o11c wrote:The previous guild system was horribly implemented, resource-unfriendly,
I've seen some ancient code of eA and do know it was horrible in many places. However, from player's standpoint if someone heals headache by using guillotine, it does looks not very promising...
and not properly supported by the client OR the content.
What client? ManaPlus seems to support guilds and in fact, current TMW so called "guild support" requires player to activate some custom setting to support some weird bot. Looks like ManaPlus haves at least some "native" guilds support and some people even reported they were able to use it some time ago. Sure, I can imagine this code could be bugged or troublesome (I've seen old eAthena code and I know it's not the best to say the least). However completely ditching feature without any reasonable replacement not looks like very good idea either, as it kills any chance it would be anyhow decent RPG with feature set expected by anyone who played online RPGs.
and not properly supported by the client OR the content.
ManaPlus does supports guilds to the best of my knowledge. And in fact supporting TMW's "guild" bot is just a weird and hackish workaround which allows to address at least small part of players wishes as some awkward hack which is not a real guild support.
Additionally, with the old system, it was impossible for one player to be part of more than one guild.
This is common practice and also basis for GvG events, etc. I dont see how its wrong. Player can be only in one guild and guids and their intrigues could be part of fun as well. If someone want to gather some friends in place regardless of guild membership - they could have some more local things like parties (if its about taking some part in action together, etc) or just chat channels (if its about chatting). That how it happens in properly implemented MMORPG software usually and how players ususlly prefer to deal with it.
By soft-coding membership of shared storage and shared chat, these limitations are removed.
Hmm? Are there plans to have some other guild system which would allow server to have some knowledge of who is in which guild and apply this knowledge to game mechanics? For example to make decision on who can attack whom, etc? Shared storage is nice but large-scale guild vs guild actions and intrigues could be what adds up to MMORPG gameplay, after all. Those who really wanted shared storages already using some mule chars with credentials known to all players group to transfer things, etc. So players already found some solution. Which allows complerely flexible choice of members regardless of guilds or whatever: should someone know credentials of storage char, they can exchange items via such character. As for chat I think it's enough to have some "IRC style" named channels. And IIRC, overall Ragnarok should have this and eAthena who is Ragnarok emulator at least attempted to support this if I got it right (I can remember some code leftovers and comments about channels somehow).
Also, am I correct that you've ditched ability of GMs to impersonate monsters? Monsters on their own are fairly dumb and on decent MMORPG server, there is often so called "animators team" who dedicated to making events more fun than they could be otherwise. They take control of strong boss-like monsters or NPC-like chars to orchestrate events (sometimes nicely bound to storyline, etc) and play event with all players. Needless to say, alive animators play far better than moron AI could ever dream. Monster controlled by animator can play smart and get rid of most sensitive part of boss teams. etc. This what makes it a real challenge. On TMW there is no such events. The most closest "emulation" is a "kill GM events". But to my taste, its sad and dumb to slay GMs and not a right way to thank them for their job. I would prefer to slay some horrible bosses animated by animators team. This does not looks like evil deed, could be embedded with events or storyline context, gives animator a lot of chances to be challenging and have some revenge on "boss team", etc and overall could be 80% of MMORPG fun with a good animators team who makes gameplay far less boring and monotonous. However it does not happens in TMW and if I got it right from changelog, you also killed any slightest chance it could be technically possible to conduct in TMW, ever? Am I wrong here? Or what were those impersonations removed? Usually it used to allow GM or animator to impersonate some monster, no?
Alive human controlling some boss creature could be real fun.
Some abstract example: for example, some new update launches new map like crypt and there is, say, reaper to be introduced as boss monster (just abstract example, not sure about actual storyline). Then if would be fun if some reaper appears near Hurns, roams around, scares players and causes some chaos, so players have to assemble "boss team" and should go slay the bastard and minions to keep their butts safe. It could be nice introduction to some new part of storyline and maps, etc. But looks like it would not be possible in TMW, ever, especially after all these changes? Am I got it right? And yes, I seen things like this on other RPG servers and I do like such features. They're making games better.
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