Tobold's Blog: You are who you know

Thursday, April 26, 2007

You are who you know

I am wondering in how far your playing style in a game like World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings Online is influenced by the people you play with, especially your guild. I used to be playing casually in a casual guild, then raided in a raiding guild, and now in LotRO I'm roleplaying in a roleplaying guild. If I were in a PvP guild, would I like PvP more? Would somebody else who is currently heavily into raiding be just as happy doing something else, if only his guild mates were doing the same?

Most probably there are both types of players. Those who absolutely know what they want, and those who adjust their playstyle to whatever their friends are doing. It is an old mantra of the MMORPG genre that people keep playing these games to hang out with their friends. But apparently that isn't the case for everybody, because otherwise it would be hard to explain why some people change guild so often. Some people seem to be on a fixed trajectory, at their own personal speed, towards more and more challenging raid content. And if their friends aren't able to keep up with that speed, they move to the next guild, further along on that same path, until one day they arrive in a guild which fits their playing style.

The problem with selecting your friends to fit your playing style is that people change. In retrospect it becomes clear that all that guild drama in my first WoW guild was caused by people developing in different directions, or at least at different speeds. It is very hard to have a guild in harmony when some players are developing into hardcore raiders, and others barely budge from their casual roots. Real life constraints often cause that even if the casual people are willing to raid for friendships sake, they aren't as available or prepared as the really determined players, and just end up slowing them down.

My current WoW guild has a slightly different concept, beating the problem of differing interests by simply being huge. With nearly 200 people in the guild, there is always somebody around with similar interests. The downside of that is when those 200 people barely get two Karazhan teams together, and sometimes have to cancel 25-man raids because not enough players turn up. With everyone basically doing whatever they want, there isn't much of a sense of common purpose. With me not knowing when and how much WoW I will play in the coming months, such a guild suits me just fine right now. But such a losely organized guild doesn't do much to keep people playing beyond the point where they get bored with the game.

I don't know whether it is the atmosphere of LotRO, or the smaller guild with a common purpose, or the fact that its a roleplaying guild on a roleplaying server, but right now I feel a lot more comfortable in my LotRO guild. There is very little of the "have to keep up with the others" feeling, which makes WoW guilds feel like work sometimes. The big advantage of roleplaying guilds is that roleplaying doesn't require you to have a specific level, talent build, or availability in larger blocks of time. It's nicer if you are available for planned events, but if you can't, at least you don't feel as if you just lost out on DKP and future loot rights or raid spots. And if you show up, you're included. There is no "oh, we don't need a second rogue for this, sorry" argument that keeps you from playing with the others.

Nevertheless I don't regret having hung out with the raiders for some time. It turned out that I'm a decent enough raid healer, quite respected by the other raiders. At the very least that gives me the confidence that selecting my personal playstyle is a matter of preference, not ability, which makes the sometimes rude hardcore raider's comments on this blog easier to bear. Raiding is fun if you are in the mood for it, and it's not rocket science, most people would be able to do it if they have the dedication. I just did enough of it to last me for a while, and just don't want to do it any more. I now enjoy hanging out with different people, doing something completely different.

So, how is it for you? Are you doing what you are doing because that is what you always wanted to do? Or did you just find a group of nice people, and followed their lead? If your current guild changed focus and started doing something different, would you switch guild, or stick with them?
- posted by Tobold @ 8:38 AM Permanent Link

Comments:

In WOW I was in a lovely friendly casual guild with regular "fun" events and members were always willing to help others out. Unfortunately that casual friendliness was not enough to hold the guild together when the level 60 gear grind cycle began and the guild disintegrated. That left me feeling somewhat embittered about the whole end game thing.

In Guild wars I was lucky enough to be invited to join a huge alliance (a group of guilds) for older players (over 30's only). The ethos of this group is fun and friendly and with 800+ members you can always find someone to help with a mission. There has been minor guild spats relating (believe it or not) to casual versus hardcore issues but with so many mature players the voice of reason has always prevailed. The alliance has players of every type but the emphasis is strongly on casual enjoyment of the PVE game. Despite being one of the largest alliances in Guild Wars we would struggle to put a decent pvp team together which is the real hard core element of Guild Wars.

# posted by

mbp : 26/4/07 10:43

To answer your questions... When I join a guild, I look for people who share my interests, because I know what I like to do for fun and I'd like to do that with other people of the same ilk.

Many guild standards have been put on my tabard :) The reason for moving on is usually because something changes - either my interests change, my circumstances, or the guild changes direction. Personally I don't want to stick with a group of people who are interesting just because they're interesting but not doing what I want; I have the choice to keep out-of-guild relationships going with the people I really like, and find a guild that's doing what I want.

Of recent times I find that I'm attracted back to Guild Wars, my old love :) I love that game, but I didn't play it as often because my friends moved on to other things (hello WoW). I still like the game, and find myself now interested in perhaps finding a guild of people in that game that do what I want. However, I'm faced with a perplexing problem - it's been so long since I've played the game that I don't really know what I want any more.

Curious.

So do I find a guild of cool people and try and do what they want? That probably won't work long term unless I get lucky and find people who walk my way. At the moment I'm levelling up some alts and refinding the fun factor (it's all good, but some's great) - I'll go guild hunting when I've discovered more about how the game's changed and what it offers.

# posted by

Richard Parry : 26/4/07 11:09

With LotR:O I joined for the first time in a MMORPG a role play server, the reason to get away from the huge population of idiots that frequent the "normal" servers. Before doing so I did think if I would be comfortable within that environment, but you know what its been great so far. If people around you role play, you don't feel so stupid doing it yourself either, its also made the game more atmospheric because of it. Imagine if you were playing a single player rpg and the NPCs in the game wandered about talking Leet speak any atmosphere that could have been there would be instantly lost and that inversly works on a roleplay server where all the players talk in character.

# posted by

Anonymous : 26/4/07 11:37

I am only playing WoW because of the people I play with. My girlfriend has played the game since beta, got bored after a year and restarted playing about 7 months ago when she learnt that a decent amount of people from my old gaming community had begun playing.

I've played games with these since 2000, we visit each other, have meetings etc. So I now have the advantage of playing with friends, in a very casual guild, where we pass around even epic BoE drops wo whoever needs it the most. This Sunday we will have our first go at Karazhan, and I'm, confident we'll enjoy it no matter the outcome.

The people is what makes the game for me. We had a guild meeting in March, near Manchester, and about 13 people came from Britain, the US, and Germany. Next time we'll try to convince our Scandinavian members harder, we missed them. :)

I don't really expect to see anything beyond Karazhan, but that's okay for me as long as I enjoy the other content. I have yet to enter a dungeon on heroic, and I haven't even set foot into Shadowmoon Valley yet - still a bit of content to go, alongside people I love.

Win-win situation, if you ask me. :)

# posted by

Anonymous : 26/4/07 11:40

Konnor from ORC

I focus on PvP in the games I play, and apart from DaoC where we all met Ive tended to drift into other guilds on appropriate PvP servers or play PvP centric games with no ORC presence at all.

I do however play on a PVE game with ORC just to keep in touch - but that game is usually my least played during a normal week - but I like to keep in touch with friends and PvE is sometimes the only way.

# posted by

Anonymous : 26/4/07 12:18

I think what guild you choose is a testiment to what you hope to accomplish in whatever game you are playing.

Over the approx year and a half I've played wow, I've changed guilds so many times that I can't possibly remember. Most of the time, these guilds just didn't want to do anything. One I blew a gasket on b/c people always complained about needing help or wanting help so I set aside an entire day just to help lower lvl players in the guild (I was 60 at the time). I could not believe it when nobody needed any help. So I extended it for an entire weekend, still had no takers and on Monday people were complaining again how nobody ever helps them and I lost it :)

Back to my point..... Most people pick guilds by yelling "I need a guild" and get tossed into whoever asks them 1st basically. The better option is to see what guilds are on your server and choose (app) for the one that best suits your interest. Trust me when I say it saves a lot of wasted time, gold and effort.

# posted by

Anonymous : 26/4/07 12:52

I'm playing WoW because of RL ties. A son got me started, my wife started playing, and we're having a blast. The RL ties got me past feelings of burnout. I have completely lost interest in my solo alts "stuck" in the old content, though the main in new content is still great fun. It's very enjoyable playing old content with my wife, and we are able to routinely take on challenges that I could not solo.

Interesting that you should bring "common interests" up right now, though, because as I visited I was thinking about how this blog -- which used interest me because of a common interest in WoW -- has changed. I literally skip the "LOTRO Journal" entries, and now instead of looking forward to the blog visit I'm wondering if there will be a WoW entry or not.

Oh well.

Doeg

# posted by

Anonymous : 26/4/07 14:31

I transferred servers, and was able to find a good guild within a few hours, simply because the first PUG I joined was a complete nightmare, complete with 2 ninjas and a dramatank ;) While that was going on, I started chatting with the other person in the group (who refused to join in the madness) and said I was LFGuild, and that I was a transfer. He kindly directed me to the guild website and I was amazed at the organization, guild policies and easy going atmosphere.

I was accepted within 2 days, and have been having a great time.

The guild can be classified as a casual guild that is semi-hardcore when they get into an instance or raid. We currently have 2 successful Kara groups running (both downed Curator last night), and are in the process of organizing a third group on the weekend for alts/other players who cant raid at other times. We have several Arena teams going (none of which are sucessful, but always fun, and net a few points per week)
There are always instance runs going on. The only problem, when asking for help is getting too many people that want to assist.

We just absorbed the remnants another guild on the server that fell apart because of the gap between hardcore and casual players. In doing so we picked up some phenominal players who dont play 10+ hours per week and just hit 70. We're working on getting them geared and attuned so they can experience end game content with the rest of us :)

It may seem like we have a lack of focus, but in reality our focus is to have fun (because wow is a game and games are fun right?)

# posted by

Anonymous : 26/4/07 15:03

I've always just kinda done what I want while trying to help out guildies at the same time. I would say the server influences my decisions more than my guild does.

I rolled a priest because I was sick of standing around with my rogue spamming LF 1 Priest for X. I have one level 40 char that I switch gathering professions with on just about a monthly basis depending on what mid range mat is selling for the best price.

Being in a guild with members who enjoy doing the same thing I do is nice, but I also enjoy the fact that even though many of of my guildmates are keying up for Kara, they still aren't anywhere near the point of going 133T. I don't feel any pressure to level to 70 ASAP, and my guildmates respect my decision to rep grind despite the fact that they could use another healer. WOW life is good right now.

# posted by

Jack Barrier : 26/4/07 16:53

The short answer is that I’m doing what I want, playing as I want, which works well within my guild. I played to 58-ish before I even started looking for a guild, and hit 60 before I found the one I wanted. It was my goal to pick one that was going to support my style: all over the place.

The long answer…. On a RP server, I wanted a guild that I could RP with, but not force it. I wanted a guild that offered a chance to get into end-game content. I wanted a mature guild, with a minimum of drama and leet-speak. I wanted a guild that also had some PvP folks for running BGs. I looked at a lot of guilds, and found one that had all of the above, either directly or through allied guilds. Friendly, funny, making progress through the content, role-players!

If they changed focus, it would probably mean focusing in on one aspect only, in theory. And if the guild *did* become focused that way, I would probably leave, after giving it a chance (or several chances) to work out. I’m not concerned about this, however.

As a more general comment, I view other players as an asset to my enjoyment of the game, for the most part, but not always *necessary* to it. I have a number of real-life friends (including spouse) who play the game on the same server, so if I need a partner or a group I don’t usually have too much trouble getting one. I enjoy playing lots of alts, so if I can’t get a Shadow Lab run for my 70, I can go do Zangarmarsh quests with one alt, or hit Tanaris with another, or run WSG with another.

I look at my guild as an enabler, not a restrictor, of my endeavors.

# posted by

Anonymous : 26/4/07 17:19

I skip LoTrO posts too.

# posted by

Anonymous : 26/4/07 18:04

Well i used to play WoW with a bunch of RL friends, but then i found out that some of them were buying gold. I felt so utterly disappointed and somehow it took away every feeling of accomplisment i ever had about every single one of my chars. From reading news and blogs i was aware that other players bought gold but i didnt care much. When it got close to me though... i was just so disgusted that i cant see myself ever playing WoW again. So for now i just play LOTRO to be entertained and pretty much solo as much as possible (hoping that the cheating scumbags i know dont join LOTRO too).

# posted by

Anonymous : 26/4/07 19:18

I will state this once again as I have many times before in many different forums, blogs, and conversations. What is the one thing that make online gaming and MMOs specifically different from other games? The community and social aspect of the games. Whether it be Counterstrike, an RTS such as Starcraft, or an MMO such as WoW or LOTRO its the people that make the game intersting. So I am in the group that falls into "plays the game for friends" Does that mean you can't raid or do other high end content? Heck no. I have played with the same group of people since back in 2000 through RTS, FPS, and now MMOs. I have always followed the mob mentality in that fashion with this group. If we were raiding, I was a hardcore raider. If we were PvPing, I pvped. Never done the RPing thing and not sure if I would be comfortable doing it, but I am sure if my buddies did it, so would I.

I dropped WoW because it simply was not fun anymore when a good chunk of my friends quit playing or stopped playing on a consistent basis.

I will reiterate that I think these games are about people and less about the game itself (though it easier to foster those relationships in a well designed game.)

# posted by

Anonymous : 26/4/07 21:51

The guild that I'm in, was started by a bunch of FL freinds that left the server in WoW. I don't know why they left, but the fact the didn't tell me anything about it annoyed me, so I stayed behind in the guild. And even though they are raiding and half of them are 4x as decked out as me, I still get regular invites to raids, because I am their freind.

# posted by

Happypappy : 27/4/07 02:04

@ Anonymous who woke up one day to find out his friends were dealing with gold buyers.

Sue them, I say, while seeking psychiatric help to deal with this betrayal.
- Sveral

# posted by

Anonymous : 27/4/07 04:06

We're keeping it small this time round. In wow we got too big and tried to please everyone, which lost us the family feel we had in the past and led to some well documented friction between members :P .

I don't think the Raiding in LOTRO will be as hardcore as WoW. And on a role player server I imagine it will be easier to forge alliances against the dark lord, rather than argue about DKP :P

# posted by

Wivelrod : 27/4/07 10:51