Magic branch for mercenaries

[Alorrana]

If you change 1 to Send application to XXX

Wouldnt it be the same as in any other caster guild, spend alot of time doing researching and finding herbs, and reading scrolls and such ?

Im not against it, but wasnt it to be for the casual caster ? because if you play 6 hrs pr week it will take you forever to go anywhere, because as you said, spend alot of time on research. ?

[Cherek]

Hold on.

Arent scops being converted to a Elemental caster guild? The natural extension to the academy of elemtal arts? There was alot of talk about that just half a year ago or so. That whole project has been put on ice?

That solution still sounds like a good idea to me.

Adding new guilds before updating the old ones, or replacing them is a bad idea.

Adding new guilds is a bad idea as long as the old ones arent filled.

Reopening Angmar was imho a bad idea, but it did reopen because it was supposed to bring back alot of old players. I didnt. Sure, briefly, but no long lasting effect I think. All it did was to provide another layman option, and make the problem of too few people in OCC guilds worse, and it was bad already. The old AA spirit is long gone and AAs today arent anything the same as they were.

I am certain reopening some old guild again like Khiraa or WoHS will do just as little for the game as reopening AA did. Adding another new guild, like when ogres opened didnt do that much but stretch out the population either. Dont get me wrong, I think its a really coold guild, but I very stronly dont believe new guilds, no matter how cool, are what we need.

So no, stop thinking of new guilds. Its not gonna happen until we get more players to fill the old ones. And thats gonna take awhile.

[Rhaegar]

The elemental occ is going to open (is it?). The problem I find is that it will still be 2 out of 3 occ caster guilds are going to be priest and not mage guilds.
I want to draw the power from within and cast my fireball, not god damn pray for it.

[Alorrana]

Halted !

My first suggestion was need more players for this to work. But still dosnt hurt to live the fantasy and talk it out and see what one can come up to.

about Scops. No clue. Proberly heard some birds sing about petros working on them, but if and when and how. no clue.

I agree, we dont need more empty guilds, we need players for this to be a reality.

On AA.. I will get Angmar back on its feet. Dont you worrie. !

About Kiraa. No oppinion really, just shared what i knew about em.

And last, Nay !! I think of Riders of Rohan, Layman Minas tirith City guard/soldier of gondor, Drinkers club, Barbarians, layman or craft Isengaard orcs/uruks.. hehe

[Chanele]

I thought the suggestion was a caster branch of mercs which is not a new guild merely give people more options to play their characters.
I think this is a good idea, diversity without adding new guilds.

[Makfly]

Hold on.

So no, stop thinking of new guilds. Its not gonna happen until we get more players to fill the old ones. And thats gonna take awhile.

I know you wage your crusade against new or reopening old guilds every chance you get...But seriously, why should people stop throwing ideas around, and who are you to say that it's not going to happen?
Last I checked you were just a player like most everyone else here.

[Cherek]

Its an important crssade, like all crusades usually are.

Yeah yeah, of course we can think about new cool guilds, as long as we wait with implementing them until there is a need for news guilds, thats all I am saying.

I am just a player and its my GUESS and hope that its not gonna happen. If I dont remember completely wrong Gorboth and other wizards have also said there is no plan to open more guilds until the game is filled with players again?

Anyway, whatever I say is also just my opinions just like everyone else.

Is there such a big difference between having a god or gods provide the powers instead of from within yourself? Also I dont see how its better having 2 out of 3 mage guilds instead. Its just the same but the other way around...? But still, we cant fill those we have as it is... at the moment we have basically 1,5 caster guild. MM seem fairly active, Scops have what? Fluffy and Hektor? Pots more or less nobody active?

And the more merc-type guilds we add the less players in the other guilds, sadly. So a merc-type spellcaster guild would just take members from other guilds that rely on councils and such... a guild like the mercs can have one member and still work, but most guilds cant.

And people probably chose the mercs because they dont bother waiting for inactive councils in the other guilds... hm.. not good.

[Rhaegar]

Cherek, I understand your point about people not being able to fill the guilds. But what if the current playerbase is so small specifically because there aren't more guilds that would give people options? Perhaps people are tired of the same old thing over and over again? Why do you think mercs are so popular right now? They don't have any outstanding abilities but they give people options.

If you want to keep guild count low and adequate to the playerbase then why not close one of the old guilds (even temporarily, by blocking any new entries) when you introduce a new one? I think that most people wouldn't really notice if Gladiators, Thieves, Heralds of the Valar, Worshippers of the Elementals, Tricksters and Priests of Takhisis got closed, be it by preventing people from joining or outright wiping the guilds. How many of their active members have you seen recently? Would you cry if they got closed? Would the members of those guilds cry or rather move on?

There are many questions and we can't be sure of any of them. Perhaps the almighty wizards could provide us with the guild activity update? Kinda like alignment distribution. Here's how I see it:

Most guildmembers/least guildmembers (current)
Most active/least active (counting members log in time over the past two months)

With such two measures we could assess with more accuracy which guilds are the most popular and which need a serious re-do or perhaps could be let go of entirely.

Edit: Personally, I don't find more guilds option to be a drawback. I don't care if I'm the only member of my guild as long as I am able to enjoy my time on gen with character I wanted to create, not being limited by 'you can't be an elven mage because we don't have enough players so we won't be opening any more guilds - go settle for some close-but-not-really-it stuff and stfu'.

[Cherek]

I have always said we should close unpopular current guilds when new ones open. Or even close some without opening new ones. So yeah, I am with you with a merc-style caster guild, if we either transform one of the old ones to this (Scops for instance since they are supposedly neutral anyway?), or close another. Perhaps the Pots since you never see any around. And merge the Dragonarmies, close glads since mercs have replaced them, etc. But I stopped suggestingit since 90% of everyone threw stones at me for suggesting it... The best argument was "If they are so unpopular, they dont stretch the population anyway, so leaving them around wont hurt, and closing would make the few players in them unhappy.". I guess I can buy that argument... so transforming a current guild should perhaps be the way to go instead...

I am however pretty confident the reason we do not get new players is because we do not try to get new players and most people dont know this game exists. Seconly its most likely because we offer very little to do for new players, no grinding place and our quest system is complicated. I do not think lack of guild options has much to do with player numbers. We have plenty of guild options. Even if we have always been lacking a good and/or neutral caster guild since WoHS closed... I am all for it... but I am unsure if now is the time for it... we need to attract new players and get activity up in the guilds that require activity to begin with I think.