Large Player Structures - Organisations!

[Cosmik]

Gaute Godager, Anarchy Online Game Director, has released a new article; Large Player Structures - Organisations!. It's a very interesting read, so have a look and discuss it here. Enjoy!

[__________Maxtor 1-7]

wohooo!! first post!!
when can we have the guild houses?

I like most of the article, but what is a good ETA for some of the stuff that was mentioned? Not the exact date, but is it before, in, or after the expansion pack?

"The only problem is: it leaves us in a fix on how to give everyone the equal opportunity to attach themselves to the story-focused organisations without forcefully changing names or identities."
It sort of looks like you want us to vote on this one, so I think option #3 would be nice. If lots of the organizations don't want to be changed a bit then option #1 looks just as good.

Can you also add more stuff to put into apartments? I am tired of sleeping on the floor, and can I get a microwave to match the minifridge?

[Bionitrous]

My reply on the Basher site:

2. Forcefully taking back the appropriate story names – making stronger checks on names when people make new organisations. Removing the players’ ability to have "Departments" on the Omni-Tek side – assign these as the "story level" of the Omni-Tek structures. Run the structures with specially selected players / Funcom employees.
a. This would cause a lot of name-changing and thrashing about in the community.
b. Individual players can be members of the story orgs.
c. It would give people an equal opportunity to invest their time in story-endorsed organisations, but would make a lot of people angry as their organisation names are changed.

This is the right way to go, IMHO. I believe the word 'forcefully' is inappropriate. Any roleplaying guild that is worth its salt would gladly remit the name to FunCom in exchange for 'real' Departments and Conclaves being in the game without the mass of confusion between who is 'legit' and who is not. Allowing both player-run and Official organizations to exist with the same name and not necessarily the same personality, leaders, or agenda is a recipe for disaster.

I don't think that Meister, for example, would put a name above the good of the game. We know he's got the game's best interests at heart and would be willing to trade a name for a better roleplaying experience. Likewise, any guild that may have named themselves 'Omni-Med'for example and refused or whined when the 'real' Omni-Med was finally opened up probably has their own organization's interests placed higher than those of the game itself. These additions are all about the much missing and often maligned Storyline. We miss desperately such things as Omni-Trans shutting down whom'pa segments, Omni-Med accidently releasing DoT virus gas, etc. These organizations are about telling the Story. FunCom absolutely cannot tell the story without the integration of these important groups. It's not about missioning with guild buddies or getting a nano crystal for a lower level guildie. FunCom is doing fine with the latter in terms of their growing support for player-run guilds.

To make it simple, if the current guild simply changed to 'Omni-Pol Assault Corp.' and were an important and highly influential member division of the Official Storyline Omni-Pol, we would not have to have what I fear is going to be a nasty war of words over the situation.

I think that there are potentially thousands of players out there that might want to join Omni-Pol, for example, that may not necessarily find the current guild to meet their ideological, timezone, personality, or other needs in an organization. They may very well be in guilds that suit them just fine but still always long to have the 'Omni-Pol' badge on their shoulder.

Choice #3 (endorsing the current organizations fully with no FunCom official organization as an option for players to join) is not an option unless these organizations agree to do what FunCom tells them with respect to the plot. Likewise, FunCom would have to provide the text for speeches and the like to the president of said organizations to read at appropriate times. Likewise, said leaders would absolutely _have_ to be present at seminal moments during the story development. How would it look if the head of Omni-Pol all of a sudden had to stop short in the middle of a speech because his baby was crying in the other room. Even worse, what happens when someone takes a vacation. No, not having FunCom maintain the top positions in the Official organizations is not a good thing for the Story.

If every member of the guilds with the appropriated name would apply for and be granted membership in the ARK program and were held to the same standards then this is a non-issue as well. What is required of people who are in charge of the storyline organizations is no-less than, is in fact MORE than, what a typical ARK storyline character would be required to provide.

FunCom must do what is best for the game as a whole. They must still recognize the fine efforts of people such as those running some of the guilds with the appropriated names and their people who have done some very good work to date. I think that, in the few instances where 'names' have been usurped, the FunCom Story Team owes it to these people to sit down with their leaders and work out a fair solution. I believe only about a dozen Departments and Conclaves were mentioned. That's not a lot of meetings to set the situation right. I would not be adverse to these current guilds getting a nice part in the Official Story and a definate position of strength within the Official Departments and Conclaves.

The players must never be in charge of the Official Organizations. I qualify that last statement by noting it's one man's opinion. The Story is to be run by FunCom and played out and embellished by the players. If the Vice-President in charge of Omni-Trans (assuming some player group now all of a sudden decides to steal that name too) all of a sudden decides to pull a Pee Wee Herman and run around Trade with his wanker out, this is unfair to those of us who expect the story to be told by the story tellers. We want continuity and we don't want 'insiders' necessarily having more access than the rest of us. There is a program for people who wish to act in this capacity: the ARK community. The rest of us are players and no player should necessarily be more equal than another. This goes deep to the heart of personal emotion. Just as many players despise being killed by another player but get killed by an ARK in a Dust Brigade mask and brag about it, those same players will be reluctant to take orders from some other player but will march to their death when told to do so by someone with a 'green name'. Think about it.

Finally, there is the situation of stability. Look at OTEC (Omni-Tek Engineering Corps). It's gone. It's likely that this is the kind of guild that FunCom would have officially endorsed. And now they are dead. Heck, FunCom even named the Virral Egg after their leader for his contributions to the Engineering Community. Now, he gets bored or upset or RL takes over and he's gone. This situation must NEVER be allowed to happen within the context of the Storyline. FunCom will ALWAYS be there as long as the game is there. This is why they have to be in charge of the Official Departments and Conclaves. There is no other realistic option.

So it comes down to whether the players in the guilds who took the names of Official organizations are willing to step up to the plate and do the right thing. I would challenge them to state right here and now that they will work with FunCom to continue to make the Official organizations even more successful than the stand-in groups are now.

As for the meat of the article, once again a stellar job on putting ideas down on paper. I've only really disagreed with the implementation of the OE 'fix' and have enjoyed most of Gaute's articles. The implementation of most of the ideas, of course, has been too slow for everybody involved.

[Kithraks]

Creating two new structures on the Clan and OT sides. They might be called conclave on the Clan side and company on the OT side. These would then be the "story" organisations proper. The leaders of the various organisations would then apply to align their organisations with these structures.

I am not in favor of this option because of the confusion it will cause everyone.

Hypothetical situation:
Player1: Omni-Med raised the prices on the healing kits again.
Player2: Odd, I thought Omni-Med was protesting the price increase.
Player1: No, I mean Omni-Med company.
Player2: Oh, so what is Omni-Med going to do about it?
Player1: Which Omni-Med are you talking about?

Forcefully taking back the appropriate story names  making stronger checks on names when people make new organisations. Removing the players ability to have "Departments" on the Omni-Tek side  assign these as the "story level" of the Omni-Tek structures. Run the structures with specially selected players / Funcom employees.

This option is very fair to everyone. But does that mean the "story orgs" will be as active or well maintained as some of these player run organizations?

Endorsing the existing story-named organisations, let people keep their names on a first-come-first-serve basis. Let players have complete control on leadership / elections etc., but set a "story-org" standard which these player orgs would have to follow or face the possibility of having their names changed. (Or whatever.)

I am personally in support of this because it would mean that the players get to feel like they really are a part of something that they've worked so hard to create and maintain. This option has great possibilities and for some, like Omni-Pol, it is getting more and more diffcult to distinguish between Omni-Pol the guild and "real" Omni-Pol.

By the same token, it must be watched over carefully to make sure they abide by certain standards to ensure integrity and consistency in roleplaying for example.

The first-come-first-serve for obtaining the official guild name might not be the best idea however. I think that useing an application basis where the interested organizations can apply to be appionted as one of the story orgs based on their past achievements. This will prevent organizations that might not have never done anything even remotely related from applying for a certain position for the sake of it.

Can you picture what will happen if a guild of all enforcers managed to get the name "Omni-Med" first? That could cause some interesting problems.

Totally ignore the in-game structure and run the story organisations as something happening on the side on the web etc.

Bad idea for the very reason that it means nothing will be done. Something NEEDS to be done about the macro organizations.

[Dhurdahl]

Good work!

Im very strongly for the "Forcefully taking back the appropriate story names" option!
Why? well easy, nobody that named a guild to Omni-Med (for example) could have belived that they would overrule the official departments when they got going... nobody!

I see it as a pure omision that they were alowed to name their guild to that in the first place!

So give them 2-4 weeks to change their name to a new one, and then change the rest!


Less confusion for players this way!

[Larelen]

I feel the best option is to seize contorol of these orgs placing a GM in control and having them reformed to actively reflect the storline orgs in policy and procedure. If left in the control of players they will cause problems like one official OT org fighting another causeing massive problems within the factions... and there is nothing to force player controlled orgs to work together.
These orgs should not have been allowed to take the name of storyline orgs to begin with and FC should have set up official orgs for people to join.

Please resolve this quickly and take all players into account... not just the ones in these massive orgs.

[____________Shakkles]

Do whatever you want.
But as long as the current setup means taking the name MAKES you that group, and until you actually go through with working things out, well Burst Team is now Omni-AF, and nobody is going to say different. Just like with Omni-Pol.
When they relinquish their name, if they do, so shall we and do it willingly.

We always wanted to play that particular part, but we figured we shouldn't just take the name. Until however we realized that Meister had been doing that with Omni-Pol for quite some time already.

I would actually like to see our faction leaders get actual honest to god sitdowns with you guys in FC to figure out who's doing what, but as long as Meister has control of Omni-Pol and are being regarded as IT, well it's time to fight fire with fire.

-me

[Drexlore]

IMHO I say take the Player Created orgs (Omni-Pol) and Take the name back. FC should defenitely run the Org but allow some of the players currently in the Org to stay if you (FC) see fit. I know a few Omni-Pol members that do not follow the guidelines of the Real Omni-Pol. But Ultimatly when it comes down to it all we can do here is to give you (FC) our "advice" on the issue. I hope you make the right choice.



-Punkma lvl 70 MA General of Shadow Syndicate RK1

[_______________Xiwoo]

I think one thing is missiong in the org fixing up. I find it odd that another member of my guild isn't a friendly target. That is plain stupid. If my guild friends isn't a friendly target then what is? Yes, I know that team members are friendly target but personly I think my guild friends are more friendly targets than team members.

[_____________Pompoko]

I don't know if Funcom is really interesting by suggestions in this post, but in the Omni-Tek departments, i can't see one related to religion. Is it a choice ?
In the background of our guild, we explain we are a part of Omni-Christ so we won't be able to attach our organisation to a story-defined one.
I hope Funcom is gonna notice this lack.

[__________Maxtor 1-7]

Great, tons of ppl want option #2.

Does anyone have an idea of how long it takes to build a good guild structure? You can't just go up to a politicly stable guild and tell them they will have to change their name, and tell other people that they are being replaced by NPCs or GMs that are on for maybe an hour per week. Unless FC gets into the habbit of creating a good plot this will just harm a few perfecty good guilds. FC is still not building all that great of a plot, and I don't see it happening soon.

[Darkbane]

Take back the names. Player orgs should have a facility to align themselves with a clan/dept. and org leaders then would get a new channel for that clan/dept. to discuss issues relating to that clan/dept. - FC could assign ARKs to these 'super-orgs' as chairmen/clan leaders to feed the orgs story details, manage voting, arrange official meetings etc.

This ensures that the story clans/depts. remain controllable by FC whilst giving the players a voice.

Guild houses would be in places suitable to an org's super-org and be styled appropriately. Changing an org's super-org should require ARK intervention (so choose carefully) as this would become part of the ongoing story - and would move the door to the guild's house to a more appropriate location with a more appropriate style, but everything else about it would remain unchanged (eg guild bank if one is implemented, keys etc).

Also, neutral orgs need to be considered. They would have only a single 'super-org' which would just be a neutral guild-leaders channel rather than anything story based (at this time at least), and a single type of guild-house.

Hope this makes sense

[DaveDread]

Bionitrous said everything I had to say (and very well phrased IMHO).

#2 is of course the way to go, the other options are either unfair or boring.

[_____________Phixxor]

I think option 1 is probably the best for upsetting the least people, and noobies will soon pick up the difference between the company and department....if not then they can ask someone!

[________________Seid]

I am in favor of the "forcefully taking back the story names" option. Story related guild names should have been reserved from the start.

[________________Seid]

On the subject of guild HQ's, this would be a good place to have, say, a meeting room ( large ), some outdoor assembly area, a lounge for guild parties, and hopefully in the future, a guild shop where we can unload gear we want to share

[_____________Abunari]

Gaute, thank you for your thoughtful article. I have some thoughts and responses:

How to structure guilds in the story:
Guilds should have their names changed if they are too close. My suggestions is to have departments (omni) and sects (clan). In an omni guild you could have Division 6 (Omni-Pol) or Ross's Raiders (Omni-InternOps), where the actual side-oriented/story-related part goes in brackets or gets a separate heading. The same would go for clan guilds: EcoDeath (Eco Warriors), etc.

If you could put the story-related part in a separate heading/section, then that's fine also, then each guild just needs to modify their name a little.

To help with story-events, however, you need to do two things:
1) Make story-related channels that various guilds can listen in on. All members of the guild, not just leaders, because the leader might not be logged in. Then you could sent an alert on Omni-Pol Channel and get a response from players who have decided to interact with the story in that way.
2) http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...threadid=14074 - You need to make camping less of an issue. The game doesn't handle 100s of people going to one area. Large scale events run by one GM/ARK don't work. Allow keys to be given to team leaders (either at dispensers for statics or from a GM in a story event), then when a team enters, you can monitor their log and see if the complete the quest/mission. If they do, you can pop in and shake hands, etc. This solves 2 big problems (one which has been around for a while, and one which will show up more and more if you go ahead and run story events en masse).

Cheers,
Abunari

[_______________Quazz]

I'm saying go for option #2. Take back the names that has been wrongfully "stolen" from not only FunCom but the entire player community.

oh and please let the OHQ have a guild bank so everyone can store guild items. Just make it so that withdrawal(sp?) of item is only allowed by guild members of a certain rank (if not someone could join your guild, empty the bank and leave again)

[________________Gwos]

If it would mean better experiences for organizations in the game, I say go with option #2 and redo some of the org names. The Funcom run events, particularly those that involve player run orgs, need to be better organized. I think it would help both the players and the GMs if everyone was clear on who is who and who had what responsibilities. This would make it easier for players to identify with the storyline. There are few players who can or are willing to carve out their own niche in the storyline in a creative fashion. I think the majority of players are so confused about what is going on and identifying the main characters that they just opt out. A well organized architecture for incorporating player orgs into the story line would make it easier for the average player to get involved.

Btw, I've noticed that various Funcom stories, statements and game instructions use the word "clan" in two different ways which can be confusing. I would recommend that if you are referring to an org (OT or Clan) you should say org and reserve the word "clan" to only refer to that side of the conflict on Rubi-ka.

[drakoslady]

Who cares about GM ran clans or departments? Are GM ran departments gonna be there on a day in day out basis for your members, to help each other, get to know each other, and sacrifice for each other?? I think not!!!! However if in a player ran organization will you get to take part in the day to day events, meet people, team with people, share experieriences with people of common ideals and goals?? YES!! We don't need or want in my opinion a GM ran guild (why not just call yourself the "Dictators" and we will all belong to that guild) why don't you try to concentrate on involving the guilds that are here already? The same guilds that have stuck it out through all of your fumbles with patches and inept coders?? The same guilds that day in and day out tell their members "soon we will have a labeled backpack, nevermind there is no story". Maybe the story is just not flexible enough? tell me?? been waiting?? over a year now. All I can say if this is a story someone shake tolkien and tell him he is wrong, all you have to do is say it's great and never say what or where and the masses will believe you. If it was not for the eye candy, and the Great people in my guild I would have long been gone by now. and all i can say is on july 15th SWGQ comes out for beta and me and my clan are moving unless we get some story going cause as of now after level 100 this game blows!!!!!!!!!!!!