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The Daily Grind: Do you have a guild for WildStar?
It's hard to believe that in just a few short days the head start for WildStar and the invasion of Nexus will begin. There is a lot to do for players planning on being a part of it, not the least of which is to figure out which guild they'll join (if one at all). So assuming that you'll be playing WildStar, do you have a guild ready for it or are you still searching? If you do have a guild, why not tell the rest of the class about it and how you found it! Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Keeping your guild active during the down time
Guild leaders have been sending us a lot of questions in the Queue and elsewhere about how to keep their guild active during the down time between expansions. At this point many guilds have already cleared Orgrimmar and are either slowly working on heroic modes or stalled out entirely. It's not that anyone is doing anything wrong -- they're not -- it's just the nature of players. After things have been accomplished, why bother continuing on? This is totally a normal behavior and shouldn't be taken as anyone abandoning the guild or anything silly like that.* So, life is slow on the forefront of raiding. What can you do? Change your game. Make the game not about killing pixels from this expansion, but about experiencing everything in a social atmosphere. I've had to make this transition a lot, and I've always found it works. End current content raiding Make an official end to the current tier of raiding and move to other activities. Allow for a small group to form that wants to keep pushing into harder heroics and what not, but don't make anyone feel like they have to go. And don't feel obligated yourself too -- it's okay in a guild leadership position to sit out and just facilitate.
ZeniMax invites you to watch other people play The Elder Scrolls Online
ZeniMax has just announced a streamed Elder Scrolls Online competition in which selected guilds will rush through one of the brand-new trials launching with the Craglorn patch... and you can tune in to watch them succeed or fail live on Twitch this coming Saturday. Trials are intended as 12-player raids with hardcore mechanics like limited resurrections and complex encounters. "When it's all over," says the studio, "the guild with the best Aetherian Archive completion time (if [it] can finish!) will be declared the winner." Here's the complete schedule of start times on Saturday and Twitch channels for each guild: 2:00 p.m. EDT (8:00 p.m. CEST): German Allstars, Reddithium 3:00 p.m. EDT (9:00 p.m. CEST): BIG Nation, Resurrection 4:00 p.m. EDT (10:00 p.m. CEST): Entropy Rising, Fate 5:00 p.m. EDT (11:00 p.m. CEST): The Noore
Vendetta getting 'major graphical and engine changes,' Steam release
Vendetta Online's latest newsletter has announced major graphical and engine changes, along with Oculus Rift HD support and a forthcoming Steam release. Lead developer John Bergman explains that Guild Software is "working on a whole new client-server architecture to make it possible for us to generate massively dense sectors of unlimited scale." The new sectors will showcase various graphical upgrades including advanced lighting, shadow, volume effects, and more. These and other upgrades are part of what Bergman is temporarily calling Vendetta 2.0, which "will represent the goals that I set out to build back when we started on this crazy space MMORPG development journey over sixteen years ago." Vendetta is a subscription-based sandbox MMO that allows players on Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, Ouya, and Oculus Rift to play on the same server. It first launched in 2002.
The Daily Grind: Should MMOs require minimum guild sizes?
A listener recently wrote in to Massively's podcast to express his frustration with recruiting in MMOs since so many players avoid chat and guild advertisements. The community situation in many games can make it difficult for smaller guilds that refuse to spam to build up enough players to access basic guild functions, like guild banks. I myself have been testing out a game with player-run villages that requires guilds to have 25 active guild members settled there lest it lose its instanced town, which is a lot of people for a tiny, indie game, and a number that almost requires players to artificially inflate their rosters. But the problem is that games impose arbitrary player minimums for guild charters and banks and ranks and so forth to begin with. For every Guild Wars 2 that lets you have a lonely solo guild if you want it, there's a World of Warcraft that requires you to summon 10 warm bodies first -- even if you then immediately boot the other nine, making the requirement a pointless and tedious exercise. What do you think: Should MMOs require minimum guild sizes? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Pathfinder Online announces a second guild land rush
Pathfinder Online's Lee Hammock today announced the three winners of Goblinworks' promotional guild competition: The Empyrean Order, Pax Aeternum, and The Seventh Veil. The guilds will helm the first three PC settlements when the game hits early enrollment. But you don't care because you're probably not in any of those guilds, right? So Goblinworks hopes to command your attention with a new account system that will pave the way for you to claim a chunk of the game world for you and your mates. Anyone's who's bought a crowdforger or early enrollment package for the game can form a guild for this second "Land Rush," which will go on for 10 weeks and allow teams to jockey for position and territory long before the game goes live. More details on how to finagle a guild settlement once the new system is active can be found on the official blog.
Elder Scrolls Online struggles with downtime and disables guild functionality
Smooth, polished, and... offline? Elder Scrolls Online's NA megaserver was down for the better part of today for "inventory-related issues," although these have been addressed and the game is back up and running after over 12 hours of work. The devs pushed out a small patch when the server came back up that fixed various issues, including broken quests that blocked player progression. It also appears that guilds have been neutered for the time being: "All guild functionality has been temporarily disabled. We will notify you when it has been turned back on. When guild functionality is returned, all guild-related tools and functions will be as they were before we turned them off." One bright spot for the day is that the Elder Scrolls Online soundtrack is now available on iTunes. [Update: ZeniMax just announced downtime for the EU megaserver.]
The Daily Grind: Does your guild have a unique angle?
I've been seeking out Elder Scrolls Online roleplaying guilds over the past couple of days and while there are thousands to choose from, most trod the exceedingly familiar path of the mercenary company and/or the lovable band of roguesbrigandsthievespiratessmugglerssoldiers. I'm not saying it's easy to come up with something different, mind you, since most modern MMORPGs skimp on non-combat gameplay. But still. I've seen a tiny handful of trading guilds and even an entertainment troupe or two, so I know it's possible. What about your guild, Massively readers? Assuming it's a roleplay group or something other than a loose collection of meatspace pals, does it have a unique angle? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Guild Wars 2 improving guild and LFG systems in April
The last few announcements about Guild Wars 2 changes have been big. And with good cause, as roughly no one should be unhappy about the final destruction of the much-maligned town clothes mechanic. But there are smaller significant changes coming along as well, as detailed in a new post outlining a few changes coming to both the game's LFG tools as well as guild management systems. They won't rewrite the game, but they should make it a little easier. Guild leaders, for instance, will be able to see when members last logged in. The LFG tool will allow filtering via language and for WvW groups, making it that much easier to find a group that you can communicate with and has the same goals as you. There are also improved mechanics for guild-based groups in the system. Sure, it's not a complete trait overhaul, but if you're enjoying your time in Tyria every little improvement is a good one.
Pantheon's website wields crowd development tools
Visionary Realms is hoping that players will step up to contribute more than just money to Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen. The studio announced today that it is structuring its website so that it can be used for crowd development going forward. The studio said that it wants to involve the community in the design and development of Pantheon with these tools. Fans can use the website to contribute to the wiki, talk with the developers, vote on Think Tank issues, create guilds, write blogs, and be a part of weekly roundtable discussions. [Source: Visionary Realms press release]
The best of Massively's Guild Counsel column
Karen Bryan is a seasoned MMORPG gamer and guildleader who cut her MMO teeth on EverQuest and went on to run guilds in Vanguard, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and beyond. That made her the perfect choice to pen Massively's Guild Counsel column, through which Karen dispensed advice to guild leaders, guild members, raiders, and even guild-less gamers for over three years. In honor of her column's long run, today we round up the very best of her Guild Counsel articles, those saturated in her trademark wry humor, wisdom, and timeless advice for MMO players old and new. Enjoy.
Looking for Guild: In preparation for Wildstar
So I guess people are pretty excited about WildStar. Once again, all entries for this LFG column consist entirely of players looking for a guild in the upcoming WildStar, and they may just have the right idea. If you're a guild leader looking to populate your guild with the smartest and possibly best-looking readers of the best MMO blogsite in the universe, you've come to the right place. Follow along after the jump for the complete list of players looking to catch the early guild train in WildStar.
Diablo III works on new community tools
Getting together with a buddy to slay the forces of Hell should be a lot easier when Diablo III: Reaper of Souls comes out, as Blizzard is adding in a couple of new social tools for the expansion. The first tool is the addition of clans, Diablo III's version of guilds. Anyone can form a clan, although a player may be part of only one clan at a time. Clans are limited to 120 members and will be searchable with a clan finder feature. Then there will be communities, which are larger and more casual social circles within the game for like-minded players. Unlike clans, communities can support unlimited members, and players can be part of more than one at a time. Communities and clans will be supported by a new interface in the game that includes messages of the day and achievement notices.
The Guild Counsel: What do you need to be a guild leader?
The other day, I came across one of those inspirational posters that takes a word and then uses each letter to spell out a quality that makes up the word. And it got me thinking about what words best describe the essence of a good guild leader. There are as many different types of guild leaders as there are grains of sand on a beach, and many of them are successful. But if you took all of the longtime guild leaders and deconstructed them, what qualities would they all share? Let's look at the most essential qualities of a guild leader in this week's Guild Counsel.
The Guild Counsel: How to find a good pre-launch guild
There's a wave of new MMOs on the horizon, and with each one comes a surge of enthusiastic fans ready for launch day. Some are so excited that they want to hit the ground running by joining a guild before the game goes live. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of pre-launch guilds for each upcoming game, and joining one early can help get the most out of a game from day one. But it's hard to find the right guild when you can't really see it in action. How do you know whether the guild you join will end up being the best fit for you? Let's look at how to link up with the best pre-launch guild in this week's Guild Counsel.
The Guild Counsel: What EverQuest Next Landmark means to guilds
With the arrival of EverQuest Next Landmark's alpha, the buzz is all about how the game is a fresh change from what we've been used to in MMOs. And actually, in some ways, it's a return to the roots of the MMO industry. But EQ Next Landmark is also redefining the whole concept of guilds, perhaps in the process raising the question of what guilds will look like in the future. In this week's Guild Counsel, let's look at how Landmark could drastically change the way we think about guilds in MMOs.
Nether adds crafting, creature mode, and tribes
The mean streets of Nether are easing up a bit on players, as Phosphor Games has patched in a slew of helpful systems for its February update. The trio of new features includes crafting, a creature mode, and tribes. Crafting encourages players to scavenge from their adventures and fashion gear and weapons to use and trade. If being a bad guy is your thing, then the new creature mode allows users to step into the twisted role of a nether to stalk victims. And tribes, Nether's version of guilds, are now in the game with bases, a skill tree, and special objectives to be patched in later in the month. Players who join a tribe from now through February 15th will earn special bonuses including currency and a free uniform. We've got a video showing some of the February update features after the jump, so get a move on, little doggy! [Source: Phosphor Games press release]
The Guild Counsel: Guild-friendly Vanguard features I know I'll miss
When the news of Vanguard's sunsetting broke, I got thinking about what best describes the Vanguard experience to those who didn't play it. And the one feature that sums it up best is the /rope command. When the game launched, it came with more than a few bugs, and one nagging problem was that players would get stuck in the terrain or even fall through the world. To help solve the problem, players could target the stuck player and use the /rope command to summon him out and up to their spot. Much of Vanguard was like that: moments of frustration from bugged content, but also moments of teamwork and community pulling together to make it work. Vanguard was the diamond in the rough that never got polished. It was a gorgeous world, with some hints of truly innovative gameplay, but it was often overshadowed by intrinsic problems at the core of the game. Despite it all, Vanguard has one of the best communities around, and there were many ways in which the game brought players and guilds together. Let's look at what will be missed in this week's Guild Counsel.
Stick and Rudder: It's the Massively Star Citizen guild
I love me some guild management tools, which is strange since I don't manage guilds all that often. It's a bit of work, see, as one look through the titles and topics in our Guild Counsel category will make clear. At any rate, I can't stop playing around with Star Citizen's recently launched Organization stuff.
Looking for Guild: WildStar
In this week's Looking for Guild column, we have a WildStar beta player looking for a home. The game may not be officially launched yet, but the videos and guides from other beta players are getting many fans excited for what's to come. Are you looking for a guild in a new game? Even if you're just looking to try a different guild in an old game, the Looking for Guild column can help. Follow along after the jump to read more on how to get listed.
