It's come that time again... gauging interest for a new RP effort!
Earthen Ring is known for integrating game mechanics with roleplay. One system that was introduced in the last two years is the wargame system, wherein two groups can wage battle with one another regardless of faction.
The Dragonblight Campaign was a great example of Earthen Ring's capability to meld game mechanics and roleplay together. Using the new Looking For Raid system, we organized 3 separate in-character raids that acted as the climactic end to a three month long RP campaign. Let's see if we can recreate the magic again.
Introducing an idea... The ER Guild Battle System - or World of Battlecraft.
The rules are simple, and use two separate game mechanics: wargames, and guild name change.
Rules
1. Two guilds do battle, picking their best champions.
2. A wargame ensues in a battleground of mutual choosing.
3. The winner absorbs the losing guild, including the guild's name.
For example:
The Templars of the Rose and Tears of Draenor do battle. One team wins. The end result is Tearplars of the Draenor Rose.
(Due to these guilds being Alliance and Horde respectively, the losing guild must faction-change to the appropriate faction and join the winning guild. No exceptions!)
Then the newly-combined guild Tearplayers of the Draenor Rose wages battle with The Conjurers Court. One team wins. The end result is Tearplars Court of Conjuring Draenor Roses.
Then the newly-combined guild Tearplars Court of Conjuring Draenor Roses wages battle with The Phantom Legion. On team wins. The end result is The Phantom Tearplars Court of Conjuring Legionnaire Draenor Roses.
Etcetera, etcetera.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How does this connect to roleplay?
It's very likely that the end result will be some sort of mega-conglomerate guild of utter nonsense and confusion - but that's okay. We can attach it to roleplay and play it all through Mists of Pandaria. It will be a great respresentation of the total war atmosphere if Mists, plus a little silliness on the side. Really - this expansion has pandas in it, frequent guild name changes with ridiculous amounts of adjectives is relatively small in comparison.
Q: What if there's not enough money to afford all the guild name changes?
Easy. There are posts about buying level 15+ guilds all the time on the Blizzard forums. Blizzard tends to delete them, but you can catch these posts if you are fast enough. People pay real money for a high level guild - so sell yours, join the winning guild, and use the cash to pay for the name change! Problem solved. (This is also totally legal.)
Q: Isn't there some sort of character limit for guild names?
No. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you. Lying people are bad. You should probably not be their friend.
Q: Should we test this on some sort of smaller scale first?
Yes! To ensure this will work, this concept will first be introduced on a character-only level. Participating characters will /duel one another in Goldshire and outside the gates of Orgrimmar. The winning player will absorb the losing player's name, gold and any non-bound items. The losing character will be deleted, and a screenshot will be posted on the Wall of Shame, hosted here on the ERN.
Q: What about guild tabards?
Out-of-character, the winning guild keeps their tabard. In-character, members of the newly-combined mega-guild must wear all the guild tabards within the mega-guild at all times. Consider it an armor bonus.
There are drawbacks to wearing mutiple layers of tabards - such as gnomes and blood elves disappearing under what looks to be a pile of multi-colored tabard laundry. Tauren and male Draenei benefit by looking even bigger and more intimidating. Forsaken benefit because dirty laundry smells nicer than they normally do.
Thoughts? Ideas? Yes/No? Feel free to post here. All feedback is welcomed and appreciated.