Suggestion for GW: Create way for small guilds to unite under an umbrella guild

An enormous number of smaller guilds want to grow by merging, but are reluctant to give up their name, tag, cape and guild hall. The GW devs should consider creating a method for guilds to unite under an umbrella guild.

For example, let's say that two guilds, Llama Lovers International [LLI] and Royal Llama Tamers [RLT] discover each other and wish to merge. The two leaders agree upon the umbrella guild name Union of Llama Affectionados [ULA]. Both leaders choose the new Merge option from the Guild Window and enter the same name and tag, and the other guild with whom to merge. The Merge option is not available if your guild is already in an umbrella guild. When both have done so, the two leaders become Council Members of the umbrella guild ULA. The only three options for them are to Leave the ULA, Add another guild to ULA, or Boot a guild from ULA. The added guild must be added by all Council Members before they are included in ULA. The leader of the guild to be added must also choose the Merge option and enter the umbrella guild name and tag. For a chapter guild to be booted, all OTHER Council Members must choose to boot the chapter guild. If the last chapter guild leaves ULA then ULA ceases to exist.

Characters in an umbrella guild would be seen as, for example, Joe Llama [ULA][LLI]. He belongs to umbrella guild ULA, chapter guild LLI. All chapter guilds would keep their name and tag as a chapter of the umbrella guild. They would also keep their cape and guild hall. GvG would be done under the umbrella guild, at any of the chapter guild halls. To prevent an umbrella guild from becoming a gargantuan, the total number of accounts in the umbrella guild should be limited just as they are now (100 isn't it?) Also, in keeping with the spirit of this feature, guilds who merge should have some minimum number of members, perhaps 3 or 5. For characters in an umbrella guild, a drop-down list would be added to the guild window to select the chapter guild to display (to see who is on-line in any chapter guild).

Well, is this a sweet idea or what? Please feel free to copy this suggestion and paste it at the GW support site.

John Trickknee

Yeah, thats sounds good to me. Although, I'm not sure if I'd want a ton of tags after my name. Calendae Shadowson [wote] [sotgh] <--thats really long.

This is a very good idea. Of course there would be leadership problems with two or more council members. For GvG, would guild rankings maintain for the original guilds or for the umbrella guild? And I don't think the umbrella name should be named after any guild in particular, since you'll end up with Unworldly Exotic Banished Red Blue Legionary Warriors and Mages of Tyria and the Universe as a Whole as your umbrella name . But its a really good idea to at least have some organization to the many many small guilds running around.

Like an alliance, I don't know if any of you played L2, but NCsoft had a good system in that, several guild could ally, and even had an ally chat and an icon that showd they were allied.

great idea dude i hope a net thinks about it

I would have the subguilds not have any minimum number of members- but do put a maximum cap on them- eventually it's time to go on your own.

But this still doesn't address a problem that many small guilds have (and don't realize they have): you need more going for you than just an awesome cape/name/hall.

I honestly had a similar idea earlier today, but forgot about it mid-mission. Props for a good idea.

My idea was actually to have 10-20 set factions that the guild leader decided to join upon creation of the guild.

calendae: The tag length is 2-4 characters, not 5. It could be formatted like this to save some space: [ULA,LLI] or [ULA-LLI]. If you think the 2 tags are too long, you need not join an umbrella guild.

Immortal Flame: There COULD be leadership problems, but one would hope the leaders would hash out the details before creating an umbrella guild. The chapter guild rankings should be discarded and the unbrella guild should start from scratch. As this feature is intended to help small guilds become large enough for guild battles, it is unlikely either guild will have a ranking. The umbrella guild name would be limited just as guild names are currently. And as I said, chapter guilds would not be able to create an umbrella guild since they are already in one. No umbrella nesting. The problems you mention are tiny compared to the problem a 5 person guild has in competing at the guild level.

Ikinsey: I have not played L2 but I like those features.

MoldyRiceFrenzy: Thank you!

Willow: A minimum guild size to merge seems important to me. A 1 person guild isn't a guild at all. A 2 person guild is you and your bro or roomie. I think 3 person minimum is the lowest you want. The higher the minimum the more likely the unbrella guild will succeed, IMHO. I would add that maintaining the minumum chapter guild size should be enforced too, to prevend Clyde Hoser from public spamming to turn his 1 person guild into a 3 person guild, merging, then booting the randos. As for maximum size, I think if a chapter guild dwarfs the other chapter guilds, they will want to pull out of the umbrella guild. Seems unfair to punish a chapter guild for successful recruiting.

Crowskie: I'm happy to have ppl post alternative systems for achieving the same goal of allowing small guilds to grow through association with other small guilds. You would have to flesh out your system before I could comment on it. I am not sure ppl would know with whom they wanted to associate at the time they create their guild though.

I like the form an Alliance Guild idea. I have many good playing friends out there that belong to other Guilds. In most cases they are the leader or at least an officer of thier Guilds. It would be great to have an Alliance add-on. Even an Alliance PvP that is separate fron the original PvP. It could be a whole different scoring system then the original PvP. We could even keep our original capes with a "Badge" or "Patch" added on the capes while in Alliance mode.

As the leader of a guild with alot in common with the Village Idiots, (hello Trickknee) I'll add my support for this idea.

And hello Crowskie, hope to see you online soon.

I like this idea, considering two other guilds made a request to merge with mine. There was many things that I and one of my officers didn't agree with, so we just let that deal fell threw. But that's the reality of possilbe merging issues. This idea at least gives you the option to back out of things later on if things don't work out. As far as the name tag goes, for merged guilds maybe they could have (m) after the tag to show it's a merged guild. For example my "merged" guild tag would show: TDDG(m)XLS ...showing who we are merged with. Also in the guild menu there could be an extra tab that would show the guild roster of the guild you're merged with...

Shameless bump. And I hate ppl that do that too.

/Signed

I absolutely am IN LOVE with this idea!

All the power to you!
~Veripare

I love this idea. When I made my guild I was in contact with two other people who were making their own guild. We wanted to make the guild together, but we couldn't seem to agree on the finer points. Eventually all three of us made seperate guilds. If we were able to make an alliance (or umbrella guild, as it is referred to here), we would have been fine.
I don't think there should be a cap to the amount of people allowed in, as this would make really large guilds, and these really large guilds would be at war with each other - emphasizing guild wars. The countless battles always going on would really suit the name.
As well, intra(umbrella)guild battles could be on an internal ladder as well as the main ladder.
The only things left to discuss are:
-Could the councillors vote to get rid of one of the guilds?
-Who would manage it? If it goes beyond the original 2-3 members how would you add people? Voting can take a long time if it's mandatory that councillors all vote (majority could be needed), but how would you change the name to fit a new guild entering?

I play Utopia, and we have alliances there. I've been in alliances (including commanding the military of one) with dozens of kingdoms (like guilds, but 25 people per kingdom max). It's REALLY fun when we have an alliance war (which is not really supposed to be fun, as alliances are meant for protecting their constituents, not raging war on the world - alliances only war when hostilities between them grow to the point one of them has to beat down the other).

Alliances, I love it!

That would be a great addition to the game.

Alliances would be nice yeah.
Though maybe you would need to restrict it under a certain power else you'll get 5 strong guilds for example who form an alliance and they hold the ranking list forever if they're good enough simply because they won't lose to eachother.

another nice thing could be for allied guilds to spar against eachother without affecting the guild ranking list.

My guild since it is rather small has been allied with a few other guilds (Namely the Sleeping Dragons! We love you guys!) and shall no doubt be merging soon. It certinly not something we're rushing into. It would be nice to allie with other small guilds just to make GvG more assesable, even if it didn't allow us rank.

I Like this.

To solve the ladder problem, guild can either play in behalf of the alliance or the subguild.

For example if they fight for ULI, everyone from ULI including those from LLI and RLT can form a group together and GvG. The result will only affact the umbrella-ULI.

If they fight for LLI, only the members of LLI can join. The result will affect the ranking of LLI.

members can always choose to fight for the alliance or their own subguild.

Another good use of alliance is for split.
For example Guild ABC can split to ABC-PvP and ABC-PvE etc..

I think this would be a great idea, but I'd like to see one change...

When this merge happens, both guilds original entries into the guild ladder disappear and the new umbrella guild is re-entered at 1000. If a third guild enters their entry is likewise deleted, but the umbrella guild would stay at whatever rating they hold at that time.

If a guild decided to leave this umbrella, thier previous rating would be restored, and that guild would re-enter the ladder at thier previous solo rating.

This would make the ladder a bit more dynamic, and force this new "super guild" to fight for their position on the ladder again.