Developer Answers are here, and Blizzard, as we discussed, has answered several questions about the Guild Advancement System. As you know, it is a system that has been really improved in Cataclysm and they are still improving (guild recruitment).
You can see the rest of the sessions:
Let's see what they have to tell us, after the jump.
The Guild Perks system makes it more difficult than normal to start a new one, as a Guild without all the Perks is in an unfavorable position when it comes to recruiting. Additionally, it rewards recruiting random people (who might only be interested in perks) to gain guild experience. What you think about this? Will it be solved? - Lolisa [Europe, English], Mith [North America]
- Adding the new Cataclysm Guild Tools we knew this was one of the risks. If the guild perks and rewards are uninteresting, there is no motivation to join a guild or to improve your guild. On the other hand, if they are too powerful, you will feel chained to your old brotherhood, even if the relationship is not substantial. We were careful to only choose perks that did not contribute to the player's power, and to allow the player to keep the rewards earned if they had to leave the guild. Perks are certainly fine, but you'll have less fun in a solid guild with an unfriendly environment than creating your own guild with fewer perks. We don't think recruiting random people is favorable for a guild. Advantages can never replace strong social relationships. We really encourage as many people as possible to seek out a guild (and we hope the new guild finder will help you with that), but joining a random guild is likely to end badly. Instead, less agitation may be beneficial. in newly created brotherhoods. Before Cataclysm, some guilds were born with little enthusiasm and fell apart after a few weeks or months. Maintaining an active guild is very demanding for the guild master and officers. If you join an established guild on Cataclysm, chances are you will go ahead for a season. However, thanks to reputation, even newly created guilds can seem like a more serious option than before Cataclysm, as the guild founders know that anyone interested is likely to be looking for a long-term relationship and not just hopping guild. to brotherhood.
The guild level rise speed depends on the number of players. Have you thought about changing the system so that guilds with fewer members receive more experience for each player and larger guilds receive less as compensation? Are there plans to allow smaller guilds to level up faster? - ?? ????? [Taiwan], Sergan [Latin America], Jardar [Europe, German], ??????? [Europe, Russian], Amasisa [Europe, Spanish], Shory, ??? / ????, Meltdown, ?????? / ??? [Korea]
- The Guild Challenges coming in Patch 4.1 are designed to help address this issue. Obviously we already enforce a cap on the amount of experience that can be earned on a daily basis to prevent the disparity from being too great, but it's clear that smaller guilds need some help. We will monitor the impact of Guild Challenges and see if more changes are needed.
Do you have any plans to address the Guildmaster issue banning members en masse after reaching level 25? - Bloodbliss [North America], ????? [Europe, Russian]
- We really have no interest in controlling who or when a guildmaster decides to kick out. Guilds are fairly transparent and simple groups run by players, and we must be very careful about implementing systems that affect how players can manage their guilds. We could easily make it more difficult for a guild master to kick members out and that would help very relatively in those situations, but the result would be that guild masters would have a hard time inviting new members. We want people to be in Guilds rather than make Guild Masters afraid to invite someone they won't be able to kick out in case of trouble, but allowing players to retain some of the Guild Reputation Level is a option we can consider to help with this situation.
Is there a way to get back a guild purposely disbanded by an account hacker or lunatic guildmaster? - ????? [Taiwan]
- The best way to deal with this situation is to immediately contact a World of Warcraft game master.
Will we one day see guild houses so that we can have a gathering place where guild members can easily gather and interact? - Ellidryl [European, French], ??????? [Europe, Russian], Ledieri [Europe, Spanish], Bodywreckér [North America]
- The topic of sorority houses is something we have discussed many times. It would be great to have a place where people can meet, but whenever it has arisen as a possibility we have not considered that it is worth the amount of time and resources required to implement it (and do it well). This is one of those features that, should we decide to create it, the benefits should outweigh other content we might be working on. Also, we don't think we need any new ways that players can hide from the world. We want at least people to walk around the cities, and if possible, around the world. We know that many brotherhoods, despite not having an official house, have designated meeting places around the world and we like that. If you don't have one yet it may be something you should think about.
Why is there a daily guild experience limit instead of weekly? - Omegal [North America], Nuckels [Europe, English]
- We apply a daily limit so that players have the opportunity to contribute every day. A weekly cap would make it more difficult, as a guild could reach the cap on the first day and run out of experience for the other members on the other 6 days of the week. If you can't play until Tuesday and they've already reached the cap before you arrive, you may not be too interested in all of this Guild Progression stuff, however we will reduce the impact of the cap as you progress through the Cataclysm patches. It is very likely that we will start by increasing the daily limit and remove it for more of the higher levels.
Why is the guild experience earned from missions not dependent on character level, mission difficulty, and recommended mission level, rather than derived directly from experience earned? Why is it so difficult to get Guild Reputation before level 70? It seems like gaining experience with your guild is difficult at first and easier as you go through the levels; Shouldn't it be the other way around? - Tuna [North America], Threshold [Europe, English], Helíana [Latin America]
- Quest experience is directly related to all of these factors, which is why we use it as the basis for granting Guild Experience. It is clear that this value is much lower in small levels and we know that the current setting does not leave a great taste in the mouth. We're adjusting the experience multiplier when doing low-level missions so it doesn't seem so much of a waste of time. Guild reputation also suffers from the same multiplier issue and when we adjust the experience, reputation gain will also improve. Reputation gains will also be greatly improved in Patch 4.1 with the addition of the new Guild Tabards and increased values when finishing dungeons and raids and winning arenas and battlegrounds.
It seems that the new guild system is wiping out the assigned group culture in Korea. There, the gangs were formed with the assigned group system and the players did not think about what kind of guild they joined for the gangs. Will we see region specific features that support the single band culture of the Korea region? - ?????, Jeran, ????? [Korea]
- We will continue to pay close attention and work hard to protect the diverse gaming cultures of each region. However, right now we do not plan to change the structure of the system.
Are there any plans to allow a player to have easier access with an alternate character to the same guild rewards as their main character? Could it be some account-bound reputation item that can only be purchased by an exalted character? [i] - Serule [North America], Xheevas [Europe, French]
- That's one of the reasons Patch 4.1 includes the new Guild Tabards with a 50/100% reputation bonus. We've made sure they are available if you are friendly or honorable so that alternate characters can easily get hold of them. In addition, we are considering adding a bigger bonus for the Exalted, also tied to the account. Big minds think a like!
Will there be extra reward tiers for guilds that have reached the cap in future patches? Have you thought about adding levels beyond 25? [i] - Sergan [Latin America], Carnesîr [Europe, German], Zippi [Europe, English], Gabän [Europe, Spanish]
- Yes, we will continue to add rewards to the system as needed. A great example is the Guild Reward that we plan to add in Patch 4.2 for Guilds that earn the new Legendary Staff. Guilds at level 25 will also benefit from large deposits of gold for completing Guild Challenges. The guild system cap at level 25 seemed right for us for the amount of content we wanted to offer in Cataclysm. We designed the system with expansions in mind, so players will likely see a cap increase in the future.