you think the Asrals and Shaolin is an example of a well-played guild?!?!
These two are some of the worst functioned throughout the history. The Asrals especially..
The Shaolins are ancient. They were basically just a fighter guild which was "neutral" to "good" - good insofar that, when there was a threat, they could come and fight that threat. In ancient times mostly Sathos. That was the time when a single Satho could occupy 3-5 other playerchars on his own.
It was also quite easier because the whole MUD was much more in "beta testphase", for some time. Today of course, the general roleplay has improved a lot, but the code has also changed, new guilds emerged, gods are different now, miracles are different now, skill system changed a bit.
Currently, the shaolins are not so much "needed" anymore in this conflict, as crusaders etc.. all keep Sathos very busy anyway, and while Sathos are still strong - especially combined with their undeads - they just don't have the same power in comparison.
I also think characters today seem to be somewhat stronger than they used to be... or there was some other change.... hmmm (Or was it the change in the skill system ... or just that characters today can be easily +100 days online, all time training up hmm.. Perhaps I am wrong.)
But I don't think it is good to state that the older guilds might be less "well-played" as a guild entity, with all the code changes that happened - or the addition of new guilds, it simply changed the game.
New guilds change the landscape. Even something as trivial like the backstab change had a big impact on the action pattern of certain characters.
The Asrals are a bit crazy, true. But in all fairness, the job they can do here can be done by crusaders/clerics of Taniel combined much better - insofar as being the good guys.
In general, I would like to ask - how "evil" can anyone be today, anyway? Every "evil" action has repercussions and drawbacks.
One of my favourite example is "killing an unicorn" costing you... like what, 80 gold coins if you want to come back to a neutral state again - or you want to remain an outlaw and basically will be driven out of the areas where you are an outlaw. Which happen to be the main interaction places too (Arborea and Elvandar, the rest is not so important for meeting other characters).
Who will do actions which hinder your ability to participate and play?
It is much easier to not do this at all.
Let's also briefly mention The Order. Are they well played? They probably are or were, but they are also quite strong. They could definitely be more "evil", but I do wonder how evil they really wanted to be. They can't complain if the good guys rally up against them if they would like to be the ultimate evil for instance.
Yet, let's be brutally honest here - they are extremely inactive as a
guild.
There was only one of them openly visible and active, and after a bit PvP that character no longer is as active anymore, at least not in the classical good areas. If I would be that character, I really would not know what else to do other than endless, tiring PvP.
Sure, they can be mysterious as a guild entity, but if noone of them is really playing then their guild goal can hardly be achieved due to their own inactivity - unless the guild goal is to not play at all ...
Which brings me to the crusaders. Even the crusaders struggle a LOT with active players. If you don't have active, participative players in a guild, the guild can hardly be
functional and active, and hence no matter the grand guild goal - it can hardly be achieved by inactivity. The crusaders are also very well designed to combat the threats (everything that is evil or happens to be enemy of the crusaders). Or in other words, as a guild the crusaders are by far the strongest guild - as long as they are sufficiently active.
In essence it boils down to a design of a game, and the amount of players who can support this - or participate in the framework. One design flaw in my humble opinion is that competitive playing often leads to a bad result - one side gives up playing. Or becomes a "casual player", which is really really bad, and right now it is so especially for the evil characters.
It is like wielding a knife, or having a machine gun. The guy with the machine gun should normally have an advantage ... the one using a knife needs to workaround here, like by lying or sneaking or some other strategy. In many situations though, getting a machine gun is better than continuing with the knife.
The direct confrontation against the machine gun guy will usually simply not work. And we should not forget that using a machine gun again and again just becomes tiring after some time ... which is, honestly, often a reason why players don't like endless PvP even if they win.
How fearful and threatening could be a crusader knight with regular mounts, regular weaponry, without their auras and in regular armor?
It would be roleplay without sufficient firepower behind. Of course they would still want to drive out the evil, but they would completely have to change their strategies.
It is easy to achieve certain things if you get enough firepower behind it, and very hard if you don't have it.
while I don't doubt that a role-playing environment can always be improved, I seriously doubt that certain roles can be fulfilled without proper code support
Here, I wonder if the main functionality of the game should center around PvP conflict. I guess if PvP alone were to work as easily we would have the heavy PvP guilds filled with many active players ...
But back on the topic of the thread, I personally really think it would be better to think less in the traditional sense of "guild wizards" maintaining guilds, and more in a general framework of clans, or completely player-driven agendas - including "setting" up guilds.
Just imagine if suddenly 10 new players were to come together, without extra powers, yet they could have the ability to roleplay, and establish guidelines fitting within the game. (Or in other words, they would establish a ~clan)
To me this would sound nice - less classical guild thinking, more thinking what playercharacters could come up with on their own (since players can be very creative).
Last but not least, I would like to state that it can often be
VERY difficult to join a guild, especially for real newbies. But the PvP heavy guilds often prefer trained characters, and also high activity - both can be very, very difficult for new players.
Best race: halflings.
