20 armor for a limited time).
2. I would increase the maximum number of members in a guild, and create a high level zone that can only be reached directly from a guild hall with the appropriate NPC. So if your guild had the NPC, you could ONLY access this area from the guild hall…meaning you could only group with players from inside your guild hall to form teams.
3. I like the idea of faction, and how players must all contribute points into their guild for special benefits. I would continue this tradition, but I would also improve the rewards for players who farm faction and for guilds who collect the faction. I would make new high level armor sets that could only be accessed if you donated a minimum amount of faction.
4. I would continue to keep the faction penalty in (% of faction decreases everyday), but I would also give guilds more things to spend their faction on. Special merchants, access to high level zones, special rankings, etc.
5. We need dragons to slay. Create a special arena (if the guild is over a minimum amount of faction), that allows 24 players to go tackle a high level area that caps off with a dragon (similar to DAoC). If you kill the dragon, only 1 super amazing item will drop, improving the repeatability of the area.
6. I would create special rewards for high level zones that were cleared by teams consisting of only members from the same alliance (if all 8 players are from the same alliance, they have a chance for a rare drop that would not occur if they were a pickup group).
7. Create auction houses, but with a twist. Selling an item in an auction house would result in a 6% tax on the sale (which is used to remove money from the market). However, if a guild achieved a certain goal, the tax is reduced for members of the guild.

Basicly, I'd like to see the guild made more of a focal point for players.

more guildyness in guild wars?
/signed

Don't think the game mechanics can handle all that so Anet need to get codeing

/signed

In favor for anything that improves guilds.

Putting the GUILD back in Guild Wars?

Would be nice, but ANet probably won't see this through. GW2 is their primary concern right now, it seems.

/signed

i would love to see this happen sounds like you researched and reported very good on what you think would be a good addition to the guild part of the game.

ight sence this is about guilds i have a question for anet and every1 else out there

Q.Ok the game is called "GUILD WARS" right?, Well.... wheres the War?

A. (silence)

/signed

Would you mind if I suggested a few things to add to that list of yours... if I think of any that is =p

More screwing of those of us that play solo/with real friends only. Hell no.

/not signed

/signed, but I would make the reward a little better if the 8 players were all from the same guild.

And the "Wars" part of "Guild Wars" I think was intended to be GvG.

/signed

More guildy goodness!

I would not mind at all. To be honest, I was hoping to see more ideas on ways to help convince people that guilds are worth being a part of and worth investing time in.

I can see Vinraith's concern about solo players. However, solo players already can't do FoW, or the high level zones in Factions and NF. I don't think increasing the rewards for participating in guilds would necessarily ruin the experience for solo players. Sure, having high level dragon raids for 24 players might not be doable for solo players, but this is a MMO, not a solo player game. The entire game of Guild Wars does not need to be dedicated to solo players, just like it should not be dedicated to only players who group.

I think it is possible to have parts of the game for solo players and parts for multiple players. It's just a shame that there is NO incentive to join guilds if you only like PvE.

No thank you. This isn't Guild RPG, it's Guild Wars. You take your guild and its members and you try to kick the crap out of another guild on a home/away match.

While your ideas are interesting, they basically amount to "Let's take everything out of the game world in Guild Wars and put it in a Guild."

Like other posters have mentioned, this would be a cruel blow to solo players and players that aren't even interested in guilds to begin with.
Those areas are farmable though. Be it a boss green, a torment gemstone, or ectoplasm, solo players can loot away. So technically, they can do it solo. And if they want the armor, like I did, they just join a PUG or ask a few friends to help them.

I'm the only member in my guild and that's how I did it.

This game isn't really an MMORPG, but rather a CORPG. And on a final note, the game is friendly towards casual players, and I doubt casual players would find this to be a positive step forward.

This idea would create yet another social divide within the community and spawn even more hordes of elitists with no manners and a serious egotistical complex.

So, once again. No thank you.

When you're not a PvE carebear, guilds have more meaning.

Go back to FFF, nothing to see here.

I've heard this term before, and it's usually from people who've never been to DoA (or never to Guild Wars at all). Go to DoA with your PvP build on, will you? And try to beat it.

On the subject of the ideas at hand... they're interesting, although I doubt ArenaNet will be making much changes to the game with the team working on GW2.

people can barely organise 8 ppl parties, and you want 24 person raids? lol.
imagine Heal Party in a 24man raid. . .lol.

/not signed

You're trying to turn GW into WoW.

Also, most people join a guild and then within a few weeks, even if they don't leave, never play with the other members and never even speak on in gc or ac. Guilds arn't as cosy, firnedly and community like as most people seem to think. In the most part, people just join them so they can spunge free stuff off of the other members and for the simple sake of being in a guild. Hell, most guilds don't even do PvP or GvG. Mine simply refuses to do HoH because its a PvE guild and there 'wasn't enough interest'. So before trying to make rewards for guild members, try making guilds more community like.

Cos getting 24 people in a guild, online at once and all giving up what thewy want to do for a dragon raid? That's laughable with the aount of stuff other people want to do.

Guilds aren't supposed to be about rewards. They aren't an objective of the game (at least not to a large extent due to Factions). When you join, you join for the strength that comes from having players to back you up. Some 'rewards' don't come in gold and experience. For players who can't think beyond this, of course you're going to see guilds as some sort of waste of time. Doesn't mean they are, though.

/notsigned

Agree, and well... disagree. The little guild that I belong to is great. The people in it provide wonderful rewards for belonging with their corny jokes and poking fun -- they bring a lot to the game even when we aren't GvG'ing or forming a team for one of the elite areas. Or doing anything actually together where together means being in the same party.

At the same time it isn't a bad thing to add something in that can only be accessed if you're part of a guild. And it isn't any more of a knock against solo players to do that than it is a knock against new players to give a birthday present after a year of play, or to not have availablility to one of the older festival hats because you didn't attend the festival.

Having an area that can be accessed through the guild would be great fun, having different explorables or different PvP arenas that could be accessed through a guild every once in awhile -- kinda like the Shing Jea boardwalk or the dragon arena can only be accessed once in awhile -- would be cool too.

I like the overall idea.

/signed

Would like to respond to this.
Someone at my work is a WoW player.
Today he showed me a message (rant) on their guild forum from their leader.
Basically stating that he would like people to show up at all guild events and not only specific events like killing specific bosses. (at least, that's what I understood)
So it's not only a GW problem.

Now, the same is true about GW, but to a lesser extend.
I know my guild can benefit other people, but I cannot achieve that alone.
I need my guild members to dedicate some time to the common goal.
One member complained a couple of days ago he was disappointed that there were about 20 members online but no-one wanted to team up with him.
He's right about that, but his timing was bad

Now when I recruit new members (midsized guild in full alliance), I don't want them to join because they expect all kinds of personal benefits.
I do offer them one thing, the possibility to be in a guild that has fun playing the game and easily team up with people that share a common goal (hard mode in this case).
This does not mean they get anything they want whenever they want.
If noone wants to team up, tough luck.

Why I think the OPs proposal is flawed (from a PvE guild perspective):
Being in a guild should not be about 'what I want/get' but more about 'what I can mean to other players'.
Sure, personal goals are important, however, when playing in a guild they are not more important then other player's goals.
If someone only wants personal benefit, hench and heroes are there to support.

One thing that in my opinion would improve (PvE) guilds is the availability of an ingame event scheduler that offers more possibilities compared to guild status.
Most important, the only thing that really improves a guild are the members and their mindset.
I know that from several guild officers that left to join other guilds and returned sooner or later. Some after months, some after only one or two days. I'm not saying my guild is perfect, far from that.
However, the members make or break the guild, that's my opinion.

Now on one specific item of the OP:
First of all, that's why there are alliances.
Second, remember there is a certain span of control for every person.
As guild leader, you have a max of 99 people to control, as alliance leader 999.
That's a lot of people to manage.

I know I have leadership capabilities and I have delegated a lot of responisibilities to officers. However, 100 members is about the max I can handle as guild leader, even with the delegation to officers (and I have a lot of them).
When I hear of guildies coming back to our guild stating that '60 active members does not mean that much', I know it's not all about active members but on how people are playing and behaving in a guild.

considering all this i'd say:
all points not signed, but some guild improvement that would benefit guild and not the individual player... signed.

Edit: fixed stupid mistake

The only thing I disagree with is this other wise I am not sure about most of your ideas.What I would liketo see is more guild support meaning a person has to stay in for 1 month and a better way to recriut.I would like to see the 100 gold fee removed for invites as it discourages guilds from recriuting.I don't agree with having even 100 members in a guild.

As someone who plays solo more than in PUGs, I can relate to the concerns others have posted.

The charm of Guild Wars is that it is one of the few games that can be played casually, and successfully both solo and with groups of players.

I definitely am not looking to change the entire structure of the game to make every zone a group required zone.

I am merely looking to create content specific for guilds to help make them more viable for the everyday player.

WAY back when Ultima Online was first released, the entire game was one giant PvP and PvE zone. PvE'ers who wanted to just play solo constantly had to be on the lookout for other players who might happen along and kill them. Because of these risks, guilds in the game became quite viable, both for protection and for the housing options available.

While I would not recommend that the GW adopt the old UO strategy, I do think that UO proved that if you create a need for guilds, people will play in them.

I agree with a previous poster who said the in-game chat system is lacking. Let's face it, everyone logs in and plays at different hours, so it can be difficult to find entire groups. I like the idea of the in-game calendar, for organizing events (beyond the silly announcement feature when players login). I'd also like to see this taken a step further, it would be nice to be able to leave messages for players that are not online. Those players would receive their messages the next time they logged in (taking a page from WoW).

The ability to solo in the game should be maintained, however adding a couple of high level zones for guilds and alliances would not ruin the game for anyone. I would imagine that you did not want to cancel your account when they introduced the Domain of Anguish and FoW. Just as players did not want to cancel their accounts because zones like UW almost became exclusively zones for solo and 55/ss duo players.

Adding features for guilds will not take anything away from players that like to play solo. In fact, it would not affect solo players at all (except if you became jealous that others were getting extra features from their guilds that you chose not too, I suppose).

/signed

Also add permissions so that the guild leader can create new ranks and permissions on a user base.

We need the Guild back in GUILD WARS. It seems that Arena Net only cares about PVP.

/signed

I think more rewards for guild particapation would be great but no friggin restrictions or punishments by any means. However, youll find well orginiset guilds with leaders and officers who really care dont need this and ones who dont wont benifit anyway.

alot of it seems alittle to much work, but the idea is pretty straightforward... guildwars needs some more guild orientation... instead of a bunch of ppl who leave and join new guilds all the time with no loyalty whatsoever

I'd rather see guilds become character tied instead of account-tied. The current setup means I can either join a PvP guild for PvP XOR a PvE guild for PvE XOR A small guild with my RL friends/family in the game. So no GvG and all PUGs for me. It really seems to be a rather goofy mechanic...

/halfsignet
guilds shouldnt be for more/better rewards, but i'd love to see a dungeon or something that is only accesable with guildies of ppl from alliance.

It was so long that I didn't read all of it but:
A guild with good management will be valuable to players. Consider finding a Guild with better management.
Examples of bad management:
-Big guilds. The management will pay minimum attention too you.
-Guilds that let anyone in. -It will be flooded with unpredictable personalities.

I agree with all you have to say.....and to Anet about the dragon......THIS IS A MEDIVALISH STYLE GAME......WHERE'S THE DRAGONS, I mean c'mon, all rpgs have dragons, even nautical rpgs have some sort of dragon......so i vote yes to this

yep, guilds need alittile more importance!

/signed

/signed

I would also like to see more tiers added within the guild. I'd like to have some way to give some members of my guild some recognition within the guild for their loyalty without the responsibility that "officer" implies if there were more ranks...that would be lovely, and probably even helpful for bigger guilds because then you have a little longer chain of command to work with and such...makes sense in my mind anyways

Agree on the second, partly on the first.
In my view, guilds are what the members make of it.
The management (GL+officers) are there to support the common goal of the guild and to some extend help less experienced people out.
This however does not take away the responsibility from all members, including GL and officers, to participate and come up with ideas.
Or even organize things themselfs.

I don't see why management should pay attention to each and every member, except when helping out on the common goal of the guild or just be available when issues arise.
However, this is from the point of view of a specialised PvE guild.
In a guild that has many new players, things would be different.

This does not mean I don't care about guildies at all.
I do and like to know them and have at least played several times with them for fun.
I think that of our 70 members I know and have played with 50 and the rest have not been active enough to get to know them.

The one thing I think management should take care of is guild stability.
That's by not inviting just anyone and making sure people that don't fit the guild leave.
However, it's been a very long time since people got kicked for other reasons than long-term absence.
I even 'upset' our alliance leader by not kicking a member (he left himself after a serious talk)
Most of the time people that don't fit move on after a short period.

/unsigned.
Guilds are there for people. YOu don't like people you don't need a guild.
A 24 players arena with dragon? Seriously.
Guilds offer already evrything you need.

I don't think this would be a great idea.

First of all have you ever played a game where 20+ people went to one area as group at one time to kill something? I have one word for you LAG. The casters spend more time looking down at the ground just so they can cast anything so that they can fight then doing anything else. (Course most of my raids in other games were 50 plus but still no matter what large numbers in one area create lag when there is spell effects and such going on.) We don't see a lot of lag in cities because there is no spells going off in the cities. Even on high speed tho with large numbers like that it tends to lag to death. All the raids I have ever done most of the time was spent people complaining about lag then having fun. I agree that doing something like this would turn GW into another WoW or EQ and not GW. GW is special because it is its own game.

I realize that there should be areas for full groups and for solo players (harder places and easier) but even the harder ones with a good build a solo person can at least attempt it even if they fail it was fun trying. If you put in something that 20 plus people have to kill it would be impossible for a solo person to even try it (heck it would be impossible for a solo group to try it if it was meant for 20 plus people) There it would be taking a big part of the GW Community and saying sorry this doesn't include you "You are to weak or you don't play our style so don't come here"

I agree totally with the poster that said there were rewards out there for Guilds but not everything is in Gold and Loot. A big plus of having a great guild is the friendships, the help that you can get when needed, the support, and having team mates there to watch your back when you need it. Plus many others but not everything has to be gold, loot, or extra zones in a game to be a great reward some rewards are personal ones. I think Guilds are one of those. Could Guilds be improved? Yes everything can always be improved. Just in my opinion this would be the wrong way of doing it.

/unsigned