Many Guilds or Few Factions

At the moment we have 5 guilds, I say at the moment because "The Pacmen" are considering disbanding or changing leadership of which i'm the guild leader. The reason behind my post is whether we are better to have 5 or 6 guilds or rather 2 or 3 factions. Inactivity and participation in the guilds is my main concern.

My idea is to have 2 or 3 factions(the name can change factions sounds too clinical and not in keeping with MonBre) and when players hit trainer lvl 5 they get to choose which side they will fight for/with. This may increase the number of active players and create more participation within the few factions....

So what do we all think, do we need a different guild system, is our current system alright or does anyone else have any suggestions......

I think that the guild reqs are a bit steep but I do get the fact that little noobs should not be creating guilds.
Regarding the factions, it's as sensible idea. Maybe a quarter of all of the people in the Brotherhood here are inactive or come like once a month to check on their monsters and by that time, I'm sorry to tell 'em, the ones that they sorta trained up are dead. Vael, I think you can say the same of yours as I was in there. I left 'cause I felt like I could find better armory items somewhere else, though the zilman husk fragment was like the best one there or so.
Factions. Hmm. Choosing a side to fight on doesn't necessarily mean you're going to fight for it. After all, what are you fighting against, the other guild members. That means that stronger players can smash weaker players into the ground. If one side has all noobs and the other side has all strong players or even two or three, well that means that naturally the noobs are going to lose! It's simplicity itself! You should set up some ... (not rules, not guidelines, not reqs) ways to make them fair.
If we do switch to factions, what will be the purpose of raids. I don't want to lose my raid marks, though! I have 13 raids!

I admit there is little point in having many different guilds. I am going to have something "soon" (perhaps end of september?) to remedy this just a bit... guild mining. When I first designed monbre, I had no idea about game design. =/ So this is where guilds come in. There's definitely a point in being -in- a guild, but being in a different guild is another story. I really don't know what I can do with factions... perhaps with guild mining I can think of something.

As for players leaving... it's my fault to begin with. The game isn't addicting. There's too much complication as opposed to depth. I'm taking measures, starting tomorrow, to remedy that situation, with skills. I have a really good feeling about collecting skills and all that. Check the game dev. topic for it. I've also made it easier to tell -exactly- where everything is in town, and the paths you should go on. Hell, you can even travel at twice the speed now, which is something I said I'd never do.

When I do advertise... that is, when I feel the game is complete enough to do so... I think we'll keep a lot more newbies than we are now. So maybe your guilds will fill up then.

I think the guild system is fine. The main problem seems to be that most people just come and go.
The idea with the factions is also fine with me.
Maybe there's a need for more guild activities. Cuz now the only difference between being in a guild and not is that you have to (or can) click "join raid" from time to time. And it's not really important if the guild will win or not. You can have all good skills anyway (so you don't need those raid marks that much) and most people (in my guild) don't ask for the good items. Actually many people in my guild aren't very communicative at all.
All those things kinda defeat the purpose of a guild. Mine is kinda strong, but so what? There aren't guild wars which might be the most needed guild-related feature.

But hey, I'm not a great game designer or something, so I'm just saying what I think.

//Offtopic: Why are "The Pacmen" considering disbanding or changing leadership? Your guild seems pretty great!

OT who knows man!
Yes, GVG! Yay, ya gotta put that in there and of course include the gollums too; our guild is probs the strongest around the planet! Hey Belichko you gotta reclaim ya title from Gogo, he got you in the middle of the night, haha!!! And yep, I'm the only one who really likes items. I certainly do, yep yep!!!

GvG will be here, like, eventually...