Outside of the Guild of Greeters, who may join a Guild, IC?

Any Explorer who has an interest? Pick the T-shirt that expresses your desire to join, and you're in? Or are the Guild Halls in Cavern a meet and greet for existing Guild member fans?

I am not being sarcastic, I think these are questions that need answers. I thought I joined a Guild when I picked my Guild T-shirt, but apparently I was dead wrong.

Seriously, we pay to play, can we just pick a Guild and be a member?

Not all of us were able to be in Prologue (Mac head here), but we're here now, and we should be able to join without being excluded for being new.

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I'm just happy to be here!

Quote:

I thought I joined a Guild when I picked my Guild T-shirt, but apparently I was dead wrong.

That was a misunderstanding. You expressed support. There aren't as yet any guilds to join.

From my understanding, none of the Guilds (aside from Greeters and Cartographers) exist yet. So currently, you can only show support for guilds, until they exist.

To become a member, you would need to apply and go through whatever procedure the guild has set out for joining.

However, wearing the T-Shirt does not in any way make you a member. The Guild Pubs are simply a meeting place to discuss with other supporters (and members once they exist).

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ô¿ô......All URU need is love!......ô¿ô

So, if I'm a real life writer (http://www.savvy-women-magazine.com/Humor/humor-column.html), and I wish to a join a Guild that reflects that I wish to contribute to the writing effort, and I'm in that Guild hall, that means nothing in game?

Who gets to decide if I may write? Who gets to decide if I am worthy? That's as plain as I can ask it.

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I'm just happy to be here!

And to add, I'm upset about this. The Guilds could easily be used as an exclusionary tool, to set subsets of explorers above the explorers deemed not worthy of membership.

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I'm just happy to be here!

Since there are no Guilds yet, nobody can Write Ages for MOUL.

And your fear about elitism is good, and I think each Guild is trying to make a structure, rules, recruitment procedures that avoid that problem. Or at least the Pre-Guild of Maintainers is trying to do that

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"No one expects it to be a smooth ride, so let's all type twice and post once."-Zardoz
Unless otherwise stated, opinions are mine only and not Guild endorsed.

Dr,

Your worries about exclusionary issues are not uncommon - it's something that all of the people interested in Guilds are concerned about and are talking about. It's on everyone's radar.

The Guilds are in various stages. The Guild of Greeters is an established group with successful policies in place. They are a pretty accepting group. The Guild of Cartographers is an established group (much smaller) that has stepped up to be ready to assume the official capacity when the time comes.

For the other three, there is a lot of 'pre-guild' discussion and organization. The H'uru group, Age Builders and others interested in Age Creation are doing a lot of discussion on those topics. Those interested in Guild of Maintainers is working over at the Assembly of Guilds forums. Those interested in the Guild of Messengers are in the midst of ... vigorous ... discussions on the topic of that Guild.

A lot of it, of course, depends on what Cyan decides it wants for the Guilds. So everything might change.

As for who decides if you can write or not, well, right now, you decide and no one else. How the Guild of Writers will be structured is still up in the air (as is the very topic of Age Creation). In the end, I suspect that everyone will be able to build Ages and have access to relevant tools.

Choosing a Guild Shirt for the Guild of Writers simply gets you access to the Writer's Guild Pub, where people interested in the topic can hang out and discuss.

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Your story is Unwritten.
Unwritten - Adventures in the Ages of Myst and Beyond
MOULagain KI#27460 - Second Life: Vax Sirnah

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Ian A. Pertwee in Cavern - KI# 374362
Ahnotahm - Il quartiere
Not talking as a mod unless I say so

Ian Atrus wrote:

To those who worry about elitism, just look at the Greeters: they are the official greeting guild, but that doesn't mean that you have to be a Greeter in order to help newcomers.

The same will probably apply to all the other guilds. You can make maps while not being a Cartographer, write Ages while not being a Writer, spread news around while not being a Messenger and submit bug tickets while not being a Maintainer.

A guild will not close down a 'job' to those who won't join, but it will just provide a better, structured support to those who do.

Ian makes a good point here. No Guild has exclusive right to any particular function. Nor do I think it would even be possible for any of the Guilds to demand such exclusivity from the community.

Furthermore, with the exception of the Guild of Writers which has a pretty steep learning curve for it's particular Art, I can't imagine any of the Guilds excluding someone who wanted to be a member and contribute in some fashion. And even considering the difficulty of producing an age, I'm willing to bet if you wanted to design an age you could find someone to make it, and thus be a contributing member to the process of Age Writing.

Still, at this stage it's impossible to tell what form the Guilds will take in the future. For now all we can do is keep up what we have been doing and keep the discussion going for those Pre-Guilds. Don't forget that explorer action is one of the main drives for the overall story.

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Now seeking Mapmakers!

I can't speak for the GoW, but right now, those of us that are hard at work over at the Pre-Guild of Maintainers are working hard to make sure that just about anyone can join if they so desire (when there's something to join!!! lol).

But right now all we can do is come up with ideas and try to agree on the many different things we think should make up a Guild of Maintainers. I'm sure the Guild of Writers are doing the same.

So my suggestion to you Dr. Britcom Mom is to grab a Writers T-Shirt, read through all the Guild of Writers threads here on this forum, see if there are other places where they go to talk too, and just introduce yourself. Give your ideas and comments, and help make their guild a reality!

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My Tutorials

Dr Britcom Mom wrote:

So, if I'm a real life writer (http://www.savvy-women-magazine.com/Humor/humor-column.html), and I wish to a join a Guild that reflects that I wish to contribute to the writing effort, and I'm in that Guild hall, that means nothing in game?

Who gets to decide if I may write? Who gets to decide if I am worthy? That's as plain as I can ask it.

Well first off, the Guild of Writers will probably entail much more level design than writing in the traditional sense (though odds are enough people will be interested in actual 'writing' that some division will end up being created for that purpose). As for who will be able to join, there are various discussions chugging along, some involving lengthy questionnaires, others formal debates, and maybe a few people are even discussing it like sane people somewhere. There are no answers yet, but it's clearly a big concern for all involved.

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Guild of Outcasts

KI # 04260171

Writing, on my end, means using the written word to describe a land, an Age , that people would want to explore. Conceptualizing the world we want to see would have to come before the actual sketching, 3-D mapping, programming, etc, right?

Some day in the future, I would like to help write the story, the "pitch", the description for an artist's colony. An age just bursting with creative endeavors - with a dynamic art gallery for those Explorers gifted in the visual arts; a music conservatory for musical performers, a theater for thespians, and a writer's workshop for the creative writers, regardless of genre. Oh, and a comedy club.

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I'm just happy to be here!

I would assume that Writers might be the only Guild that has exclusive rights to do its job. After all, the OOC point of Writers and Maintainers is to maintain Quality Control and make sure there aren't inappropriate ages.

However, I've seen no real guild exclusion (aside from complications in Messengers that seem to be sorting themselves out). Everyone seems to be doing a really good job saying "anyone who wants to join, can". And while Guilds don't exist, I don't see the harm in "warming the engine" of the idea. Perhaps even launching limited guilds with the simple community gathered.

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-Whilyam

Oh? I assume that the Guild of Writers *must not* have have exclusive rights to Age creation. You can't guarantee high-quality Ages by setting yourself up as a gatekeeper. All you can do is reduce the number of Ages that get built, and the number of people willing to try.

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Andrew Plotkin (KI#00102725)
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