This is always one of the most yoyoing topics we get, simply because so much of it relies on players, too.
We've gone between 2 and 3 castles a bunch of times in the past, and it always ends up going back to the other. Then back again. Then the other way.
I, personally, am not sure of the merit of 1 castle. I think it would end up getting to a point where 1 guild just holds it to the point where the other guilds just start giving up (Retro WoE recently, anyone? D: )
I see the merit of 2 again, but then, I'm only 1 GM on a team.
I'm also interested to see what will happen with 4srs, and just how much the new Behe will WoE now that it's not required by them. Players do have a giant effect on WoE (.. annoyingly. ;D )
Anyone in a castle during WoE who has registered gets WoE points.
If you mean for chests, etc, then I think that's something the guilds need to work out between themselves, as you'd be tossing between reducing the capturing guilds chest rewards dependent on how many allies they have, or you'd have fairly organised guild splitting up into more guilds and allying to increase their chest and castle prizes.
As for allies, just all jumping in together to beat DoE, you'd need to be very organised to be able to organise multiple guilds like that to be effective.
We see things like that all the time in monster invasions, etc. A small, highly efficient and organised party can take down the MvPs easily, but a large group, even made up of several smaller groups, all tend to have different plans and tactics and can take forever to get the MvP down, if at all. (Haha, Tend.)
I'm not saying other guilds are sloppy or unorganised or anything, but you're proposing a bunch of guilds all allying to take DoE down, and generally the larger you get, the more disorganised things get.
We actually had, maybe even still have, an IRC channel. It was never actually really used at all, so was never expanded upon.
We also used to have/still do? a vent server where guilds could get passworded channels, etc.
Simply, guilds like to have these things under their own direct control, rather than use the servers. Same goes with guild forums.
Yup. That's how often the IRC/Vent were used. I can't even recall if they ever actually went down.