The case for closure – fighter guilds

[Arman]

I wish there were more votes I could apply. While I do think certain guilds should be shut down for inactivity (or fixed) I also think that narrowing the options forces people to optimize. Merging the DA sounds like a no-brainer to me. WoHS manages three factions. Add Mace wielding DA and Axe wielding DA while you're at it. But who will code?

It would be interesting to have a claiming mechanism to the dead guilds. Maybe if a guild has no members awake in, say, two weeks, you could walk up and join for free.

Thematically I am not in favour of merging the Dragonarmies. Thematically, I like that - while on the same side technically - they have to compete against each other. And personally I think that works well.

Historically the ONLY reason Dragonarmies were coded in the first place was because the Army of Angmar was being closed. They would never have existed as an occupational guild option otherwise. I brought Milan, the guild master for the closing AA over to Krynn and we built the Dragonarmies together as its posthumous replacement.

Now that the Army of Angmar is back, I'd hypothetically be more inclined to close both branches than merge them, and introduce a layman dragonriders guild which would replace the occupational Dragonarmies. Hypothetically I think that would work well. But it would be a lot of additional work and I don't think i'd do it unless occupational fighter guilds were a critical issue and I had nothing better to work on (which, for the record, I do). So while hypothetically options could be on the table for changes to the Dragonarmies, realistically the Dragonarmies aren't going to be merged or closed.

[Targun]

While I understand the devil's advocate position and arguing against better judgement, some of the guilds really don't bring much to the game and basically occupy the same space, diluting playerbase and making it difficult to pursue numerous paths for returning chracters / new players.

As a person who prefers OCC guilds to be strongly themed - with their own lore, philosophy, socio-political setting and agenda, I don't see much sense to so many OCCs that are basically the same guild. It would've been better to have something with an actual core in their place, or at least allow for an active council which, in many instances, is a permanent struggle.

Gladiators
The guild was supposed to be walk up, join & roll. Special that doesn't require weapon, low tax, high combat skills. Then mercs were opened and in more ways than not those guilds became just duplicates. (Not to mention AoD that roughly falls into the same category).

In my view, Gladiators would do much better as layman or a club (perhaps both). After all, be it an Honorable Knight, Fabled Mercenary, Ruthless Soldier of the Dragonarmies or even Priest of some Demigod, they can all prove themselves on the sands of Athas Arena. Not much of a profession, but you earned your stripes there. Lay version would make so much more sense with their specials too. You can be anything from a battle-mage, to a cunning assassin who learned a trick or two there.

Dragonarmies
We have 4 guilds that occupy the same space, thematically and RP-wise. Bit of an overkill. Two Dragonarmies, Templar Knights, and PoT. PoTs - alright, they are practically dead for the better part of 2 decades, but as I understand, it's more about inactive leadership and the fact that unless you're High Cleric, the char is rather very weak.

However, having 2 fighters on top of it and dedicated fighter layman, all locked in the same area? While thematically they were competing, on Genesis they have enough enemies to not go around and be mean to the guys 15 rooms away. They could easily have one council, even if they keep their skill sets and specials. I understand there were intricacies and powerplay inside that faction, but there's just not enough players for that on Genesis.

Rangers
If they haven't already, RoI and RoN should have been merged under one council. Similarily to DA, they can keep their separate skills and perks in different areas. I remember - couple months ago - I saw a note in the camp near MT, dating September(?) that Rangers are closing all recruitment, because there are no active members. If that doesn't indicate a serious problem and doesn't call for a merge or semi-auto join, I don't know what does.

We can't have guilds, that are unable to recruit new people, because no one is active.

DO
I have mixed feelings here. I'd much rather prefer the guild to be set thematically in Faerun, Dragonlance or be brought back to Earthsea. With proper lore. Give it some eternal struggle, or nice deity with twisted philosophy, or insatiable crave for control over power in the local kingsom. Right now, it's just mercs with council that ensures chars are respectful towards each other and people don't raid their own racks. Perhaps such guild is needed, but then a Generic Fighter would do much better in this place.

[Thalric]

You clearly speak from a totally unenlightened point of view when talking about PoT.
Their leadership has to my knowledge not been inactive for the last decade, and the guild is far from lacking members.

Also your take on Rangers. Another view without knowledge.

[Redblade]

Rangers
If they haven't already, RoI and RoN should have been merged under one council. Similarily to DA, they can keep their separate skills and perks in different areas. I remember - couple months ago - I saw a note in the camp near MT, dating September(?) that Rangers are closing all recruitment, because there are no active members. If that doesn't indicate a serious problem and doesn't call for a merge or semi-auto join, I don't know what does.

It doesn't because if you read carefully, Rangers closed applications because they had more applicants than active mentors to take them. So yeah, the other way around. Too many people joining, not too few in the guild. Such things happen for a moment or two, we set a time for the note to go and it is now removed

P.S: I really don't see what it has to do with having one or two councils? Nevertheless the two councils form a joint council anyway We're one guild, not two.

[Targun]

You clearly speak from a totally unenlightened point of view when talking about PoT.
Their leadership has to my knowledge not been inactive for the last decade, and the guild is far from lacking members.

Also your take on Rangers. Another view without knowledge.

Really? I have always been a fan of enlightenment.

On a poorly calculated risk of offending your enlightenment, lets have a look, shall we? We only have data since 2012, but since you mention last decade, I think that should do.

Logged PoT AVG. per Day (Compared to Most Active Guild)

Code: Select all

Year 	PoT 	  	Most 		 Activity/		Rank 
	(AVG)*	  	Active 	 	Meeting Chance  	(out of 17-20)
		  	(AVG)*  	(comp. to most act.)
						 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2012 	(0.027) 	(1.407)			52x less	13 (17)
2013 	(0.054)		(1.228)			23x less	11 (17)
2014 	(0.019) 	(1.430) 		70x less	17 (17)
2015  	(0.010)		(3.578)	    	       357x less	16 (17)
2016	(0.128) 	(5.994) 		47x less	16 (17)
2017	(0.378)		(5.553) 		15x less	14 (18)
2018   	(0.084) 	(6.561) 		78x less	17 (19)
2019   	(0.085)		(6.164) 		72x less	19 (20)

• PoT activity oscillates around 50 times less then the most active guild. In other words avg. logged PoT players constitute 2% of most active guild. (not the whole player base, just this one guild)

• 5 out of 8 years for which we have data, PoT were in the 3 least active guilds on Genesis. Although, it's fair to say, anything below spot 10 is on life support (look below).

Therefore, for the better part of the decade the guild is dead as they make them.

*To add some context, 0.02 AVG can be thought of as - Census script managed to capture someone logged from that guild only once every 2 days, for less than an hour. Other way of thinking about it is - combined guild logon time per day: ~30 minutes.

The latter is just general concept (methodology is snapshot per hour). Over the time however, given that no one is particularly keen on tricking the census script, it should provide somewhat accurate picture.

But wait... theres more.

Active Guilds Members in Playerbase

Code: Select all

					Year		
				2018		2019		
No.		Guild	Active 	Active	Active			Totals for
			Guild 	Guild 	Guild	Guild		2018-2019
			Pop.	Pop.%	Pop. 	Pop.%	
			(run.%) 	(run.%)	
1		Mercs	25.41%	25.41%	29.17%	29.17%		27.10%	27.10%
2		SoHM	42.14%	16.73%	41.24%	12.08%		41.74%	14.64%
3		DArmy	52.10%	9.96%	52.90%	11.66%		52.46%	10.73%
4		WoHS	58.39%	6.29%	59.38%	6.48%		58.84%	6.38%
5		Rangers	62.65%	4.25%	64.66%	5.28%		63.55%	4.71%
6		Calians	68.20%	5.56%	66.56%	1.90%		67.46%	3.91%
7		Cadets	72.19%	3.99%	69.87%	3.31%		71.15%	3.68%
8		Neidar	75.54%	3.34%	73.21%	3.34%		74.49%	3.34%
9		Clerics	78.85%	3.31%	76.56%	3.35%		77.82%	3.33%
10		Glads	82.97%	4.12%	78.79%	2.23%		81.09%	3.27%
11		Angmar	85.33%	2.35%	83.08%	4.29%		84.31%	3.22%
12		Knights	89.78%	4.45%	84.74%	1.66%		87.51%	3.20%
13		Monks	92.51%	2.73%	88.07%	3.33%		90.51%	3.00%
14		Knives	92.51%	0.00%	94.40%	6.33%		93.36%	2.85%
15		Ogres	94.71%	2.20%	97.17%	2.77%		95.82%	2.46%
16		Mages	98.13%	3.42%	97.97%	0.80%		98.06%	2.24%
17		Academy	99.49%	1.36%	98.98%	1.01%		99.26%	1.20%
18		PoT	99.81%	0.33%	99.38%	0.40%		99.62%	0.36%
19		Union	99.82%	0.01%	99.90%	0.52%		99.86%	0.24%
20		Kender	100.00%	0.18%	100.00%	0.10%		100.00%	0.14%

Even in 2018-2019, despite player surge they made respectively only 0.33% and 0.36% of player base.
Worry not though, I get it, it's 2021 and in rock, paper, scissors, opinions, facts:
-> scissors cut paper
-> rock beats scissors
-> paper covers rock
-> facts are offending
-> opinions beat all
-> and as it has always been, in case of a draw, the most totally enlightened person wins.

Side note, I have nothing against PoT, just stating the fact. My interactions with the guild members have always been very enjoyable; great RP, interesting theme. As a matter of fact PoT, SU and Rangers are my 3 fav. guilds on Genesis, with an additional soft spot for MM (somewhat spoiled by stat cloud. Sort of leaves foul taste).

I am not taking on any guild. I'm describing what I observed. It takes a lot of enlightened frustration to interpret my note as taking on someone.

It doesn't because if you read carefully, Rangers closed applications because they had more applicants than active mentors to take them. So yeah, the other way around. Too many people joining, not too few in the guild. Such things happen for a moment or two, we set a time for the note to go and it is now removed

P.S: I really don't see what it has to do with having one or two councils? Nevertheless the two councils form a joint council anyway We're one guild, not two.

I am not sure if that's what the note said. When my other char was a Ranger (prob over a decade ago now), pupils would apply to specific company (RoI or RoN) and that company would take it from there, pretty much autonomously. At least that's how I remember it. While more or less one guild, it often was a struggle, because people got mentors from this specific company, and activity was continuously a challange.

I can see that in 2018-2019 Rangers activity dropped to ~1.000 making it 0.5 per company, which might have affected how I interpreted the note. Nonetheless, I get your point and the explanation is fair.

As for merging Councils & Guilds
Merging councils helps in a situations when activity of said guilds fluctuates. There've been periods where even guilds like BDA and RDA had no senior officers actively playing for months. It keeps the guild running.

If guilds clearly occupy same space, or are basically the same guild (primarily thematically, game-play (autojoin, no strings attached, no agenda towards world/others), secondarily in terms of skill set), it's better in my view to create something with an actual theme in their place.

Additionally, guilds need critical mass of players to actually function. That means recruitment, ongoing internal matters, politics, EQ hunting and grinding. Spread the playerbase too thin and you end up with situation where:

-> top 3 guilds have 50% Playerbase

Code: Select all

1		Mercs	25.41%	25.41%	29.17%	29.17%		27.10%	27.10%
2		SoHM	42.14%	16.73%	41.24%	12.08%		41.74%	14.64%
3		DArmy	52.10%	9.96%	52.90%	11.66%		52.46%	10.73%

-> top 10 guilds have 80% (30% spread over 7)

Code: Select all

4		WoHS	58.39%	6.29%	59.38%	6.48%		58.84%	6.38%
5		Rangers	62.65%	4.25%	64.66%	5.28%		63.55%	4.71%
6		Calians	68.20%	5.56%	66.56%	1.90%		67.46%	3.91%
7		Cadets	72.19%	3.99%	69.87%	3.31%		71.15%	3.68%
8		Neidar	75.54%	3.34%	73.21%	3.34%		74.49%	3.34%
9		Clerics	78.85%	3.31%	76.56%	3.35%		77.82%	3.33%
10		Glads	82.97%	4.12%	78.79%	2.23%		81.09%	3.27%

-> and obttom 10 share remaining 20%
-> with the last 5 sharing only 4% of active player base

Code: Select all

16		Mages	98.13%	3.42%	97.97%	0.80%		98.06%	2.24%
17		Academy	99.49%	1.36%	98.98%	1.01%		99.26%	1.20%
18		PoT	99.81%	0.33%	99.38%	0.40%		99.62%	0.36%
19		Union	99.82%	0.01%	99.90%	0.52%		99.86%	0.24%
20		Kender	100.00%	0.18%	100.00%	0.10%		100.00%	0.14%

IMHO it's hard to talk about guild functioning in any real way, shape or form, if their activity is below 0.5, and it's a huge stretch anyway. That means that on AVR. for 50% of the day/week/month/year, there's not even a single person from that guild logged in.

In 2018 4 guilds didn't pass that mark. In 2019 it was 7:

Code: Select all

|       13.  Monks     (0.704)           13.  Glads     (0.472)              |
|       14.  Angmar    (0.608)           14. !Calians   (0.401)              |
|       15.  Ogres     (0.569)           15. !Knights   (0.351)              |
|       16.  Academy   (0.350)           16.  Academy   (0.214)              |
|       17.  PoT       (0.084)           17. @Mages     (0.170)              |
|       18.  Kender    (0.046)           18. *Union     (0.109)              |
|       19.  Union     (0.002)           19.  PoT       (0.085)              |
|                                        20.  Kender    (0.021)              |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Especially, if it's a guild with council and recruitment process.

[nils]

Hats off.

[Zhar]

Another cool metric we could have is total guild members/guild members active in the last week for each guild and it could maybe be posted and updated weekly like the stats on the main website.

Then each year an aggregate of that, with average total and average active. This would give a better view of the current state of affairs in my opinion.

[Budwise]

Well, thanks for the review of Calia, Nils.
Maybe stop drinking whatever you had before writing that garbage?

I suggest we close whatever guild Nils happens to be in.
Or close them all. That will teach us!

[Karpath]

Great idea Zhar!

Remember that the metric should sort out the people who are linkdying/idling - those are clearly not "active" players in the guild now are they

[nils]

Well, thanks for the review of Calia, Nils.
Maybe stop drinking whatever you had before writing that garbage?

I suggest we close whatever guild Nils happens to be in.
Or close them all. That will teach us!

Wow.. just.. wow..