If you can be in five guilds, how will this work for information sharing and closely guarded secrets? A large part of mmos is that you get one up on each other, and even those in the same faction wont escape that (especially as guilds can hold towers/towns or something) so if you have more than one guild... a big problem is going to be "spys". now i dont want to sound like a paranoid freak, because iv never payed attention to spys before, but at the beginning of the game how are people going to be getting ahead with their guild if the information they manage to collect can be so easily spread around?

I saw in a youtube interview that one of the designers said that they are trying to make it so that you can hide a character from your guild. they dont know if they can do it but they are working on it.

This means it seems they are not making guild memeberships and who each character is involved with completely transparent.

I dont like this at all =[ how will you know you can trust someone when they could have something against the guild you are in, and they could be specifically out to screw people over in that guild.

i dont know if i explained myself very well... but it makes me want to not join a guild at all.

I plan to have one guild that I PVP/PVE with, the other 4 are going to be for crafting and auction purposes. I have no desire to be heavily involved in 5 different guilds, but I don't want to be at a disadvantage in the economy.

for example, you have 4 crafting guilds. what if someone were to take a closely guarded recipe from one guild and share it with the other 3. at the game beginning this could be a major issue with trust.

I'm sticking to one guild.

If it doesn't have everything I need, then guess what? We will make it have everything we need; it isn't rocket science.

I don't need to join another guild; just network & possibly ally with others. The old fashioned businessman way.

me too, i will be deciding on one, two at the most if there is pvp/pve. but that doesnt mean everyone else will share the same outlook.

EDIT:

meaning i can imagine guilds sending their members out to collect recipes or information from other guilds, like harvesting it.

Pretty much this. I may join another guild but it will be purely to take advantage of their resources.

And I see that happening as well.

As a safety precaution I wouldn't let multi-guild members be intimate with guild secrets & data, so they can have the freedom play the way they want to.

@Mak: Nothing wrong with a little networking.

Its a good question and I have been wondering about this since the original announcement like a year ago.

I would like to see every character we have need to apply to a guild rather than have guild membership be a blanket for all your characters. Or at least have the option for a guild to require that in guild customization features.

I would like to see guilds have tiers so they get more features as they grow and become more powerful. Things like a bank and the storage options could be tied into tiers as well as options like seeing everyone's character list.

A lot of stuff we do is going to change with the maga server thing but I am looking forward to seeing how people improve upon the status quo in response to it.

but if they arnt going to make it transparent and let people hide characters within guilds how can you distinguish between those who are trustworthy and can be allowed the information and those who will take advantage of it, or even leak it accidentally D:

Guild security is a domestic problem that can be dealt with using a number of ways.

Using the competitive world & game rules around you to your advantage.

-One account per campaign may help when we figure out the full details
-Paying close attention to members' activity/progress; inactivity is a big one.

You wouldn't want to waste too much time undercover & neglect your main character when you're paying a sub while also competing for supremacy in your profession.

That's only one part of the espionage spectrum though.

I Personally do not see how this will work. I am not sure if it will foster community or water it down , In game friendships can last for years I still have about 20 people I still play games with from EQ1 and 2. All these friendships developed from one guild working together to accomplish things not joining the five best that give me the best prices.

but thats the thing, im pretty sure you can have five guilds all on the same character. If it was different characters this wouldnt be a big deal, lots of games do it.

if it IS on the same character, then this means people wouldnt be neglecting anything, you wouldnt notice inactivity as there wouldnt be any. Iv run plenty of guilds and know how to get rid of spys. normally the information guilds have on games about for ages you can just find out on google anyway. but this is totally new, having more than one guild on one character.

if i have got the wrong end of the stick, please let me know!

Your stance on the subject is correct but like I said its only one part of the spectrum I spoke on.

Since we have little to go on about the subject, it makes it very difficult to size up & assess the way we would like.

I know counterintelligence will be hard but it won't be impossible; it also adds a dimension to the game that I am excited to see.

Honestly I am more concerned about how the raid lockout system is going to work.

If it works as a campaign ID that's individual to a guild or a series of guilds that are working together, there's no conflict.

But If there is one lockout per week per character as we've seen in other mmo's (you know the one i mean). Then at what point is loyalty coming into play when choosing a raid team?

I think honest communication can fight this, with your expectations being clear both as the facilitator or events via guild and as the member and what you want from the guild. And just a general acceptance that guild chat is a public forum, that prying eyes maybe privy to at any time (whether they are listed as online or not)

long ago when I heard about elderscrolls going mmo, I looked at this and it bothered me, and I created a way to deal with it the best I could. (for obvious reasons I'm not going to say how I dealt with this here on an open forum) but there are ways of dealing with this type of thing (to a degree) I have a few things I have done in my clan already, to remedy a small portion of this.

I have plans to speak with the developers ingame, or by way of message once I see what the real deal is and we are playing the game. (hopefully will be able to see it in open betta)

there will always be ways to screw your own clan over because nothing is 100% safe proof.

one of the best methods of dealing with this is to never bring people into your guild that you don't completely trust. be respectful of your clansmen! if you've done those things then you have started the basics, but we all know people are evil and there's always going to be backstabbing as long as human beings are alive. all we can do is accept the fact and try to work with it as best as possible.

as a general rule I go by what my great ancestor taught me long ago, she said:

"when looking for the thief, start within your own home"

there's a difference between trust, and just knowing how all humans have a dark side.

I put my faith first forward in what it feels like when I meet someone, if there is any distrust within my spirit toward some one, then I most likely will not accept them into the fold.

EDIT: one last thing I should add, is that we should not entertain this type of thinking. if we have done all we can to protect ourselves then we should trust our guild leaders and speak with them privately. this builds trust and friendships. and acts as a precaution and a help.

our focus should be on having fun, and playing the game, rather then a dark cloud looming over us in the background.

I will probably only be joining other guilds for purchasing need,

VVVV that's where my loyalty stays