Is it time for BTG? (Bound to Guild?)

[elixer1]

Have an item that is bound to Guild, only members of your guild can wear/use the item.

Guilds have come along way in DDO in the last 5 years. First they were simple containers for your toons with a couple of friends as well. Now they are airship corporations that compete for favor and bragging rights across the worlds of DDO.

Since the evolution of Guild favor, and that now leaving and adding to a guild is more than mere minucia or cosmetics, but impacts your guild favor collection, and even rate of collection, guilds are tighter.

We have seen the problems some guilds face, and the loyalty some guilds have to each other. What if this was strengthened or exacerbated, by BTG status on items (or something else)?

Eventually someone would need to be the ultimate owner, and other things would have to be worked out to make it viable. But what about the basic idea?

Say a small guild suddenly became the owner of particularly powerful/cool item that was bound to guild? What would this do? Increase subscription rate to the guild? make it harder for people to leave? Make people really fear getting booted? etc, etc.

Could these items be artifacts? Maybe it's a special buff for a ship? Maybe the guild of "the crystal maul" actually was formed around picking up a BTG item called the "crystal maul" and is linked to the guild charter of the person who found it? I think that has potential to be cool......

Just a thought..... comments?

[Natashaelle]

Grabs your BTG item from the Chest, drops Guild, heads over to another Guild, joins, drops item in their Chest instead ...

meh

[SardaofChaos]

Grabs your BTG item from the Chest, drops Guild, heads over to another Guild, joins, drops item in their Chest instead ...

meh

Seeing as it's bound to guild and not bound to character's guild, the item would be destroyed as soon as you drop guild, since by rights you no longer can possess it.

[pie2655]

BTG would be bound to the guild that wouldnt work. Its bound to the charter of that guild.

[Cyr]

/not signed

Items are earned by individuals. Guilds might be the focus for grouping for some, but it does not make it so for everyone. Nor are all guilds 'tight' in fact there are some very large guilds that have almost no interguild grouping at all. Heck, someone even bought a guild recently...

[elixer1]

Grabs your BTG item from the Chest, drops Guild, heads over to another Guild, joins, drops item in their Chest instead ...

meh

as others have pointed out, it's not bound to you, it's bound to guild.

* Grabs your BTG item from the Chest, drops Guild, Item disappears from inventory, guild leader then receives mail with attached item and a short text describing your treachery *

or something to that effect.

[kyleann]

I think this isn't entirely a bad idea. Obviously it should not be an item that can be given out to people in the guild chests, but more like a stationary item like the current shrines. I am imagining a highly-competitive nature to these items. Guild with the most renown gain (per account) in a given one month period gains access to an extra shrine that gives a stacking Guild Renown + 50% for a 3-month period (give or take). For the sake of fairness this guild is then exempt from the next contest to allow other guilds the chance to compete.

Also, the extremely rare find BtG item would be interesting to see how it would play out. Imagine DDO creating a single item on each server that only one extreeeeemly lucky person finds in ANY random quest in the game. It would be given out as a renown reward for a quest turn-in as the only option so that it can't be "passed" and the only turn-in option so they HAVE to take it. This item allows access to a special shrine that gives +10% stack XP bonus when placed on a guild ship. I could see a brand new guild being formed around that artifact for sure!

I think there are some ideas out there that could make guilds an even more influential part of this game, and I think it would add more guild v. guild competition.

For your Crystal Maul example it could be a figurehead on the front of the ship that grants a bonus 1d2 per level (thus max 40) bludgeoning damage to your weapon. Not overpowering, but definitely gives one guild an advantage over another for recruiting purposes.

Now, from DDOs standpoint they could make money off things like this offering a secret, special shrine once a month for Astrals on a first come first serve basis with only one item sold per month. Just imagine how much your guild would love you if you brought them a Shrine of Gruumsh that gives Profane STR +2!

[ThePrincipal]

only if they add items that are bound to your character as long as you are NOT in a guild. join any guild, item is destroyed. fair is fair.

[sheepface]

I don't think this could work. Regardless of who it is bound to only 1 person can use an item at any 1 time. I think guild chests kinda cover this in regards to loot being earned and donated to the guild by its members.

[jwdaniels]

They already have BTG items - there's the airship and whatever amenities the guild leader/officers put on it.

Anything more than that would cause far more problems than it would serve.

[coolpenguin410]

Sure. Contracts. Just like the ones already in use on the airships, but can be found in random treasure. It would require some tweaks, of course.

[Chai]

Seeing as it's bound to guild and not bound to character's guild, the item would be destroyed as soon as you drop guild, since by rights you no longer can possess it.

So to grief the entire guild, one would simply take all the items out of the chest and then /quit guild.

/not signed.

[elixer1]

Items are earned by individuals. Guilds might be the focus for grouping for some, but it does not make it so for everyone. Nor are all guilds 'tight' in fact there are some very large guilds that have almost no interguild grouping at all. Heck, someone even bought a guild recently...

I personally am part of great guild of about 50 people who adventurer together with guildies almost exclusively, and I would jump at the chance to have some item I pick up benefit myself and my guild mates. I did qualify my statements as "some" guilds are tight, if you are not part of a guild that you like and are just using it for it's ship and buffs, are you really getting the best experience out of your guild? Would BTG items help or hurt that?

[elixer1]

Sure. Contracts. Just like the ones already in use on the airships, but can be found in random treasure. It would require some tweaks, of course.

Excellent point. Is there a value to doing something more unique or permanent?

[jwdaniels]

I personally am part of great guild of about 50 people who adventurer together with guildies almost exclusively, and I would jump at the chance to have some item I pick up benefit myself and my guild mates. I did qualify my statements as "some" guilds are tight, if you are not part of a guild that you like and are just using it for it's ship and buffs, are you really getting the best experience out of your guild? Would BTG items help or hurt that?

Why bother with BTG at all then? Just take that boss beater you find and don't need and pass it around to be used by all - no need to bind it in any way.

[Bargol]

/Not Signed .......please just say no.

[elixer1]

I don't think this could work. Regardless of who it is bound to only 1 person can use an item at any 1 time. I think guild chests kinda cover this in regards to loot being earned and donated to the guild by its members.

Good point, on items I don't see any way of having more than one at a time, and therefore only one person could use it. Guild chests kind of cover this discussion, except I find them lacking, and people never know what is in them, or they get filled with junk, and someone has to constantly be "in charge" of maintaining the chest. What if instead of an item, it was more on the lines of what coolpenguin410 said, except that it was something more unique, something that could actually be a symbol for a guild? like...I don't know.... a totem of shavarth that allowed you to draw a cookie of Summon monster (devil) once every 3 days or something.

I would like to hear more from the larger and largest guilds about how something like this would effect them.

great comments! keep 'em coming!

[Kaeldur]

I personally like the idea.

Won't discuss the details of what can or can't happen, how it can or can't be exploited and how it should or shouldn't be implemented. Just saying I think it's an interesting idea that can be explored and expanded.

[Kaeldur]

I personally am part of great guild of about 50 people who adventurer together with guildies almost exclusively, and I would jump at the chance to have some item I pick up benefit myself and my guild mates. I did qualify my statements as "some" guilds are tight, if you are not part of a guild that you like and are just using it for it's ship and buffs, are you really getting the best experience out of your guild? Would BTG items help or hurt that?

I feel the same way, just that my guild is about 8 people

I would absolutely love being able to pull items that could benefit other members. I've passed +4 tome to a guildmate, for example, just because it is better for him than it is for me...

Not my fault many guilds are "Kortho's Army"... Maybe this could start making guilds actually act like... guilds?

Just makes me sad when I know a guildmate needs an item, but he's offline and I pull that item (and it's BtC/BtA).

[kyleann]

Sure. Contracts. Just like the ones already in use on the airships, but can be found in random treasure. It would require some tweaks, of course.

I think this is the direction it would/should go. Since contracts are already established and seem to work alright, there could be BtG Contracts that are earned by guilds and are unique to specific guilds. Granted, the uniqueness is probably not going to happen because there are simply too many guilds and too many servers to make this happen, but its a nice thought!

Make the contracts limited in time. The BtG contract will take up one large hookpoint giving a Shrine to Bieber with a +20% Guild Renown Bonus for having him on your ship, but the contract is only for 1 month (up to 3 months max for any unique shrine). Also, when a guild gets an airship, how about picking a Figurehead for the airship that has unique bonuses? Like a Mermaid figurehead gives Underwater Action and/or Swim +10 or a Marilith Figurehead that give +1% stacking Doublestrike? Obviously the idiot that picks a Mermaid will have no guildmates...

EDIT: Afterthought, for those with bigger guilds and ships, imagine having something else to put in your Altar spots so people quit bugging you to use them!