Guild vs. Company?


Pathfinder Online


What is the difference between a Guild and a Company?

Will there be a guild component while "in game"? Or is that currently only meta that exists outside the game?

It seems to me, the Companies would be what a Guild would be in other MMORPG games, a permanent grouping of players, ie. a clan etc.

Is it worthwhile to still create a "guild" through the page here: https://goblinworks.com/landrush/guild/create ?

- or was that only for the LandRush?

Can somebody please explain?

Goblin Squad Member

GenAknosc wrote:

What is the difference between a Guild and a Company?

Will there be a guild component while "in game"? Or is that currently only meta that exists outside the game?

It seems to me, the Companies would be what a Guild would be in other MMORPG games, a permanent grouping of players, ie. a clan etc.

Is it worthwhile to still create a "guild" through the page here: https://goblinworks.com/landrush/guild/create ?

- or was that only for the LandRush?

Can somebody please explain?

Companies are intended to be persistent social groupings of 10-50 characters. They are similar to small guilds.

Settlements are large persistent groupings of 50-500 characters, that have their own towns and participate in territorial warfare. Settlements are intended to include multiple sponsored companies.

The landrush is over, the only benefit to creating a "guild" on the landrush page now, is for some possible visibility to aid recruiting members. It won't transfer over to the game in any way.

Goblin Squad Member

PFO will focus on Companies, currently intended to be probably the higher end of 6-100 people, and settlements, currently intended to be hundreds of people.

Creating a guild at the link won't hurt anything, but won't help either. It is a non-issue.

The mechanics of companies isn't included yet, nor is the ability of "guild pack" owners to reserve guild names.


Who can found/take over settlements?

- I assume a company, right?

So, that would make Companies the basic level of community/social organization within the game.

A la Eve, it would be the same as a Corporation.

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Since the Land Rush is over, will it be possible for an unaffiliated company to claim unclaimed settlements?

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Goblin Squad Member

A Company is the closest analogue to a traditional MMO Guild.

The current social construct hierarchy looks like this:

Players belong to Companies, a Company may belong to a Settlement, and a Settlement may belong to a Nation (this step will not be in for awhile). Company membership actively playing the game generates a resource for that Company called Influence, which will be used to wage war, build POIs, and give your members temporary buffs.

A Company that belongs to a Settlement is called a Sponsored Company and has some limitations placed upon it's membership in exchange for Settlement citizenship, which grants the Sponsored Company some perks and allows them to run POIs for that Settlement. (A Settlement is a separate entity from the Company that founds it, that company persists as a distinct entity even after the founding.)

Additionally while a player can belong to (currently planned) up to 3 companies only one of them may be Sponsored. You also will only count as 'fully contributing' Influence towards your first Company, half for your second Company, and none for your third.

The same relationship will be true of Settlements to Nations though outside of Alignment not much has been discussed about this future feature, but it's assumed they will have a similar relationship.

Once true settlement management has been implemented, unsponsored Companies may try to claim the unused Settlement hexes after clearing the monsters from that hex and expending some Influence plus raw materials.

Goblin Squad Member

There are no unclaimed settlements at this time. Once the game goes live in a year or so, then there will be.

You can still join the top 33 settlements and I encourage everyone who hasn't [Join Kabal's] to do so. Your presence will be needed during the Tower Wars.

The settlements/villages will then break up into smaller companies. Some settlements/villages are already formed up by multiple companies but may divide up smaller companies still in order to maximize the number of towers a settlement/village holds.

Goblin Squad Member

Unaffiliated companies will definitely be able to settle once the settlement mechanics are in place (estimated 6-9 months) They can also attack existing settlements and take them over or loot and abandon them.

The established map will get nearly two to four times as big at some future point, offering opportunities for new settlement.

Goblin Squad Member

<kabal> Bunibuni wrote:

There are no unclaimed settlements at this time. Once the game goes live in a year or so, then there will be.

Actually, there are lots of unclaimed settlement hexes with nothing in them. Whether they'll still be "open" by the time the settlement mechanics are in place is a different question.

This map is unofficial, but doesn't take all day to load at the moment. Any hex with a large light-grey house beside a smaller one is theoretically able to support a settlement.

CEO, Goblinworks

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There will be no guilds in Pathfinder Online.

We use the term "Guild" in certain marketing and promotional activities because it is the only term that people who aren't spending a lot of time with the community will recognize. We acknowledge this is a disconnect and think it's the least bad of several bad options.

The formal structure of in-game social groups is as follows:

Parties
These are ad hoc groups which are dissolved when the last person in them leaves or logs off. They have no persistency and no shared resources.

Companies
These are persistent groups which continue to exist even when no member is logged in to the game. They will have some shared resources like storage and chat channels (details tbd). Companies may be either unaffiliated or affiliated with a Settlement.

There is a huge game design involving Companies owning and running Outposts and Points of Interest, and interacting in an economic web with Settlements.

During the first several months of Early Enrollment, Companies will fight to control Towers in the War of Towers. Companies aligned with a Settlement will enable those Settlements to gain certain bonuses based on how many Towers are controlled by Companies aligned with each Settlement.

Settlements
Every character is a member of a Settlement. Every character is a member of only one Settlement.

At character creation a character is a member of an NPC Settlement. Players can elect to have their characters join a PC Settlement (if the PC Settlement will have them), or can leave a PC Settlement for another PC Settlement or return to an NPC Settlement.

Settlements are like fraternities and sororities. They are both a physical in-game structure, and a social group. Being physically "in" a Settlement does not make one a member of that Settlement. One need not be physically "in" a Settlement to be a member of that Settlement.

Settlements will be the focus of all player action in the game. The Settlement's structures define what character abilities a character can learn and use.

Kingdoms
A Kingdom is a collection of Settlements. Rules for Kingdoms are TBD.

CEO, Goblinworks

In the short term Settlements are founded via an out-of-game process. The first 33 Settlements were founded by players engaged in the Guild Land Rush. There are another 30 or so Settlement locations on the Early Enrollment map and they'll be allocated via a process TBD.

In the long term, after Open Enrollment begins, Settlements are founded by finding an open Settlement Hex (and you can make a Hex open by destroying any Settlement already on it), and then engaging in a series of social interactions (creating and signing a Charter that defines the Settlement's basic attributes), and game mechanics (performing certain tasks to build the initial Settlement structures). The exact processes by which those things will be done are TBD.


Thank you all for the great explanations!

Goblin Squad Member

GenAknosc wrote:

Who can found/take over settlements?

- I assume a company, right?

We've been told that you'll be able to found a Settlement without ever joining a Company. All it takes is 10 Characters to sign the Charter.

GenAknosc wrote:
Since the Land Rush is over, will it be possible for an unaffiliated company to claim unclaimed settlements?

Yes. If you look at the Land Rush Map, you'll see a number of hexes that contain grey houses. These are future Settlement sites which can be claimed during Open Enrollment (Q1 of 2016), although the map will likely be much bigger then with even more future Settlement sites available. We've also been told that some future special events before then might allocate some of these to other players groups, similarly to what happened during the Land Rush.

Goblin Squad Member

Ryan Dancey wrote:

The formal structure of in-game social groups is as follows:

Kingdoms
A Kingdom is a collection of Settlements. Rules for Kingdoms are TBD.

Ryan, is "Kingdom" canon? Many of us prefer it when you use the term "Nation."

CEO, Goblinworks

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Yeah should be "Player Nation"

Scarab Sages Goblin Squad Member

Maybe GW should borrow a writer/editor from Paizo to draft the official PFO lexicon. Several people at GW have mentioned the need for one. I imagine everyone at GW is working like mad on the game itself right now, but the longer you wait, the harder it will be to get all of your staff and maybe half of us players* using the official terms.

*The players will probably never use the official terminology 100%.

Goblin Squad Member

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Think that's fun you should see what my code base calls things compared to their actual externally used names...things get interesting after a few years.

Scarab Sages Goblin Squad Member

Duffy wrote:
Think that's fun you should see what my code base calls things compared to their actual externally used names...things get interesting after a few years.

I believe it. I'll bet most code is full of names that made sense once upon a time, but mean almost nothing now.

Goblin Squad Member

Ryan Dancey wrote:

Settlements

Every character is a member of a Settlement. Every character is a member of only one Settlement.

At character creation a character is a member of an NPC Settlement. Players can elect to have their characters join a PC Settlement (if the PC Settlement will have them), or can leave a PC Settlement for another PC Settlement or return to an NPC Settlement.

Hmm. So does this mean that characters will be members of settlements directly? Can one be a member of a settlement without being a member of one of that Settlement's Chartered Companies?

If so, it would be a shift in my understanding, though I see no issue inherent.

Goblin Squad Member

I do believe joining a settlement as an individual has been on the table for a long time. However the details of how that works versus joining as a company and how the alignment restrictions are going to work has kind of made the details murky.

A lot of it won't matter much in the short term as alignment is not an MVP feature, but in the long run it could start getting complex, hence why people are putting so much emphasis on 'planned' alignments now.

CEO, Goblinworks

@Kadere - yes. I think that most people will be members of Settlements and not members of Companies affiliated with that Settlement.

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