Would Bind on Guild change our concept of ownership?

| Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Currently everything you have is yours. If you have it, you control it. With the exception of your professions which are controlled by the group you're in if you're an enchanter. This promotes a strong concept of ownership. There is little which is truly owned by a group.

Guild banks have some gold or mats or a few BoEs, but they don't control all that much. They don't control anything that anyone uses. By that I mean, someone can use items from banks, but once used they are no longer in bank control. They either soulbind or are consumed.

WoW has almost 100% private property. Individual property.

What would happen if there were items controlled by guilds? Yesterday I briefly, and unfairly negatively, suggested that legendaries be Bind on Guild. They are made by guilds, so it makes some sense that they are controlled by guilds. I thought it would force the player who was given the item to be stuck with the guild or lose it.

I didn't consider that the concept of item ownership might change. If legendaries were BoG, then no single person could feel ownership. They would think about them differently. I suspect the item might come to be viewed less as an item rather than as a buff. By that I mean people would have their normal weapons and the guild might decide to temporarily provide the legendary to a player similar to a single-person buff, such as vigilance, but much more powerful. The weapon would be only temporary to the person, so they could not develop such an attachment.

However a big problem remains: guilds are dictatorships. Ultimately everything is owned by the GM unless people can grab it if they open up bank permissions. This means that no one would own a legendary, except the GM. I don't know how this would turn out, but it could get ugly if a guild seems items as belonging to the guild while the GM thinks they belong to him.

Would guild legendaries lead to a sort of pseudo-socialist dictatorship in which the government (GM) controls all in the name of the populace? I doubt this will happen commonly. A state can enslave and imprison and restrict its people. People can more out of guilds that are undesirable. Attachment to BoG items may encourage people to stay, but if the handling of BoGs is not acceptable to them, that attachment may be insufficient.

Moving forward in Cataclysm, I think BoGs would be an excellent addition.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I actually think it'd be pretty cool to let different people use the Legendary every week. Would be a nice perk.

Guthammer said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Guthammer said...

I think for legendaries that might be a mistake, but for leveling gear, a good idea.

The real problem is that while I think having guild membership be sticky is good, you don't want to force what would be a dysfunctional guild to stay together when it otherwise wouldn't.

I run with a huge raiding alliance on Silver Hand, Leftovers. The original, Vanilla WoW incarnation of LO had strike teams--guild like raiding groups with very little flow between groups or participation been the teams and the Public (newbie) raiders learning the ropes and gearing up.

That forced stickiness cause huge amounts of drama--such that the 3 strike teams that were around then basically stopped functioning in the weeks before BC and disintegrated in BC. (Oddly enough, the "public strike team" with its dynamic membership is still a going concern.)

LO revised its structure so that raiders were free to move to and from any raid group within LO (or outside it if they wanted) with no drama. The freedom of movement is a huge boon. Its not something I would tune away from easily.

While guild churn is bad, its easy to go the other way too.

Deleted and Edited.

Adgamorix said...

Actually, they already mentioned this type of thing for Cataclysm. They mentioned heriloom type items that would belong to the guild (purchased by the guild through some unknown type of guild coin) that could be passed around. If you leave the guild (voluntarially or otherwise) the items are returned to the guild bank.

Cataclysm will bring a lot more to guilds through the guild talent trees - I'm really looking forward to it.

Klepsacovic said...

@Spinks: I was thinking of more of a "highest DPS person gets it", which might help to encourage competition. Or other guilds might give it to the worst to boost them a bit. A scheduled rotation might be best for discouraging possessiveness.

@Guthammer: To help with this, the item could exist outside of a guild but would merge in when the holder joins a guild. So people don't need to be entirely attached to the one guild; they can move without everything vanishing. So in that aspect it would be a bit more like mats or gold in a gbank.

@Adgamorix: That sounds like the mechanic I'm looking for.

Ateve said...

I believe EVE does something similar with high end patterns(schematics). They are owned by the corporation and members can use the pattern to craft said item.

Its a pain when the guild feeds patterns to one guy cuz he's the 'guild LW' and then he decides to take off.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps high-end patterns should be a permanent reagent object, simlar to the Enchanter's Rod, and make that object Bind-on-Guild. Having that object in your inventory enables you to craft the pattern, with the appropriate tradeakill level and mats of course.

Klepsacovic said...

Bind on Guild patterns, that's an interesting thought. This was going to be my week to complain about loot, instead it's turning into guild loot week.

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