Guilds and the shared player experience
by Mike Schramm 
Oct 3rd 2006 at 12:05AM
Terra Nova has put up a terribly interesting (and terribly long) piece about guilds, specifically about how players build bonds based on contingency and improvement. I've recently brought two characters to 60 within a few weeks, so I'm currently juggling relationships with two new guilds. In doing so, I've basically gotten a firsthand crash course in what Thomas Malaby is talking about.A few researchers have tried to paint WoW as a "third space"-- a place aside from work or home where people congregate and socially interact. But guild interactions are almost on a plane all their own-- it's still a game, but there are elements of responsibility like a job. And there is camaraderie and even trust-- as you prove to your guild that you're able to tank that boss or keep that tank up, they come to accept you as one of their own, and you vice versa. As you begin to build levels together, your characters all grow from all of your actions, and that's where the pleasure of having and belonging to a good, strong guild comes in.
However, says Malaby, endgame raiding (which is where I'm going with my guilds currently) is where the problem comes in. Instead of the advancement being vertical (XP for all), it quickly switches to horizontal (items for some), and the trust gets lost in that. Instead of all working together for experience, a guild can find its members competing with each other for items. A run through SM grants experience (and finished quests for everyone). But you can run MC many times without ever advancing that much, and that, says Malaby, is where endgame raiding doesn't serve guilds the way it should-- leading to the drama we know (and love?).
In theory that might be true, but in practice I've found there's more to it. A guild (good guild, anyway) does more than raid-- they can help with instances, help you with quests for your equipment, and help you craft items to advance your character. It's true that turning enchancement over to items at 60 does split up a lot of guilds (one reason why so many guilds are looking forward to leveling to 70 together), but I'd posit that there are other experiences besides character advancement that can keep a guild together.
My personal experience on this is split. I really enjoy endgame raiding-- even if I don't pick up a new item, I always seem to have a good time joking around and learning the game. But then again, there are times when I miss that feeling of co-advancement-- running SM and having everybody with you ding once while inside. Short of letting characters infinitely advance (something that Malaby says, rightly, would imbalance the game), there's not much else Blizzard can do about it, however.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Guilds
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
jpc Oct 3rd 2006 1:15PM
This was an interesting article. More about the difference between the game at 60 vs 1-59. I had an idea while reading the part about the varying methods for advancement at lvl60.
"I suppose it would have been possible for WoW to have written the game without raiding, making harder and harder 5 (and 10) person instances until they could only be done through perfect execution. But this would have alienated many players who simply would never have been good enough to advance to the end..."
Made me think... why not make harder and harder 5 person instances? It could coexist with the raiders and pvpers. Right now the reason there is a 'problem'(I guess it's a problem?) is that the loot reqards from pvp and raiding are insanely better than that from quests and 5 person instances. Probably Blizz made it like that because they thought the instances were too easy to give great loot. The solution is simple, make more 5 person instances that are diffficult and give great loot. Or spice up an instance so that it becomes more difficult (45min baron?) and then it can give a great reward.
jpc Oct 5th 2006 3:11PM
I realize I left out the fact that obviously Blizz is doing this, as witnessed by the Exp with the new 5/10 person instances and their purported loot. And now there will be 3 ways to get loot:
1 Raid pve
2 pvp
3 small scale (5-10 person) pve **New**
#3 has been there, but was not competetive with 1 and 2. Hopefully the changes we're getting are going to fix that.
Melf Oct 3rd 2006 1:36PM
Fantastic articles, both yours and the one you linked about third spaces. I've ready many articles by Nick Yee of Stanford (who was cited in the third spaces article) and this was along a similar vein. Good post :)
Cappy Oct 3rd 2006 6:03PM
There's another way to fix this "problem" variety.
1. Make more 5/10 man instances at level 60.
2. Make more than one set of Armor per tier for each class. So for mages instead of + to damage and healing, make one + to Fire, and another + Frost, and another + to Arcane. Set bonuses would only apply to the exact same sets. And don't worry about the graphics for them, just change the colors.
This could work for any class by just swapping the main specs for sets. Set 1 and 2 would have the same bonuses but set 1 would favor strength, and set 2 would favor Staminia. Plus you could add things like + to rage sets, + to Energy sets for rouges, and mana regen sets for each magic using class.
3. Then add this stuff to the new non raid instances and raid instances. So that you don't have to run raids 30 times to get your sets, you can get some of it running with smaller groups in the other instances.
Really the biggst problem with adding more content is thinning out the population. Sometimes it damn near impossible to get a group for say DM. It will just get harder with the more options people have. So in order to keep some instances viable, you need to make it attriactive to run, the best way to do this is to plant some new loot in the instances. Throw a couple pieces of a set in DM, and all of a sudden it's not hard to get a group (PUG or Guild) together to go get the Crystal Water or the Enchanted Thorium Recipies.
It's possible, but it will take a lot of work on the developers end to get it there.
I also think it's important to add some lower level instances as well, and new quests at every level. I'm on my 26th char (only a few are 60's). And I gotta tell you running the same quests over and over bores the snot out of me. New and Class/Race Varied Quests, would be very welcome at all levels from 11-59, for those of us that need more than hogger for the 23rd time.