Why so many new guilds?

[bktroost]

I keep seeing posts about new guilds forming and I ask myself why that is. Some of them have specific goals like baking and crafting guilds and EC trading guilds. But there is such a wide variety of guilds out there now I wonder why people arn't just forming up with an established one.

I know I made AG years ago because, at the time, I looked into the character and goals of the other, more popular, guilds and couldn't find a casual raiding guild that didn't poopsock ect, still got mobs of some kind, had a family mentality and was generally well liked in the community. But I feel like things have changed, there are such a variety of guilds out there now and everyone seems to be getting loot of some kind.

So are we as leaders not doing enough to advertise our guilds and what we are like? Is there anything we can do to show our character more and be more approachable across the board? I know the video thing that Tiggles did was probably a step forward.

Any thoughts?

[skipdog]

Yep, new guilds are forming.

And you think it is because current guild leaders are not doing enough to advertise their guilds and what they are like? You sure managed to fit a nice advertisement for your own guild in your own post on server chat...

And you also think it is somehow a 'problem" that merits you making this post to speak to other guilds about preventing this 'problem' of 'new guilds being formed'?

Is this real life?

[Pint]

I'm also a little confused, why are new guilds an issue? Most new players probably don't want to be member #50 in a guild full of established players

[Darkyle]

everyone seems to be getting loot of some kind.

I thought that was the idea of Class R coming around? Not flaming here just pointing out that was what everyone seemed to want.

[Daldaen]

I'm also a little confused, why are new guilds an issue? Most new players probably don't want to be member #50 in a guild full of established players
I'd imagine they don't want to be guild member #5 of 10 either.

I think the comment is it's thinning the size of guilds too much, maybe? I'm not quite sure.

[Danth]

Middle tier guilds come and go. Much of the time they take the same general pattern of initial recruitment with modest plans, followed by a taste of raiding, then wanting more and pushing more until they no longer resemble their original intent. Usually that's followed by internal turmoil and much of the core splitting away to one of the long-term established guilds with the rest of the guild breaking up 5 or 6 months later and the players drifting to other new guilds to begin the process anew.

I like a guild with no attendance policy, no DKP, and that's permanently happy to stick to second- or third-tier content. Such guilds are few and far between on P1999 since the great majority of established guilds are either high-end or wish they could be but can't really compete with the present top contenders. A couple of the newcomer guilds seem to suit me (for now) so I'll enjoy it for the time being and not worry about where things'll be 6 months hence.

Danth

[sox7d]

ITT: why are you wasting your time if you'll never raid?


interesting point, though. i remember when bregan was a spam guild ran by a retarded lvl 35 druid and tried to lead a raid on runnyeye.

[bktroost]

Whoa, no, this is going in a different direction that i thought it would. I'm just thinking about my server on live. There were like 5 or 6 major guilds and a few minor ones that enjoyed things other than raiding. Seems there are a ton more guilds nowadays then there were on live.

You are saying the idea of vying for loot as member #50 seems more daunting than creating your own guild and vying for loot among 10ish guilds ranging between semi-organized to hardcore?

...I guess that doesn't make sense to me.

[Lojik]

Whoa, no, this is going in a different direction that i thought it would. I'm just thinking about my server on live. There were like 5 or 6 major guilds and a few minor ones that enjoyed things other than raiding. Seems there are a ton more guilds nowadays then there were on live.

You are saying the idea of vying for loot as member #50 seems more daunting than creating your own guild and vying for loot among 10ish guilds ranging between semi-organized to hardcore?

...I guess that doesn't make sense to me.

While the server population here only reaches 1/2 of what it was on live at any one time, think of all the players that have come and gone, and the players that are only here for a short time. Probably way more people have played on this server than played on a single server on live by kunark/velious timeline. People arriving late probably want guilds with people similar to their level (mains.)

[Swish]

"Why should I be a small fish in your guild when you can be a small fish in mine?" :rolleyes:

I agree though, too many really.

[bktroost]

While the server population here only reaches 1/2 of what it was on live at any one time, think of all the players that have come and gone, and the players that are only here for a short time. Probably way more people have played on this server than played on a single server on live by kunark/velious timeline. People arriving late probably want guilds with people similar to their level (mains.)

So you are suggesting that the multitude of other guilds are being created by newer players who want a place to fit in at lower levels. That most of the dedicated players are already in guilds. I can see that-- but don't we have a number of guilds who's mission statement is to reach out to that demographic? The starter guilds, so to speak?

[chief]

why would I put my alt in a class C guild when I could just make a class R guild and get uncontested mobs? /tinfoil

[Lojik]

So you are suggesting that the multitude of other guilds are being created by newer players who want a place to fit in at lower levels. That most of the dedicated players are already in guilds. I can see that-- but don't we have a number of guilds who's mission statement is to reach out to that demographic? The starter guilds, so to speak?

Well they start as starter guilds, but then slowly the average level rises and they are no longer a starter guild. Knights is pretty much the only one that continually seeks out new players I think. Plus recently EQmac shutting down a bunch of people moving over slowly from there, and from the looks of it some people gonna start migrating from live.

[Argh]

With a rotation it's mostly pointless for guilds to exceed 30-40 players. From here on out people will be forming new guilds rather than joining existing ones.

[Shaakglith12194]

Well they start as starter guilds, but then slowly the average level rises and they are no longer a starter guild. Knights is pretty much the only one that continually seeks out new players I think. Plus recently EQmac shutting down a bunch of people moving over slowly from there, and from the looks of it some people gonna start migrating from live.

What's going on with Live that people would start migrating?

[Pint]

Whoa, no, this is going in a different direction that i thought it would. I'm just thinking about my server on live. There were like 5 or 6 major guilds and a few minor ones that enjoyed things other than raiding. Seems there are a ton more guilds nowadays then there were on live.

You are saying the idea of vying for loot as member #50 seems more daunting than creating your own guild and vying for loot among 10ish guilds ranging between semi-organized to hardcore?

...I guess that doesn't make sense to me.

I'm saying people in the 20s and 30s don't care how daunting getting loot is bc they'd rather just have a bunch of other lvl 20 and 30/ to grind and enjoy the process with

[Danth]

I'm just thinking about my server on live. There were like 5 or 6 major guilds and a few minor ones that enjoyed things other than raiding..

I'll hazard a guess that either your memory is playing tricks on you or your server was in some way exceptional. Eq-Live servers during the Kunark/Velious era typically had 2K-3K players online at peak, and even more in a few exceptional cases. I don't think any of them had only 10 or 12 guilds serverwide. Certainly none of the many servers I played on had so few guilds. Odds are the multitude of third-tier or lower guilds simply escaped the notice of your memory.

Likewise, in a couple years time most of the present crop of new P1999 guilds will be forgotten. How relevant is <Rusty Long Swords> today?

Danth

[Fael]

Divide and conquer it is said. The OP has a point.



Dolic

[Ajkuhuun]

Speaking for myself, the reason that I formed my own guild is because I felt that the current guilds didn't quite have what I was looking for. I needed a guild with absolutely no commitment, where folks could log on after a month break and still have a tag, where folks completely understood how having a young child, or job which may call you in spur of the moment, or spouse can really affect your gameplay, where most of them got whatever weird retro reference I was referring to. That wasn't just for me, I wanted to be surrounded by people in similar situations, folks with severely limited or sporadic playtime, not just a few folks that would identify while the rest of them just plain don't understand.

I'm here for the community, if I see my epic one day, fabulous, if not oh well. The folks I'm guilded with feel the same way, because they were after a niche community as well. It works for us.

And yes there are some really great guilds out there, in fact quite a few have reached out to us as a fledgling guild offering discount services for folks new to the game, etc. Amazing guilds out there, there just wasn't one that quite met my needs at this time in my life.

[Splorf22]

With a rotation it's mostly pointless for guilds to exceed 30-40 players. From here on out people will be forming new guilds rather than joining existing ones.

+1.

Also, from the perspective of the existing guilds, why add players? I know that The A-Team has a bit of a unique attitude there but BDA, Taken, AG, Europa etc already roll with 50. I would imagine at some point they would start restricting membership.

[Tecmos Deception]

Seems there are a ton more guilds nowadays then there were on live.

99% sure you are misremembering. There were twice the players on live servers; no way there were fewer guilds (except maybe for the 1-player guilds you see on p99).

[Lojik]

+1.

Also, from the perspective of the existing guilds, why add players? I know that The A-Team has a bit of a unique attitude there but BDA, Taken, AG, Europa etc already roll with 50. I would imagine at some point they would start restricting membership.

People come, people go. I don't really see too many guilds restricting membership.

[Lojik]

99% sure you are misremembering. There were twice the players on live servers; no way there were fewer guilds (except maybe for the 1-player guilds you see on p99).

There were twice the live players at any one time, but I bet the number of individuals who have logged on this server is at least triple that of any live server at any point during velious or before.

[myriverse]

Not enough new guilds.

And chances are, that for every guild you remember on live, there were 10 guilds you don't remember.

[errorlvlacro]

With the recent changes in raiding and the influx of a couple hundred people or so it's not surprise to me that people are coming in and wanting to create their own guilds on this newly found server of theirs. I think the influx of people recently are enough to explain where they are coming from or they are people wanting alts in a new guild possibly that are having more downtime then they'd like in their main guild?

[phacemeltar]

i really enjoyed my time in Verite. this was a small group of players that was recruiting new members based on small-group needs for guild runs. there was no requirement for alts to be in guild, only requirement was that you had to be active or your spot would be filled.

sadly, Soloist had to quit playing for one reason or another, but we had some really great times as a group.

i think this is a great idea for a guild, having it be objective-based as opposed to being a social-club. the only issue is some players outlevelling others, and eventually being unable to group together.

unfortunately i think a primary focus of most players on p99 is getting to lvl 60 so you can join TMO/FB/BDA/etc.. therefore the 1-54 grind is irrelevant

[HeallunRumblebelly]

Middle tier guilds come and go. Much of the time they take the same general pattern of initial recruitment with modest plans, followed by a taste of raiding, then wanting more and pushing more until they no longer resemble their original intent. Usually that's followed by internal turmoil and much of the core splitting away to one of the long-term established guilds with the rest of the guild breaking up 5 or 6 months later and the players drifting to other new guilds to begin the process anew.

I like a guild with no attendance policy, no DKP, and that's permanently happy to stick to second- or third-tier content. Such guilds are few and far between on P1999 since the great majority of established guilds are either high-end or wish they could be but can't really compete with the present top contenders. A couple of the newcomer guilds seem to suit me (for now) so I'll enjoy it for the time being and not worry about where things'll be 6 months hence.

Danth

Eh, that worked on live. There is no third tier content on p99. We've killed Maestro on pretty much every spawn for the last 5 years. And we'll continue to do so until hand starts dropping hands :p

[Danth]

Hi Heallun! I agree it's more problematic living in the lower tiers here than it was on Live, not necessarily due to the content though (I couldn't care less about what specific critters I do or don't fight) so much as because it feels as though a higher proportion of the player base here wants to see the high-end game. Hence lower-tier guilds on P99 seem to implode even more quickly than their Live equivalents tended to. I suspect a lot of folks on P99 didn't get to the top on Live and use P1999 to try to do the things they never got to do back in the day.

I can't fault them for that (we're all here for our own reasons), and can't complain either since I'm not willing to put forth the work of trying to run a guild myself (been there done that, hated it). Managed to do everything I've cared to do on P99 for Kunark in spite of the difficulties so it isn't so bad really. I'd prefer if I could find a modest-size guild of genuinely like-minded players, but if I don't, so be it.

Danth

[radditsu]

Rotation rotation rotation

[Bazia]

OP just cut to the chase and bitch about the fact that now there's a rotation people are forming guilds that will down the road expect uncontested raid loot

[slappytwotoes]

OP just cut to the chase and bitch about the fact that now there's a rotation people are forming guilds that will down the road expect uncontested raid loot

And wait 3 months for a target? Ain't nobody got time for that

[mnemonikos82]

Oh lord jesus it's a fire?

[webrunner5]

Problem on here is most top end guilds require you to be at least level 45 or 50. Not very noob friendly in that respect.

So you join another guild that takes you and unless you are a HARDCORE raider you will probably stay in it instead of going to TMO etc. So it breeds more and more "Lesser" guilds on here. I don't see a problem with it.

[Clark]

I like a guild with no attendance policy, no DKP, and that's permanently happy to stick to second- or third-tier content.

DKP is the only way you could have a shot at a boss item in that sort of system so I guess I'm confused. Otherwise corrupt officer councils would horde and use favoritism over the rare kills. Just like a slew of loot councils guilds that have either come and gone, or are still around across the last four years.

[Quineloe]

What's going on with Live that people would start migrating?

Sony dumped 500 free AAs on everyone with a premium account or something and people don't like it.

[jarshale]

Sony dumped 500 free AAs on everyone with a premium account or something and people don't like it.

They dumped a couple thousand AA's. Which invalidates thousands of hours of grinding for many many people.

[bartly]

One thing I don't understand about a raid rotation, what is there to stop a top tier guild from just forming another guild with their alternate characters and monopolizing more content?

Guilds that were taking every major spawn certainly aren't going to be content with 2 FFA spawns then sitting on their thumbs for the rest of the day.

[Psychok]

Speaking as a newer player that just started in the last few months on p99, it's nice to see new guilds forming [that have plans to raid eventually]. I had some friends from EQ live that got me started here and then quit a few weeks after.

I raided end game for years on live and I am itching to do some raiding now on p99. However, while it would be nice to jump into raiding on p99 right now, I don't want to be 1 of 10 chanters (or pick your class) in any of these guilds (i.e. TMO, BDA, etc.). I'd also rather not be part of a team where each member has 5 lvl 60 epic'd alts at their disposal to fill any roll needed. I'd rather be part of a smaller core team that has high play time folks where I am needed and counted on to be part of their success.

Trying to find a guild that will be raid ready in a month or so that does not have 300 members seems to be a challenge but hoping it turns out the way I have planned it.

[Naada]

Pantheon rising pretty much came with our own members. Yeah we have some people that were here before pantheon rising was made but most of our members came from the pantheon kickstarter comments section. We were originally going to play vanguard but on the day we decided on it they announce its closing. So we decided eq and we are very happy with our choice

[Oogei]

DKP is the only way you could have a shot at a boss item in that sort of system so I guess I'm confused. Otherwise corrupt officer councils would horde and use favoritism over the rare kills. Just like a slew of loot councils guilds that have either come and gone, or are still around across the last four years.

I'm a pretty big supporter of loot councils, just not sure about in EQ. I feel like it would be pretty troublesome tracking HPS/DPS and how people react to raid encounters, aoe dmg etc. though ive never looked up maybe parsers or logs for eq, just not sure how loot council will work. It was much more efficient in WoW where you can easily track those things, then a rogue doing 1kdps/standing in aoe gets less loot than the rogue with 10kdps/pays attention

[myriverse]

The system will control itself. Either a guild will thrive and grow, coast and stagnate, or decay and die; each on its own terms. No one should find any problem with it. Not every guild is going to reach TMO levels; not every guild wants to.

Edit:
As of a month ago, according to the P99 Character Database (which is done from parsing /who queries), there were about 260-odd guilds on the server. That seems like a shitton, but I think the guild "One Man Wolfpack" exemplifies the true nature of P99 (in name, at least). By the FREE nature of P99, people are free to create and create until their hearts are content. Here is a guild that seems to have reached its goal right out of the gate: a one-man guild.

Think of how many Level 1 throwaway alts are just collecting pixel dust, not even being used as mules. The same is likely true of guilds.

Maybe today I'll create the guild "Cats on the Moon."

[webrunner5]

Maybe today I'll create the guild "Cats on the Moon."

I will be the FIRST to join. :p

[cries4hardcore]

OP just cut to the chase and bitch about the fact that now there's a rotation people are forming guilds that will down the road expect uncontested raid loot

This

[stewe]

I think you should read most of the bigger and older guilds pages in the guild section, almost every big, older guild requires level 40-45 minimum level just to join, kinda hard for newer players to join guilds that don't want them til they get higher level.

[innocent51]

From a fresh player point of view:
Most top guilds are invisible to new players.
Members are 60 and almost don't cross guild group, when they have twinks they play together, get PLed (annon) or have enough gear to plainly skip groups (fungies, epics, even VP gear...).

If you /who zones or classes you also dont much see guild names. Raiding? /role, Farming? /annon, PLing? /annon, grouping high kunark dungeons? /role, auctioning in EC? /annon

This is not a rant it is just how EQ works but i understand the feeling of "guild structure lacking" to new players. And if you create a guild and decide to invite leveling people its quite fast. See how Pantheon Rising tag spread around, most of its members I'v talked to do not even know why the guild has this name.

[jarinaEQ1]

Everybody have his reason to make guild. From my pov size of guild if only a parameter in your choice. Yes most a 'biggest' have restrictions for recruitement. Europa have min lvl 20 and small waiting list too avoid tag without talk with recruits.

Others parameterd to join a guild are language, reputation, feeling, raids rules, What you want from a guild.

[Clark]

From a fresh player point of view:
Most top guilds are invisible to new players.
Members are 60 and almost don't cross guild group, when they have twinks they play together, get PLed (annon) or have enough gear to plainly skip groups (fungies, epics).

This is not a rant it is just how EQ works but I understand the feeling of "guild structure lacking" to new players. And if you create a guild and decide to invite leveling people its quite fast. See how Pantheon Rising tag spread around, most of its members I'v talked to do not even know why the guild has this name.

:D Good post.

[Coolname]

newer player to server ..hits 55 lets say

choices;

A) TMO/fe - not a choice he would need 60, resists gear plus other things, also maybe even a few friends to help open the doors (depending on class and playtime)

B) AG - easier than tmo but still heavily restricted.. still need resists gear and must jump threw hoops to get an invite (like grouping with every officer? tracking down the officers yourself? waiting 30 days? dealing with 50+ other players with set cliques? having high playtime to join a casual guild?)

C) newly formed guild - easy invite, less cliques, less drama jump right into fear/hate (which is what fresh 55's want!). downside; noobs,bad players,casuals,quitters,fair-weather players,high turnover and no meaningful raiding unless they progress.

[myriverse]

^ Progress is a funny thing. It can whatever you want it to mean.