What would make the perfect alliance system in a game?

Hey everyone, would like to get your ideas on what you think games could do to make alliance ayatems more enjoyable and rewarding. List what you think would be fun and useful for alliances. 

*Alliance chat to start with. That alone plugs in a lot to a game. *An alliance vault (aka bank). Would allow a greater pooling of resources. *Alliance arenas and/or battlefield. In my time in GW2 I have seen some amazing pvp'ers. Having an alliance arena or battlefield would allow us to be taught various tactics in pvp. Maybe even practice formation ideas for large scale pvp. *Alliance fairgrounds. No I DON'T mean with roller coasters and what not. But an area for alliances leaders to put on a fair of sorts. Put in some archery tournaments or any sorts of other compitetions in which the alliance leaders can put up rewards. Face paints for characters ect ect. Obviously the larger the alliances resources the better the rewards. *Alliance or even guild dailies. Posibly set up by the alliance leaders as to what tasks need to be done for the daily. ################ Ultimate Alliance or even guild in game fun ....(for me at least) ########### *Alliance or even Guild only zone/zones that can be invaded. People love a sense of ownership even in games. Give them a zone or even zones to build and create together. Then ultimately have to defend. Or even invade. Crop tending. Yeah I know it sounds like farmville, but guess what? It's one of the most popular games on Facebook which in itself is huge. So obviously there is a desire for people to do this for fun. Make it 3D and the crops can be turned in upon harvest for Alliance currency ( for fairs or what not). Be able to build a wide variety of buildings, fortifications and sieges. But unlike WvW these take a much longer time and resources to build. In wvw you buy your siege and go build it from resources you get from camps. However in Alliance zone the alliance leaders must buy the blueprint first to learn then to make takes real resources. Meaning alliance members need to go into the world and gather the neccesary wood, stone, ore, leather ect ect to build it. Once or twice a week make the zones open to posible invasions from other guilds or alliances. In which the invading force can try and steal or destroy buildings, crops and resources. On the other hand the defending guild would in turn be able to counter attack the opposing invading force for there chance at crops and resources.

I think Eve really has a good take on Alliance systems in some areas, but too pvp focused. Like Oldmanjenkinz suggested, chat channels, land ownership etc is all good things. From a PVE players perspective I don't like it when pvp interferes with my pve, so if you go territory/land ownership you really need to seperate the 2 sides. How this could be implemented is by having a soldier/civilian pvp flag type system, civilians can't be attacked by enemy players nor can they attack enemy players. If they want to pvp they can be recruited as a soldier allowing them to assault enemy lands, defend their own kingdom, etc but no longer be able to harvest/gather/mine etc. Maintaining control of your territory would rely on a supply system ala gw2 but not as a carried/capturable resource. Like the pve guys have to clear out mines/farms/etc of npc's to supply materials for the use of the kingdom. This way if you're all civilians and no soldiers then you will lose your lands, all soldiers then you can capture land but not make use of it. This way both branches are necessary the pvp'rs for defense/attack and the pve'rs for infrastructure. Probably not explained real well, but that's the basic premise.

I think I want a section of the User Interface for the Alliance in with the Guild UI perhaps. Upwards, Downwards, and Sideways Alliances in other words Leaders/Followers/Allies. In Game Voice Chat channels. In and out of game messaging services. Game Mail of several types, Guild, Alliance, Guild Officer, Alliance Ambassador. A Looking for Group/Raid menu that is limited to just members of the Alliance, this does not have to include that group teleport feature that some games use, but that does help. I go back and forth on whether there should be a system of rules that can be set up in game to rule over/organize the Alliance, and a way for folks to report bad behavior by those rules to the leadership other then the classic screenshot and email.

» Edited on: 2013-02-10 19:28:22

Control over who can listen/speak/broadcast in an alliance based on their guild membership settings. For example, Recruit rank of Blueberry guild can listen/speak in alliance 1 but not broadcast, listen to alliance 2 but not speak/broadcast, not listen/speak/broadcast in alliance 3. Alliance permissions are set via the guild, not an overarching alliance structure. Based on permissions, the ability to send out an alliance wide Broadcast level message. ***CTA - OUR BORDERLANDS UNDER ATTACK, ALL HANDS NEEDED*** User color control for all chat types. Ability to join multiple alliances at the guild level. Ability to listen and talk across multiple alliances (desperately needed for multiple guild membership as well), all at the same time without having to go through any hoops. Actions like Represent and Stand Down should be only to reflect which guild tag appears over your head and where your contribution points are pooled. No 'blind' membership of any alliance where you cannot speak or hear (as long as you have the permissions) without two blackflips and a swan dive. Ability to chat using accessible simple shortcut keys - /g1 welcome new member!; /g2 AC speed run, need 1 more; /a1 Forming a havoc squad for our borderlands, need 6 more; /a2 crafting faire now open in Divinity. The ability to create separate stand alone chat windows that can be placed where ever on the HUD the user wishes, allowing for not only tab separated chat, but also window separated.

» Edited on: 2013-02-10 20:06:00

It depends on the game and what systems it has available that might support alliance specific designs. First and foremost, and generic to any game, is an alliance chat system. That single system is crucial to any alliance system, no matter what game, or what systems it utilizes or wants to implement. The rest is just froofroo bonus stuff that would enhance an alliance system, that would be neat to have.

Definitely alliance chat! I like the guild can be in more than one alliance. For GW2 it would be awesome to get one for our house and then another for all the house and the tuatha. An alliance interface much like the guild interface so you can have an idea of who is on. Those are the three main things I would want. The rest that was suggested is definitely cool ideas, but I know they will all be based on the game and how they have their pve, pvp, instances, etc setup in order to pull it off. In other words, probably won't get all the suggested froo froo in every game, but at least some of it would be cool if it fit with the game properly.

Everything has been covered reading these posts. To me, alliance chat is the big one. Variable chat colours are super helpful. Everything else is "great" but not "essential" in a game breaking kinda way.

As others have said, some form of communication is a must, whether it be custom chat channels (as we had in Warhammer and Rift), or a proper formal Alliance Chat. Another feature that would be nice (and generic enough to apply to any game or its mechanics) is a different coloured nameplate for members of your alliance (same as is usually the case for your party and guild). Dots on the map that match these colours would be great too. In WvW combats especially, it would make it much easier to avoid accidentally following the wrong people/dots when there are people everywhere.

Besides the obvious chat channel... The ability for officers to see all rosters and send invites for events. Alliance in-game calendar with the ability to open rosters for event sign-ups. I've raided in a couple games that had third party mods to do this and it makes large events and invites a real breeze. Officers have the ability to organize groups before the event by sign-ups, and when folks were logged on at event time they were automatically sent the proper group invite.

OK other than chat... There are a few things that I thought worked well with Alliances in EVE Online and I've adapted them a bit (or lifted them in full) below. I'd like an Alliance system where it was possible to easily see what Alliance a guild or person was a part of – in EVE they had alliance tags, much like guild/corporation tags. So I was a member of [EVEU] (EVE University) which was part of the [IVY] alliance (Ivy League). You could set both or either tag to display in your UI. It would be helpful if the names of people who were in my alliance were another colour – for example, the name of a guild mate would be green, while the name of someone in another guild but in the same alliance would be blue. Not just in chat, but on the main screen as well. For PVP, it would be interesting for Alliances to set standings against each other – alliances that were friendly to mine would appear in bright green or show a star, while alliances we had issues with could be set to 'bad' and their names would show in red. I loved the wardec system in EVE (despite its imperfections) and 'war targets' were set to flashing red. There was nothing that got the adrenelaine going quite so much as seeing a flashing red icon (or two... or twelve... or twenty... or hundreds...) pop up in local.

» Edited on: 2013-02-11 21:55:19

1) Well the chat thing seems covered. The way I think of it is like in DAoC, with having an alliance chat. Something similar to having an Officer chat. 2) Something interesting would be having an Alliance banner that is unique from each guild. You can place that banner on the field or keep. That way when you go into world vs world or arena the enemy can see that its not just a guild that is in the field but an entire alliance. That way say if you capture a keep as an alliance, you don't squabble for whose banner goes on the keep but rather the alliance banner is represented. 3) If there can be guild announcements there should be alliance announcements with the daily greeting when you log in. 4) If there are guild perks/levels maybe have alliance perks/levels. Where the alliance gains points for certain things based on certain achievements. 5) Maybe some kind of XML calendar built within the game. That way guild members of each guild can just log onto the game and see what is going on with the alliance. In order to show Alliance dungeon/ pvp runs or meetings.