Test Update #13A or Viva La Revolucion!
Louis XVI was reclining in decadent luxury when the sounds of an uproar pierced the golden walls of his palace. "Is it a rebellion?" the monarch asked.
"No, sire," responded a servant. "It is a revolution."
And so with Test Update #13, SOE has hatched a revolution to tear down the walls of Guild class structure. Well, to tear down the patron system anyway. We're all on equal footing now, assuming this goes live.
You know, to be honest, in the past few weeks I've written about the patron system so much that SOE could probably start a system where only people whose names start with T and Z contribute to Guild status on Wednesday through Friday and I would probably be too weak to protest. I'm not sure why they tweaked the patron system in update #12, only to remove it entirely in update #13.
Luckily, I think the current idea is a positive one. Remember, it may never go live and it may have additional restrictions, but for now the idea is that earned status is divided by a minimum of 6 and maximum of 24 depending on how many unique accounts (alts don't count) you have in the Guild.
How this will affect the level speed of small, medium and large Guilds? It looks like it will favor large Guilds. I don't quite grasp the rationale behind the 24 account cap but I'm going to wait to see how it goes live before worrying about it.
To me the best feature of this system is that it would free Guild leaders from the headaches of the patron system and free nerds like me from making complicated spreadsheets. The patron system has been probably the number two most divisive and drama creating issue in Guilds (after the perennial number one favorite: loot).
I'm not saying it didn't work. I'm just saying the social side-effects were too much of a headache. Games are supposed to be fun and the patron system is a logistical headache and an unnecessary class system. Some patrons felt like they were spending all their time doing writs while some non-patrons felt like they were being excluded from participating in the Guild.
Perhaps I'm being too optimistic and the new system will create too much pressure on more casual guild players to do writs. Still, I'm willing to give it a chance.
There is also something in this Update about shirtless Frogloks, but, hey, this isn't that kind of blog.
posted by Aggro Me at 8:00 AM
5 Comments:
I think its a good idea for every guild member to be able to participate in lvling the guild, it is their guild also.
We are the largest guild on our server. After much debate and investigation we had set our maximum number of Patrons to 24. Note we currently have 18 so finding 24 folks willing to be patrons was not always easy.
I am totally behind the new change and look forward to allowing all guildmembers the fun of adding to the guild's level.
At first I was thinking that it sucked since I just made Patron finally. After thinking some more I think it is good that it won't be a few people worrying about the "patron grind" anymore.
Okay, a new spreadsheet is a good idea. But I'm going to wait till the change goes live first.
Seen a lot of posts on the official EQ2 boards about this, both for and against. The cons usually hold that this will give guilds an incentive to kick out less active members. Pros hold that it means that the entire guild can work towards guild status, not just a small corps of patrons. Another big con people complain about this is that now any guild can get to 30, it's now just a question of how fast. I hold that really the system has been pretty much meaningless from square one anyway, but maybe that's just me... once they removed all status loss from the system the recognition of hitting high guild levels ceased to mean much. But if you're going to have this system, it makes more sense to me that everyone contribute, not just a few. Sure that gives the asvantage to larger active guilds, but so what? I think they should have the advantage, as guild status seems intended to award that kind anyway. Smaller family and scoial guilds that don't care about this sort of thing aren't affected anyway, they can just ignore the change.
Post a Comment
<< Home