I´m defenitely with Snub on the fact that the guild should cooperate across level-bounadries.. And i think that
AoC works well for this compared to other mmo´s since as soon as a character reaches 40, it is very much involved in building/maintaining the city.. I envision the buildersbranch of the guild enrolling one and all once and again to go on matgrinding trips.. Pre-20, well, its very much a sologame in those levels anyways, so the only levelrange a player might feel a bit lonely in an established guild with the citystate setting is 20-39 i guess..
Another good thing when it comes to level-free cooperation in
AoC is how they designed the pvp-games.. they span over 20 levels (as opposed to
WoW´s 10) and as you enter, you automatically get boosted to the next highest level in that bracket in terms of hp/mana/stamina.. So me, as a lvl 21 ranger, can join up with the guys ahead of me for pvpfun if they are under lvl 40.. And when i enter the pvp-minigame, i get boosted to lvl 39.. Very nice design of that shit imo..
On being casual in
AoC and still have a good time.. I defenitely feel this is very doable.. In the first 20 levels, there is no real reason to group up (only one boss-level mob to kill then, thats nice to bring a friend to) since alot of the content takes place in singleplayermode anyways (brilliant design again to get to play around with your abilities and really learn your class).. Depending on which class you choose, you will either find the 20 first levels to be a breeze and can do them easily in 4-6 hrs of casual gaming.. For other classes its a bit harder, and might need a couple more hours for the same progress.. So dont be afraid of playing this game casually, i think its perfectly designed for just that..
I will try to put together a more detailed post on the city-state idea, since i feel that its a frigging perfect idea, and most of you seem to like it aswell.. One of my defenitive goals is to have the guildidea, webpage and forum up and running day one of prerelease, so we can instantly start to recruit and make an impact on the community of the server we end up with..