Vyndree, Guilds, and Content

[mackenziemi]

First of all I would like to welcome back Vyndree. To paraphrase Agent Smith welcome back we've missed you. So after reading your blog entry about your enhancement experience and then wiping the blood from screen that was shooting from my eyes, I am of the opinion that you got screwed. This opens my own can of worms. I wish I could say that I was in disbelief about what had happened. I wish I could say that I have never seen anyone treated that badly by a guild. However I have, and have seen even worse.
This after a lot of thought has brought me to the conclusion that guilds are broken. People, many of whom have good intentions, join guilds with the idea that this will be good for them and they can make some friends and it will make the game more fun. In the end game though it seems to me that the majority of the time, people end up getting taken advantage of. Cliques form, insults and negative comments are made people get their feelings hurt and then the cycle begins anew. What’s worse problem is people feel that they make "friends" in this game and then are betrayed. Currently I classify "WoW Friends" somewhere between acquaintances and 2-3 cousins.
Part of the reason why I think guilds are broken is the fact to raid you need so many people in the guild. Invariably that many people will not have the same purpose and there are going to be people, maybe lots of people, that you don’t really know. The falsehood of this is that somehow the guild is supposed to be something akin to one big happy family. I have rarely seen that to be the case, an in those cases rarely does that hold true for more than about 1 month. Usually by that time people’s interests start to deviate and the guild "family" begins to splinter.
Which brings me to content. I think 25-40 man content is stupid. Really it’s an internet bubble concept imho. "Wow I am playing with 25 people from all over the place isn't that cool." Sure as a novelty it's cool but it quickly loses its luster. From my experience I have had way more fun doing 5-10 man content with people I know than I ever had doing 25 man. Also with the current percent of people that are able to participate in "raid" content I feel the developers spend 90% of their time catering to 2% of the overall game population, which is a joke imho. So for me the answer is simple stop putting the emphasis on 25 man content. Start developing more 5 and 10 man content.
Currently I am in a smaller guild. It’s all people that I work with and am friends with in RL. This is the only guild that I have seen that has worked consistently. I think a big part of the reason for our success is that fact that we all see each other in RL. Those problems can be addressed with people in RL. When they happen we talk about it at work the next day or one phone and we get it resolved with no name calling or hurt feelings. This again imho shows why I think there should be more emphasis on 5-10 man content. To allow and encourage smaller tighter groups.
Lastly I would point to Tabula Rasa. I don't know if any of you have played that game or are familiar with Richard Garriott and its beginnings. But Richard Garriott could be called one of the "founding fathers" of game development. He played WoW and other MMORPG's for over 2 years; he then came up with a list of things that were/are broken with them. Basically he set out to set those things right, the name Tabula Rasa is a Latin phrase which literally means clean slate. One of the things he identified that was wrong was large player content outside of PVP. So in TR the maximum number of players allowed in any instance is 6. To me this speaks volumes.
So anyway I've made my case, thanks if you've read this far and have put up with my little rant here. But my point in doing this isn’t just to rant. I am curious if anyone feels the same way I do. So please reply and let me know what you think.

Thanks

[Gurblash]

Wall of text just crit me

/me goes back and tries to read.

[Gallo]

Wall of text just crit me

/me goes back and tries to read.

Wall of text critted me so bad that it logged me off. I did finish though. True to form, there are many problems with raiding, but game developers will have a hard time giving it up because of the lure of "epic battles" with many people involved. Yes it is pointed at 2% of the population, but even in a game, you need some sort of hope. You can't have everyone on the same level with no possibility of beating out the person next to you, everyone will get bored.

It's a tough balance. I think blizzard has done a fine job balancing the game as it grows. Much better than SOE did for SWG.

[Eteocles]

Seriously..I've seen some WAlls of Text in my time but that's quite frankly the longest yet, that's the Great Wall of Text. Find some places, hit Enter twice to make paragraphs, I may be bored enough to read most things but I'm not THAT bored lol

[Skuggomann]

Wall O' Text!

[mackenziemi]

lol sorry guys, didnt mean to Wall-O-Text crit ya, im a Software Developer not a writter. though reading your comments I did get a skill up. My writting skill is now 3, woot

[Khazrael]

Wall of text has been said enough, but more to the point of your comments.

I can't possibly agree with you more. I'm so sick of guilds, and 5 boxing really saved WoW for me. I surely would have quit without it. Anytime a guild tries to tell me how I should spec, how I should gear, what I should do when, I know that it's time for me to move on.

The point about cliques forming is another thing that causes problems for me as well. Unless you form at the start of a guild, it just seems too difficult to become anything more then just another player in it. I can't stand that "big guild" feeling, where you're just one other person swimming in a lake of other players, completely meaningless and just another filler for a group/raid. The only guild I ever enjoyed was my very first guild I was in back on my home server, and it's because we were all the ones that formed it. I guess this goes back to the clique thing, except this time around I was part of it, instead of one of the other members that were just there.

At any rate, I'm done with guilds aside from having one for my own little group. I have very little interest in anything that requires more then 5 man, and that has been the case since long before I started multi-boxing. Multi-boxing just enhances that further.

[elo]

Props on the subject matter but I've got to add to the 'ZOMG FORMAT IT!' chant.

That said I totally agree and have said the same of guilds many times. The whole guild concept just ends up further segregating an already segregated player base. In some cases this helps but in others it's very limiting (I can't do XYZ with you because of my guild, yada yada) and ALL guilds of any size end up with significant dramatic events that break them up. It's almost a joke now on my server as to who's with which guild and almost everyone is cross guilded either openly or secretly.

25 mans... better than 40, but still too much. To me 10 is the upper limit of what I can tolerate. I think Blizz picked 25 though as sort of a minimum that would them to be able to tie every class into the encounters, etc. Still wish they'd focus more on the 5-10 as I believe there are good solutions out there. I LOVE a challenge but the only thing challenging about a 25 man really is patience and persistence. Ok, which one of you 24 other people messed up THIS time. Trying to get 24 other people to come on time, knowledgeable, with reagents, pots, etc. on a regular basis is VERY tough. On top of that, IMO, the fights are even FUN just a pure beat down. Your reward most nights after a 4 hour session of not even being able to get up and take a piss is usually a repair bill and I found by the time I actually got gear I just didn't care about. 'Oh yay... 24 more +healing and 10 more intellect... go me..'

In contrast the 5 mans are a blast, heroics were a good idea (now that they actually have loot worth getting) and the only thing really holding them back from doing more is that the loot level would start treading on the holy raider territory (you know, 2% of the population, who has had their uber gear for months anyhow). The really sad part is how much time and money most of us put into a game and never get to see 'the really cool stuff'. I wonder if sales would have been different if on the TBC trailer when Illidan comes out they put up a subtitle that says, "Note: 98% of you will never actually see this guy in game"

So why play? Because, what else WILL we play? EQ2 is even worse (32 man raids), LOTRO was just sad, SWG died years ago just not everyone noticed and it had no real point anyhow, Warhammer Online (were they just joking with this or what?), Horizons was stillborn, Lineage2 was just a gold farming enterprise, etc. etc. DDO doesn't seem to have much momentum, from what I read it was really akward, so on and so forth. There's stupid stuff like Pirates of the Burning Sea, The MATRIX online (HOW could this be good?), etc. I just like the traditional dungeons & dragons inspired fantasy and Blizzard's playstyle is unmatched from what I've seen. From level 1 to pre-raid geared WoW is just awesome and I love playing it, but then it just dies for 98% of us.

[elo]

lol sorry guys, didnt mean to Wall-O-Text crit ya, im a Software Developer not a writter. though reading your comments I did get a skill up. My writting skill is now 3, woot

Ummm if you coded like that at my company you'd be out on the street in a week.

[crzywolve]

I just like the traditional dungeons & dragons inspired fantasy and Blizzard's playstyle is unmatched from what I've seen. From level 1 to pre-raid geared WoW is just awesome and I love playing it, but then it just dies for 98% of us.

I completely agree with this. I have a 70 hunter in T5 in a bigger raid guild. We are on Hyj/BT and quite honestly, I'm getting bored with it. 4 hours or wipes, bitching, pointing finger, etc. and for what? 6g repair every time I die? I would almost prefer to roll a toon to 70, get some decent gear and then re-roll something else just for the hell of it. I also have a 70 dwarf war in decent 70 blues

Then I found you guys! I have about 4 or 5 different 2 man teams. I'm trying to figure out what works best for the way I play. So far I like my dual hunters or dual mages for pvp, and my mage/shaman for pve. None of them are past 30 so I REALLY can't say yet, but meh.

I wish I could afford the 5 man teams, but 2 accounts is about it for me for now.