Stacking Stamina

Guilds in Cataclysm

I realize that I promised this article 2 weeks ago, and it has taken a while to get it out. The good news is that what would have started out as an angry ranting bitch-fest has tempered into a solid frustration with at least a bit of insight into the “why” of Blizzard’s decisions regarding the new guild system.

Blizzard had originally announced a talented guild system wherein guilds could choose how to form and grow their guilds. This would help establish a guild identity, and give a few nice perks along the way. This was one of the more exciting features to roll in with the new expansion pack, and they really let us down by removing it later.

Though my knee-jerk reaction is to get really cheesed that we were promised something and then never got it (Dance Studio anyone?), in the end most of the design goals are still there, but with a less exciting implementation.

What they announced:

• Guilds level up and get talents to buy neat abilities/perks
• Guilds have a currency system to buy fun things
• Guilds have a better management system

What we’re (probably) getting:

• Guilds level up and get neat abilities/persk
• Guilds have a rep system for members, who can buy things with gold
• Guilds have a “better” management system

So… basically the same sorts of things, but in a not-quite-as-fun package. It’s sort of like really looking forward to that top-of-the-line product, only to end up buying the knock-off brand that does the same thing, but isn’t nearly as cool. I think there was a lot of fun baked in with achieving some design goals. Now it just feels like a design overhaul that gives us a few nice things. At the end of the day, without the Pop-Flash of the original talent and currency system, the whole thing just feels “meh.”

This system still gives more active and better established guilds an edge, which prevents nerd-rage-gquit-tantrum guilds. You know the ones… they spring up with five core members, then disband within a month. As a guild leader, I like the idea that my successful guild can really create some benefits that will hold more finicky guild members in place long enough for me to resolve the problem. I’m glad that’s still there, but it needs to take a while for guild members to acquire high rep and good rewards or these new spin-off guilds will still be a problem.

I also like that the reputation system will (hopefully) allow me to make things like guild vault access a more natural thing. I can set a tab to “Friendly” and another to “Revered” so that I don’t have to remember to monitor member’s contribution and then promote them up through different initiate threw veteran ranks on a regular basis. I can just assign what I think is reasonable and let the reputation system take care of the rest.

Some of the things we haven’t heard about, and I think are really important, are more management tools like being able to in-game associate a member with their alts. Doing this would help figure out who Dkofawesome, the level 58 DK is. Yeah, they’re in the guild and have the “alt” rank… but no one left a note to say who they are. Then, can I take their word for it when they say they’re one of my veteran members? A system for identifying these people would help a LOT.

How about some updates to the mediocre calendar system? It’d be nice to be able to mass invite everyone for a raid, right from the calendar. It’d also be nice to see, at a glance, who signed-up for the event and is also online. Maybe let me know the person is online and not in my raid group. Little things like that would go a long way to making the game a bit easier on starting raids up. That’s 15 more minutes I get to spend killing bosses instead of /who and /invite and “is so-in-so on an alt?” I know there are addons that do this, but I’m a bit of a purist and think that simple functions such as this should really be part of the stock UI.

Blizzard is really missing some huge opportunities here. Though they’re leaving everyone disappointed because they took the “cool factor” out of the new features and tools, they also are missing the chance to really make the guild system work so much better. Just a few UI teaks, and the whole thing becomes more manageable. I really hope their planning on some improvements and just haven’t announced them yet. Because, you know… we kind of get attached to things they promise us. Like… gee… Ghostcrawler… where’s my pony?