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[Lokkrin Zhataros]

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[jayhova]

My thought on guild fees is that they should be handled like temple donations. To an extent they should keep your reputation with the guild up if you are not performing quests. Quests bring the guild both money and reputation and they give you a cut. If you are just in a guild as a social club they might after some time start dropping hints that you should keep up with your dues if you are not a working member. Of course, once you become grand poobah you are fine. You can only improve your rep with the guild and its members, you can't advance.

My thought is that after a while your reputation in a guild begins to fall. When it does you can either pay your back dues or do quests and raise you reputation normally. if you do nothing the guild will withhold services starting with the highest. Perhaps the guild member will say something like "My services are reserved for dues-paying/working guild members, not dead beats." Donations to the guild will never earn you a promotion but large donations will improve your standing with other guild members.

[Lokkrin Zhataros]

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[jayhova]

I disagree that every time you pay a guild fee that your reputation should continue to go up. This would mean that you could eventually end up with max rep but not max rank. What would be the purpose? The entire function of gaining reputation in a guild is to gain rank and get access to more services and quests. Guild rep and rank kinda go hand-in-hand. Guild fees should only maintain your status with the guild not increase your standing with them. It's only you doing work for them that earns you reputation and rank.

When I say your reputation goes up I mean only that your reputation with guild members goes up. You do not rise in rank. I'm not sure you can even do this with the system as it sits. Basically what I am saying is even if your rank does not increase you are still well thought of by members of the guild and their associates. That is to say, if you give large donations to a knightly order you might be looked on favorably by the royal family or that region as though you were a ranking knight. This would be difficult to keep up because were you to stop giving money your reputation would tend to decay back down to your actual rank or below if you are not a working knight. It might be a good idea to have a sort of floor where your past service holds you up. You might not ever for instance drop more than 2 or 3 ranks when you retire.

[Lokkrin Zhataros]

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[jayhova]

I've noticed that reputation decays at a rate anyway. If you changed the algorithm by which it decayed it could not decay at all if the player has done a quest within a set number of days or made an equivalent donation. Donations can restore points lost from inactivity but never give you more than you have lost. You can for instance right now have a reputation with your guild of 100 without gaining ranks. If you ignore that guild for a while your reputation may slip down to 90. My thought is that you could then give money to bring it back up rather than do a quest.

[Lokkrin Zhataros]

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[jayhova]

Possibly it becomes increasingly hard to raise your rep. Let's say the cost doubles for every 10 points. So rep 1-10 costs 1 gold to raise your reputation back up 1 point, 11-20 2 gold, 21-30 4 gold, 31-40 8 gold, 41-50 16 gold, 51-60 32 gold, 61-70 64 gold, 71-80 128 gold, 81-90 256 gold, and 512 gold per point after that.

In the above example where our guy had a rep of 100 but let it slip down to 90, he could then buy it back up for 10x512=5120 gold. The number of donations would be irrelevant.

[Lokkrin Zhataros]

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[jayhova]

Well of course toward the end of the game you are enormously wealthy. I'm not thinking of it as a penalty but more like the guild expecting you to pull your weight. Bear in mind that you can always do a quest and that will likely get you more money. It's more like a reminder, you're rich and a guild member, perhaps you should be helping your fellows out.