@ShootHere4EXP Sidegrades set apart (because it seems to be a sensitive topic), this is more for the concept of guilds than for their rewards that I love this idea. I just can't help but imagine having a guild house for each of them on different islands, and traveling from one to another to collect the quests or unlock the latest reward obtained.
Actually, this system could be a nice way to set focus on every aspect of the game, and improving the gaming experience for each of them, as long as it don't give a strategic advantage in PVP obviously. For example: diving progression could lead to unfair escaping issues in not carefully thinked, but as everything in game design it needs long talks and iterations to find the best adjustments.
You've listed some of these aspects, even a few ones who are not in the game at the moment (but we all wish for), however there could be more as I suggested in the previous thread. In fact, every little thing we can do could be exploited, for example:
- We can seek and capture animals, so we can have a hunter's guild
- We can swim and interact with mermaids, so we can have a mermaid guild
- We can explore islands and underwater, so we can have an explorer guild
- ...
Too many guild could make it confuse I guess... maybe? I wonder, because MMORPGs all have multiple classes, jobs or specialities and the players usually find their way through all this most of the time. By the way, it makes me think that an interesting system could be to limit the guilds you can progress in at the same time. It improves the time needed to complete all of them, which is not necessarily bad, but above all it helps focusing on one or two at a time so there's less risks of confusion.
I'm also very interested by the other ideas, such as the Temple Seekers (it would totally fit with my open-world dungeons suggestion too haha), the journal and the stories from the seas of course.
The bounty idea is maybe the only one I'm kinda unsure of, but it depends on the depth of the idea. A wanted poster in the taverns could be a nice way to gain a little extra, but a system with more complexity — for example a compass to find your prey, or a wanted poster delivered in your inventory — would change it into a hunt that wouldn't be fun anymore I think. But, once again, it depends on the idea behind, and the conditions leading to be wanted.
Big thumb up, here!