Reigen Ruminates: Guild Bases

[Reigen]

Guild Bases

Greetings CoTH! Reigen here with a not so new word combination to catch your attention.

Guild bases are one of the things we hear ever now and then. It gets a loud voice then dies down. Happens every few months every time CoTH gets into a population slump or any such deal. I'd like to say it's a popular topic and one many people have said they wanted at some point or another. Now, before anyone's hopes get up at reading this post: No. I am not saying guild bases are going to be a for sure thing anytime in the near future. However, as per a conversation between the Overseers, Admins and another individual, we decided perhaps a test might be in order. However, before we go though with any sort of test, we wanted to hear everyone's opinions on the possibility of guild bases.

What would the test consist of?

It would be a cut and dry test. In short, we would allow one or two guilds to have a base for a certain amount of time that they could customize to their hearts content. Nothing huge, however. No sprawling cities [sorry noble houses] or personal villages. Think closer to Goldshire size in terms of how much we're willing to give at first. Custom patch could be used, however keep in mind that mac users cannot use the patch and any custom patch buildings cannot be in the open world. These guilds would have to prove to us that the bases will be used and that what they acomplish cannot just be done with the 'first come first serve' areas that we already have.

How will guilds be chosen?

Not yet decided, we want to see community reaction to the idea first. Current activity level will likely be a factor, however.

If bases do become a thing, will everyone get one?

Maybe, maybe not. We'll judge it case by case!

Now, as for wanting opinion, do you think this is a good idea? Do you want this to be a thing? Is there anything you'd want to see during the testing phase, if we get that far?

Personally, I worry that it will only encourage more seclusion and groups of people not open to those beyond the base walls. I don't want to see RP become something that's just holed up into a base because there's no need to visit a city anymore for visual impact. I also worry that bases will be built, then the guilds die and it will turn out to be a wasted effort.

[Psychyn]

As fancy as it'd be, I pretty much have to side with this:

Personally, I worry that it will only encourage more seclusion and groups of people not open to those beyond the base walls. I don't want to see RP become something that's just holed up into a base because there's no need to visit a city anymore for visual impact. I also worry that bases will be built, then the guilds die and it will turn out to be a wasted effort.

You already wrote what I had in mind. If we had a larger population it'd be a possibility, but I fear that right now, it would separate players rather then bring them together. I've had it several times with the Human Manor already in which RP becomes hard to get into because we are in a Noble estate; Or with the patch, outright failing to get it to work or RPing with Mac users who can't use it.

The patch works fine for me, but I've seen it being mentioned several times how people can't get it to work; Recent attempts with @Vladdy also failed sadly.

I'd much rather have buildings be emptied in the existing cities so they can be used but luckily, @Rigley is already doing that! <3

[Ural]

Now, as for wanting opinion, do you think this is a good idea? Do you want this to be a thing? Is there anything you'd want to see during the testing phase, if we get that far?

I do think it's a good idea. It would be nice to have a place for ceremonies or gearing up pre-event style.

As for testing; I'd like to see some effort into buying/building the area. It would be a little odd to just 'bam' and now we have a base. I suppose this means I'm partial to grassroots-type guilds. Ones that start from little and gain momentum. Give nobles something to invest in. Give criminals something worthwhile to steal for. That sort of thing.

[Joe2618]

I am for this actually, like Ural has already mentioned it gives the group IC goals to improve where they live and it really adds investment into the guild OOCly. The causes for concern such as, be secluded are indeed troubling. I imagine a solution though:they need to spend a balance of time in the guild and in cities, for example a thieves guild couldn't stay inside the guild all the time as they'd have to steal something to pay the rent. (Or to put it in OOC terms, they'd have to go out there and rp with others or the privilege should be taken away from that particular group. Harsh I know but a good way to keep balance.) Over all I -am- in favour of this idea. I hope people are successful in proving that these are worthwhile ventures.

[Psychyn]

Something akin to that could work; Needing to pay rent(or supplies, war assets, lifeblood, cheese, give it a name) could be an idea to force people back outside and off their lands again. It'll be difficult to observe but perhaps for those owning the guild-base, events or interactions could be done on a reoccurring base, partnered up with the GM team.

Nobles going from a location to the main city, moving to pay tax; Could be robbed on the road, if they make it they could have a GM NPC interaction in which they actually hand over funds and talk for a while.
Thieves going from their lair to steal for rent, pawning it off somewhere with a GM NPC playing the latter.
A military base may need to bring reports in every now and then or be otherwise inspected by a GM NPC and so forth.

Some incentive to still go out and do things, plus it may make for nice interactions with the world.

I do love working to acquire things piece by piece, especially in-game to represent what a character has been doing and has managed to do so far; But there has to be a realistic downside/fear/threat if you will to those things as well.

[Joe2618]

Yes, you hit the nail on the head Psychyn! Just to do something to bring them out of their social circle, and they have to keep doing it or lose their home. I also like the idea of 'Upgrading' starting with a largely vacant area and as your guild grows and becomes more active more and more things will be built upon in said guild (Portraits, secondary bedrooms, a Goblin representative etc.) It allows for more organic growth in a guild and gives people a reason to go on other than just to rp for their guilds cause.

[Kaghuros]

I have to say that I don't dislike the idea of having instanced guild bases, but I also don't think it will be that great for the reasons you outlined, and a few more.

Firstly yes I do think it will fragment RP, but I think that's a symptom of another problem to some degree. Coming back to the server I've noticed that oftentimes there are a fair number of people online who aren't roleplaying, or that those who are tend to be divided into small groups already. In my experience this is because it's more fun to RP with friends and people you have plots with, but also because it's hard to expose your plots to outside influences. I think that it's more fun to expand your clique once in a while and involve random people on a whim, but at the same time I know that most people don't feel that way. I guess that's neither here nor there, though.

Secondly, I think that, like many well-intentioned projects by the GM team over the years including many I've been part of, it will be incredibly hard to manage a system like that if people begin to use it wholeheartedly. A group of ten real people might end up having five guilds in between them that qualify for a base, and more and more will apply over time. Deleting and building the bases will take a bit of effort (at least if how it worked in the past is anything to go by) and so it may happen that some guilds have bases, some bases will be unused, and the system will slow down due to GMs wanting to focus on their own lives and RP.

I had a third point but I forgot it while I was writing. Anyway, it's not my idea to rain on anyone's parade, but I felt I should at least lay out some reservations about the idea.

I like to have RP out in the world and want to see it be semi-open, so it would be nice to see more people being in the scenic locales we got from the expansion. As much as we complained about it, some of my fondest memories from the server are of people coming to cause trouble in Alister's guild hideout. In fact, being able to stick my nose into random places around Azeroth is how I got to know all the interesting people I RPed with here.

[Sorum]

I don't think giving guild bases will just close RP further. The guilds which would deserve to have a base already have something going and they probably already use a place for a 'base'. So moving from that default RP location they use to an actual base which reflects their exact vision won't be an issue at all. I don't think it would encourage more seclusion, the seclusion can happen without a custom base as well. Really now, look at former big guilds like whiteshore house for example. They didn't have a custom base like this and they still stood behind a wall, or at least were very able to.

One way or another, I like the idea, stop being silly. <3

[Jonoth]

Perhaps in the application for such a venue, the question can be raised (similar to that of CMCs) of how the guild intends to foster RP with the base. If the choice of bases given out is decided to be limited, it would make sense to give them to guilds with intentions far beyond their handful of active members.

A noble house, for example, might explain that they intend to invite other houses as well as trade organizations on a regular basis to develop economic RP. A military base could serve as a boot camp taking in whatever meatshield they get their hands on, or even being open as a point of attack for a rival military group. If I still ran the Bloodpaw, the idea probably would be along the lines of combining private plunder with public transport and trade, along with opportunities for later pirate groups to even try and take over the ship.

In short, have both internal and external reasons for doing it. The opportunities for the bases not to become black holes are endless!

[Aisha]

As great as this actually sounds it raises concerns and alarm for me.

Lets start off about secluded RP. As kindly mentioned above by others it is a current trend and theme. It has been for a while now and I'm pretty sure it started with the removal of the vouch system, slowly deteriorating to what we have now. Flawed as it may have been - it was a good poking stick to get people RPing with randoms. So bases or not, if people feel the need for closed RP - it will happen regardless. That's a seperate unrelated issue.

Now then, regarding the concerns and alarm that this brings. It's not as much the actual idea, but the way it would be implemented and handled. I am all for making characters actually getting a visual representation of their achievements IC, but how does forcing too much work on people to maintain bases only to have them eventually taken away sound?

Too much hassle and strain would be placed on the GM team too. Keep track on bases and handle adding/removing them, listening to angry guilds who lost their rights to one, observing the guilds actions and reasoning for improvements. The whole give a treat and then take it away thing will be very bad PR for GMs too. This is why first come - first serve is best.

I say play it safe and get a few custom generic bases going with different themes for everyone to use, rather than risk a public relations disaster by giving presents and then taking them away. Not everyone will be mature enough about that.

Unless you got a fool proof system in mind, I am strictly against this.

(Typed from phone, sorry.)

[Dae]

What I would do is to have them choose an existing IC location as a base and simply build upon that... Literally. The Order of Virtue for example, uses Northshire abbey as its base of operations. It could use maybe some barracks or a kitchen or something like that to make it more suitable as a guild home, but wouldn't do any more separation than what the guild already has going for them.

In general, I'd keep areas guilds have congregated around as public as they typically have been, but allow them to feel a little more as though a whole guild's been living there.

[Psychyn]

The above could work as well possibly, use existing locations but give players the right papers to fully utilize it beyond what a random adventurer is capable off. Granting bases and taking them away may indeed be a problem. (@ Aisha plznovouchsystemtalk.itwashorrible; People only RPed with others that already had the vouches from my experience.) (Though then we may run into people claiming it officially, with some RPs clashing between members.)

The bit with the patch still concerns me, if custom patch objects were added to such locations, the entire place would become weird for newcomers and people without it.

Perhaps we can get some code-monkeys to set up an easy to run program that does everything that's required in one install? "Drag file here, run it, done." Not sure if that's possible, and for those flailing about running .exe's, just add a virus scan log.

Alternatively: Offer an already patched WoW folder up for download and make it the default one the server uses? It isn't going to hurt. We'd still have the Mac users then though.

[Rigley]

Yeah, that's right. Give me more work.

No. Seriously.

Give me more work.

Alright, speaking earnestly now: I don't think guild bases are a bad idea, though personally I prefer a 'guild hall' to a guild base. These would be excessively easy to make as well if we're using a closed-in object, since we could theoretically just spawn floating houses in unuseable terrain and furnish them as they need it. I realize this isn't ideal for everyone though, as some models are a bit more exposed to the elements (belves namely) and others favor camps over a fortification (primarily speaking of horde, though they do have large buildings that could serve the purpose of a guild hall).

A guild hall personally seems like a good medium for me. Off the top of my head I can think of some structures that would work wonderfully for this. As another suggestion, we could even further this by making portal objects that add them 'into the world' if that makes sense. My best example would be spawning an orc barracks with a sealed gate and a portal that takes you to the guild hall itself (thus allowing you to get around the issue of patch objects in the open world), but this would be limited to a degree due to space and the like. Still, I believe making them 'findable' locations could be interesting.

Just some thoughts from me. Also:

On Removing Guild Bases- This would be sorely impractical. It would be more beneficial to convert defunct guild bases into general rp areas or offer them to other guilds. I don't believe we would build a base and then break it down unless the plot of land was REALLY useful for something else. It'd be too much of a hassle and would be a waste of work.

[SachikoMaeda]

In spirit of Warlords of Draenor allowing for bases to be built, I suggest we allow the making of guild bases.

[Mathias]

Reigen beat me until I came here, so I'll post my opinion.

No.

Why? Because our player population is small, players like to move around a lot, they don't want to stay in one location forever unless there's a big storyline there. After that, they'll move on. How many people bother with Uldum when there isn't a storyline there? How many people bothered with Hyjal until the storyline started? How many people care about Tol Barad when there wasn't an event? The same thing would happen with Guild Bases. Sure, it might get some interest for a time, everyone and their damn mother would apply for a base, and GMs would have to make sure the base looked juuuuust right for the player and their guild, and the guild is happy. They RP there for a time, secluding themselves from the outside world like certain popular guilds did when they got big enough to basically dominate the server.

But player population is small, players like to move around a lot, they don't want to stay in one location forever unless there's a big storyline there.

Guilds do not last forever. Player population is small. Guilds rise, advance, and at the apex of their glory, they are extinguished. So now we got these big bases, either out in the world or somewhere more secluded, just being ugly and taking up room that we could use to build something else, all because someone wanted a unique base when they are a few good number of RP locations, fit for most anyone to use, that get ignored.

Guild bases would be a waste of time to build, because their shine would wear off in a few days or weeks.