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A Letter to Mike O'Brien — The Importance of Guilds


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A Letter to Mike O'Brien — The Importance of Guilds

Written by Dougal Keane

The 9th of October, 1330 AE. Season of the Scion.

My dear friend, Mike O'Brien.

It has nearly been two years since I last wrote to you, and I apologize that this letter couldn't be written much earlier to inform you of my fortunate endeavours. The large stream of brave and ambitious guilds who wish to put their mark on the world has not seen an end since the Pact forces were wistfully defeated at the border of the Maguuma Jungle. And my days have been occupied with lending guilds my counsel to make sure that they are directed on the right path for a succesful adventure.

Now that the Pact Commander is setting out to the Crystal Desert, and by doing so also sets an example for guilds to follow, I'm almost certain that I will see fewer days where I'm not signing papers to recognize the claim of a guild. But recent statements from you have reached my ear through the gossip of Lion's Arch, and thus I have given some of my workload to Hannah so that I can allow myself a day off to write you about my concerns.

The gossip was confirmed when on the morning of 8 October I received a letter from The Tyrian Explorer's Society which informed me that they are cutting funds for the Guild Initiative branch, and I cannot help but fear the dire consequences that this decision will bring with it. Our resources are very limited already and striking harder at our department could put many guilds in danger of collapsing. Without our presence in Lion's Arch guilds will aimlessly exist without a goal to strive for, and years worth of studies have shown that it is a collective purpose which brings people together and results in people being more likely to stick around.

Guilds are the groups of people who pick up the newly arrived, provide them with shelter, and teach them the lessons that the world itself doesn't. Guilds are the benevolent organizations who see beyond an individual's history, and grant its members a chance to prove themselves despite the hardships they face. Guilds are the communities who drive the events of the world, as people rally behind the confidence of an established association. Some leaders wage war in the Mists, some members perform acts of kindness, and some scholars share the information they gather through technical research.

They are crucial to our very existance, and a Tyria without them would be a favor to the forces of evil that seek to destroy our planet.

My dear friend, Mike O'Brien. It has been so long since we both set foot on the journey we know as Guild Wars, but the horizon has no limit, and thus the development of our campaign will continue forever. But do not forget guilds along the road, for they are responsible for many of the steps we've made.

My best wishes,

Dougal Keane, Head of the Guild Initiative.

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What exactly should Anet be doing? Not to be facetious, but why rely on Anet? Nothing stopping guilds from forming up and running dungeons, fractals, raids, world bosses, WvW, etc. I get the guild mission thing - there's just a set number but honestly...."let's turn into chickens and run through a cave"...I'd rather do more productive guild things.

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@Blude.6812 said:Anet destroyed Guilds when they changed the guilds and they ignored the damage that was done to small guilds.

They didn't "change" guilds and no "damage" was done to small guilds. They added content that was designed for more than a handful of people (guild missions) and guild halls, that include very expensive improvements that take dedication to complete. Obviously it's more likely that larger guilds can find the skills and resources, since they have a larger pool of folks from whom to ask, but it's not guaranteed that it's actually any easier: I've seen as many people contribute significantly from 10-person guilds as I have from 400-person guilds.

@Blude.6812 said:And BTW Mo is no bodys friend to add to Vavumes' comment.True, but irrelevant. "My friend" is being used as a rhetorical device (admittedly not necessarily an effective one)

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Thank you for this.

We need everyone who can to speak up and express their discontent over the move away from guild focused initiatives and content.

And, while I believe Mike O'Brien has historically been a force for positive change and action at ArenaNet (regardless of the motivation), I strongly disagree with the decision to cut the guild team and the content they would have supported.

More than that, the decision baffles me. For many, guilds are our primary motivation for logging into the game day in and day out, and while we can still find things to do together, Anet should recognize their importance and make content for guilds, no matter what its called (missions or whatever), a priority.

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Its just Anet as usual. Hype a new feature to the moon, promise ongoing support for it, abandon it within a year, don't tell anyone you abandoned it for a while until you think they've forgotten about it.

At the very least it would be nice if they continued to support the bare minimum. Like ONE guild mission per xpack to go with the ONE guild hall. Add ONE piece of music the the hall per expansion? Without further guild systems, what is even the point of the "further exploration" upgrade? A lot of people bought that under the assumption that it cleared out space for future structures. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that they at least bothered to add scribing decorations, but you could seriously cut a raid wing, just ONE raid wing per expansion to do a tiny bit of guild content.

What's the point of the mining rate upgrades? If the only thing aetherium is good for is a finite number of guild upgrades... why the heck would you spend the resources to buy mining rate when you can just wait a little longer and finish the upgrades for free since you know there will never be any ongoing benefit to mining faster?

What's the point of guild favor, and by extension the point of half the guild missions if the only useful thing you get are the personal rewards? We haven't guild completed a race or trek in an age because favor is useless and its easier to just let people do one run for their personal chest and cancel the mission.

I'm completely okay with raid being the group focused stuff, but if that's the plan... hey how about letting us use the guild portal to go straight to raid wings in stead of the public lobby?

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@Blude.6812 said:MO and Anet destroyed Guilds when they changed the guilds and they ignored the damage that was done to small guilds. And BTW Mo is no bodys friend to add to Vavumes' comment. He is in for the paycheck.

It certainly didn't destroy my guild. Your mileage may vary.

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@PopeUrban.2578 said:What's the point of guild favor, and by extension the point of half the guild missions if the only useful thing you get are the personal rewards? We haven't guild completed a race or trek in an age because favor is useless and its easier to just let people do one run for their personal chest and cancel the mission.

This is another really good point. We are way beyond the need for guild favor and only run missions for the players' personal rewards.

Last night (our regular mission night), we chose to only do the puzzle and challenge and then go do bounties in Crystal Oasis. While it was fun, it lacked a little something.

Anet needs a guild team - but even if they refuse to see that, they need someone (anyone) to take a look at how guild content or incentives can be interwoven with open world or living story content. I only log in because of my guild. I want Anet to understand many feel that same way and step up to the plate on this one.

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@STIHL.2489 said:Cute Letter.. but.. Ummm... what are you trying to say with this?

It is in response to the recent AMA in which they explained they disbanded the guild content team more than a year ago.

The point is, to many of us, guilds are still one of, if not the, most important part of the game. Anet moving away from guild focused content is a bad move that will harm many parts of the game, from new players' first experiences to the health and activity level in open world maps.

The hope is that someone at Anet (whether it is MO or someone else) reads it and realizes that guild focused content, whether it is called missions or is just integrated into open world/living story, is important and should be a development priority.

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@Ayrilana.1396 said:Couldn't all existing content be guild content if the guilds took the intitative to make it so?

Of course, and that is what many guilds are doing now.

But at the same time, minimal effort (imo) toward incentivizing guilds to remain more active in the open world would help ensure maps remain active and interesting for everyone - even those not in guilds.

GW2 isn't a single player game. While many enjoy the chaotic nature of running around with a 100 strangers, there are those that like to do so with groups of friends. And, while we don't need an official game structure to make that more fun, support for that kind of player cannot be a bad thing.

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@Blaeys.3102 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:Couldn't all existing content be guild content if the guilds took the intitative to make it so?

Of course, and that is what many guilds are doing now.

But at the same time, minimal effort (imo) toward incentivizing guilds to remain more active in the open world would help ensure maps remain active and interesting for everyone - even those not in guilds.

GW2 isn't a single player game. While many enjoy the chaotic nature of running around with a 100 strangers, there are those that like to do so with groups of friends. And, while we don't need an official game structure to make that more fun, support for that kind of player cannot be a bad thing.

Why do maps remaining active and interesting have to do with, or rely on, guilds?

All open world content can be done with guilds so I don't see why content needs to be developed specifically for them. If guilds want more things to do together then they need to take the initiative here.

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@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Blaeys.3102 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:Couldn't all existing content be guild content if the guilds took the intitative to make it so?

Of course, and that is what many guilds are doing now.

But at the same time, minimal effort (imo) toward incentivizing guilds to remain more active in the open world would help ensure maps remain active and interesting for everyone - even those not in guilds.

GW2 isn't a single player game. While many enjoy the chaotic nature of running around with a 100 strangers, there are those that like to do so with groups of friends. And, while we don't need an official game structure to make that more fun, support for that kind of player cannot be a bad thing.

Why do maps remaining active and interesting have to do with, or rely on, guilds?

All open world content can be done with guilds so I don't see why content needs to be developed specifically for them. If guilds want more things to do together then they need to take the initiative here.

And, again, they do exactly that now.

To your question about maps remaining active, I think a lot of people underestimate the impact that guilds have on map meta events, hero/bounty/mapping trains, world bosses and anything else that benefits from light to medium coordination. And while guilds will still do these things, a tiny bit of incentive from Anet (not asking for completely new content here) would help improve that and potentially be used to drive guilds toward maps where that coordination may start to die off. It is a low hanging fruit way to keep maps active for much longer.

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