Guilds in Elite Dangerous

[Armour]

This could potentially lead to what was mentioned in the video linked around 159.... about how this would force players into groups to play the game or not be able to have as much fun because they didn't join a faction. Which is something we'd very much like to avoid.

I would like to avoid that too, but just because "Betty Swollocks' Boys" and "Mary Hinge's Minions" decide to become allies, it doesn't mean that every independent pilot out there who avoids memberships like the plague would be treated any differently from how they are now. It would only be members of rival factions like "Cupid Stunt's Crew" that would face any extra difficulty from the ranks of the aforementioned alliance.

 

[edgar]

Here's how I think it should (and probably won't) work:

As a local faction member, you would have ranking, rules, rewards and responsibilities, the last 3 would vary from faction to faction.

• Ranking: This would be a new thing - much like the major factions, you could raise your standing within a faction, which would increase your benefits and also increase the level of influence your actions would carry, both within your circle and and in the eyes of others you deal with. High-ranking members would therefore be high-value targets for rivals to turn or destroy, and you might be offered protection when travelling outside your borders. (Note: it's not the same thing as reputation, but it probably could be if that made it simpler)
• Rules: You may be restricted from certain types of activity (trading in particular commodities, piracy against allied traders). You might have to respect some outlandish local customs to maintain your status. (e.g. coming back to home base once a month, not initiating any combat during a special holiday).
• Rewards: These could be simple discounts on commodity trades, new ships, or equipment, or they could be things like "don't get scanned by local cops", "get your local record wiped for a reduced fee at the station".
• Responsibilities: You might have to pay a tithe and/or do odd jobs to maintain your standing in the community. You must represent your faction appropriately outside it's borders.

Now each faction would maintain relations between itself and a fixed number of other factions (fixed to spare the database servers from further punishment). As a member of a faction, you can influence these relationships in accordance to your faction rank as well as your other ratings. Take on enough jobs for a neutral faction, and you might cause your home faction's standing to rise in the eyes of your temporary employers that the two groups become allies. This would cause you to be treated as a honoured guest by your ally, affording you many of the advantages of their membership without most of the responsibilities, as long as you stay within their rules in their borders. This would be tricky when your rulebook contradicts their own, but that's where your judgement would come in - trying to strike up a friendship with those who share none of your values is probably doomed to fail...

Eventually, with enough deals struck and hands shook, your faction's influence could spread across vast areas of the galaxy, and political manoeuvring between rivals would get pretty complex and far-reaching - maintaining that network would not be easy.

I really like this.

Do this Frontier!!

Armour I would rep+ you but it won't let me, you must talk too much sense too often

Edit: Since this would only really be interesting to players who want to actively engage with Factions with others, or deeply influence the Background Simulation, why should players who don't care about those things worry about this?

It's not as if the proposals would be mandatory. Solitary playstyle would still be viable / unchanged, and I don't see why this proposal would have to mean changing the normal missions offered by Factions as it is now anyway. It would be completely optional to get involved with Factions in this way. It would be no different to how it already is for the Players who aren't interested.

 

[Metsuro]

and all of the above is exactly why guilds have been considered and rejected by the devs for ED. I am not saying this is not all good content for a game, but imo its just not elite, and if I felt like i needed to get involved in such groups to play in open in elite, I would never have signed up, it is this sort of content/cliques which keeps me away from other games.

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ahh ok, so you are not asking for messaging to go accross the galaxy, but accross the different instances at the same physical area...... I guess that makes sense.

No I'd actually like a group form of private comms more or less that could go across the galaxy. But I personally want ot see an in game internet where all comms travel through it, and comms can be picked up by other players "hacking" said internet. We could push the whole quantum entanglement theory for long range communications and boom have a galaxy wide internet. But that wont happen.

 

[Armour]

No I'd actually like a group form of private comms more or less that could go across the galaxy. But I personally want ot see an in game internet where all comms travel through it, and comms can be picked up by other players "hacking" said internet. We could push the whole quantum entanglement theory for long range communications and boom have a galaxy wide internet. But that wont happen.

Well, it would make a mockery of the whole discovery system, buying trade data, and probably warrant scanning too. So I can see the contradictions. How about quantum "ansibles", keyed to specific frequencies unique to individual local factions? They would not be wholly legal, due to the intellectual property cartel that bestrides the galaxy like a colossus, encompassing all 3 major factions, but would be tolerated as long as the cartel's data was not being illegally communicated. Becoming an ally of another faction would give you the ability to communicate on their frequency/key pair as well, widening your comms network to other areas of the galaxy, and providing even more motivation to make friends and influence people.

 

[_Flin_]

Factions consist of potentially millions of individuals (okay, the vast majority NPCs, but still), whereas even the largest guilds are unlikely to get beyond low five figures. Players do have resources and influence far beyond the average NPC,

Of course a faction is bigger than a guild.
But the focus of the guild is bigger than one faction.

If a guild aligns to Empire / Alliance / Federation, then the focus is on more systems and more factions.

but they aren't supposed to be gods who can flip systems as quick and easy as if they were pancakes. It should take time and effort to do so.

But it is easy to flip systems. And it is quick.

CODE flipped Leesti due to a single day's effort. It was one day that brought 22% influence.
AEDC flips systems by triggering civil war. And we don't need more than a few days of concentrated and orchestrated maneuvers to do so.

So you are indeed not arguing from a position of "What is implemented in the game" but from a position of "how I think the game should be". And those two apparently differ.

 

[_Flin_]

So it is again coming to the "this doesn't work in the game because it doesn't work in real, because reasons?"

Well, I can communicate with anyone on my friends list, why can't I communicate with anyone in my squadron?
I can communicate out of game.

If that is the main issue, scrap the squadron chat. Have a roster, a HUD display color, an automated private group where everybody is a member who is a squadron member.

 

[Armour]

CODE flipped Leesti due to a single day's effort. It was one day that brought 22% influence.
AEDC flips systems by triggering civil war. And we don't need more than a few days of concentrated and orchestrated maneuvers to do so.
So you are indeed not arguing from a position of "What is implemented in the game" but from a position of "how I think the game should be". And those two apparently differ.

I call shenanigans on some of that flippage-related activity, to be frank. There are some goings-on that would need to be dealt with before any of the stuff I described would be viable, that's a given.

This is a discussion about something that has no real support currently in the game, is it not? How it is supported (or even if it is) is what's up for debate (although it will likely be ignored by the devs anyway, but that's how it is).

Therefore "what is implemented in the game" is only slightly more valuable to the discussion than "how I (or you or anyone else) think the game should be", since the thing we're discussing isn't really part of "what is implemented in the game" yet.

 

[edgar]

No I'd actually like a group form of private comms more or less that could go across the galaxy. But I personally want ot see an in game internet where all comms travel through it, and comms can be picked up by other players "hacking" said internet. We could push the whole quantum entanglement theory for long range communications and boom have a galaxy wide internet. But that wont happen.

I suspect that the Devs have some "red lines" that they will never cross for some higher design perspective, probably things relating to lore, so no I don't think we will get a galaxy internet.

But I suspect they will be more amiable to suggestions about player quality of life features, and fleshing out already existing features.

If Frontier didn't want any more suggestions on how to improve the game, they would have shut down the Suggestions subforum.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Peeps will be asking for instant-travel for guild members next

 

[_Flin_]

I call shenanigans on some of that flippage-related activity, to be frank.

I do not understand you. Do you mean these were bugs? Or exploits?

Therefore "what is implemented in the game" is only slightly more valuable to the discussion than "how I (or you or anyone else) think the game should be", since the thing we're discussing isn't really part of "what is implemented in the game" yet.

Well, there are squadrons in game. There just isn't any supporting mechanism to manage them. But there are people that form big groups with a joint agenda and operations.
So I do disagree.

And saying "flipping systems should take long and shouldn't be easy like flipping a pancake" is further distancing your argument from the game that is currently ED.

As is currently implemented, there is guild content (as in flipping systems), there even is content above the guild level (as in Community goals, where one guild is not enough to fulfil the goal).

So I question the premise you are discussing from. Flipping systems is easy. And guilds are in game. If the game will not provide mechanisms to allow for easier guild management, the community will provide these mechanisms sooner or later.
I'd prefer to have them in game, but I might as well write them myself.

Peeps will be asking for instant-travel for guild members next

ED - Interstellar Wormhole edition. Now with Delta Quadrant access.
Who knows what them aliens will bring. I heard they can eat a cake and keep it, too.

 

[Jorlin]

Peeps will be asking for instant-travel for guild members next

no, not now.
but as soon as any form of guilds (and be it only a guildtag) is implemented, the suggestions forum will explode...

 

[Genar-Hofoen]

This is wrong. The pilots federation is a guild. Its a group of people with similiar skills and interests that came together to create a power entity. This is a guild. The very BASIS of elite is founded with the founding... of a guild lol.

Actually, you just proved my point

The Pilot's Federation is THE guild in Elite - there is no need for more - the entire premise of the game rests on it. Introducing other Federations and the whole crime/fine/bounty system crumbles. Because then there'd be additional demands for player-run guilds to have their own crime/fine/bounty system, and the slippery slope gets ever steeper.

So thank you - you just put your foot right in it. lol.

 

[Armour]

Well, there are squadrons in game. There just isn't any supporting mechanism to manage them.

So I was right, i.e. not supported (yet). Got it.

And saying "flipping systems should take long and shouldn't be easy like flipping a pancake" is further distancing your argument from the game that is currently ED.

Again, I don't think it should necessarily be quite as easy to do legitimately, but that's pulling the guild talk off-topic, so I won't respond on that subject any further.

As is currently implemented, there is guild content (as in flipping systems), there even is content above the guild level (as in Community goals, where one guild is not enough to fulfil the goal).

That's not guild content though, it's just content, that many players have contributed to. They can call themselves anything they like outside the game, but they are subsumed into the wider community in-game (at least currently). Galnet articles are like local newspaper reports, so they don't really count IMO - you can't join the "Worshipful Guild of Combat Loggers" within the game and have special badges and chat channels and stuff. That's essentially what you're lobbying for, is it not?

 

[_Flin_]

There are too many rabulists in this thread.

 

[Asp Explorer]

There are too many rabulists in this thread.

Not me, I went to Uppsala.

 

[Armour]

There are too many rabulists in this thread.

There are too many passive aggressive types who thinly cloak their criticisms in generalisations as well.

 

[Talarin]

Flipping the conversation; other than the potential behaviour of large organised groups of players (which I think we could all agree is a potential issue, notwithstanding what's already in the game), are there any other concise arguments against the introduction of additional community features?

(Note: I am deliberately steering clear of guild-owned entities as I believe they can't realistically be added, irrespective of desire.)

 

[kilvenny]

If we do get some sort of guild concept linked to in game factions I would like for a player to have to elect to join a guild faction rather than be invited and for the guild faction not to have a player limit. This is not something I have ever seen in game, but for me it takes out a lot of the stupidity of Guilds where players get kicked for no other reason than that the guild leader has found someone else. It also creates an interesting dynamic of the players in a faction.

I would also like to see in faction voting for the CMDR who is elected faction leader, with monthly voting. Results published on Galnet of course.

 

[Armour]

If we do get some sort of guild concept linked to in game factions I would like for a player to have to elect to join a guild faction rather than be invited and for the guild faction not to have a player limit.

Sounds good. Perhaps there could be a local faction job on the bulletin board with the payment being full member status?

As for the "guild leader" bit, I would suggest that there wouldn't really need to be a leader as such if the faction was not wholly player-controlled, or a leader could be some high-level NPC (see the DDA for more details on how such persistent NPCs were/are planned to behave). That way people could use their own initiative, and they wouldn't have to deal with petty tyranny.

 

[Asp Explorer]

That unfortunately would not sit well with some of the more "President for Life" guildie types, and exclude genuine despots, dictators and kings. Some players need their ego stroked that way.