Expanding Guild organization

[Charles]

Title:

Expanding Guild Organization

Summary:

Right now, guilds are organized with positions from 1-100.  When you join a guild you start at the bottom and pay/get promoted up.  The senior members hear all messages of the lower level members.
Change the hierarchy to allow for multiple branches reaching towards the top. 
Allow messaging within branches that do not get sent to all higher positions.

Details:

Founder can assign elders to lead branches of a guild.  Full members or initiates can choose (or be assigned to) a branch in the guild.  Their progress in the guild would then be within this branch.  Interaction would still be possible with other branches, but general communication would be restricted within the branch.  Elders not involved in that branch would not receive the messages of a branch they are not part of.  As founders lead everything, they can choose which branches to receive the messages and which not to. 
Basically, the guild would have micro guilds in the guild itself.  Each with it's own hierarchy within the larger guild's hierarchy.

Benefits:

Guilds can have positions which are very distinct in their functions.  They need to be separate, but cannot be separated into multiple different guilds as communication between the parts is fundamental to the purpose of the guild.
In a guild which has very distinct members, such as a guild intended for assisting item repair.  Discussion among the adventurers is not relevant for nobles, but in order for it not to be received by the nobles, the adventurers need to be elders, which is just wrong. 
This will make guilds more usable by allied/federated realms.  Not all messages will need to be passed between the bankers/generals/judges/rulers.

Possible Exploits:

By having messages not being passed all the way up the chain, rebellion can be planned from below.  If this is a concern (and not just a fun new way of creating conflict) all messages passed in a branch could be accessed by any elder when they visit a guild house. 

[Bael]

+1

[Indirik]

In general, this is a good idea for religions. This would allow a "sect" flavor. For example, each member could choose the specific god they serve, and thus join that "path". The adherents of God A have a different focus than the adherents of God B, and could have secrets and plans that are not shared with the others.

Not sure that it really applies to guilds. There are no such things as "rebellions" in guilds. You cannot take over by force, or revolt and toss out the other people. Whoever has the highest ranked guy wins, period. You're all in a guild together because you share the common interest and factor that brings you together to form a guild. If that common interest and base isn't there, then you should probably be in a different guild.

Splitting it to allow religions to have it and guilds not would also allow for some separation between the two.

[Bael]

What I really like about the proposal is the option for more message groups than is currently present. Exclusive message groups. It somewhat limits the function of a guild, if it needs to serve several functions.

[Chenier]

The eldership of the 'moot is a privileged channel of political discussions.

It'd be great, however, if we could also have such privileged channels of discussion for the military and for trade.

[Perth]

In general, this is a good idea for religions. This would allow a "sect" flavor. For example, each member could choose the specific god they serve, and thus join that "path". The adherents of God A have a different focus than the adherents of God B, and could have secrets and plans that are not shared with the others.

Not sure that it really applies to guilds. There are no such things as "rebellions" in guilds. You cannot take over by force, or revolt and toss out the other people. Whoever has the highest ranked guy wins, period. You're all in a guild together because you share the common interest and factor that brings you together to form a guild. If that common interest and base isn't there, then you should probably be in a different guild.

Splitting it to allow religions to have it and guilds not would also allow for some separation between the two.

You are right; the "branches" aspect works best for religions.


However, the practical aspects of this feature idea that the guild system needs could be achieved by allowed custom message groups within a guild so as to allow a "military command" message group, etc.

[Foundation]

Keep in mind that a guild is not a realm.  Please explain the implications and use cases of your suggestions.

[De-Legro]

Also remember that the restricted number of "exclusive" message channels with realms, guilds and religions is by design. This hasn't come up for a while but I seem to recall that Tom has said in the past he would need a very compelling reason to revisit it.

[Charles]

Keep in mind that a guild is not a realm.  Please explain the implications and use cases of your suggestions.

I will use the case of the "Item Exchange" guild I started a while back.  The purpose of the guid was to facilitate the repair and sale of unique items.  This guild is rather unique in that it requires the presence of BOTH nobles and adventurers.  I felt that it was necessary for nobles to be ranked above adventurers (from a logistical point of view it should be the other way around but what noble would join a guild with all the peasants ranked above him/her). Nobles then had to be promoted through the adventurer levels into the noble levels.  Having two sepatate wings of this guild would allow for each group to be promoted/demoted independently of the other.
The main benefit I would like though is to be able to message all those in your specific rank.  This would allow the adventurers to talk to each other without bothering the nobles about things that do not pertain to them (ie common item trades).  We have message groups in realms to stop spam, why not in guilds? 

[Duvaille]

Charles,

It's clumsy, but you solve your problem with two guilds. One is for the adventurer spam, where only a few nobles need to suffer that, and even they can make a sacrifice of blocking the adventurers. Then there is the other guild for the purpose of noble-adventurer communication.

[Indirik]

However, the practical aspects of this feature idea that the guild system needs could be achieved by allowed custom message groups within a guild so as to allow a "military command" message group, etc.

This would seem to me to be best solved through the use of multiple guilds. A "trade" guild doesn't need a "military command" branch.

Guilds are intentionally not mini-realms. They are focused groups with special purposes. We don't want them to replace realms, or to serve as a multi-realm control structure. Cross-realm communication and coordination is intentionally more difficult than in-realm communication/coordination. If you want to set up multiple channels of communication like that, in order to allow coordination on multiple topics, then you're either going to have to deal with the inconvenience, or go through the expense/difficulty of setting up the multiple guilds/lines yourself.

[Perth]

This would seem to me to be best solved through the use of multiple guilds. A "trade" guild doesn't need a "military command" branch.

Guilds are intentionally not mini-realms. They are focused groups with special purposes. We don't want them to replace realms, or to serve as a multi-realm control structure. Cross-realm communication and coordination is intentionally more difficult than in-realm communication/coordination. If you want to set up multiple channels of communication like that, in order to allow coordination on multiple topics, then you're either going to have to deal with the inconvenience, or go through the expense/difficulty of setting up the multiple guilds/lines yourself.

Fair enough.

[egamma]

This would seem to me to be best solved through the use of multiple guilds. A "trade" guild doesn't need a "military command" branch.

Guilds are intentionally not mini-realms. They are focused groups with special purposes. We don't want them to replace realms, or to serve as a multi-realm control structure. Cross-realm communication and coordination is intentionally more difficult than in-realm communication/coordination. If you want to set up multiple channels of communication like that, in order to allow coordination on multiple topics, then you're either going to have to deal with the inconvenience, or go through the expense/difficulty of setting up the multiple guilds/lines yourself.

Another use case would be a guild that represents a federation. The federation-guild's elders would be rulers, but they might want a separate channel for generals and marshals, and a separate channel for bankers and traders.

[Indirik]

And, again, guilds are not intended to be mini-realms, or to allow easy and convenient multi-realm control/coordination. If you wish to attempt to use them that way, then you will have to deal with the *intentional* limitations of the system.

BattleMaster is a *realm* oriented game. Communications are intentionally realm-centric. I don't see that changing substantially.