The Guild System update launched on February 18th, 2002, as Beta 6.6. This update was issued to only to include the new guild system which would take the informal guilds and allow them to create formal guilds with real benefits for all members.
To create a guild you would need to find five premium accounts including yourself as only those with premium could lead a guild. Those wishing to start a guild would have to go to the website and find the create guild button, then specify the name for the guild which couldn't be changed after. From there they would choose the world and the name of their character that would lead the new guild before confirming the action with their account password.
Once the guild leader created the guild, they would have three days to get the guild together or it would disband. To build up the guild they would have to use the invite player button and type in the name of the person they wished to invite. The invited player would have to login to the main site and accept the invite to become part of the guild. A guild was considered established once four premium vice members where selected. These members couldn't be a vice or guild leader in another guild, and only those in the first two ranks counted towards this total. Any time the guild dropped below the required amount of premium, a warning would display on the guild page and if nothing was changed, the guild would disband after two weeks.
As you can tell from this first snapshot of the guild page, very few rules existed so we had many guilds with descriptions and names in other languages. Not all computers could display these different languages properly, and to maintain consistency CIP instituted on March 8th, 2002, that all guild names and descriptions would have to be in English. GMs could delete or change any part of a guild which violated the rules, and the guild leader was personally held responsible for any rulebreaks while creating a guild with inappropriate name or titles.
The benefits of founding a guild where that you would be able to have your guild affiliation show up in game, eliminating the need to go to the website to check the players comments. To check if a player was part of a guild they could now click on that player, and they would see the name, vocations, and guild status. You would also have access to a guild messaging system which would show up as pink text in your default channel. To send a message, which was a sort of like a guild broadcast, you typed #M which would send a message to all online guild members.
Guild membership would also allow you to be able to purchase a guildhall as a group, which provided the members with a large house to hold guild meetings or rent out rooms to its members. Rent for a hall was expensive so to help fund the hall, members would often be asked for dues or in some cases the money was brought in through renting of specific rooms. It was always a difficult task to chase other players for money just as it was during the early house days. Many players were kicked out of a guild for failing to pay their dues. The spells for inviting players to a hall worked the same as a house. "The right to enter the guildhouse or some rooms of it can be granted to all guild members (*@guildname) or all members of a certain rank (rankname@guildname)."
Another feature, which would launch a month later, on March 26th, 2002, was the guild forum. This forum would have to be created by the guild leader and would exist only until the guild disbanded or the guild leader deleted it. The board allowed members of the guild to talk to each other and plan events and I think you could sticky topics inside. GMs could look inside these boards and ban players for normal Tibian rulebreaking which made the boards very unpopular with players. Most guilds took their board needs to their own private sites away from prying eyes of potential enemies and banishment risks. Though I tried out the board for myself I found very few players wanted to use them as it forced you to log into the board every time unlike other sites which allowed you to remain logged in. Risking a forum login was not the same as risking a character login. Going through the process of logging in to see nothing new posted was enough for players to become discouraged with the system. Perhaps other guilds had more success with the forums but I never saw any guild I was a part of use the forums with any regularity.
To be invited to a guild you had to ask the guild leader or vice leaders to formally invite you via the invite link on the guild page. You could only be a member of one guild at a time, so you had to choose wisely. If you wished to leave a guild you could click the leave button on the guild page. The change to your guild status in game only occurred once you logged out, so it was possible to appear to be a part of the guild while you were already excluded from it. A popular tactic was to only kick a player from the guild once they were already offline which would prevent retaliatory damage if they were that kind of player.
A guild could have up to 10 different ranks which the guild leader could name. The first and second ranks were for premium members only, but the remaining 8 ranks could be held by anyone. A guild leader occupied "the highest rank and is responsible for the whole guild. He or she can invite new members, exclude members, name the ranks, confer titles, and disband the guild. The second rank is occupied by the so-called vice-leaders. They also have the right to invite or exclude members. Finally, each member has the ability to promote or degrade other members at lower ranks, or leave the guild." As each member could promote or degrade other members below them, sometimes you would get nefarious players who would kick out other members, so it was important to place your lowest rank new players at the bottom and have them earn their way up the ranks. Not very many players knew about changing ranks, so it wasn't often an issue. Interestingly you could also assign a title to a player which would show up in brackets after the guild name. These titles were mostly positions like Diplomat but could also be conferred like with special nicknames. Titles of course had to confer with the rules but there was nothing then which would stop you from picking an inappropriate title unintentionally.
Prior to this update guild halls had been given to guild leaders. Now they were required to found their respective guilds to still qualify for the hall. Those who had not done so by March 18th, 2002, would lose their hall which would go up for auction like houses would. Anyone looking to rent a hall for their own guild would either need to bid on an empty property and win the auction or buy from other players through the rental portion of the website. Halls could only be transferred to fully established guilds.
Guilds would disband on their own once they didn't have enough premium accounts, but if the guild leader wished to close the guild sooner, they could click disband guild which would release all players back to free agent status. Guild leaders could also resign their position and pass the guild to another member. If I recall, they also had to manually pass the guild hall which could be tricky. Decades later the founding date would become important as CIP began to reward old guilds, but this was never a thought in these early days so many guilds accidently dissolved due to administration errors or other events like getting hacked.
Those looking to research a guild they might wish to join could look at the main site and peruse the guild section. At the time there were so few guilds and worlds that they could be displayed on one page in alphabetical order by world. Established guilds, known as active guilds, would appear with their chosen logo and a short description of what the guild was about. If no guild logo was selected a generic one was provided. A submit link to the right would take you to the guild page, and if you were logged in, what you saw depended on your affiliation with the guild. If you were a leader of the guild, then you would see all the edit buttons for the guild while those of lower ranks would have lesser options to edit the guild as already detailed. Most players fell in the observation category so they would see the above which offered a list of players in the guild, including their rank, and links to the specific character's bio page. Invited players could be seen at the bottom as was the link to login and accept an invitation if you had one available or go to the edit page for the guild. This guild page also provided a link to a guild website if one was available.
This update saw the creation of the special vocation title which allowed players of level 20 to pay 20k for the upgrade. By taking this promotion you would gain a faster mana and hp recovery as well as see a reduction in the death penalty. Vocations would gain the following on top of their original recovery: Knights gain 1 HP every 12 seconds, Paladins would gain 1 extra HP every 24 seconds, and 2 mana every 12 seconds, both mages would gain 2 mana every 6 seconds. The promotion would also reduce the death penalty by 30% which was significant even for lower levels.
Though today you would likely not have an issue paying for this upgrade, back at this time it was costly and was not uncommon for players to wait to save up before being able to pay for it. The change in the Desert Dungeon quest during the implementation of the quest system would become an important way to generate the money needed for this upgrade. At implementation only King Tibianus and Queen Eloise could offer the advancement for the 20k donation. The following update would grant that permission to Emperor Kruzak as well.
If you dropped below level 20 while promoted you would still be promoted and would only lose the status if you were rooked or lost your premium. Once promoted you would also be allowed to buy a vocation specific spell from the new NPC Eremo the Sage depending on your vocation.
Knights could buy the much-loved Challenge spell which would allow them to direct monsters to attack them instead of another player. Sorcerers could purchase the Enchant Staff which made a regular staff into a more powerful version of itself which would run out of juice after 60 seconds. This spell was absolutely hated as there was better weapons available and the constant upkeep wasted mana which was already a difficult resource to manage. Druids were able to buy the Wild Growth spell which cast a vine like wall in the direction they were facing. This would prevent creatures from attacking them directly but allowed them to shoot SD or other runes at the targets. Paladins could purchase the Power Bolt spell which produced a stronger bolt but at a much higher mana cost. This spell was not very popular among Paladins as it was too much mana and the attack it offered wasn't significantly better than the bolt.
Though we don't have any surviving maps from this period, it is possible some of the guildhalls seen on the Darashia map came with this update. The Northport Clanhall could be found just west of the city and had 10 beds. Taking the ladder in the front entrance to the basement led to four rooms, one of which was a storage room. On the first floor was a single bedroom right at the entrance and a large room to the north which had a private two-bedroom room just west of it. Stairs in the front lobby led to the second floor which had a single bedroom to the north and a large library area with a red carpet to the west.
The Ab'Dendriel Clanhall could be fund in Abby just north of the observation tower and had 10 beds. On the first floor was a large four bed area to the west and a small library to the south which had a set of stairs leading down. The basement had a meeting room to the east, a small storage room to the south, and a smaller storage room with an attached two-bed-room south of it. A ladder at the guild hall entrance would take you to the second floor which had a small single bedroom to the west, and a large red carpeted area south which had two rooms to the west with beds. A ladder from here would take you to the fantastic rooftop garden which had trees.
By far the largest guildhall in the Abby area was the new Castle of the Winds which was found in the north most part of the city. This massive castle had 18 beds which could be found spread all over the castles five floors. The entrance led to a large room with a red carpet and knight statues at each of the corners which had a smaller open room to the west. A single bedroom was nestled in the southeast of this floor. Taking the ladder down in the southwest room led to the basement which had a large 8 bedroom to the east, two smaller two bedrooms to the west, and an odd, shaped storage room north, accessible by a hallway. The staircase on the first floor led to the second floor which was a maze of six rooms, one of which was a large library, another a storage room with casks, and two bedrooms. A ladder from this room led to the roof which had four towers on the corners and an open rampart area to access them. Each of these towers had a ladder leading up to a small room, one of which had a bed and a shelf, another just a bed, and the remaining just empty rooms.
Added right to the entrance to the Fibula Island was a new hall named Fibula Clanhall. A ladder at the entrance took you to the basement which had a small storage room to the south and a three bedroom to the east. The first floor had five rooms which had a large library and red carpet and smaller rooms with beds connecting to that room. Taking the ladder to the second floor led to three other rooms, two of which had beds. This guildhall had 10 beds for guild members to use.
Players would now also be able to use a new mode of transport which would take them from Kazordoon to Cormaya. This underground boat could be found by a new tunnel in Cormaya, staffed by NPC Gurbasch, by the castle which took players down several levels to the lowest level. You would be deposited in Kazordoon, operated by NPC Brodrosch, just by the mine entrance where you could travel back up and head into town.
Several new items were added to the game such as the Dragon Hammer, Dwarven Axe, Blue Robe, Skull Staff, Royal Helmet, Ring of the Sky, and Magic(ian) Hat. Many of these would appear as new monster loot such as the Dragon hammer appearing in the Dragon which was a pretty good single hand weapon but heavy. The Blue Robe, Skull Staff, and Ring of the Sky would become the new Warlock loot. For those who already made a great deal of money hunting Giant Spiders you would now also have a chance to find the Royal Helmet which was better than the Warrior Helmet.
The Crusader Helmet, Red Robe, Mystic Turban, and Elven Hood (Wooden Cape) appeared in the SPR but where not obtainable in game. There was a lot of speculation about the Eleven Hood might end up being but it would be many years before this would officially enter the game. The Red Ninja Armor was also added at this time but it has remained a mystery even to this day.
Four new food items came into the game to help players improve their diets. The Strawberry, Pumpkin, Tomato, and finally the Pear became purchasable from food NPCs. The Pear was also no longer invisible so players would no longer look silly eating the fruit in public (perhaps seeing the ugly pear also put the Warlock off the fruit, setting for the nice looking Cherry).
The Teddy Bear would become obtainable as a very rare Santa Gift. A Trap was also added which would now be purchasable as a weapon players could deploy on the ground to deal damage to unsuspecting players or monsters. This item did laughably bad damage so was mostly used to play around. Two new tools were also added to the game, the Saw and Hammer, though no known use could be found for them.
Finally some old favorites came back to the game. The large gems (purple, yellow, green, red) would now be lootable in monsters once again.
Unfortunately, this update had a serious bug that caused a major emergency patch. What would later be known as the Talon Bug, the bug would entailed dropping a talon from your backpack onto the screen (pic to the left) such as depot or floor which would crash the client graphics of all those on screen (pic to the right) but would keep the characters logged into the game. Another player would then be able to come from off screen and kill the helpless player.
News of this spread very fast and many nefarious players engaged in this bug, and I am pretty sure there wasn't a reset. Less than two days later a patch was launched, 6.61, which fixed the issue. As a cheeky reminder for players, a special Talonbug monster was added to the game briefly which had the sprite of a normal Bug but had special text depicted above.
