Guildwork - The Future Of MMO Guildhosting/Networking

Guildwork - Imagine Facebook for MMORPG users, on top of an upgraded DKP database, on top of a sophisticated blog/forum system, on top of a full guild management system including an easy-to-use calendar and schedule and more. .

This is Stanislav's current project, still under construction, which when completed will likely serve to be an important part of our daily routine as FFXI (and other MMORPG) players.

I was introduced to the project today and I'm sold already on its speed, ease-of-use and implementation. With Stanislav's permission, I thought I would post a thread to let everyone know about it. Stan has asked us to check out Guildwork and its features. There is also a page available to post discussion of bugs and so on which the two developers check often.

To put my opinion of Guildwork quite simply: this project is amazing and I seriously expect it to redefine communication between MMORPG players and guilds.

Best of all, when completed, the basic use of Guildwork will be completely, and entirely free. There will be a small fee for premium users which removes ads and implements additional functionality, but all of the basic, primary features of the service will be available to all users regardless of their subscription.

For more info straight from the developer: http://gwdev.lighthouseapp.com/projects/45937/about-guildwork

Guildwork Forums: http://www.guildwork.com/forums/

Developer Blog: http://www.guildwork.com/blog/

A little bit about the service's features:

Completed:

* Live Chat
* Forums
* Guild Wiki
* Guild Blog
* Ventrilo Support
* Feed
* Schedule
* Widgets (Announcements, etc.)

In-Progress/Planned:

* Inbox
* User Profiles
* Item Database
* Official Data Crawler
* Files/CDN
* Screenshots
* Customizable DKP System
* Bank/Bazaar
* Resumes/Applications
* Analytics
* File Manager
* Guildwork Client
* Widgets

To use the service:

1) Go to http://www.guildwork.com
2) Make an account! Firefox 3.5+, Chrome, or IE8 is currently required.
3) Log in! (you don't need to wait for an e-mail)

Your Dashboard (Feed and Widget box) will be accessible instantly. On the bottom of the page, you can browse Users and Guilds and access other's pages, as well as add people to your Friends List. You can go find people you know here.



Here's a picture of the interface:

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/6460/gwbasic.png

You can see already that it's a lot like a version of Facebook (but better)! On the right side of the page are your Widgets. You have friend suggestions, as well as upcoming Guild Events (sorry, those ToDs aren't real). In the middle of the page is the Feed and at the bottom is your Chat and Link panel which displays conversations that you're currently having with friends, who's online, and link buttons that allow you to jump around the site easily.




Now here's a preview of the Guild section:

http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/3162/gwcalendar.png

You can see the Calendar, which updates in real time and is extremely easy to use. The event priority is denoted by its color (dark red is mandatory, and so on). On the left you see other sections of the guild website - most are working now, and others will be added later, including a fully customizable DKP database similar to (but much improved upon) eqDKP or exDKP.

Linkshell leaders can invite other users to "join" their linkshell on Guildwork, which gives them access to the special Guild section. They can see these events update in real time and RSVP for them, to denote their attendance. They will also be able to take part in all of the other features, including editing their Guild Wiki, posting on their Guild Forums, or reading the Blog. It will be an extremely accessible method of keeping an eye on all of your fellow members and keeping up with events from a centralized location.

Also, features will be added which link the DKP loot system to each user's Feed, so that whenever a particular item is obtained, everyone on that member's friendlist will see a Notification pop up in the bottom left stating "Vandyr obtained a Warrior's Lorica!" and what have you.

I definitely look forward to when this service goes live. You can bet I'll be looking to use it, and I hope that most of you do too.

If you're interested in trying it out and testing it, you should definitely sign up. Stanislav has stated that he really wants to see more testing - the best way to find and fix bugs is to have a lot of users on the site!

Stanislav has assured me that this project will continue on until it is 100% complete. As of now it is around 40% complete. It will begin with support for FFXI, WoW, and Aion but will eventually branch out for other popular MMORPGs as they are released. This is a public test and when the site goes live, stuff that is made will be wiped, but you can still play around with it and use it for now.

Honestly, my pictures don't even begin to do this justice. Load it up and try it for yourself (and send me a friend invite when you do!).

This looks spiffy. I can't add a guild.

You must first create a character.

Sounds very cool, but please don't post the same thing to multiple forums. I nuked your post in General for being a dupe subject line.

It was different people, I already warned them myself not to spam, thx for deleting the other one.

I'm all for cross-promoting other users' FF-related sites, I just don't want it to be dupes. Let me know if you want me to move this thread to General or something instead.

If you think it will get more attention there then sure =)

Told you I posted in the right place . . . Stupid Stan.

Are you hard coding it from scratch using php/mysql or you using a CMS?


nvm I see your coding it from scratch. good job best of luck on that project

CMS or Frameworks are nice but we are aiming for millions and need to scale easily. =)

Badass, I like the concept.

I havent explore much but you are using php right? and aiming for millions you are talking about users?

Yes, millions of users. The aim is to house the majority of MMO guilds. Initially the site is supporting WoW, FFXI & Aion with plans to expand rapidly to support other MMOs.

I <3 the interface. I hope your plan is to keep it simple.
I think you're definitely going in the right direction here.

Hope your site is up to the task of housing hundreds of guilds.
When I saw it, it made me think facebook/myspace for guilds lol.

EDIT: What is the "Ventrilo Support" you mentioned exactly? At first it made me think you would actually host ventrilo servers for guilds but it's a bit ambiguous (and that seems like way too much too handle).

We have spent more time on scaling then anything else, the actual features that are complete account for only 20% of the 40% that is complete.

We have listed all the things we are using to make this possible @ http://guildwork.com/blog/2010/2/8/4b6f7a709c19283f4c000000/guildwork-public-preview/ . And no we are definitely not using PHP.

The Ventrilo support at the moment only means that it will display the channels/users/info, it will later allow you to control your Ventrilo server (regardless of where its hosted) so you can kick people etc even from work. We also plan to sell/resell Ventrilo servers down the line as well.