It’s impossible to imagine a popular MMORPG without the big “water cooler moments”, the ones so significant, you’re still gushing about them with your friends the next day. Taking down a server boss for the first time, achieving the top spot on the PvP leaderboards or scoring a victory over a competing guild in Pantheon Wars. The fun that comes from reliving and sharing these experience is why it’s so important that we as developers try to create opportunities for cooperation amongst players in order to spur on the development of gaming communities. To do this easily though, you need good social tools - otherwise it can become a pain to share your MMO experiences. Today, in order to help you better understand how you’ll navigate your social space in Skyforge, we’re revealing the first details about Skyforge’s Pantheons (guilds)!

Creating a Pantheon, its Hierarchy and Structure

Like ancient gods of old, immortals can also form Pantheons – which are what we call guilds in Skyforge. To start creating a Pantheon, you only need one immortal and a modest amount of in-game currency. But creating one isn’t quite that simple: the Pantheon’s founding member must recruit a small number of other like-minded members within a few short days, or the Pantheon will be disbanded. After joining, members will gain access to special missions for their adepts. Successfully completing these missions will increase the Pantheon's overall player capacity. You’re also going to need certain resources to further advance your Pantheon's development, which means members will have to work together to grow their Pantheon. With a little hard work, the Pantheon's player capacity can be expanded to 150 members. With proper perseverance and active participation, that number can grow as high as 250 players, and even then that’s not the limit. However, to reach the maximum Pantheon size, you’re going to need a lot of time and resources to get there.

Inside a Pantheon, members are divided into smaller inner groups – known as “clans”. Every clan is headed by a Commander who has the same level of authority as the Founder of the Pantheon. Their only differentiating feature is that they cannot kick the Founder from the Pantheon. By structuring Pantheons this way, there is no need for the Pantheon’s leader to constantly watch over each of its members, and instead they can focus on just controlling their clans. Ask any guild leader, managing a large active guild can take a tremendous amount of time and energy. It’s sad to see guilds fall apart when an energetic leader leaves or has to step down because of these responsibilities.

The Pantheon's Influence on Character Development

A large community cannot simply exist in stasis - to thrive, it must always move towards a common goal. Some guilds seek to demonstrate their superiority in PvP while other strive to be the first to defeat all current bosses, effectively “beating the game”; still others simply exist as supportive communities who provide help and share experiences with players like themselves. However, a player in Skyforge doesn’t get involved in the development of a Pantheon simply for the common good. By improving a Pantheon, they can directly increase their character’s power!

By contributing towards the growth of their Pantheon, players receive bonuses to their stats (Strength, Might, etc.), new abilities that improve their defense, better crowd control and damage output, as well as useful items for their adepts and other bonuses. These bonuses can be purchased with special currency that can only be obtained as a reward for participating in Pantheon Wars and other Pantheon activities.

The Stronghold of the Pantheon.

Your Pantheon's development hinges on the competent management of its "base", called the Stronghold.

The Stronghold resembles a traditional economics simulator and has everything you need to ensure your Pantheon’s continued growth and success. Players can construct new buildings, improve existing ones, conduct scientific research and more!

In the Stronghold, you can build:

• Pantheon Chambers: These determine the maximum size of the Pantheon. There are two types of upgrades available which increase the number of available clans (up to 20) and their size (maximum 20 members).

• Champion Tower: This provides access to the Pantheon Wars. Upgrading the tower will allow Commanders to appoint champions who will defend the Pantheon's honor in battle. Champions will also receive special bonuses to their stats.

• Power Sources: These supply the Stronghold with energy which is required to maintain continuous operation of other buildings within the base. Power Sources can be upgraded to ensure optimum power production.

• Distortion Analyzer: Commanders can use this to locate alien bases. These bases are scattered around the planet and serve as the starting point for a full-scale invasion of Aelion. Storming a base involves an extremely complex chain of boss fights that demand a high level of skill, teamwork and knowledge of one's class. Completing them will propel your character to new levels of development. By upgrading the analyzer, additional Pantheon members will be able to participate in these activities more often.

• Academy: This is where Pantheon members can access basic knowledge about invasions and prepare themselves for battle. Here immortals can learn how to resist the harmful effects of hostile species, which is extremely important if the Pantheon strives to successfully fight off invaders in the hopes of facing off and defeating the harbingers – avatars of Great Gods. Additionally, in the Academy enables you to conduct personal research projects which can improve your character stats.

Pantheon Wars

One of a Commander's primary tasks is to prepare their fighters for the Pantheon Wars – weekly battles held between members of opposing Pantheons. These battles don’t simply center around PvP battlefields, they also incorporate special PvE-missions as well!

These wars involve up to 100 people from each sufficiently developed Pantheon. 50 fighters are sent to PvP-battles, and another 50 take part in PvE-trials. Of course, in these battles immortals are not only capable of, but are encouraged to use their godly divine forms. Upon achieving victory, the winners gain control of a specific territory for a week. This territory generates income and provides unique rewards for the victorious Pantheon members, including enhancing their upper level of the Ascension Atlas, unlocking special costumes or vehicles, as well as providing credits, Sparks and consumable resources.