Curse

IxChel · Jul 14, 2005, 07:56 PM // 19:56

The guild I have the pleasure to be in, Servants of Fortuna, has an extensive review process. We have a pretty high barrier to entry (you have to take time to fill out an on-line application) and even then, we still reject a fair many. We have strict guidelines, and you have to play /w guild members a few times to be considered. The result is clear -- I can invite anyone from my guild to play in a PUG and have an expectation that they will be professional (and fun loving). In short, playing with guild members is a pleasure. I'm not at all saying that SoF is unique in this way -- quite the contrary -- I think most good guilds have a similar review/filtering process.

That said, even with a 30-50 person guild; it's still hard to get a group of 6-8 together for a mission. With about 30% on-line at any given time, you average only about 10 on-line during peak times; and then, some of them might already be in missions or PvPing, etc. Therefore, it's hard to get a team together of only guild members. The result is that you still have to put together a PuG. Although you only have to recruit 2-4 others and you can always disconnect and re-form if you have a serious griefer, it is still a bit painful -- far more painful than it should be.

Lately, I've been trying to "group" with other Guilds rather than recruiting 2-4 random people. I look for people who are already grouped, and when I /msg them I ask if they are in the same guild; and what their guild is. If I have seen the guild on this forum -- my invite is forthcoming regardless of the build (/w smart people any random assortment of classes will most likely work). I even have gone so far as to advertise:

"4 guild members /w healer looking to pair-up with another guild group"

What I would like to see is an "Inter-Guild" chat feature where I can broadcast messages like "4 of us from SoF looking for Fissure Run". In this way, we can pull from a previously filtered group of people. The feature would work like this:

(a) On the Guilds page, there would be a "Sibling" guild list; and the guild leader could add what ever guilds he wanted to that list. This is just like the Friend list for individual players.

(b) There is a new tab on the chat dialog called "Intra-Guild Chat" where you can type in messages that are sent to all members of "Friend" guilds. When you type in a message, your name and your guild appears; e.g

Ix Chel [SoF]: Three of us SoF guildies are looking for Fissure group

(c) If two guilds mark each other as "Friend" guilds, then announcements made by members of either guild are seen by members of the other guild; note that _both_ guild leaders must add each other's guild to the list for the Intra-Guild chat between the guilds to happen.

Assume there are 4 guilds, (A,B,C,D)

A is a non-picky group and has B, C, D as friends.
B is more picky, and has C and D as friends.
C has only B as a friend.
D has A and B as friends.

In this case, the following "paths" are enabled: AD, BC, BD. In particular B will only see messages from C and D (and not A, even though B is on A's friend list), and A will only see messages from D.

Currently I've been "faking" this technique by having members of other guilds on my "Friend" list and asking them to "relay" my request to their guild chat... but this doesn't work well since it doesn't let individual players filter out non-guild messages (and yet still receive guild messages). Also, it requires an extensive contact list - and if I'm off-line or my contact to the other guild is off-line, other guild members in both sides can't take advantage of the friendly relationship.

That's it. Thanks for listening.