June 12, 2012

Guilds: What Are They?

So You Want To Know What A Guild Is...

We are serious gamers.

If you're going to MAKE video games, then you have to PLAY a lot of games to know what is out there. Many of us follow the news from our favorite developers, we go to gaming conventions (not as speakers, but as humble fanboys and girls) or have subscriptions to the official magazines of our favorite consoles. We play RPGs, FPSers, Racing games, fighting games, puzzle games, RTSs, mobile games, table-top games, console games, PC games and everything in between.

We were all noobs once. We weren't born knowing that RTS stands for Real Time Strategy or that MMORPG stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. We sometimes forget that not everyone has the same gaming experience as we do. Sometimes we use gaming terms that hardcore gamers consider common knowledge but are unknown to those people who are slightly less wrapped up in the gaming world.

Take the term "Guild" for example. By the time I came to work for AE, I had already been a guild leader in at least two MMOs, and with "The Guild" being such a popular online series, we were completely taken by surprise when we started getting a flood of tweets from people asking what guilds are.

Guild /gild/ noun : An association of people for mutual aid or the pursuit of a common goal.

I asked Chainsword (a player who is visiting the lab today) to help me explain and he has this to say...

It's not something you can easily explain to someone who hasn't ever heard the term.

Now, it could be said that guild is like a community inside whole game community. An adequate explanation could be comparing guilds in game to your friends in school. As student in school, you're part of whole school's community that consists of teachers, students, janitors, security guards and chefs and that guy that drives the school bus.

Now, think about your friends in school. During breaks, and after school, you gather around to do all sorts of fun stuff like playing football, hanging around in mall, telling jokes, talking about all sorts of stuff, and overall just having fun and playing with your own rules, respecting each other.
That's kind of what guilds are for. Think of it as group of friends you know and like, hanging around and planning your own adventures and plans inside the game.

Thanks, Chainsword!

Maybe your guild's goal is to help each other become the best PvPers in AQW. Maybe you all want to help each other get every new character page badge that comes out. Maybe you are all followers of Evil. Your goal is up to you. The point is that you have come together with like-minded people in AdventureQuest Worlds to work together as a community WITHIN the community.  

Once your guild leader has formed the official guild in-game he can invite you, promote you to help share the burden of responsibilities and maybe even allow you to invite others. You will all wear your Guild Name with pride beneath your character name.

Maybe we will be able to add a function for you to design your own guild crest which you can proudly post on your character page. There will certainly be a Guild Hall or Castle or Keep or Town that you all work toward together to build up, improve, and customize to your liking where you can all meet and nobody except the members of the guild will be allowed to enter.  

Guilds are a LOT of fun. They add a lot to the entire gaming experience. Some of my best memories of some of the MMOs that i have played are things that I've done with my Guild and I've even made very strong  and long-lasting friendships in the real world with people that I've met in my guilds.

Now you know. You can see that this is a pretty HUGE project to do correctly and hopefully those of you who have been waiting for a very long time won't be disappointed by our efforts.

Recalculating...

191 days until Just Another Day