Curse

Detrick Sky · Mar 19, 2006, 04:34 PM // 16:34

Since we are getting closer to the release of GW: Factions, I would like to share with you some of the thoughts and experiences of Alliances. I belong to a online gaming community that has been around since 1997. We have had nurmorous experience with the forming of alliances in the other games we have been in. I would like to share with you my experiences both positive and negative about guild alliances.

The Good

Probably one of the best things about alliances is you get to interact with more people. One of the limitations of GW as compared to other MMORPG's I have played is that in game interaction with people is fairly limited. In UO for example, players owned houses spread through out the "world". I got to know people that had houses next to mine. We interacted and talked. Players would be able to set up vendor houses which again added to better community relationship. GW is not a persistant world in the way other "tradition" MMORPG's are. Allowing alliances to visit your guild hall will be a great way to bring the community aspect into GW.

Alliances can be a great way for some of the smaller guilds to band together to have enough members on to do things with. There seems to be an awful lot of small guilds that do not want to give up their name or capes to join a larger guild. With an alliance of 10 these guilds may have numbers to do events together on a regular basis. This is a nice option for those guilds.

The Bad

The work of keeping an alliance together is a lot of work...Let me repeat the work of keeping an alliance together is ALOT work for the guild leaders. If your a guild leader that thinks they can log a lot of playingtime, your wrong!! The leaders will see a significant decrease in their in game playing time and a lot more time working with the other guild leaders to smooth out problems that are going to crop up a lot. Communication is extremely important between guild leaders, so this will occupy a large percent of your time.

Working out the agreements. When you can have as many as 10 different guilds in an alliance your talking about trying to meet the needs of a heck of a lot more people. As many post on this board indicate, its hard enough being an officer or guild leader and keeping your own guild members happy and active in events. You throw in 9 other guilds, thats a recipe for a major headache.

Some of the agreements, you need to smooth out is how with the leadership of the alliance be structured. Is there one overall alliance leader who makes all decisions for the alliance or does each leader have an equal say in matters. If thats the case when will the leaders gather to have discussions. Will votes be majority wins or will it be a 2/3 majority vote.

Will the alliance use one voice chat server. What about forums? Can each guild have its own forum, or does everyone need to merge to one for better communication.

Where and when can alliance events happen. What if one guild is bringing down the reputation of the alliance. What are your procedures for asking that guild to leave.

This is only a few of the many ways things you as a guild leader will need to think about.

Unfortunately there has not been a lot of detailed information about alliances other than the number of guilds involved and about the alliance missions. One of the down sides to games that rely on alliances for guilds success is that the "best" and/or biggest guilds dominate and control everything. In other games they refer to this as a "Zerg", I think the developers are meaning to control the zerg factor by limiting alliances to 10, but I have my doubts given the little info I have that number alone will eliminate the ZERG factor. Games that could not balance or counter the Zerg often ruined many games.

The Ugly

I think it is best to start with the ugliest thing I experienced in previous alliances and that is the ego of the guild leaders. If you do not clear spell out the roles of the guild leaders in an alliance things can turn ugly fast. By nature those who are guild leaders have pride and in someways like to be the "Top Dog" Well in an alliance you have lots of "Top Dogs". Which leads some alliances to enage in lots of alliance tension. When that happens means need to be taken quickly and reasonably or the alliances will collapse. As more people are going to mingle, your members will run into disagreements with members of another allied guild and the leaders will be left to settle the dispute.

IF two guilds are working together in a mission or in a HA situation which officer is in charge. If an officer from one of the allied guilds started barking orders at me do I have to listen to them. What if one of my officers is there as well who am I suppose to listen to then.

Another other one of the ugly sides of alliances is that when more guilds interact the more likely people will want to hop guilds. So I have seen some guilds in alliances recruit the better players away from other allied guilds. So unless in the organization phase of the alliance the leaders to not specifically address this issue, it will cause a heap of problems down the road. Alliances and guilds have collapsed because of poor alliance planning.

Conclusion

The biggest message I went to share with everyone is don't take your decision to form an alliance lightly. Bad alliances can destory your guild and have been known to ruin players online gaming experience.

As a guild leader in an alliance situation, know that your game time will decrease so that you and the other guild leaders can provide a good gaming experience for your guild members which is what a good guild leader should be about.

As a guild leader I am excited, yet nervous about the new alliances in GW: Factions. Having lots of experience in other alliances, I certainly hope to replicate my good experiences with alliances. I think I have learned from my experience with poorly developed alliances to not repeat the same mistakes of the past. I hope you find some of this post useful as you contimplate the affects of alliances with your guild.

As a 36 year old, longtime gamer, feel free to contact me in game and I would love to talk more about the good, bad, and ugly of alliances. My main toon is named Detrick Sky

Thallandor · Mar 31, 2006, 02:52 PM // 14:52

Hi Detrick,

Even though no one replied to this for some time now i though i did mention that it was well written and informative to help guild prepare for the next chapter. Thanks for sharing hope to chat with ya sometime in game.

Detrick Sky · Apr 02, 2006, 02:40 PM // 14:40

Thanks Thallandor.

I look forward to speaking with you in game as well.

Talinna · Apr 09, 2006, 10:04 PM // 22:04

Really, you posted everything I've already thought/hoped/feared about this addition to the game.

Now what are your thoughts on guild storage? ;-)

Calaval · Apr 11, 2006, 11:45 AM // 11:45

Great post Detrick!

I do believe many Faction alliances will fail due to the pride of guilds within them, as it is currently set only the name and logo of the guild that is alliance leader will be proudly displayed on any towns won.

And so many guilds may wonder why they are fighting for another’s glory and so create a new alliance with themselves set as alliance leader.

Another problem I foresee is that many guilds may face having alliances forced upon them by the alliance-leading guild.

Edit by Billiard: Use Alliance Thread instead of posting here

LifeInfusion · Apr 21, 2006, 06:44 PM // 18:44

Well, then they ought to have a list of all the alliance members when the alliance wins.

Hired Blade · Apr 26, 2006, 08:11 PM // 20:11

I think the best approach to an alliance would be to have equal say. I would only ally a guild that your a friends with the leader of.

liquiddrool · May 04, 2006, 04:58 PM // 16:58

Which gaming community you from? Trying to think of what UO ones are still around since then...