Earlier this week, several Massively OP staffers were debating the best way to set up MOP guilds in games where we were already in guilds. It’s easy in a game like Final Fantasy XIV, which has both free companies and linkshells to help people connect to multiple groups, but not so easy in an MMO like Star Wars: The Old Republic, where you’re either in the guild or you’re just not.
And that led to discussion on multiguilding in MMOs. Some of our writers embrace multiguilding — that is, being about to join multiple MMO groups at the same time — as the best way to make a game sticky; the more people you know and the more groups you bond with, the more likely you are to stick around. But others believe that multiguilding has helped destroy MMO communities by eroding loyalty to a single guild and creating a wide, casual network of people to whom no one has any allegiance.
Which side are you on? Has multiguilding hurt MMO communities, or is it one of the best glues we have left?