The New Guilds and Player Owned Stations Discussion Thread.

[BurnyBurns]

It would seem from your comment on "exclusion" that a key requirement of Guilds is then to play among as many other players as possible, whether the latter want that or not? That there are those in this thread who put forward the opinion that Guilds will have no effect on other players is no real surprise. That there are also those who have played games where the actions of some Guilds have been detrimental to their personal gaming experience is also no surprise.

Let's face it, you can start a non-formally (ingame) recognized Elite guild today and be an *** in open mode with little stopping you. Ýou probably can even adapt your CMDR name to CMDR <MYGUILDTAG>-HeyImAGuildPlayer.

Rather than clinging to the idea that Pgroups are bad and don't fit into Elite's legacy for fear of what detrimental effects guilds could have on the game (this is the impression I'm getting from many lines of argumentation), how about discussing what exactly those detrimental effects are and what caused them? There is a certain percentage of people being *** towards others, in every multiplayer game or any other context. This is a meta issue and the only way to adress it, is to have an active support, that takes reports of players into consideration. It's unrelated to guilds.

Guilds controlling access to space stations and items and therefore locking out single palyers? There won't be, if a future implementation in ED doesn't allow it.

Given that all players can play in any of the three modes as they choose, those who choose to play in the hypothetical fourth mode would do so - consensual participation in Guild mode.

Those who enjoy the current Guild-less Open mode (and don't want to play among Guilds) would be able to remain in that mode.

Fine, if any progress that players have made carries over to the Pgroup-open mode. Not too fine if it doesn't, because it would enforce the walling off of Pgroups and keep singleplayer players who are fine with Pgroups in their game away from that mode, imo. Also means that either the "singleplayer"-open mode has to live with the same background simulation and Pgroup influence on it as the Pgroup-open mode, or Frontier has to implement and run a second BG simulation in parallel, just for the Pgroup-open mode. Third alternative: The Pgroup implementation is so basic, that it doesn't matter, meaning that the Pgroups could just as well play in normal open and be masked by the game, through an ingame option.

 

[Ghostickles]

Even as a none guildie I think this is hugely unfair! not all guilds are bad, it is just that I personally do not like gaming in them, even the "good" ones, but once you get a huge group together all with their own agenda it immediately gives them power over the lone wolf/small wing kind of players. I absolutely support some guilds for some games.

But i also feel there needs to be some games to cater for players like myself, and ED was sold as such a game.

FD have a plan Mike, I don't think its all of what the guildies want, or what all the anti guildies want, but I do think it will fit the game they want to make. If they do it right it wont be a far cry from what we already have, we'll just see more players in game all around. I also think they are working on many other areas of the game, ones which are not at all remotely related to this topic.

 

[Stigbob]

No, they wouldn't play in public less than they do now.

Speak for yourself I'd certainly use Mobius more, unless he suddenly turned into a wannabe Ming the Merciless (unlikely).

<howls>

 

[Ghostickles]

Speak for yourself I'd certainly use Mobius more, unless he suddenly turned into a wannabe Ming the Merciless (unlikely).

<howls>

You were in Mobius last night.

 

[Robert Maynard]

No, they wouldn't play in public less than they do now.

Personally, I'd be delighted if that was indeed the case - however I don't share your optimism.

Let's face it, you can start a non-formally (ingame) recognized Elite guild today and be an *** in open mode with little stopping you. Ýou probably can even adapt your CMDR name to CMDR <MYGUILDTAG>-HeyImAGuildPlayer.

Rather than clinging to the idea that Pgroups are bad and don't fit into Elite's legacy for fear of what detrimental effects guilds could have on the game (this is the impression I'm getting from many lines of argumentation), how about discussing what exactly those detrimental effects are and what caused them? There is a certain percentage of people being *** towards others, in every multiplayer game or any other context. This is a meta issue and the only way to adress it, is to have an active support, that takes reports of players into consideration. It's unrelated to guilds.

Guilds controlling access to space stations and items and therefore locking out single palyers? There won't be, if a future implementation in ED doesn't allow it.

I don't expect that many players would be prepared to reset their commander just to change their name when joining a player group.

If less well organised groups of players can already adversely affect the gaming experience of players, can we expect that facilitating in-game organisation of player groups will reduce that? I expect that the particular issues relate to PvP interaction / combat / etc. - something for which no meaningful consequences have been introduced. Of course individual players and player Wings can select targets at the moment - however they need to pay for their own repairs / insurance excess / fines / bounties - if a Guild bank were to be implemented then the security detail could be funded by the efforts of others in less hazardous roles within the organisation.

Fine, if any progress that players have made carries over to the Pgroup-open mode. Not too fine if it doesn't, because it would enforce the walling of of Pgroups, imo. Also means that either the "singleplayer"-open mode has to live with the same background simulation and Pgroup influence on it as the Pgroup-open mode, or Frontier has to implement and run a second BG simulation in parallel, just for the Pgroup-open mode. Third alternative: The Pgroup implementation is so basic, that it doesn't matter, meaning that the Pgroups could just as well play in normal open and be masked by the game, through an ingame option.

Why wouldn't progress carry over from one mode to another? We use the same commander in all modes.

All game modes on all platforms affect the same shared galaxy state - I would not expect that to change.

 

[Ghostickles]

Personally, I'd be delighted if that was indeed the case - however I don't share your optimism.

Please do.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Please do.

I don't think I will, thanks. The only way to find out is to try it and, by then, it's already far too late....

 

[Unfluffydave]

Given the polarised opinions on the hypothetical introduction of Guilds into the game, would you not expect that, if Guilds were to be implemented with no additional mode, those who do not want to play among Guilds would simply move to Private Group(s) to avoid them? Does this not also fracture the playerbase?

Just like those that don't want to play amongst pvpers play in groups/solo. The community is already fractured, it is fractured by game design (32 player limit per area) having guilds will not change this. In fact quite the opposite, at the moment it is everyone for themselves. With guilds you bring players together.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Just like those that don't want to play amongst pvpers play in groups/solo. The community is already fractured, it is fractured by game design (32 player limit per area) having guilds will not change this. In fact quite the opposite, at the moment it is everyone for themselves. With guilds you bring players together.

While some players may be brought together in their respective groups, those who are not interested in that type of play may well be marginalised.

 

[medwyn]

While some players may be brought together in their respective groups, those who are not interested in that type of play may well be marginalised.

While some players may be rejecting guild play, those who are not interested in that type of behaviour may be happy with guilds in ED.
(You'll never find proper rates when it comes to support or denial so using this 'slider' as an argument may not lead anywhere.)

 

[Robert Maynard]

While some players may be rejecting guild play, those who are not interested in that type of behaviour may be happy with guilds in ED.
(You'll never find proper rates when it comes to support or denial so using this 'slider' as an argument may not lead anywhere.)

Indeed - all that we can be reasonably sure of is that some players want some Guild features and some players don't - and there's no finite list of the Guild features being requested, so there are probably several different factions among the Guild proponents as there would seem to be amongst those who do not want some or all guild features to be added to the game.

 

[Talarin]

Every game I have played with guilds had the following core things
A list of members.
A list of who was online
A guild chat channel
A guild message of the day.

Optional things I have seen are
A guild bank
A guild ship
Guild territory
Guild leveling with benefits
Guild tabards
officers chat channel
Guild housing

This. Exactly this should be the focus of the "Guild" side of the conversation. As I've said previously, if you think of the social toolset as being an expansion of the existing "Friends" functionality, I really can't see why people would argue against it.

In my case, I don't want a single one of the optional elements (but others will). Those are the elements that I perceive don't have a place in Elite as it's structured now (as they effectively gives an advantage to people who are members of Guilds versus those who are not - exactly one of the legitimate core concerns about introducing this sort of functionality).

Your first question seems to be pivotal here, and is the main reason for a lot of miscommunication. For some players, player owned content in essential to guilds, for some players being able to have an organised comms is essential for guilds.

A huge amount of the nuance is being missed in the conversation - and a lot of misconception is being applied (in some cases, deliberately imo) to already established positions. I'd like to see more constructive discussion in the thread and a lot less sarcasm. Agree to disagree, finding compromise, getting to the root of concerns etc etc etc.

The nose touching/mouth guard hand gesture can be interpreted as "discussing something unpleasant", "lying" or "thinks questioner is lying" according to internet experts based on research conducted in the 60's that's largely discredited and ignored now.

A lot of hay is made of the clip and transcript - but I think there is a core message that both sides of this discussion could agree with: ossification of the game to the point where players feel that they have to join a Guild in order to get on is not desirable. BUT many people are using that concern as a blanket reason for not having functionality at all - which is isn't very constructive when you take improvements in the social experience in-game to be necessary over the longer term.

The devil is in the design...

.
Shall we look at what you are asking for:
A list of members. The Friends List
A list of who was online The Friends List
A guild chat channel The current in game VIOP or whatever it is
A guild message of the day. Other groups are managing to get their messages on GALNET, seems to work
...
Can Vlad and Antilles please get their stories straight, they are supposed to be on the same side here. We have already been told numerous times that TS is unacceptable because there could be deaf and mute people and it is really hard to use if you are using an Oculus Rift (see Mike, I called it the right name this time )

Sorry, but no. You shouldn't have to leave the game to do this stuff. Saying just use third party tools doesn't address the requirement at all, and again many of improvements in social tools inside the game would benefit all players, not just those interested in permanent guilds. In fact, the only people they wouldn't provide some sort of benefit for are those people who just aren't interested in social interactions inside the game.

It's like saying that FD shouldn't have introduced the route-planner functionality because you can do it with pen and paper...

 

[FuzzySpider]

This. Exactly this should be the focus of the "Guild" side of the conversation. As I've said previously, if you think of the social toolset as being an expansion of the existing "Friends" functionality, I really can't see why people would argue against it.

If that's what you're asking for that's great with me. You have my full support. Power channels, friend channels, wing channels or whatever. But let's face it, that's not all that's being asked for:

Optional things I have seen are
A guild bank
A guild ship
Guild territory
Guild leveling with benefits
Guild tabards
officers chat channel
Guild housing

That's a long way away from just a "social toolset".

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Odd I have never seen player owned content as required for a guild. And I saw no evidence that any in the guild crowd saw it as required. I saw it discussed as an idea that many find intriguing. But I do not see finding something intriguing and potentially fun as demanding.

This is why they need to be discussed separately and i've said it before, but its causing a mess here with us trying to discuss a single topic, because people are confusing two separate issues.

Station ownership can be linked with guilds as an extension to base functionality, but it can also be a separate feature, or tied to powers, etc. No reason why a single player with more time and money on their hands than sense couldn't get a (small) station of their own either, depending on how it was implmented.

 

[Jericho]

While some players may be brought together in their respective groups, those who are not interested in that type of play may well be marginalised.

You continue to make this assertion that non-guild people would be marginalized, but I haven't seen you explain.... Please enlighten us.

 

[Robert Maynard]

You continue to make this assertion that non-guild people would be marginalized, but I haven't seen you explain.... Please enlighten us.

If you read the thread, you should find a few anecdotal examples of ways in which non-Guild members have had their gaming experience detrimentally affected by Guilds.

 

[Jericho]

Indeed - all that we can be reasonably sure of is that some players want some Guild features and some players don't - and there's no finite list of the Guild features being requested, so there are probably several different factions among the Guild proponents as there would seem to be amongst thosefD who do not want some or all guild features to be added to the game.

FD could start by adding 'some' support and then grow the features.
Outright refusal to change and add multiplayer features to a multiplayer game is simply hiding one's head in the sand for fear that the boogie man (Eve) will come and eat our lunches.

- - - Updated - - -

If you read the thread, you should find a few anecdotal examples of ways in which non-Guild members have had their gaming experience detrimentally affected by Guilds.

I'm asking you personally.

I read this thread and the others as much as I can, and most of what I read is how much people hate Eve and are afraid of Eve. Well, this isn't Eve and will never become Eve, so if that can't be the reason what're the other reasons other than people are simply being stubborn?

 

[Julissa Silver]

FD could start by adding 'some' support and then grow the features.

Which wouldn't *at all* be taken and used as the reason to expand and constantly demand more and more features, right?

Right.

<Meows>

 

[Jericho]

Which wouldn't *at all* be taken and used as the reason to expand and constantly demand more and more features, right?

Right.

<Meows>

More Multiplayer features is SCARY!

Woof

 

[medwyn]

Indeed - all that we can be reasonably sure of is that some players want some Guild features and some players don't - and there's no finite list of the Guild features being requested, so there are probably several different factions among the Guild proponents as there would seem to be amongst those who do not want some or all guild features to be added to the game.

Exactly - the question is "how to". Actually it would be useful to collect the feaures mentioned or requested in the go (including the other mega-thread) and make another multi-choice poll to see in what rates people would or would not like to see these features. It's a huge job actually and I wish I had the time to do that but without this I don't see how else we could move forward from this current round and round state of arguments...