Associations - The Ideal Guild

The history of player guilds (or clans if you're familiar with FPS') has been one that is very interesting to say the least. They have started, needless to say, as entailing a very basic structure: a collection of like-minded individuals simply. Then, as the evolution began, we see the monarchies of Asheron's Call (which will be explained a little later) to the fusion of guild and community that we see in Star Wars Galaxies.

As I have said before, countless times, there are a number of things that Star Wars Galaxies hasn't done right, or missed the mark on, but player associations (or guilds) is certainly not one of them. Thus far, and in the foreseeable future as well, they are the only ones not only to improve the guild function but to fuse other elements as well. Though that's getting a little ahead now.

It would be best to start with the beginnings of guilds to understand not only how far they've come but to show why guilds in Star Wars Galaxies are done so well. As I eluded to earlier, guilds started out very basic and I like to call these early forms clans more than anything. We see these in games like EverQuest where there is a leader, officers and everyone else are members. It is a very rigid structure but one that is simple and easy to understand.

Interestingly enough as well, when guilds were still fairly basic (in the 1st generation MMORPG era) there came a startling evolution some people say, but I'm more inclined to say revolution, and that occurred in Asheron's Call. The monarchy system, as I mentioned before, is what seemed to have revolutionized guilds at the time but unfortunately the effect didn't seem to last.

Since Asheron's Call was a low population game (namely due to EverQuest and Ultima Online) there are a lot of people not familiar with the game or its system so I'll take this time to explain how the monarchy system worked. In short, in order to join the monarchy (or guild) you had to swear allegiance to a person in the guild. The persons you swore to were called patrons and he or she could have twelve of them and the person who swore became known as a vassal. Through the natural course of adventuring, the vassal gains experience and sent up a "bonus" amount [of experience points] to their patron and they were rewarded by the patron based on their effects. This provided a mutual beneficial relationship, not to mention the benefits from the guild itself. The monarchy, besides this part, worked like most guilds: leader (monarch) and officers (high level and ranking patrons).

For the first few years of the life of Asheron's Call this system worked very well and exactly like it was suppose to but as time went on things didn't work out too well (this is why the system didn't have a lasting impact). There was a skill which every patron could obtain called "Leadership" and this skill increased the amount of experience points they received through vassals (and they had a skill called "Loyalty" which maximized experience points passed up). An exploit was uncovered called "experience chains" which, if patrons and vassals were put in the right order would result in massive amount of experience points for everyone. By and large, it was left unchecked.

It is quite sad, or so I find anyway, that monarchies had to end this way but they had a very important factor that will have an impact on the future: it created a relationship (patron to vassal) that benefited both parties tremendously. In short, it fostered a feeling of comradeship that, believe it or not, is really shown well in Star Wars Galaxies.

I know what you're saying: I just jumped ahead in time tremendously. I do this because I don't think any game before Star Wars Galaxies made any leaps and bounds when it comes to guild development, everything more or less stayed the same. Sony Online Entertainment's flagship game, EverQuest II certainly did, but it came after Star Wars Galaxies and hence is beyond our concern in this article.

Star Wars Galaxies first shows the comradeship in a critical part of the player association system in Star Wars Galaxies: player cities. Quite obviously, as well, this is helped by a fundamental philosophy in the game: mutual interdependence among the player base. But still, in the past guild members would help each other in achieving raid goals, for instance, but now, in Star Wars Galaxies, that aid is needed to run a successful guild.

As I said already, player cities are a large part of player associations in Star Wars Galaxies: if the city is not well run then I don't consider any guild a player association. Given this, proper measures need to be put in place: namely guild support of its tradespersons in more ways then just buying goods: "leveling up" the city in order to make it a viable crafting environment.

It goes much further too: protecting player versus player bases that belong to the city and player participation in the city through re-electing a mayor that does a lot of good to the city, let's not forget the militia as well.

One critical item to take into consideration as well: all of these things work extremely well in paper and in practice. We saw that in Asheron's Call after a few years of practice that the monarchy system had some serious flaws that were left unchecked. Not the Star Wars Galaxies player associations and there is no reason to believe there will be anytime soon.

There is also one other item that makes the Star Wars Galaxies player associations so good, which really fosters comradeship: the role of factions. Most guilds, and yes I know some are not, are strictly one faction or the other: Rebel of Imperial. Through this element it brings unity to the guild, especially if the server the guild is on is heavily focused on the player versus player element: they will not only believe in the same things but defend each other if need be.

Player Associations or "guilds" if you will, were extremely well done by the development team and I'm not surprised it was SOE who did it. As I mentioned earlier, this very same development company is the one who really expanded guilds in EverQuest II and having played both games I can attest to how well both systems are done.

Good guilds, or player associations, foster a great community which leads to a games long term success. Put aside the fallings of Star Wars Galaxies but because of player associations, communities and other items, this game will be around for a very long time and enjoy tremendous success, long term, once all the ailments are remedied.