Sean Dahlberg Editorial on Guild Management

Did anyone else see this editorial on guild management? I think this is the first time I've come across it so apologies if someone has posted this before. 'Tis quite interesting anyway.

I know I often jump down ol' Sean's throat about stuff but he does raise some really good points:

* Collecting Dues:
How much easier would it be for people to have a single 1-click interface to pay a monthly tithe to a guild to keep it running rather than having to arrange a place in game each and every time they have a large (or small!) sum of money they want to give to their guild? the best I have seen anyone achieve in this regard is a Guild Bank in WoW, as it makes a note of who deposited what, and the Guild Master has full control over who takes out what. One of the things I did like about lotro was the housing system, with just one click (anywhere in the game world) you could pay the rent on your abode for that month - imagine if you had the same interface to pay a guild fee? that'd rock.

* Salaries and Awards:
This just sounds awesome and would be SO beneficial to this guild. I don't think (and I don't think Sean was suggesting either) that it would allow an auto-amount to come out of guild funds on a set basis straight into players personal accounts, but imagine how much easier it would be for a Guild Master to be able to give money to players for specific jobs or tasks well done? Imagine the RP possibilites! Bounty Hunters could get PAID.
Really hope they implement this one!

* Guild Bank / Vault:
Great idea Sean, but you're a bit behind the times mate WoW and a few other MMORPGs have had a fully visualized UI guild bank/vault for a couple of years now, but thanks for thinking of us

* Activity Ledger:
This'd rock. If they impliment this successfully into the MMO I'd love BioWare forever. Many games have tried this but it has been clumsy at best, troublesome at worst. In the end most GMs rely on just checking the "last online" part in most social windows which is vague at best, as it doesnt show how much someone has been on.

* Guild Calendar / Events:
Again, already done - see "Guild Bank / Vault" above.

As I said though, he covers some good points and its nice to see someone taking an interest.
Interesting point is that this article was written in May 05, 2006. I wonder how much of this he's been able to impliment into TOR?

To be honest the best guild set up I've seen is in WAR. You could pay a percentage of the cash you looted back into the guild fund which was pretty handy. It also had the option to change your rank title but it was limited and not customizable. But aye it had a guild bank/vault and stuff which was really quite cool. I wouldn't mind seeing a similar yet more advanced version of this in TOR. Salaries and an Activity Log are a great idea too!

Never got as far as a guild in WAR, the game became to dull for me when I discovered it wasn't for non pvp players

I know that from a crafter's point of view, having a guild crafting calender + item demand list (designated crafter's could then put accurate requests for materials, whilst producing items that people would want) would be a fantastic thing, and that way we could see what important items would be required for the next stage. But that's just for my nerdy crafting which most are not interested in, so that is mainly a niche thing opposed to operating tools.

Thats a great idea novemtum. I myself am a bit of a crafting nut (if the system is a good one) so I'd find that particularly handy.

I hope Sean's article isn't a hint at what we're all going to have to manage without the help of in-game systems. There are plenty of points there, like you guys say, that have been addressed and implemented into the mechanics of other MMOs. Hopefully some clever bod a BioWare will be championing guild tools.

Sureshot wrote:

Thats a great idea novemtum. I myself am a bit of a crafting nut (if the system is a good one) so I'd find that particularly handy.

To be fair its not too hard to set-up outside of the game with active forum members, and certain elements are required to be forum based like requests, and crafting order for the week; but in game tools, would make this more efficient, such as a board ingame where you can list desired items and then the crafter's can pick them off one by one therefore speeding the process up. Obviously all this can be done offline, but an ingame system would be ace.

Offline would require a request page, an assignment page and a complete work done for each week, but like any human system the request is missed in the weekly carry over. Usually with a enough people crafting it's not a problem, however if you have a couple of people doing it you get a backlog of about a week causing problems.

Anyway I would hope that Bioware will be forward thinking, and that they provide too many tool instead of not enough, as is often the case.

Anyway I thought it would be interesting to see what other people think are important tools so I started a tread on SWTOR

The thing I'd like the most is a Guild hangar or base which was customisable, and we could invite fellow allies to visit. The reason I said hangar is because It would be cool if we could admire everyone's vehicles (assuming they are in the game).

A hanger? Naw, we need an office block I reckon with our own administrators! After all, we are an agency. Failing that, a cantina-gone-meeting-room would be a great bet. In any case, these points that Sean has raised are interesting.