Epic corruption

I can't help the feeling that places like Molten Core have a corrupting influence on the players. It works like this: These places are very, very hard, but also give the best epic rewards in the game. People want to have these epics, and so they are trying to overcome the challenges inherent in these place. It quickly becomes evident that these challenges can only be overcome by better organization, by setting up more and more rules. Who gets what loot for maximum group efficiency, which classes to invite, which talent builds to require, mandatory playing times, et cetera. In the end you find yourself looting the hardest boss in the game, but unfortunately your guild now resembles a fascist army more than a gathering of people who want to have fun.

I'm afraid for my guild. They are getting more and more successful in their raids (4 bosses down in MC), and the epic corruption effects are starting to show. They are starting huge fights over whether a hunter should or shouldn't roll on a epic weapon which has hunter on the list of allowed classes, but is probably more efficient in the hands of the main tank. They are organizing 2 Molten Core and 2 Zul'Gurub raids per week, and very little of the lesser stuff. And many of them are beginning to take this raiding and epic stuff far too seriously.

The worst is starting to think about people only in terms of their function, and not as a person. Turning one guy into the best main tank possible by giving him first shot on all the warrior loot is functionally the most efficient. But how does that make the other players behind the other characters in the raid feel, once they realized that they are somewhat secondary? A guild should be more than an efficient machine for farming epic loot. Actions which are not efficient at all in terms of guild killing efficiency, like helping newbies, doing lesser dungeons, occasional PvP days, or even just having a party, are the glue that holds a guild together. But many people forget that once they get their first sniff of a purple item.

The new dungeons of Ahn'Qiraj, once the war effort opens the Scarab Gate, is supposedly even harder than the existing raid dungeons. I don't think that this is a good idea for Blizzard. Giving people a challenge is all nice and well, but in my experience uber guilds are leading to a much higher burn-out rate of the players. Thus encouraging people to form into uber guilds by setting up content which only can be reached in such an organization only ends up losing players faster. You'd think that Blizzard would know that it was the accessibility of WoW to the casual gamer that earned them all those millions.
- posted by Tobold @ 1:32 PM Permanent Link