I don't think a covenant should replace a guild, it's designed to bolster and support a small guild. Guilds don't need to support people past GR3 under the threat that they won't be able to retain them if they don't get favours. It's the people that were stuck as novices/GR1/GR2 that were suffering by going days and days without being able to get promoted, then giving up. I think we need to keep that in focus and make sure covenants are empowered for that reason.
Having a way to share certain files (so cross guild examiners know requirements etc etc) is really needed. The appropriate secretaries/leaders and such having full weight to raise rank/novice advance is needed. The appropriate leaders being able to guild covenant inventory/skills etc makes them able to help covenant novices with those tests and with advice etc. Resuce should also be available! Save the novices!
Other things are perks. Being able to access logs would be handy, but then if the covenant guild is only allowed to favour up to GR3 (and their favour has full weight) it won't really be needed. I don't see why diplomacy skills need to be shared to help a quiet guild retain novices. I think with all our suggestions we should be asking ourselves - will this help support their novices and stop them quitting the guild in frustration early, or is it just a cool perk I want.
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Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
I really wish it was gnt only. The SDs have always been quiet, it's the culture of the guild. Now we never use it, except to say hello.
Maybe we are just enormous, snooty bitches. Either way, I think guilds should be entitled to be snooty and private. Guild culture is a big deal for some guilds. SDs are pretty effing boring skill wise and none of them are unique, we attract players with our culture.
I'm of the opposite opinion, I think a greater inclusion, greater merging would be best. I'd love to see the line made more blurry in this regard. Logs/favors/GL privs should all be spread across the covenant. I think files should be shared, I believe the things that should NOT be shared are like
Credits, bank accounts, GTS, guildhalls. And yeah I am a big fan of sharing files, like I mentioned but I don't think we should just copy everything. Honestly I'd prefer them being able to just read the files willy-nilly than just copy or make some sort of .cov thing.
If it's supposed to be a secret, put it in a book in the guild's bookshelf. Bam. Now we have a use for bookshelves too more than random throwaway stuff.
I'm not particularly in favor of merging guilds like that... and leaving a piece of e-real estate, one aether, and the bank accounts as a guild's separate identity sounds to me like a step backwards, not forwards.
If the goal is to help novices, I would think sharing gnt would be enough. Perhaps the guild leadership has a covenant aether to discuss such things as impact the covenant as a whole or relations between the guilds?
I just don't think guilds need to have to work harder to maintain an identity separate from the covenant. If anything, the guild should be above the covenant, rather than the other way around. If you're in need of further socialization beyond your guild, that's what ct and clans are for isn't it?
I would like to echo Astraea's sentiment that greater merging would be great. From the very start of the entire newbies not getting interaction problem, which spawned Covenants in the first place, I have always advocated for a more comprehensive merging of guilds. Covenants never did go far enough in my opinion. Note that this is just my own opinion though.
First, I will concede that what people are arguing about the need to maintain separate Guild identity is true. After all, the role a person plays in the larger org (City/Commune) is defined by his Guild. If an SD one day becomes indistinguishable from a Nekotai, except by their skills, then it would certainly be a loss of culture. Lusternia would become a very boring place if everyone in Glomdoring (or any other org) can be easily painted in a broad stroke and generalised, with the subtle rivalries and distinctive culture of individual guilds diluted. However, maintaining separate Guild identity and all is well and good, except for the fact that we have too many Guilds in the game. While mechanically, having five archetypes per major org (City/Commune) might be decently balanced for the combat metascape, where the population of the game is concerned, asking for five distinctive, unique cultural factions in a single org (when we have six orgs) is not sustainable given the population spread across the game. There is simply not enough people to support this system.
It doesn't matter how unique your guild's RP or culture is if there's only 3 established members who are active. No one knows, and no one gets to interact with this oh-so-great culture if there's no one in the guild to showcase it. There's no rivalry between guilds if there's no one to roleplay the rivalry with. The Shadowdancers can say politically they are rivals with the Blacktalon because, oh, Brennan and Rowena are in a "It's Complicated" relationship and that carries over to the guild identities... but if there's no Blacktalon to argue with in political discussions... then there's no rivalry. A guild needs a certain number of people in order to function as a cultural entity, it needs a critical mass or there will not be enough momentum to get rolling. I can log in and roleplay as a dangerous, slick, shadow-stepping assassin, but that is not a "guild identity" until enough people back me up by helping to define it with their own roleplay as well. The helpfiles, guildhall descriptions and "tradition" all help to maintain this culture, but just reading these things, without actual people around to act it out and interact with, it becomes as good as putting up a human-shaped cardboard and placing a placard with an arrow over it that reads - This is a Nekotai assassin. He is supposed to be cool and make you think, "oooh, he's cool."
I think it's far more conducive to consolidate the cultural factions in each org to a number that the population can support and build cultural identities around that. How many factions can an org support with our current population? I don't know, but I certainly don't think "five" is it.
What are the levels of people who can speak over GNT? I seem to recall that it was a fairly limited audience and that there was a hole people would fall into when they were too high a guild rank to use it as a novice but not high enough to use it as someone helping novices.
If that is still the case and we move to shift more covenant communication to that channel then it will need to be addressed.
I believe that you are thinking of Newbie (when you lose access to it for a time after you level past 30, but before you have enough play time to be a mentor).
2
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
I would like to echo Astraea's sentiment that greater merging would be great. From the very start of the entire newbies not getting interaction problem, which spawned Covenants in the first place, I have always advocated for a more comprehensive merging of guilds. Covenants never did go far enough in my opinion. Note that this is just my own opinion though.
First, I will concede that what people are arguing about the need to maintain separate Guild identity is true. After all, the role a person plays in the larger org (City/Commune) is defined by his Guild. If an SD one day becomes indistinguishable from a Nekotai, except by their skills, then it would certainly be a loss of culture. Lusternia would become a very boring place if everyone in Glomdoring (or any other org) can be easily painted in a broad stroke and generalised, with the subtle rivalries and distinctive culture of individual guilds diluted. However, maintaining separate Guild identity and all is well and good, except for the fact that we have too many Guilds in the game. While mechanically, having five archetypes per major org (City/Commune) might be decently balanced for the combat metascape, where the population of the game is concerned, asking for five distinctive, unique cultural factions in a single org (when we have six orgs) is not sustainable given the population spread across the game. There is simply not enough people to support this system.
It doesn't matter how unique your guild's RP or culture is if there's only 3 established members who are active. No one knows, and no one gets to interact with this oh-so-great culture if there's no one in the guild to showcase it. There's no rivalry between guilds if there's no one to roleplay the rivalry with. The Shadowdancers can say politically they are rivals with the Blacktalon because, oh, Brennan and Rowena are in a "It's Complicated" relationship and that carries over to the guild identities... but if there's no Blacktalon to argue with in political discussions... then there's no rivalry. A guild needs a certain number of people in order to function as a cultural entity, it needs a critical mass or there will not be enough momentum to get rolling. I can log in and roleplay as a dangerous, slick, shadow-stepping assassin, but that is not a "guild identity" until enough people back me up by helping to define it with their own roleplay as well. The helpfiles, guildhall descriptions and "tradition" all help to maintain this culture, but just reading these things, without actual people around to act it out and interact with, it becomes as good as putting up a human-shaped cardboard and placing a placard with an arrow over it that reads - This is a Nekotai assassin. He is supposed to be cool and make you think, "oooh, he's cool."
I think it's far more conducive to consolidate the cultural factions in each org to a number that the population can support and build cultural identities around that. How many factions can an org support with our current population? I don't know, but I certainly don't think "five" is it.
The assertion that there are not enough players to support unique guild identities isn't something can be stated as if it's a fact. Guilds have absolutely maintained their culture during low population valleys because the existance of said culture is not dependent on a large population that shares it with the world. The existance and value of culture is not determined by the size of the playerbase participating in the culture so long as there are players participating in it, meaning it doesn't matter unless there are zero. 3, as you cited, is plenty. The SDs have certainly survived times of no activity save 3 leaders and watched the numbers peak and valley over the years. The culture of the guild has remained a constant, and a constant draw for the type of player that enjoys our culture. As I said, our skillsets certainly aren't striking up anyone's interest. You talk about populations of guilds as if they are static things over long periods of time. They are most assuredly not.
If I were to choose between being, as you referred to it, boring and diluted and being spread too thin, my choice is spread too thin.
I don't understand why you bold random sentences all the time.
Right now I'm not really looking into changing the whole scope covenants are meant to cover, messing with guild identities, etc.; at this point I'm mostly just wanting to find ways to make covenants as they stand now a bit more useful.
My to-do list right now is this:
1) Guild score/skills/inventory work on covenant members, up to rank 5. 2) Guild favours across covenant have full effect up to rank 5. 3) Guild ledger find/summon/teleport working across covenant. 4) Rescue working across covenant. 5) Ability to share help files across covenant. 6) Any collegium/novice promotion should work across covenant.
I'm going to talk to Estarra about GT* and logs and see what we want to do there; no guarantees either way for those. Same for guild rite participation. Security/protector stuff will probably remain guild-only.
* Adding a new GCT channel or something would be possible, but I almost see it as just adding complexity for no major gain; it largely becomes just _another_ channel to keep track of, especially for new players, who already have NEWBIE and CT and CGT and GNT and GT and quite possibly a handful of CLTs and probably others I'm forgetting. Am interested in more feedback regarding channels.
And there are probably things people brought up here that I'm missing, so feel free to reiterate ideas if that's the case. Or new ideas, new ideas are still welcome.
I haven't been in a guild in ages so my input isn't well informed. But my instinct tells me that if just GNT is shared between covenant guilds, you'll have that sense of connection and separation that people seem to want. GNT is for everyone, GT is for the individual guilds. I don't know when you get access to GTS, but that strikes me as a leadership-only kind of channel.
Having less than five guilds in an org doesn't immediately equate to being "boring" or "diluted". The number of players in a guild, and even in an org, certainly does fluctuate, and quite often. But the general population of the game stays around the same over long periods of time. New people come in all the time, but so do older players move on to other endeavours. If anything, the playerbase today is probably smaller, though I won't assert that my memory is infalliable, I don't think we are more populous compared to when bards and monks didn't exist. Certainly, the game has been made more rich and diverse with these additions, but it was by no means "boring and diluted" before then.
With more additions, however, the population has been made to stretch across these new entities, to try and define, and then act out, and then continue to develop them, and while established players certainly have no lack of options to explore and have loads of fun with what they do, the people who suffer are those new to the game and end up feeling that certain guilds are empty because they are in one of their "population valleys" as you term it.
Of course, my above sentence also means that we appear to differ in our opinions as to what constitutes a state where guilds can continue to function as a cultural entity worth anything. If as you say, "it doesn't matter unless there are zero",
then our current population can support as many unique guilds as there
are unique established players. So.... maybe somewhere around 50 guilds.
Or perhaps more? Personally, though, I simply disagree. 28 guilds (which will turn into 30 when the Halli/Gaudi monks get released) is already too many guilds for a game that sometimes have 20 total players online at a time.
The very problem that spawned Covenants is the complaint that there is no one to talk to, that all the years' worth of books in the libraries and guildhelp entries do not make up for, and do not serve as a sufficient substitute for, actual interaction. The concept of being "spread too thin" has the unfortunate implication that when a guild rises out of their valley, another guild is probably heading into a slump. The thinner the population is spread, the more guilds are in such a state at any one time.
Therefore, if I were to choose between having less guilds (which, if you refer back to my bolded sentence above, doesn't neccesarily mean boring or diluted) and being spread too thin, I'd choose the former.
PS, I don't bold "random" sentences. When I bold sentences, it generally means you can probably read just those sentences to get the gist of what I want to say.
Edit: Just to elaborate, I don't expect our five-guilds system to change anytime soon. Estarra has made it clear he's not interested in changing it. If my opinions have derailed the thread, I apologise. I do think the Covenant channels as they are work well enough. Newbies are heard by everyone when they use their GNT, and full members can talk to their Covenant counterparts without confusing newbies via the shared GT. GTS exists for more private communication - good enough. Just the sharing of helpfiles alone will alleviate some of the major problems with doing novice advancement across Covenants that exist as-is.
If you don't have anyone to interact with in your guild, then you have gnt for the covenant people. And there is still always ct. If there's no one around in your city or commune, then all the covenants in the world aren't going to help you anyway.
Gts is guild rank 5 and up. I think I would prefer that only GNT were shared. Everyone in the guild CAN use it, and it would give GNT more of a purpose, allowing GT to be used for lively guild only discussion with everyone, particularly since a lot of people tend to plateau out at GR 3, at least in my experience, and they're the ones who benefit the most from being inspired by guild chatter.
@Ieptix: Thanks for looking into these tweaks to make covenant's a bit better, and giving us a chance to discuss some of the pros and cons and uses of covenants.
Also, it isn't that hard to just tell the other guild what your advancement help file contains and have them set it up. I think it's worked okay for the Symphonium/Aeromancer covenant. It would definitely be a lot easier if updating your advancement scrolls only required you, and not you +active leader from other guild who will actually do what you ask in a timely manner.
Since a lot of people seem to be proposing GT not being shared across the covenant, and are claiming that it blends the guilds together too much, I would like to offer a dissenting point of view here. With the Templars and Illuminati, we do frequently use GT to communicate with each other. It may just be that we're fairly social guilds, but often the shared communication does prove useful, be it in organization of cross-guild affairs or even just making it seem like your guild isn't a dying wasteland filled with naught but silence broken only by the occasional hello. So far, I would not say that the fear that the guilds would blend together into one is even of the slightest concern to us. We each have our separate rituals and practices, and the philosophy of each guild is, in practice, greatly different, and I would say there is little, if any, threat of either of us losing our identity. In fact, with the sharing of information that occurs quite often, I'd personally say it's strengthened both guilds, though others are free to disagree with me. And anything not meant for the ears of the other guild is often said either over GTS or in person (a shocking concept, I know.)
I'm in agreement with Ieptix that another channel would just unnecessarily complicate things. I am also in disagreement about using GNT as the sole shared channel as some are suggesting - in HELP GUILDTELL, GNT is stated to stand for "Guild Novice Tell" and is explicitly given the purpose of being for guild novices and those helping them. Muddling that with random, cross-guild chatter would likely be confusing for some, and I do feel it is not the way to go.
As for shared guild helpfiles, ledger, score/inventory/skills, I am in full agreement personally and would love the change.
I can see where you are coming from, @Altrea, but you also exist in the unique space that the Illuminati and Templars have established RP that makes sense for the two guilds to be so close. Not every other covenant in the game has the relationship between guilds that exists with the Templar/Illuminati bond.
I will also add, that as an Illuminati, I found it odd that I could not speak to my guild without also addressing the Templars, which struck me as wrong in a guild that is so heavily centered around the idea of secrecy.
It has been my experience that GNT is rarely even used anymore, as when CGT came out, it basically overrode the need for GNT, aside from a novice asking a skill related question or two, or asking for an interview.
The fact of the matter is that, in a lot of (if not most) cases, does not make sense for both guilds to be able to hear the goings on of the other guild. As a shofangi, I am not benefitted by hearing the guildtells of the Hartstone, Not having an option to have a place to speak to the whole guild without also including all of the Hartstone is a detriment, not a positive, in my opinion, which is why I proposed the GCT idea.
If it worked the way I would think it would work, GNT and GCT would be shared across guilds, and the average novice wouldn't need to worry about GCT until they got to a point where they specifically wanted to speak to the other guild, and not in a novice capacity.
With a shared GCT channel, you could continue your cross-guild interactions the way you currently do, you could still hear the goings on of the other guild, provided they -wanted- to include you in what they are talking about. The way things currently are, there is no choice whether or not to include the other guild.
A whisper from the trees and a frosty presence tells you, secretly, "But you are strong, little
flower, and wise." The voice shifts and expands, becoming more real. "And everything you just said
in the ritual made me feel safer. You should, too."
yes... novice, as in the reason I was under the impression covenants were brought into being? To help the novices? If that's the case, then it being on GNT makes perfect sense.
IF covenants were instead meant to consolidate some chat channels to make them seem more lively, that's a whole different ball of wax. And one to which I still reply "That's kind of what CT is for".
I mean, I can tell there are some folks who would like to bleed the guilds together more. But it isn't like there aren't other avenues to look for interaction within your organization. If the contention is that "CT isn't good enough, it needs to be GT" then what happens when both guilds in the covenant are in a valley? You're still going to have to go to CT to find your interaction.
Every other covenant in the game does not have the relationship between guilds that exists with the Templar/Illuminati bond.
There's no need to speak for all other guilds; you can speak for your own if you'd like, though!
Nihilists / ur'Guard can share a similar tie. So can Celestines / Paladins and possibly even Sentinels / Institute.
Then you have the Communes, where the warrior guilds (Ebonguard / Serenguard) could have a bond with either the Druid or Wiccan guilds and be able to have that kind of close relationship.
All of these share skillsets, meaning that there is a core aspect of these guild pairings available to tap and work on a meaningful RP bond.
This may or may not have happened in other pairings, but it's certainly not an option only for the Templars / Illuminati.
I think that the main functionality (Beyond the obvious communication thing) of shared GT is the notifications received when important things are under attack, isn't it?
I'm Lucidian. If I don't get pedantic every so often, I might explode.
Every other covenant in the game does not have the relationship between guilds that exists with the Templar/Illuminati bond.
There's no need to speak for all other guilds; you can speak for your own if you'd like, though!
Nihilists / ur'Guard can share a similar tie. So can Celestines / Paladins and possibly even Sentinels / Institute.
Then you have the Communes, where the warrior guilds (Ebonguard / Serenguard) could have a bond with either the Druid or Wiccan guilds and be able to have that kind of close relationship.
All of these share skillsets, meaning that there is a core aspect of these guild pairings available to tap and work on a meaningful RP bond.
This may or may not have happened in other pairings, but it's certainly not an option only for the Templars / Illuminati.
I think you misunderstand me. I'm not saying that guilds can't choose to find common ground and forge a closer relationship: that is not at all what I was saying. That could be something that is RPd out, for certain, but I was speaking specifically to the part of Illuminati/Templar lore where the Templar guild used to be a part of the Illuminati guild, and are tied together in purpose: the Templars exist to protect the Illuminati, according to guild lore.
As far as I'm aware, no other pair of guilds exists in the same manner, where two guilds lore are inextricably intertwined like that of the Illuminati and the Templars. Where it makes logical RP sense to be in a covenant, and would be odd if they weren't. If I am missing some, please, forgive my ignorance.
This also misses my point to that post, so I have edited that phrase to more clearly reflect my intention, which is to say that not every covenant has, or even wants to have, that level of closeness with their covenant guild. I imagine that for some it is more a matter of convenience than something that has strong RP roots. But I do not wish to speak to guilds I have not been active in.
A whisper from the trees and a frosty presence tells you, secretly, "But you are strong, little
flower, and wise." The voice shifts and expands, becoming more real. "And everything you just said
in the ritual made me feel safer. You should, too."
The Serenguard are founded from hartstone and moondancers members according to lore.
Sentinels were initially a mercenary company but came to be time protectors with advanced degrees in time (aka the institute).
I'm sure there's more, but lore-established ties do exist between other guilds.
To be honest. If forming a tie like that is not what a guild wants, I would tend towards saying they shouldn't form a covenant to begin with. That's one or the reasons I would likely never want to do a covenant with the SG, to keep them a bit stand-offish despite the founding ties with two guilds.
Sentinels/Institute is supposed to be us clearing up the messes they make when Science Goes Wrong. That's about all the RP the Sentinels are supposed to have, according to past conversations. As for the Secret Police thing that everyone thinks - that got swatted down hard when it was brought up with Elostian.
As for the Covenants: shared GHELP/ a GCHELP syntax (as I previously suggested) would be splendid, as would the novice advancement capabilities. Then again, some actual, real, honest-to-Gods Sentinel novices would be nice, too, Aeonics notwithstanding.
Could individual GNTs be replaced with a dynamic GCT that adjusts to the member guilds? For that matter, would it ever be possible to have more than two guilds in a covenant? The Sentinels is a pretty lonely place sometimes...
I agree with Lerad. It would be more worthwhile to study whether there really are too many guilds or people are spread too thin and then more...thoroughly restructuring guilds as a result of that instead of yet another bandaid covenant fix.
To be honest. If forming a tie like that is not what a guild wants, I would tend towards saying they shouldn't form a covenant to begin with.
I think this comes down to what the purpose of forming a covenant is. And the beautiful part of the covenant system, I think, is in defining that purpose on a case by case basis.
It can serve as a way to make a guild seem less empty, it can help the novices reach somebody that can help them with their guild and class related questions. It can forge a closer relationship between two guilds. There are a million ways and reasons to forge a covenant, and allowing for more separation between the two guilds allows for -greater- flexibility in the use of covenants, at least from my perspective.
A whisper from the trees and a frosty presence tells you, secretly, "But you are strong, little
flower, and wise." The voice shifts and expands, becoming more real. "And everything you just said
in the ritual made me feel safer. You should, too."
I agree with Lerad. It would be more worthwhile to study whether there really are too many guilds or people are spread too thin and then more...thoroughly restructuring guilds as a result of that instead of yet another bandaid covenant fix.
Lets just destroy two orgs, I vote Celest (because they always get boned) and Serenwilde. totally not biased
Edit: I was totally excited when Mother Moon was about to die
Well that would make the game even less exciting than it already is. I'm just saying if we ended up having to overhaul combat, demigod powers, construct conflict, and more, I think guilds should be too.
I have found cross GT to be helpful and support keeping it. You have GTS for private conversations. GR 5 is hardly a guild elder. A lot of good and helpful things come from the group chat dynamic. How are novices supposed to know when people from another guild might know something insightful on any given topic?
And people who think that CT is for fun chatting and merriment haven't lived in Magnagora.
Do we need guilds though? There's nothing a guild offers that you can't get somewhere else. You don't even need to belong in one so long as you are party of the org. I've seen clans bigger than some guilds too. If the entire basis of your roleplay revolves around your skills then I would argue that maybe it needs to have more depth to truly have a nuanced character.
Comments
Having a way to share certain files (so cross guild examiners know requirements etc etc) is really needed.
The appropriate secretaries/leaders and such having full weight to raise rank/novice advance is needed.
The appropriate leaders being able to guild covenant inventory/skills etc makes them able to help covenant novices with those tests and with advice etc.
Resuce should also be available! Save the novices!
Other things are perks. Being able to access logs would be handy, but then if the covenant guild is only allowed to favour up to GR3 (and their favour has full weight) it won't really be needed. I don't see why diplomacy skills need to be shared to help a quiet guild retain novices. I think with all our suggestions we should be asking ourselves - will this help support their novices and stop them quitting the guild in frustration early, or is it just a cool perk I want.
First, I will concede that what people are arguing about the need to maintain separate Guild identity is true. After all, the role a person plays in the larger org (City/Commune) is defined by his Guild. If an SD one day becomes indistinguishable from a Nekotai, except by their skills, then it would certainly be a loss of culture. Lusternia would become a very boring place if everyone in Glomdoring (or any other org) can be easily painted in a broad stroke and generalised, with the subtle rivalries and distinctive culture of individual guilds diluted. However, maintaining separate Guild identity and all is well and good, except for the fact that we have too many Guilds in the game. While mechanically, having five archetypes per major org (City/Commune) might be decently balanced for the combat metascape, where the population of the game is concerned, asking for five distinctive, unique cultural factions in a single org (when we have six orgs) is not sustainable given the population spread across the game. There is simply not enough people to support this system.
It doesn't matter how unique your guild's RP or culture is if there's only 3 established members who are active. No one knows, and no one gets to interact with this oh-so-great culture if there's no one in the guild to showcase it. There's no rivalry between guilds if there's no one to roleplay the rivalry with. The Shadowdancers can say politically they are rivals with the Blacktalon because, oh, Brennan and Rowena are in a "It's Complicated" relationship and that carries over to the guild identities... but if there's no Blacktalon to argue with in political discussions... then there's no rivalry. A guild needs a certain number of people in order to function as a cultural entity, it needs a critical mass or there will not be enough momentum to get rolling. I can log in and roleplay as a dangerous, slick, shadow-stepping assassin, but that is not a "guild identity" until enough people back me up by helping to define it with their own roleplay as well. The helpfiles, guildhall descriptions and "tradition" all help to maintain this culture, but just reading these things, without actual people around to act it out and interact with, it becomes as good as putting up a human-shaped cardboard and placing a placard with an arrow over it that reads - This is a Nekotai assassin. He is supposed to be cool and make you think, "oooh, he's cool."
I think it's far more conducive to consolidate the cultural factions in each org to a number that the population can support and build cultural identities around that. How many factions can an org support with our current population? I don't know, but I certainly don't think "five" is it.
The assertion that there are not enough players to support unique guild identities isn't something can be stated as if it's a fact. Guilds have absolutely maintained their culture during low population valleys because the existance of said culture is not dependent on a large population that shares it with the world. The existance and value of culture is not determined by the size of the playerbase participating in the culture so long as there are players participating in it, meaning it doesn't matter unless there are zero. 3, as you cited, is plenty. The SDs have certainly survived times of no activity save 3 leaders and watched the numbers peak and valley over the years. The culture of the guild has remained a constant, and a constant draw for the type of player that enjoys our culture. As I said, our skillsets certainly aren't striking up anyone's interest. You talk about populations of guilds as if they are static things over long periods of time. They are most assuredly not.
If I were to choose between being, as you referred to it, boring and diluted and being spread too thin, my choice is spread too thin.
I don't understand why you bold random sentences all the time.
My to-do list right now is this:
1) Guild score/skills/inventory work on covenant members, up to rank 5.
2) Guild favours across covenant have full effect up to rank 5.
3) Guild ledger find/summon/teleport working across covenant.
4) Rescue working across covenant.
5) Ability to share help files across covenant.
6) Any collegium/novice promotion should work across covenant.
I'm going to talk to Estarra about GT* and logs and see what we want to do there; no guarantees either way for those. Same for guild rite participation. Security/protector stuff will probably remain guild-only.
* Adding a new GCT channel or something would be possible, but I almost see it as just adding complexity for no major gain; it largely becomes just _another_ channel to keep track of, especially for new players, who already have NEWBIE and CT and CGT and GNT and GT and quite possibly a handful of CLTs and probably others I'm forgetting. Am interested in more feedback regarding channels.
And there are probably things people brought up here that I'm missing, so feel free to reiterate ideas if that's the case. Or new ideas, new ideas are still welcome.
Estarra the Eternal says, "Give Shevat the floor please."
With more additions, however, the population has been made to stretch across these new entities, to try and define, and then act out, and then continue to develop them, and while established players certainly have no lack of options to explore and have loads of fun with what they do, the people who suffer are those new to the game and end up feeling that certain guilds are empty because they are in one of their "population valleys" as you term it.
Of course, my above sentence also means that we appear to differ in our opinions as to what constitutes a state where guilds can continue to function as a cultural entity worth anything. If as you say, "it doesn't matter unless there are zero", then our current population can support as many unique guilds as there are unique established players. So.... maybe somewhere around 50 guilds. Or perhaps more? Personally, though, I simply disagree. 28 guilds (which will turn into 30 when the Halli/Gaudi monks get released) is already too many guilds for a game that sometimes have 20 total players online at a time.
The very problem that spawned Covenants is the complaint that there is no one to talk to, that all the years' worth of books in the libraries and guildhelp entries do not make up for, and do not serve as a sufficient substitute for, actual interaction. The concept of being "spread too thin" has the unfortunate implication that when a guild rises out of their valley, another guild is probably heading into a slump. The thinner the population is spread, the more guilds are in such a state at any one time.
Therefore, if I were to choose between having less guilds (which, if you refer back to my bolded sentence above, doesn't neccesarily mean boring or diluted) and being spread too thin, I'd choose the former.
PS, I don't bold "random" sentences. When I bold sentences, it generally means you can probably read just those sentences to get the gist of what I want to say.
Edit: Just to elaborate, I don't expect our five-guilds system to change anytime soon. Estarra has made it clear he's not interested in changing it. If my opinions have derailed the thread, I apologise. I do think the Covenant channels as they are work well enough. Newbies are heard by everyone when they use their GNT, and full members can talk to their Covenant counterparts without confusing newbies via the shared GT. GTS exists for more private communication - good enough. Just the sharing of helpfiles alone will alleviate some of the major problems with doing novice advancement across Covenants that exist as-is.
@Ieptix: Thanks for looking into these tweaks to make covenant's a bit better, and giving us a chance to discuss some of the pros and cons and uses of covenants.
Also, it isn't that hard to just tell the other guild what your advancement help file contains and have them set it up. I think it's worked okay for the Symphonium/Aeromancer covenant. It would definitely be a lot easier if updating your advancement scrolls only required you, and not you +active leader from other guild who will actually do what you ask in a timely manner.
I'm in agreement with Ieptix that another channel would just unnecessarily complicate things. I am also in disagreement about using GNT as the sole shared channel as some are suggesting - in HELP GUILDTELL, GNT is stated to stand for "Guild Novice Tell" and is explicitly given the purpose of being for guild novices and those helping them. Muddling that with random, cross-guild chatter would likely be confusing for some, and I do feel it is not the way to go.
As for shared guild helpfiles, ledger, score/inventory/skills, I am in full agreement personally and would love the change.
Just my two cents on the matter.
Nihilists / ur'Guard can share a similar tie. So can Celestines / Paladins and possibly even Sentinels / Institute.
Then you have the Communes, where the warrior guilds (Ebonguard / Serenguard) could have a bond with either the Druid or Wiccan guilds and be able to have that kind of close relationship.
All of these share skillsets, meaning that there is a core aspect of these guild pairings available to tap and work on a meaningful RP bond.
This may or may not have happened in other pairings, but it's certainly not an option only for the Templars / Illuminati.
Sentinels were initially a mercenary company but came to be time protectors with advanced degrees in time (aka the institute).
I'm sure there's more, but lore-established ties do exist between other guilds.
To be honest. If forming a tie like that is not what a guild wants, I would tend towards saying they shouldn't form a covenant to begin with. That's one or the reasons I would likely never want to do a covenant with the SG, to keep them a bit stand-offish despite the founding ties with two guilds.
As for the Covenants: shared GHELP/ a GCHELP syntax (as I previously suggested) would be splendid, as would the novice advancement capabilities. Then again, some actual, real, honest-to-Gods Sentinel novices would be nice, too, Aeonics notwithstanding.
Could individual GNTs be replaced with a dynamic GCT that adjusts to the member guilds? For that matter, would it ever be possible to have more than two guilds in a covenant? The Sentinels is a pretty lonely place sometimes...
TL:CR -
Guilds need identity. You can't keep that identity if you are sewn to the other person.