Less guild drama?

I was struck by a recent comment from Sane Mike, who is missing the old days when I was still reporting from my previous guild and says: "Your guild life is a bit less dramatic these days." Is it? If I think about it, I guess the guild drama is still there, I just don't care about it very much any more, and I write about it even less. Drama, like art, is in the eye of the beholder.

I suffered enough emotional distress over guild dramas in the past. And blogging about it helped me to cope, but was perceived as being "unfair" by the guild officers involved. Of course that is arguable. Guild officers are usually in charge of the guild forums and often delete or lock threads which they don't like, for example "I'm leaving the guild" threads which mention reasons for leaving which might be considered a critique of the guild leadership. Blogging about a guild drama takes the criticism outside of the range of their censorship, which is good. But it also makes the guild drama visible to a lot of strangers who know nothing else about the background of the guild, which is not so good. Everybody likes to watch a good drama, but nobody wants to star in one.

So this is why I'm not blogging much guild drama any more. In fact I went more or less totally anonymous. I'm not using Tobold as a character name or forum name in any of my guilds, and don't tell them I have a blog. And I don't mention my characters names, nor guild names, not even server names on this blog, so I'm not being found out via Google.

That doesn't mean there is no more guild drama. But the longer I play World of Warcraft, the more repetitive even the guild drama becomes. One of the main tanks not feeling appreciated enough and leaving to join another guild where he can be the star, based on all the loot we sent his way? Seen that often enough, *yawn*. One guild member being found out writing an application on another guild's website, dissing our guild? Stopped caring about both the disrespect and the curious fact that guild officers monitor other guilds application forums long ago. The only thing that still raises my temper is when I post my thoughts in my usual long-winded analytical way on the guild forums and get just a "you're an idiot and don't know nothing" response without any counter-arguments. So I just gave up on trying to convince my guild that a DKP system which gives out far more points for each raid than it takes away for loot is the guild-made equivalent of inflation, and not a good thing. Many people just don't understand behavioral economics, the way in which incentives dictate the likely behavior of people. But as even Blizzard developers seem to get their incentives wrong often enough, it isn't surprising that guild officers don't realize the full effect of DKP or raid-invite system incentives on things like recruitment or raid attendance.

Sub-optimal systems is something you learn to live with. Happens to you in your real life all the time, at work or in politics, it would be astounding if systems in virtual life would always be perfect. Since guilds, especially large guilds, are very slow to change anything, many World of Warcraft players just switch guild repeatedly, until they finally arrive in a guild they can live with. In the end that is the ultimate form of democracy. Guild leadership often isn't very democratic, but voting with your feet and switching guilds is a lot easier than switching jobs or changing your nationality. That is why so many of the guild dramas are about people leaving.
- posted by Tobold @ 12:02 PM Permanent Link