Hey everyone, we are Design Director Ian Currie (aka MadFloyd) and Erik Boyer (known digitally as Producer Glin) and we are very excited to introduce our new Guild Leveling system coming in June with Update 5!  As an introduction to this expansive new feature we will go through some of the basic philosophy behind the system, and explain how you and your guild can get started as soon as it is released.


Guilds are a wonderful resource for players.  Besides the obvious resource for players who need advice, adventure assistance, etc., they foster a sense of family and community for players.  DDO’s support for guilds was on the light side and we felt that this was an aspect of the game that truly warranted some attention. One of the long-standing requests for guilds by players has been guild storage and guild housing. We recognize these are important features, but once we were looking at the system we saw the opportunity to offer players other benefits for participating in a guild - things that directly enhanced their game experience beyond the social interaction of being in a guild.

As we started brainstorming, we also polled our player base and got a sense of what guilds meant to them, what they aspired for their guilds to become, and for those who weren’t part of a guild, what their position was on membership.  It was clear that guilds meant different things to different players.  The more we learned, the more strongly we felt about offering a feature that was as flexible as it was fun. We wanted a system that could incorporate several types of rewards that attract various player interests:  exclusive items, buffs, item enhancements, faster travel, support for recruiting, and even prestige and recognition for their efforts. We believe more players will be able to find a like-minded guild on myDDO and the guild section of the forums if the game provides more incentives to be in a guild.


Many players indicated they are reluctant to join a guild because they think that it requires a daily commitment to the game, or forces grouping. While some guilds do have these goals or mandates, there are guilds established in DDO that take guild membership very lightly, so an important goal for the new system was to support small or casual guilds. Just as we feel players should be able to solo or adventure with small parties, they should be able to decide what size of guild works best for them. In fact, the most common guild size in DDO is rather small, somewhere around 12 players or so.  We tried to balance the system with an eye toward smaller guilds so that things would scale accordingly.

Large guilds can have advantages, but overall, size is not the dominate factor in a guild’s ability to reap the rewards for their participation in the new Guild system.  While attention was put into making the system balanced, we expect there to be guilds on each server that focus on guild activities exclusively to take full advantage of the benefits. We also wanted it to be worthwhile for a casual guild, large or small, to earn the rewards on the side without being coerced into a game mechanic they are not comfortable with.


There is a strong sense of pride among players in MMOs, whether it is a player’s character accomplishments or the reputation of a guild. We wanted to introduce a mechanic that would recognize guilds for achievements and stature.  The design team formulated a guild leveling system to allow guilds to earn and manage the various guild rewards we will offer.

Guild Levels & Renown

It seemed the most natural way to instill a sense of progress, and measure that progress, was through a leveling mechanic - if it’s good enough for your character, why not your guild?  In this case, the Guild Level is a reflection of a guild’s “renown” in the world of Eberron; the more renown earned, the higher the Guild Level.

So once Update 5 goes live, every guild will have a Guild Level.  This Guild Level will be visible to all and default to 1 for every guild at the start, whether new or old. As guild members adventure, they’ll increase their level by increasing the guild’s renown. Think of your renown as your guild’s fame, or reputation. The more valiant your efforts, the more your tale is told in taverns! As your renown grows, so does your level, and thereby, so do the reward opportunities available to your guild.

Renown can be increased by finding various renown “trophies.”  These items will show up in random chests and drop from monsters, and can be offered as rewards from quest givers.  For those who want to expedite their guild’s progression, they can focus on tougher challenges; the more difficult adventures a character attempts, the more likely it will be that renown is earned.
That said, there is only so much a guild can progress in one day (after all, there are only so many songs the tavern bards can sing about your trials before everyone’s heard the news). This means that after a certain amount of daily progress, you’ll have to work harder to produce more renown.

Guilds level with renown, much like characters level with XP.  However, unlike character leveling - which can only increase - a guild’s level can go down in some circumstances.  This is known as renown “decay”.

Renown Decay

A guild’s level represent’s their current stature, and that stature is based on their renown.  If “renown” is your guild’s “fame,” then your guild is like a famous actor, but in more ways than one! With a successful actor, the level of their fame can decline if they’re removed from the public eye for an extended period of time. The same is true for a guild’s renown – it can fade if the guild is not keeping active around the city thwarting monsters and waging battles of glory. If a guild were able to rise to an impressively high level and then cease to be active, their renown would start to decay as the tales of their heroics faded into memory.

For the first part of a guild’s level progression, decay of a guild’s renown isn’t a concern, but as a guild’s level increases beyond a certain threshold, they start to face additional challenges progressing – and maintaining - their renown and guild level.  This mostly pertains to ambitious guilds that attain very high renown; we felt that this would create an exciting dynamic and foster some friendly competition! Who can rise to the top, and stay at the top, of the city’s list of famous guilds?
   
Guild levels below 26 do not decay. As a guild reaches the highest levels, the rate of decay will increase.


As your guild increases in level, you’ll have access to different types of rewards and amenities. The list of rewards your guild has unlocked will be visible within the guild tab on the social window. There you can see which rewards are available at various levels, as well as which rewards have already been unlocked for the guild. The list includes rewards you have earned and rewards you can buy, and you can also toggle the list of rewards that are available in the DDO Store. The bulk of guild rewards are tied to guild levels that experience no or little decay, and certain rewards will belong to the guild forever.

We’ll talk in greater detail about the rewards your guild can earn in our next Guild dev diary soon! We know you’re excited to hear all about the specific types of rewards guilds can work towards, and particularly, all the gritty details of acquiring your guild’s very own airship! Until then, we hope you’ll participate in the previews of the guild leveling system on Lamannia as we draw closer to the release of Update 5. We’ll see you in Eberron!