Overview
Player Associations (also known as
Guilds) are a huge part of the community in SWG. They're great at keeping people together and making sure you always have someone to help you out (or help out)
A Player Association (PA) has at least 5 members, one of which is the Leader.
To create a guild you just need a "Player Association Galactic Registry" (PAGR) from an Architect and you simply radial the PAGR and select the option Create a Guild. You specify the name and the abbreviation and then you are done.
In SWG guild membership is usually part of the development of player designed cities, mayorship of these cities, and the ability to wage war with other guilds. Joining a guild is not a decision to make lightly, although if you find yourself in a guild you don't like, it's easy to cut your losses and join another one. To leave your current guild, simply enter the command: /guildremove self.
In everyone's datapad, under the Data tab, there is a Remote Player Association Access Device, even if they are not in a guild. The device can be used to see a list of guilds. Guild names, abbreviation, and the number of characters in each guild are shown. There are also statistics of current and past guild wars.
Guild Types
Common since the beginning of SWG, some guilds are go into the Star Wars universe through role playing. The level of strictness varies from guild to guild.
Membership in an aligned guild requires that you earn the faction points to become either Imperial or Rebel. Usually if you are a new player and express interest in either the recruiter will help you acquire the points so you can join, although it's easy enough to locate a faction terminal and get them yourself.
Crafting guilds work together to harvest resources, develop malls, and supply each other with subcomponents that can be your own schematics (for example, armorsmiths need tailors to make synth cloth).
The advantages of a pilot guild include; it facilitates the exchange of raw space loot for
Re-Engineering purposes, members can gain skill by dueling each other, difficult missions are easier tasked by organized groups.
Entertainer guilds seem to be popular, and seem to be great ways to socialize and meet people.
Some guild are created for users who speak a specific language other than English. The reason for forming such guilds is often to provide a framework for players who don't feel comfortable using English.
National guilds are very similar to language-based guilds except membership of national guilds is restricted to players of a certain nationality.
PvP or Player vs. Player guilds are typically faction-aligned guilds that are particularly organized in PvP combat.
Reasons for forming a Player Association
Reason for forming player associations (or guilds) could be various and may include a combination of any of the following:
1) To start an organization that consists of a closely knitted group of real life friends and/or family. Usually, these guilds are small in membership but can be very effective. A closely knitted group of friends or family can take part in run of the mill hunts or events, but cannot match to the larger scale activities a major guild can live up to. Similar to the latter, one may choose to instead have a closely knitted group of in-game friends.
2) To achieve a goal that cannot be executed alone. For example, a difficult quest or large scale battle in the Galactic Civil War. To achieve a specific goal, specific standards need to be put in place for recruits. These can be profession/faction/experience.
3) To found a city. While cities can be formed without guilds, an organized group of members would make founding a city more easy and efficient. Cities gives a guild a sense of accomplishment and a place to call home. Guild meetings and events can be held in player cities.
4) To lead a group of people. This doesn't necessarily mean the leader is power hungry. Leading a guild can bring a sense of accomplishment. Being respected, and helping other players is what leading an organization may be about. Leaders may also enjoy setting up a council or a certain "government" structure to their organization.
5) To gain fame. Many organizations want to be "famous" so to speak, being mentioned often on game forums or the like. Guilds may enjoy holding a private "empire" status.
6) To form a crafting company. Some guild-companies specialize in one area of crafter specialization, while other guild-companies may recruit all specializations of traders. Guild-companies usually have a mall where the guild puts its vendors. Guild-companies may also be founded because crafters want to share a highly concentrated resource area with some other players. Some guild companies recruit combat classes to harvest resources from animals, destroy monster lairs that spawn near the company's town, or to wage war with rival guild-companies.
Useful Commands
There are some useful commands for any member of a guild:
/guildshow - shows a full list of the guild members with their online/offline status, titles, ranks etc
/guildnotify - notifies in your chat window, when a guild member logs on and off.
/who <guild tag> - shows a list of online people with this tag (and random people with that combination of letters in their names)