Importance of Guilds to Community

You know, it’s nice to see what the Mythic guys are doing with WAR by giving guilds some meaning in that game.  In WoW, and pretty much most other MMOs, guilds are simply chat channels and comrades with which to group or raid with.  EQ2 started something by having guild levels and guild prestige & such, and WAR is compounding that by having 100 guild levels with each member able to contribute to the guild.

This is nice to see in a MMO, really.  Same with guild alliances.

Strengthening a bond between guildies is something more games should strive for.  Guilds should be something that represents much more than an extra chat channel in your chat window, or a name in <>’s under your character’s name.  A guild needs to represent the entirety of the efforts that each of it’s members have put in.

Right now, guilds get famous for world firsts in raids (Death & Taxes and Nihilum come to mind).

Wouldn’t it be cool if all guilds could really help build notoriety by being “Hey, they were the first guild to Rank XYZ!”  I really do like the way Warhammer is molding their guild model, especially with guild banners that are apparantly able to be stolen by your enemy and taken as trophies.  That’s just plain awesome.  This builds another layer of guild competition to the fray, and helps get so many more people involved with the game as a whole.

~ by jgriffiths on August 12, 2007.