BlizzCon is slowly creeping up on us, and this year most people expect the company's big announcement to be World of Warcraft-based. With StarCraft 2 locked in for this year, and Diablo III looking like 2010, early 2011 is rip (if not late) for the third expansion to Azeroth. As it stands now, people are expecting
The Maelstrom (not storm) or The Emerald Dream to be the focus of the next expansion (water mounts anyone?), but World of Warcraft needs more than epic lore to pull people in and retain the current amount of users. Like any good internet subscriber, I need to get my ideas out there before the announcements are made so I have something to point to and go "told you so!"
We, the citizens of Project Lore, touched upon the idea of guild progression
earlier this week. The short quip in the post almost lead to a complete derailment of the topic. Nearly as many commentators spoke out for guild progression as guild cohesiveness , the actual discussion. Obviously the topic is an important one to many of us here, so here's to hoping that Blizzard is listening. Outside of player desire, there's also another reason Blizzard needs to step up,
every other game is doing it. There is the whole jumping off a bridge philosophy to worry about, but I say the leap needs to be made. Desperately.
Plan and simple, there is absolutely
no reason to stay in a guild these days. None. Not one single reason keeps me from guild hopping daily. Okay, perhaps SolidSamm 'The Guild Hopper' wouldn't be a great title, but I could still get things done. I could leap from guild to guild and still raid, still participate in Arenas, still do my dailies, you name it. I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't be able to do these things without a guild. Not by any means. What I am suggesting is that your guild, and one's standing in the guild, should rise the more you contribute to it, and the rest of Azeroth.
How cool would it if your guild leveled up along side you through various means? Guild age, member count, average member length, these are just some easy ways to measure a guild's progress. Then we have more complex, and fun things to participate in. Complete 100,000 quests as a guild and receive a new Feat of Strength, all guild runs of Ulduar and Naxxramas award another. A new title, "Home of
Mick" if your guild contains the #1 Arena team. "Die Hard" for guild domination (no deaths) in all of the Battlegrounds. The creativity could be taken as far as Blizzard would allow it. However, without player/guild housing, the developers would be somewhat restricted to what types of rewards they could offer. We'd be
limited to things like extra guild bank slots (no longer would the GM have to pay up), news titles and achievements, super tabard construction, guild recognition, guild summoning (for those Warlock-less nights), discounts at vendors...Should I keep going?
One cool thing I would like to see is auto-progression in the guild. Instead of, or perhaps in conjunction with, the current guild ranking system we'd have a ranking system based upon atoon's contributions to their guild. No longer would a player's popularity allow him to raise the ranks of a guild, instead a toon's standing in the guild would be promoted by way of merit. As cool as it is I doubt this idea would fly due to the loss of control by the GM and officers.
A complete, and detailed, overhaul to the Guild system in WoW would be a huge boon to the community, and a great selling point on the back of The Maelstrom's/Emerald Dream's box. Who in their right mind wouldn't want to be a part of a guild that did their best to stay together, tried their utmost to deal with the internal issues, was full of selfless and giving members, was a
group of friends and not random acquaintances. In a word, comradery. After all, aren't MMOGs supposed to be all about the social experience?
Those are just the seeds to get the greater readership brainstorming. What other progression mechanics would you have in mind? How about other types of rewards? Are you fine with the guild hopping ways of today, or do you desperately want a change like I, and many others, do?
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