Officers' Quarters: Guild reputation in Cataclysm
by Scott Andrews 
Jun 28th 2010 at 1:00PM
Two weeks ago, Blizzard revealed all the latest updates concerning their game plan for Cataclysm. Among them were a host of changes to the new guild systems and a guild UI overhaul, which were originally announced at BlizzCon 2009. Last week, I discussed Blizzard's decision to axe guild talent trees in favor of automatic perks at each level. Most of you disagreed with me on the issue, and I wasn't surprised. Most people would rather have all the perks, and I understand that. I still believe that offering guilds a way to define themselves using in-game elements would be incredibly useful, but we'll have to keep waiting for that.
Moving on to another part of Blizzard's plan for guilds, I'd like to talk about guild reputation and where I'd like to see Blizzard go with it.
No more guild currency
Part of the announcement in mid-June was that guild currency as an idea has been scrapped. Instead, players will be able to purchase rewards with gold. I don't think anyone is mourning the loss of yet another type of currency.
To replace this feature, Blizzard is implementing guild reputation. Players will be able to earn rep with the guild itself until they reach Exalted status by doing the same things that help the guild level: killing bosses, winning PvP battles, questing and earning guild achievements. Reputation will, in turn, allow players to purchase rewards with gold, just like NPC factions.
Anything that helps to reward guild loyalty is, in my opinion, to be celebrated. I heartily endorse this system. I'm sure players will still leave and join guilds as they've done in the past when they feel it's necessary, but my hope is that spontaneous, anger-induced guild-hopping will be less common. In the past, switching guilds had very little consequence. Now there will be actual ramifications for doing so. Hopefully more players will think twice before doing something drastic. Time will tell if players actually care about guild rep, but I'm encouraged by this implementation. If nothing else, Blizzard wants players to care, and that is something.
Another missed opportunity
Much like the decision to move forward without a guild talent tree, I think Blizzard is missing a huge opportunity here as well. It's fine to give guild rep for actions that players would normally perform in the course of their game time. That way, players who don't want to think about it don't have to think about it.
However, the system could take into account so much more. Some players do want to think about earning guild rep. Wouldn't it be excellent to reward players who go above and beyond to help the guild? What about the player who spends an hour clicking bobbers in Wintergrasp every week to provide Fish Feasts for the raid? What about the player who takes raw gems out of the bank, cuts them and puts them back? Shouldn't these players be rewarded, too?
Maybe it's asking too much of Blizzard's code, but what if officers could provide weekly quests to their guild members? What I'd love to see is a system built into the guild UI that allows an officer to make a request for a certain amount of items, such as 10 Fish Feasts or five Eternal Belt Buckles, once per week. Players could pick up this quest from an NPC -- call it a "Guild Herald." When a player completes the quest, the items are placed in a specific guild bank tab known as the Quest tab. As a reward, the player could earn guild reputation, experience and, of course, gold.
These quests couldn't be just anything. The possibilities for exploits would be rampant, and the code would be much more difficult, if an officer could request any amount of any item.
In theory, the quests could be randomly selected from a pool of options just like the raiding weeklies. After all, there are only so many different items that a guild needs to function. On the other hand, by allowing the officers to control the quests, the leadership could address areas of need as they crop up. I also feel like allowing a bit of interactivity here would be beneficial for guild morale. A player could say to herself, "The officers needed some epic yellow gems. I helped them out and got a reward. Everybody wins."
For those who are more interested in lore or roleplaying, guild quests could also target a specific boss or enemy-faction NPC. Wouldn't it be more fun to send your members on a quest to kill the flight master at the Crossroads rather than doing it just to be jerks?
In-game EPGP?
If you're not familiar with EPGP, there's a good summary at WoWWiki. Extrapolating on the ideas of guild quests, guild reputation and guild rewards, what we're closing in on is a way to implement guild-wide EPGP without using an addon. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I haven't used any addons for loot (as one commenter correctly guessed, it's because other officers took care of that during the time when we used a DKP system). Therefore, I am by no means an expert on how these addons work.
However, to me, if we take the idea of guild reputation far enough, couldn't Blizzard give us what is essentially an in-game EPGP addon that updates in real time? What if the reputation points you earn for killing raid bosses also give you loot points, provided you did so with your guild? Completing guild quests related to raiding consumables, equipment and costs could also give you said loot points. Perhaps you could even get points from zoning into the appropriate raid instance during a 20-minute window prior to any raid scheduled using the in-game calendar.
When loot drops in a guild raid, players could then bid those points on what drops. The game would award the item to the winner and deduct the points accordingly. Item values and point decay could be automatic or customizable.
Since it wouldn't work out very well with PUGs, this system obviously couldn't be mandatory. But it could be a UI loot option just like loot master or group loot from the drop-down menu.
Does this bring us back to another new form of currency? Well, I guess it does. Would it be worth it? I think many raiders would say yes.
Looking to the future
Hey, we all want to see Cataclysm go live this year, so no one wants Blizzard to try to pack in a bunch of new, unannounced features at this point. Still, I urge the developers to consider other possibilities for their guild reputation system in the future. I see great opportunities here to enhance the guild experience for everyone and to make life easier for officers.
/salute
Send Scott your guild-related questions, conundrums, ideas and suggestions at scott@wow.com. You may find your question the subject of next week's Officers' Quarters!Filed under: Officers' Quarters (Guild Leadership)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Fr0styz Jun 28th 2010 1:08PM
completely worth it
Kemikalkadet Jun 28th 2010 1:11PM
I love the idea of donation quests to reward feast makers and flask makers etc. It'd be a bit like the argent dawn or the AQ war effort quests back in vanilla except the things you make would actually be used rather than being handed to an NPC.
scuba frog Jun 28th 2010 7:34PM
I was thinking more of Today's Quest is Fish Feast.
1 Walk over to the GBank
2 Remove Fish Feast
3 Turn in
4 Profit
Adoisin Jun 29th 2010 10:05AM
Unless there was a "quest item" tab as mentioned. Guild bank tabs are set up so the guild master can specify which guild ranks can take items out of which tab, and how many stacks a day. Simply set the quest item tab to zero and that problem is solved. You would have to trust whatever rank you allowed to take out of that tab. Altho if you don't trust your officers, at least, not to exploit your guild bank already, something is wrong.
Puntable Jun 29th 2010 11:04AM
If you had a donation quest like this, then the items would have to be destroyed when the quest was completed. Anything else would mean that the system could be exploited in some way.
Kelsey Jun 29th 2010 12:10PM
Actually, I think it could work even without resorting to a special tab. For several of the cooking dailies you don't get credit for the quest unless you cook the item required "with your cooking skill." It seems like that method could work for any craftable item, whether fish feasts, cut gems, belt buckles, or what have you. That way you couldn't take a finished product out of the guild bank and turn it in for guild rep.
Rob Jun 28th 2010 1:21PM
To me the issue of too many forms of currency lead to two issues. 1) Another thing to keep track of. Well, that is true but now we don't have to physically carry around most currencies any more. 2) Another thing to grind/spend. This to me is a more pressing issue. Say you have two currencies A and B. Say that every 10 points of each currency gives you an item. Say you have 9 of A and 9 of B. Now, that's 18 total, and if you only had one currency type you would be able to purchase something. As it is, both are useless until you get the magic number.
Anyway I would be in favor of a guild currency so that it does keep track of contributions, and doesn't lead to someone always taking stuff but never putting stuff in, and others putting in random junk. The major issue would be housekeeping, now you could have to manually assign a point value for each item. That would be a huge headache. But you could automate it such that the combination of vendor price and ilvl reflects the items cost. Anyway, they could have done alot, and they really missed the boat. It's yet another opportunity missed for meaningful content with the new expansion.
Not that what is slated is not great, but it could have been so much more. I think everyone will look back at this as 'what could have been', and maybe they can revisit these issues in a later patch.
Evi Jun 28th 2010 1:24PM
I think the guild quests is an awesome idea. That would be so much fun and so rewarding to the guild, the raid groups, and the guildies. It would give the officers a little more control over the way the guild is run and also make the guild more unique. I love it!!!
Red Viking Jun 28th 2010 1:32PM
The problem with the "Above and Beyond the Call of Duty" tasks is that it could just as easily foster an atmosphere where guild members are either forced by officers or feel obligated to do them, which would actually be detrimental to guild morale.
Baba Jun 28th 2010 3:34PM
Not to mention the problem if an officer says "oh, we could do with 5 Eternal Belt Buckles..." and 20 minutes later, they have 100. My guild's officers are forever trying to STOP extra things being dumped into the gbank :P
Pyromelter Jun 28th 2010 1:33PM
I know EPGP is purported to be more fair than DKP, but like... I dunno man. It just seems so complicated. DKP is so simple. And as long as you have decay in your DKP, it seems to work out just fine. Maybe it's because you usually are dealing in smaller numbers with DKP whereas EPGP deals with numbers in the thousands.
Also, if blizz implemented a system as you described, guilds would be shoe-horned into it. For a casual guild that has a /roll system, or a hardcore guild with a loot council, I can see someone with high guild currency feeling slighted if someone gets an item over them in a raid. I think scrapping the system and going with what they have now will prevent problems more than be a missed opportunity.
theRaptor Jun 28th 2010 1:33PM
In early cata people are going to be guild hopping to That Guild which maxed out its guild level early so that they can get the recipes/etc. There will be great whining and nashing of teeth and then everyone else will have maxed out and the whining will stop.
At least the guild rep grind will be like the championing system (ie you get points for what you want to do) and not the horrid Sons of Hodir/AT grind.
The Dewd Jun 28th 2010 1:34PM
The donation quests (similar, as Kemikalkadet mentioned, to the AQ war effort) would be a great idea. You'd have to have the guild leader set a priority or threshold or something, however - or you'd have 500 stacks of Fish Feasts and no flasks or elixirs or pots available. Presumably the interface would have to allow for a maximum number of turn-ins before it rolled over to the next "quest". Eventually, if your guild members are insane enough, it would run out until guild leader logged back in and reset it.
You would certainly have to make sure it was all pre-set quests. And even then, you'd have to worry about people conspiring to boost rep. (Hey, only "Bob" can remove the quested fish feasts but he keeps pulling them out and giving them to so-and-so to turn in again.) The items in question would probably have to be somehow flagged that they were used as a turn-in so they couldn't grant credit more than once.
JC_Icefox Jun 28th 2010 1:39PM
Bah, don't go to Wintergrasp for Fish Feasts, make the trips to their pools (Borean Tundra, Grizzly Hills etc.) and fish from the specific pools. You firstly know you can get a consistant ratio of fish, much less likely to get attacked, and more chances at the Turtle Mount if you don't have it yet.
Hih Jun 28th 2010 2:24PM
I was one of those people that would sit in Wintergrasp for an hour, eventually, I just said screw it and checked to see how expensive the fish used to make it were. Turns out, after the Kaluak Fishing Tournament, the fish are dirt cheap. My recommendation is to just buy the fish ;)
Vladeon Jun 28th 2010 2:30PM
yes, but you'll spend a whole lot more time traveling between fishing nodes that you're net "fish feast/hour" will be a lot smaller than if you fished in WG, regardless of whether or not you've been attacked by a member of the opposite faction (if that becomes a problem, you can find a nice place under a bridge, on one of the supporting trusses of the bridge, where you can fish without being noticed). The only good thing about this method is the possibility of a turtle mount, which most people I think have given up on getting.
tgrhwke Jun 28th 2010 4:46PM
I do my WG fishing without getting PvP flagged by standing inside the northern border of Dragonblight and fishing into WG. This way I can fish peacefully for as long as I wish and the only combat I have is with a single elemental mob with a 10-12 minute respawn timer.
The fish ratio may not be equal but since I don't have to move around chasing pool respawns I can gather more fish in a comparable amount of time.
Grovinofdarkhour Jun 28th 2010 1:40PM
When you have a something-for-everyone type guild, as soon as you define yourself as one specific thing - hardcore raiding, PVP, roleplay, whatever - you'll alienate someone. Making guilds pigeon-hole themselves into a specific self-definition via selected talents would have only furthered the culture of free agency. For this reason I'm glad guild talents have been scrapped; they would have put guild leaders/officers in a lose-lose situation. There is so little sense of loyalty to one's guild remaining in this game, I don't know why they would want to destroy it. Making real friends who will keep you playing (and paying your $15 each month) seems to be something you'd think Blizzard would want to encourage.
Pyromelter Jun 28th 2010 1:47PM
This. A lot of top raiders are also top pvp'ers. Pigeonholing is bad.
Grovinofdarkhour Jun 28th 2010 2:21PM
The worst thing, I think, would have been someone in a raiding guild finding that they're getting bored or burned out with the raiding but really enjoying PVP lately, and feeling like they HAD to go to a PVP-talented guild in order to get the PVP-specific bonuses.
Or vice versa, a lifelong PVPer discovering that they really like raiding, who ended up leaving behind their PVP buddies to join a bunch of strangers because they happen to be a successful raiding guild.
These things already happen to some degree, and there's already enough stuff in the game that feels "mandatory" based on your play style (talents, glyphs, gems). Setting up a system where people would leave a guild because the new "guild definition" system says their current guild isn't the PERFECT fit for their personal play style would have been a huge step in the wrong direction.
I know I'm not the only one out there who could have said "Screw friendship" and gone to a more successful raiding guild a long time ago, downed harder bosses, gotten better loot, more achievements, blah blah effing blah. I have been with my guild for three years because they're simply awesome people and I love them. I've seen a ton of people whom I respected take the opposite, "sure you guys are nice, but what's in it for me?" route, and some of them I barely got to know, but some of them really had become friends, and my heart broke a little. Great people left because some other guild happened to be two bosses further in Ulduar that week and had some slick-talking guy in charge of recruiting, their new guild dominated all their time and penalized people for getting saved to anyone else's runs, and we never heard from them again.
That is why I fervently believe that anything Blizzard does that encourages guild-hopping is, and will always be, a tragic mistake. Look at professional sports. Once you've made free agency the norm, you don't ever get to go back.