One of the game annoyances I could do without is guild creation.
When we rolled up on Lightninghoof in WoW, we had to go through the same old routine, getting 9 people to sign the charter when we only had 5 available. We managed to get some friends to create characters to help us out, but in the end I still had to stand there for a while in Orgrimmar and grub for signatures.
It didn’t go too bad. I didn’t face some of the usual problems, like people out-bidding my charter signing bounty, people signing, taking my bounty, then signing another guild charter before I have turned in my own (so their signature goes away!), or the usual “bigger must be better” guild spam inviting every unguilded newbie they see. It did take a while all the same.
Eventually our guild was formed. In the time it took me to finish that, Potshot had already earned enough money at the auction house to buy a guild bank tab.
While I was rolling up new set of characters again this week in Dungeons & Dragons Online (thanks to a tip from Vett on how to get a free key to add DDO to your current Turbine account) I was poking around at the various functions in game and came across the ubiquitous “Social” window. As in WoW or LOTRO, this is where things like your friends list resides. It also has a tab for your guild.
So I decided to see what it was going to take to form yet another guild in yet another game. But I was in for a surprise.
Buy a guild now!
Want a guild? Go to the item shop and buy a Guild Charter!
Now that is a cash shop item I can get behind.
Given the choice between spending time begging for signatures from strangers and spending a couple of bucks, I will take the money option. The tool tip for the store is right!
Of course, I’m sure not everybody will be as enthusiastic about this as I am. There is no “go beg for signatures” option on a free account. Somebody will no doubt wonder aloud if this is not unfair to the unemployed or some such I am sure. But I know enough people who pay for character transfers on a whim to think that this has the potential to be pure win for a lot of people.
But how much does this cost?
I clicked on the Buy Now button and was greeted with this.
No Guild For You!
The social tab appears to be a bit ahead of the DDO Store. The DDO store does not have such an option available at this time.
So no guild for us… yet.
Still, I like the idea that we could just create the guild on demand via the DDO store. Some day.
How about you? Would you rather grub for signatures?
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
Anyone with a VIP account can create a guild without needing to purchase a charter. There are plenty of folks who would be able to help you with that.
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Interesting.
Still, that’s back to grubbing for guildage though, for which I thought I expressed no small dismay above. “Please sir, can you make me a guild?”
In any case, if we’re going to go the free to play route, I’m going to try to avoid tainting it by borrowing VIP abilities, both to really follow the free experience and to actually support the game when I feel I should.
I am actually a bit surprised that a loophole like a VIP account making guilds for freebs exists.
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It’s a pretty big loophole and people are definitely using it.
You see “need VIP to make me guld plz” spam in chat every now and then.
I imagine it will get fixed in due course.
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The option to buy the guild charter should show up when you get to Stormreach. Think this is another one of those sunny side/snowy side flag issues. You can talk to the npc and choose to skip the tutorial, which will flag you as sunny side. You can go right back and do all the content without missing out on anything, however all members of the group will need to be flagged the same or you will not be able to group together.
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I’m a massive fan of the DDO model and would love to see it adapted by more MMO’s. At the end of the day, time does equal money. To be able to use my time better to get more enjoyment out of the game, I’m willing to pay for the things I want.
There is, of course, a counter arguement. But seeing that I disagree with it, I won’t go into it =D
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What server did you guys end up rolling on?
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http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=202014
Finally found this for reference. What DDO said above. Odd error message tho…
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@Gazinnia – Plus, the comment was written by Orcsana Baiul.
@Vett – Khyber
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BTW, it would be nice if it said that I was not eligible to purchase a guild charter until I met certain requirements, as opposed to the somewhat uninformative message with which I was met.
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Does it cost $10 :p
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Another bonus for DDO, with a VIP account you don’t even see a mention of the DDO store when creating a guild, meaning you at least avoid ONE mention of it when paying the $15 a month.
Sadly left-control+S is bound to open the store window, which is fun when you have left-control bound as your vent key and you are using wasd to move around.
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