so whats your player number goals?

[Gorillasnot]

whats the current flavor on how large to make the clans? i can see good and bad with the large 300+ clans or keeping it smaller and faster with a 80-100 group. i can even see the +'s of having a small guild of sub50 with a bigger web of alliances.

i can see all being effective but im wondering what you guys are seeing happening.

[Rahavin]

any clan with 300+ is going to be a nightmare to coordinate with logistics and friendly fire and all that. I'm hoping to be with a clan that is around 80 strong, seems like an ideal number to myself.

[Barbarossa]

any clan with 300+ is going to be a nightmare to coordinate with logistics and friendly fire and all that. I'm hoping to be with a clan that is around 80 strong, seems like an ideal number to myself.

Not really, you delegate the leadership duties to those you can trust to lead subdivisions of clans. From what I've read/heard, clan tags/titles will even reflect this.

Trouble is, unless you are already an established clan, where are you going to find 5 - 10 buggers you can actually trust for game you can't even play yet?

100 seems to be a good number for clan size though. Seems there will be plenty of merc and pirate guilds out there so you can always 'subcontract' some extra help if needed.

My clan has discussed the 'what if we get this big' scenario, I think we'll handle it well. I could see us successfully maintaining a 100 - 150 member clan with no problem. I personally would not wish get any larger than 150, too many pirates puts a strain on the landlubber economy.

[Uncron]

any clan with 300+ is going to be a nightmare to coordinate with logistics and friendly fire and all that. I'm hoping to be with a clan that is around 80 strong, seems like an ideal number to myself.

Not to mention everyone getting along. Pretty sure it's going to be alot of mmo-guild-drama in such big clans.
My guess is that most clans will have numbers of 20-30, smaller clans mainly of rl friends or old gaming pals in the numbers of 10+ and then the big, pre-release more organized clans with numbers close to 100.

[Teth]

One, be aware of the Monkeysphere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number).

Two, any entity that plans on being a meaningful participant in territorial sovereignity is probably gonna have to be able to pull at least a few dozen people during their prime time. Activity rates are going to dictate how many total members you'll need to do that, of course.

Three, that band of twenty to thirty is, in just about every MMO I've ever played, a hallmark of mediocrity. Too large to feel truly close-knit and elite; too small to really do much at all. Never, ever try to stop there. There are certain virtues in being smaller so long as all of your members are freakishly active, and there are definite benefits for being larger, but that "two dozenish" zone is...ugh, yeah, it's usually the mark of an ugly stasis sliding into irrelevance.

With that in mind, yes, most guilds probably will float around 20 - 30 members...as most guilds are effectively redundant and achieve nothing at all, except possibly making their tiny coterie of members possessing above-average competence & talent (every guild has at least one of these, otherwise the guild nigh-automatically implodes!) feel good about themselves.

House Shivering will be analyzing in-game experience to figure out an optimal number for itself come go time. Until then we have a tentative organizational schema that is designed to be flexible under a wide variety of membership scales.

[Uncron]

I thought the purpose of computer games in general were to deliver fun, and MMORPGs fun with a social aspect. I don't think it will discourage guilds that want to be 20-30 ish active members to achieve anything nor think that they have to achieve anything, but just have fun.

Basically with enough time and effort anyone can achieve anything, that also goes in the game world. It will be hard, and thus the achievement will tast oh so sweeter. But it's abit on the tip to call 20-30 members guilds effectively redundant, if that's the general attitude one might think some people are redundant, real life villages and cities below a certain population because "they don't achieve anything".

[Surly]

50 real guild members, and twice/thrice as many in-gamers who aren't going to follow the guild around from game to game. Delicious zerglings.

[Surly]

One, be aware of the Monkeysphere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number).

Two, any entity that plans on being a meaningful participant in territorial sovereignity is probably gonna have to be able to pull at least a few dozen people during their prime time. Activity rates are going to dictate how many total members you'll need to do that, of course.

Three, that band of twenty to thirty is, in just about every MMO I've ever played, a hallmark of mediocrity. Too large to feel truly close-knit and elite; too small to really do much at all. Never, ever try to stop there. There are certain virtues in being smaller so long as all of your members are freakishly active, and there are definite benefits for being larger, but that "two dozenish" zone is...ugh, yeah, it's usually the mark of an ugly stasis sliding into irrelevance.

With that in mind, yes, most guilds probably will float around 20 - 30 members...as most guilds are effectively redundant and achieve nothing at all, except possibly making their tiny coterie of members possessing above-average competence & talent (every guild has at least one of these, otherwise the guild nigh-automatically implodes!) feel good about themselves.

House Shivering will be analyzing in-game experience to figure out an optimal number for itself come go time. Until then we have a tentative organizational schema that is designed to be flexible under a wide variety of membership scales.
I feel the same way about the "lump" guilds with 20-30 members. What shocks me is that there are so fucking many of them, and that they so obstinately refuse to join in a larger nation most of the time.

Nonetheless, I believe a 20-30 man guild can have a purpose just so long as it isn't dreaming about territorial conquest. If Darkfall truly allows us to manipulate the economy, or at least participate in it on a large scale, I think merchant guilds, ship builders, miners, and eventually some diluted form of mercenaries will be viable, if not good, choices to make. Especially with those middle ground lump guilds.

Because face it, 20-30 mediocre PvPers aren't really useful for anything but mercenary numbers to pad a larger battle.

[Daarco]

I have no idea what the best number in DF will be.
A 300+ clan would be a cool thing to see.

But human nature must be the worst problem, it takes just one member that is not happy. And instead of leaving, he/she begins to make the weakest linc to break...

[Unknewn]

50-75 Hardcore

[Agge]

A few casual people out to enjoy a game, thats my ideal size of a clan.

Soo say... Max 50.

This is not counting in joining an alliance. Wich could be done if we want to achive something bigger.

[SentinelVOV]

My player number goal was 1 and I've already met it.

[Landwin]

My player number goal was 1 and I've already met it.

/pwned

[Taroth]

My player number goal was 1 and I've already met it.

Grats!

But seriously somewhere between 50 and 150 is ideal. The monkeysphere thing was really interesting Teth :D

[Nickzor]

I dont know but i think 80 members is nice to have or something near that. Because you cant exspect evreyone to be online evrey day .....

[HoE-Drenath]

We're probably going to end up with ~50-80 active members in HoE proper when all is said and done. Our core is about 15-20 people that've been playing together and idling in irc for the last 5ish years but there's more than that in the guild that don't quite fit the bill for being a "core" member.

I'm expecting 50-80 to be too small to really do much solo in terms of making an actual impact in the game but that's where politics comes in, something we tend to do well with if past experiences are to be of any indication.

[Suitepee]

My player number goal was 1 and I've already met it.

Can I join your clan? I'm a player number of 1 also. We can be a pair of 1's! :p

Interesting link Teth btw.

[Angelmar]

Teth's post is spot on.

If the environment has no hardcoded minimum (like WoW) and is created in a way that skill and organization can play a decisive role (like Shadowbane) then there two paths to victory-- The zerg and the Elite Unit.

In SB, I started as a player in one of the medium sized 30-40 man guilds and we got crushed by a Zerg.

I was an officer of guilds and nations within huge 300+ man zergs.

I've even lead a few of the in between size guilds.

and finally found the greatest success as an officer of a small 15-20 man group that was very active and could face 2-3 to 1 odds and have a chance of pulling it off.

If you don't have the organization or don't have the time to develop the organization than the your guild will lose to the Zerg and at the same time get owned by the the Elite units.

At release I'm sure 100 person guilds wont be uncommon. If the devs really achieve their one server plan than I'm sure city battles of less than 100 will be rarity.

[Red Morgan]

I think we'll see a lot of smaller clans with 20-30 people acting as highwaymen, thieves and gank squads. Since their goals are pretty petty, they'll be able to easily achieve their purpose and they'd probably have fun doing it.

I have a feeling multiple mid-sized clans (50-80) allied to eachother are going to be the win in conquest. Supposedly the zerg won't work, but I guess we'll have to wait and see about that.

If less than a 1/3 of your members are core, you're probably going to suck balls.

[Helgeran]

Monkeysphere article was really interesting. That's all.