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MechWarrior Online launches the Clan Invasion
MechWarrior Online has moved forward the internal game timeline to the year 3049, and with the change of date comes a long awaited event: the Clan Invasion. This fictional event in the BattleTech universe will now play out in the online game, as players will fight in notable battles with new 'Mechs on different planets. With the Clan Invasion begun, the team has begun work on creating Units for the game. Units are MWO's version of guilds and will include ranks and chat channels when they arrive in the game proper.
Breakfast Topic: Do you stick with your guild?
In a game as long-lived as World of Warcraft, virtual acquaintances come and go. Players stop playing, guilds break up (or simply grow inactive), and groups of friends move apart. Over the course of WoW's nearly ten-year lifespan, it's hard to blame anyone who's grown tired and walked away. But sometimes guilds stand a longer test of time, passing from leader to leader, maintaining an identity of sorts even though the game -- and the guild members -- may have changed. And for some gamers, who you're gaming with is all that matters -- membership in an agreeable guild is crucial to fun gameplay. For others, tackling content matters more, and those gamers might jump from guild to find a group that best suits them. Today, we're asking whether you've stuck with your guild: do you game with the same group of players day after day, or do you come and go from guilds as your gameplay needs change?
The Daily Grind: Does guild recruitment annoy you?
Developing and growing a guild can be a formidable challenge, especially if an MMO doesn't provide adequate tools for recruitment (hint hint, studios). There are many ways to go about it, from word-of-mouth to posts on the official forums. But I've noticed that one tactic that certain guilds use is to spam recruitment messages over and over in lowbie zones and city centers. This... started to really bug me the other day while playing WildStar. Seeing a message once was fine. Seeing the same message every five or 10 minutes felt like there was an annoying alarm clock that kept going off and the only way to shut it up was the ignore button. Does guild recruitment annoy you? What are some dos and don'ts that guilds should follow in this regard? 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!
Working As Intended: The forgotten fields of Green Acres
My first trip to Ultima Online's Green Acres was in 1998. The first guild I'd ever joined had just split up into a bunch of... let's call them "philosophically incompatible" groups, and I was still hanging out with some of the shadier types because I was a clueless teenager in my first MMO and wanted desperately to fit in and hadn't yet figured out where I belonged. "Hit this rune," my new guild leader commanded. His favorite murderin' weapon was a poisoned warfork. He was not a nice man. "I'm being evicted from my safehouse in Green Acres. Help me move my crap."
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
Elder Scrolls devs: Low-percentage drops on AH would harm 'gear chase'
ZeniMax has released an Elder Scrolls Online Ask Us Anything variety pack that covers everything from taunts and maintaining aggro to server maintenance times. The devs also field a question about guild stores and why they're for guild members only. "Our goal is to make the economy more player-based, but not to have a system that allows you to find anything at any time because there are so many players involved on a megaserver," ZeniMax says. "With extremely large communities, low-percentage drops can become highly available in auction houses. It ends up harming the 'gear chase' portion of the game."
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.
Breakfast Topic: Do you have guild lore?
My guild's unofficial motto is "definitely not an RP guild, nope," with the members' tongues firmly in their collective cheeks. While it's true that we're not really an RP guild, we feature an abundance of avid fanfiction writers, artists who draw their characters, and many of us work to provide an in-game or in-character reason why we joined the guild in the first place--it's "officially" a guild of cartographers, as our guild master periodically reminds us. In real-life reality, of course, we raid on Fridays, made bad puns in guild chat, work on achievements, run dungeons, and kill lots of things on the Timeless Isle (fondly nicknamed "Murder Island") just like anyone else playing the game. But I do admit that the in-character, RP-like setting of "cartography guild dedicated to exploring and mapping the world" gives a flavor to logging in that I've come to cherish. What about you folks? Do you run an actual RP guild or has your guild evolved its own in-game personality over the years? Or not? Do you make goofy guild-themed Spotify playlists like we do? Please say yes, I don't want to feel alone.
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.
