What I always miss in MMORPGs and most of a time (over)use in single player RPGs (whenever given a chance) is interacting with characters with the same class as me. In the MMOs its standard (but many players do it in singles as well) to make differentiated group consisted of tank, healer, support/cc and varied dps - to deal with all threats much easier and never team up with people from the same profession. In single player games I do prefer to RP my class in such a fashion so that for instance my wizard could banter and discuss the secrets of the arcana with other wizards, bards could learn songs, poems, stories from each other and so on. Another thing are guilds - thief (rogue) guild, Druid Circle, Enchanters Collective etc. What do you thing about making such a guilds for each class, where there would be plenty lore to study, teachers/masters, merchants selling class related goods and most importantly class only quests - concerning secrets of the class and doable only with the help of peeps from the same line of work. So for instance one of many quests for Necromancers would be in order for them to effectively use their magic they would need to - from time to time (not too often so it would not become an unpleasant chore) - kill a bunch of humanoids and move their bones to their secret ossuarium from where they summon their minions, or druids would have to acquire fertilizer (phoenix manure) for the World Tree (World Portal) in order for it to bloom and be active for certain time, Wizards would have to go to spirit world where only they could travel and deal with threats inside, Paladins would have to make (full of trouble) pilgrimage in order to please their god
Class quests are good - one of many things I disliked about the rapid dumbing down of EQ2 was its removal of these. Not that it was as good as EQ at its beginning either but the speed with which it got worse is a true tribute to Daybreak.
Players will certainly be free to create class guilds but I tend to think they are a rather poor idea. In Pantheon where each class is more locked into a specific role they will be even more constricting and confining. A key benefit of a guild is giving you friends to do things with and a guild group consisting of 100% healers or tanks or dps would be rather ...lacking.
Let me suggest instead that either the game provide or players create class chat/help channels. Not a new idea, of course. That way a wizard can ask all other wizards in the channel for advice with the class or help with the epic wizard quest required to get a class-defining ability. Wouldn't it be nice if there were such class quests?
The "guilds" i'm talking about are NPC controlled and have nothing to do and do not restrict from joining classic player controlled GUILDs that we all know and love ;) So something similar to Mages/Fighters/Thieves/Morag Tong Guilds from Morrowind (though available only to specific class) . So it's not that we'd be joining them as a choice, but rather something that everyone or at least most do during their "career".
Yes! All for this. As much as I dislike the "you are the one true hero" quests - you can't all be the one true hero - it quickly becomes false and silly - you definitely should have "you are a fantastic " quests.
Not only is this 'realistic' - organisations (guilds) of professions/hobbies/crafts/whatever almost always have rankings (levels) and processes (quests) to progress through them and new perks and skills made available as you do - it would be a great way to do class tutorials in an immersive way.
It is an aspect of modern MMORPGs that skills just appear on your hotbar as you level. Apparently, no one has the patience to actually earn and learn, these days, even if it gives you a deeper understanding and appreciation of your own abilities.
Maybe you shouldn't have to quest or train for every single new ability, but to need to go to your guild and train whenever you start a new 'line' of skill type and to need to fulfill a quest at certain important landmark abilities would be great.
To feel that the guild itself has demands and needs from you would be good, I think. Let's make them more than just a skill scroll dispenser.
As clarified I agree with both Disposalist and the OP.
Perhaps the guild can mix things that you can/should/must do with NPCs with things that you can/should/must do with other characters more advanced in your class or crafting profession. As in the age-old apprentice/journeyman/master system by which people learned and advanced in their professions/careers.
LOTRO has a guild for each of the crafting professions. Purely NPC. You do things to gain reputation with the guild and the higher your reputation the better crafting recipes you can get from the guild. A bare hint at how a *good* system could work - the one in LOTRO has numerous flaws and I mention it only to reinforce the OP's mention of NPC guilds in Morrowind.
I like the idea of class-specific chat channels very much! If we wanted to pay attention to lore, a few classes (shaman, druid, wizard?) could have a live world chat channel (telepathy - maybe shamans could access it from level 1, while druids a bit later and wizards later still), while every other class could post messages and receive responses wherever there was an NPC class guild hall. I imagine such messages would end up being questions about ability techniques and helpful players posting their unique techniques. There'd have to be sophisticated profanity filters there, of course.
Otherwise, without lore, I'd be fine with a live world chat channel for each class. Would be fun to be able to ask class-specific questions and help the beginners.
Cool idea!