I belong to a guild called Anartech. We`re a pretty small guild atm, but we have a great bunch of ppl. Some time ago, many of our high lvl members left for bigger guilds, simply because there were not many ppl at their lvl to team with, and I can`t say I blame them.
We belong to an alliance of clan guilds with the same goals, called {UF} (United in Freedom) . As an example, lets say we decide to merge these guilds into 1 big organisation. Of course we would have an easier time grouping, getting stuff, buffs and so on. But our guilds peculiarity would be lost (which is part of what I like about our guild)
So to my point. Funcom should add better suport ingame for all the alliances out there, say one of the improvements beeing a chat channel for the allaince (in addition to the guild channel). This channel could of course be optional, but I only see positive things of having such a channel. We would still be our own guild, but belonging to an alliance that help each other, would help us compensate for our lacks as a small guild, without loosing the great part of belonging to a small/average sized guild. Such a channel would promote grouping, the social aspect of the game, the story (easier to organise events within the alliance), and of course it`ll be easier to help each other out in different ways. It would basically help us compete against the bigger organisations out there. Not to metion it would be more realistic. Whats the point of an alliance if we can`t help each other? i don`t think this could be very hard to implement FC!?