Exploring Eberron: Is there a downside to the guild renown system?

This week's Dungeons and Dragons Online guild renown contest encouraged more players to visit Lamannia and check out the renown system. Turbine has been receiving a fair amount of feedback on these features and making adjustments every few days. Some functions -- such as the small guild bonus and renown in treasure bags -- have been removed for the time being, while others have been added. Renown can now be gained when hirelings make kills, for example. Tweaks and changes like this continue as the feedback comes in, and the updates to the Lamannia patch notes are continuing along with the forum discussions. It sounds like a great system, but is there a downside?

Follow along after the jump as I take a closer look at the upcoming guild renown system and what it means to guilds of all sizes.

Players have been posting their concerns with increasing frequency, worried that this update will favor large guilds, and serve to increase the gap between the haves and the have-nots, so to speak. Once your guild hits level 26, renown decay kicks in and your guild must continue earning renown so as not to lose ground. While you won't drop below 25, and your airship won't get repossessed, you'll be shut out of anything that requires a higher level of renown. Additionally, if your guild is working toward a high-level goal such as a larger airship, failing to keep ahead of renown decay will cause you to lose ground in reaching that goal.

The system is generally all about progression, working your way through the ranks and earning goodies. Guild rank goes up to 100, and nearly every level opens new doors: new crew and amenities, bonuses with the various houses, access to better items, better airships. It can be truly dizzying to try and take it all in at first, but one thing is for certain: bigger is better. A bigger renown number brings all of the aforementioned items as well as public bragging rights in the form of a global announcement when you hit some milestones.

At its purest, this system will provide something fun to do for guilds of all sizes -- an incentive for a group of friends to work toward solely for the enjoyment of reaching a shared goal. Unfortunately, those guilds might be in the minority. We're gamers, we've all got a competitive streak, and let's be honest: We want as many of these goodies as we can get our hands on. We love our shinies, especially if they give us a gameplay edge. This isn't a bad thing, but it leads to the possibility of some players being left out in the cold, and this is what many DDO community members are concerned about.

Bigger guilds with more active players are going to gain renown faster than smaller or more casual guilds; that is a simple fact. That's one facet that has some of the community worried, but it's admittedly a small one. There's no prize for being first; there aren't limited numbers of airships, crewmen, or work stations. For so many players, it's as much about the journey as it is the destination, so that's not a huge concern.

What is a concern, however, is the potential for further division between large and small guilds. With Update 5, all players' guild ranks will float above their heads while running around town, providing a walking billboard for how much they can offer potential recruits.

Let's look at an example of what some players fear might happen: Guild A is a large, active guild. They've got 60 or 70 active players who log in and play four to five times a week. Update 5 arrives, and the guild at large has their eye on the best of the best: the Storm Typhoon, 20 slots for amenities, a crew of 10, and access to all of the buffs and advantages that go with it. Everyone puts in a little extra effort to help the guild reach that goal. Within a relatively quick amount of time, they've reached their goal and the guild is enjoying all sorts of benefits. Members have guild storage for easier sharing among members, an XP buff shrine for faster leveling, resistance bonuses to any sort of attack they may be facing (Taming the Flames suddenly got a bit easier!), and much more. Renown decay has kicked in in a big way, but it's not a problem because so many people are playing. It's an ideal scenario -- everyone is playing together, having fun, and accomplishing something great for the entire guild.

Meanwhile, you have Guild B. Guild B is a smaller group of around 20 members. They've got their eye on all of those nice new items as well, but it's slower going for obvious reasons. Once they hit level 26 and renown decay becomes a factor, it's a bit more of a struggle. Around the time Guild A begins partying aboard the Typhoon, Guild B is plowing through the 50s, working to keep ahead of renown decay. Having more members would make a difference, but players searching for a new guild see what Guild A has to offer in comparison, and they choose the guild that can offer a huge, shiny pile of buffs and advantages. To borrow a phrase, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Now. Here is the very important part: this is pure speculation. This is me playing devil's advocate and exploring a concern that I've seen with increasing frequency over the past week or two. Guild A is not an evil overlord and the player that chooses Guild A is not a greedy person trampling the little guy in his quest for glory. It's just the way the mechanics of the game shook out in this (fictional) example.

However, this sort of scenario is a very real possibility, which is why I was personally not thrilled to see the small guild bonus disappear, and hope to see it return. The possibility that this sort of situation will be the exception rather than the rule is also very real. There are so many different play styles out there, which is why you see guild that won't accept you because they need a level 20 Warforged Barbarian and you're not one of those. It's why you see guilds with rules about hours-played-per-week, and rules about inactivity time and kicking, and guilds with dues. It's also why you see guilds that reject all of that and simply invite you to come have fun with them. If you don't have a Cleric, whatever. Get a hireling, get started, and have some fun.

It's all about individual definitions of fun, and there are a million of them even in gaming. In the end, those individual definitions will collectively affect how the guild renown system works out. Those smaller guilds could just as easily begin thriving thanks to players with no interest in -- or disillusionment with -- the race to 100.

We'll know for sure beginning in three days!