If you play Steemmonsters (a.k.a. Splinterlands), I'm sure you already know guilds have been added recently to the game, creating the opportunity to join up forces and team up for even more rewards.
If anyone doubted the solid value of DEC (dark energy crystals, for people not familiar with the game), here's a good reason not to.
While before guilds there were more possibilities to obtain new DEC (i.e. faucets) than to use/spend them (i.e. sinks), making some worry - not me - the price will eventually collapse under the selling pressure, here's now a new powerful way to use your hard earned DEC... if you are willing to (a sink). The incentive is very well thought out... so plenty of DEC will go to this sink. :P
Currently, guilds offer several benefits:
- building up of teams and earning more by playing together
- the tavern, which can be used to communicate between guild members (closed to guild members only)
- the possibility to view guild members, their cards, their contribution in terms of DEC and daily quests (anyone can see this, for any guild member of any guild)
- Guild Hall, which increases the number of maximum guild members when upgraded (up to 30, starting from 15); upgrades are performed based on DEC contributions
- Quest Lodge - by leveling up this 'building', you earn more DEC on every won battle; leveling up is done by completing daily quests
Joining a guild is done in three possible ways, based on the membership type of the guild: open, by request, or by invitation.
I've seen there are guilds which in their rules require an upfront payment of DEC for joining. In other cases, you gotta be staked or prove activity on other projects. In other cases, it's open... And so on. There are 50 guilds listed on the Guilds page already, so you probably will find one suited for you.
Or you can always create your own guild for 10,000 DEC, if you are not pleased with the the existing offers, but building up the guild hall is not an easy job or cheap, and unlike resources in other games, DEC have a real value, which can be traded for other tokens or STEEM or at the end of the chain for US Dollar or Euro.
The thing I'm not completely at ease with, in the current situation of how guilds work is this.
I've just said above DEC have real value, right?
So is time... thus completed daily quests.
I am just a member in a guild, so I haven't created my own, and I'm not sure what the options for the owner of a guild are. But I assume they do have a kick member option (if for no other reason, just because one may have become a dead account)?
I don't want to assume this would happen to anyone active and a good guild member, but if a member is kicked, what happens to his or her contributions? They stay with the guild that kicked him or her, or they are personally tied, and wherever the player goes contributions follow (maybe with a discouraging fee for frequent jump shippers)?
I don't think there is a unitary solution implemented in the guilds, it's more like based on trust so far, but I believe it would be a good addition to the guilds a system that makes this clear.