Guilds

From my experience in MMOs there are a number of different needs and niches that player guilds fill. The range from the simplest needs of managing a group of users who play together socially, to groups that wish to be recognized as large organizations in the game world.

The guild system should scale to support all of these uses.

Any user should be able to start a guild for free, with no minimum player limits. But that guild is basically a glorified friends list. It has no display name ( just name it based on the name of the user who started it ). The founder should be able to invite users, set some basic permisions on others to do the same. The guild can have a chat channel, be notified when users join/leave/level, etc. This is the most basic social group, it doesn't own property, it doesn't have a display name, it doesn't realy affect the world in a big way, it's just a group of friends.

If the guild wants to own property in a city or have a shared bank, then it must be upgraded to a mid level guild. At this point it picks reserves a guild name, and requires a small number of active members. The guild name isn't shown, the guild isn't really considered an important organization. It can just buy a house, and have a couple shared resources.

If the guild wants more status and the ability to do guild quests for large governments, be able to build larger guild halls, with NPC merchants, or own multiple/larger houses then it needs to pay for a larger registration, have a defined leadership and contact hierarchy, and pay upkeep dues. This is the level that your big guilds want. They get a display name, they get a registered crest, they are recognized as an organization, the governments come to them with tasks, etc..

If the guild no longer wants to claim allegiance with a specific city state, it can advance to yet another level, and declare it's independence. It will need sufficient funds in it's treasury to support itself, and sufficient membership to maintain it's status. At this level the guild can go an build a guildhall/town in the wild if it wants. As opposed to leasing land near a city and getting the protection of the city state, this guildhall is up to the guild to maintain. They are responsible for defending and building all aspects of the place, as well as providing the basic resources for the characters that live there.

The additional activity in a place that was once wild will draw all sorts of natives to see. This means raids and/or attacks by hostile forces that the guild must defend against. The guild can hire NPC guards to enforce it's laws, offer quests to other PCs to do the same, or use it's own membership to patrol the grounds. If a Guild Town's laws and outlook is not compatible with any Government or settlements around it, then those misgovernments may take up arms against the guild hall. The risks are great but then so can the rewards. Guilds should be able to form alliances with other groups / governments if they want too.

This highest level of guild becomes responsible for it's own actions, in almost a PVP way. Since we are treating PCs and NPCs the same way. Conflicts can happen between normal non monster NPCs and player guilds, if the situations are right. If your guild hall is next to a kindom your raiding, you better be ready to be raided back.