Seeing the effects of guild affiliation
by Mike Schramm 
Feb 7th 2007 at 9:50AM
See, this post by superdeluxe over on Livejournal, I think, constitutes exactly the kind of great "emergent gameplay" that the folks at Terra Nova are so ga-ga over lately. The poster found his way into a guild that, because of their size, is well-known and loved on his side of the server, and as a result, he finds that he's getting "10-20 times the amount of Free buffs/free stuff/bow's/hugs etc than I did before."He's not on an RP server-- rather, his guild has just built up a social reputation, and he's benefiting from it. Likewise, a commenter on the post says his guild, because of PvP, has a negative reputation, and as a result, he became Kill-on-Sight for a number of opposing faction guilds around the server. The only way this stuff is built into the game is that Blizzard has put everyone's guild name above their character, and players have socially created all the rest of these affiliations themselves.
Now, a lot of it simply follows from common sense: my guild isn't huge, but every time I see someone with my guild name, I'll /wave and buff, even if it's someone I don't know that well. We haven't really made too many enemies (well, we did have a little tussle with the alliance that we seperated from, but they've since dissolved), but as we've moved further and further into the endgame (we're still not server-first, but we're working on it), we've created more and more of a reputation as a known and trusted guild on the server.
What other examples of this have you seen? I'm fascinated with the way players treat each other based on guild affiliation-- at their essence, guilds are mostly the social structure within a realm in the World of Warcraft.
Filed under: Realm News, Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Guilds, PvP, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Rothoscand Feb 7th 2007 12:15PM
My guild on Zul'jin is fairly well known and liked. In fact, it was created 2 hours after the game was originally released. It has also spawned several imitation names and tabards. If I see a member of such a guild, I definitely give them a hard time for their unoriginality. Also it seems that they ninja invite people to try to build their ranks. I've talked to several people in those guilds who don't even know who their guild leader is.
Conversely, I know several guilds that I will team with in a heartbeat because I know they are good players and won't ninja loot. Several of them I will cross-guild raid with because I know of their reputation.
Ragbar Feb 7th 2007 10:27AM
I belong to a very successful PvP guild (I think we had 5 HWL under the old PvP system) called Anathema Sky, on Agamaggan(PvP). We're a small guild (around 30-35 members, but we encounter this kind of thing ALL the time. Especially now that we're not all level 70, some of our lower level members are getting ganked constantly by opposing faction members who are several levels ahead of us. This is of course followed almost instataneously by some form of an "@ Asky" post with a screenshot talking about how much we "suck".
We have lots of contacts with people in PvE guilds, which comes in very handy when we need some high level enchants, or someone's alt priest needs a Benediction.
The oddest thing that's happened lately in my opinion though, is that for the last month, about 5 or 6 of the Alliance's best players have rerolled Horde and joined our guild.
Sylythn Feb 7th 2007 10:38AM
Well I'm a member of Midnight Coven-H on Elune (sister guild to Midnight Cartel-A - the largest guild on the server). I think word is getting out that Coven/Cartel are related, and because of the Cartel's long-standing positive status, we seem to be benefitting from that a bit. We're close-knit and I've regularly had help from my Alliance brothers/sisters in questing, grinding, or getting materials over the neutral auction houses.
Guild reputation is very important in a social game like WoW. I'll say yes to any PUG with Deviate Insight or Dread Pirates members in it because I've had good experiences with them in the past. Hopefully people feel the same way about those of us in the Coven.
Ekimus Feb 7th 2007 10:49AM
I've seen a similar effect while filling a spot on a guild's run. Word travels back to the guild that I'm a good player to group with, and that guild will always group with me. Also the reverse holds true, I'll group with anybody from a guild, simply because I had a good experience with their fellow guild mate(s).
Tibbsy Feb 7th 2007 1:16PM
As the leader of a small guild (12 or so people who all friends in RL), I see guild affiliation is an interesting and important aspect of the game. We don't have the member base to raid, so we need to project ourselves as "those reliable players with the funny guild name."
When we're looking for group members, one of things I look at is which guild the player is from - all guilds have some sort of reputation derived from their members: if you group with an impatient, immature, ninja-looting rogue from guild X, then there's a good chance that you'll think twice before inviting another guild member from X again. Similarly, if you group up with members from guild Y and have a great time, then there's a good chance that you'll be much more open to playing with other members of that guild. When one of my friends is having a bad day and acts like a jerk in a group, I (and my other friends in the same group) feel embarrassed because we don't want others to think that we're all jerks.
A guild has a collective reputation, and it doesn't take much for a few members to tarnish it.
Hegs Feb 8th 2007 1:36AM
@Ragbar... /wave
i used to roll on agamagan and was in a guild that was pve oriented, well we still are, were just on another server. i rerolled and i love having players higher than 60 in the guild if i need a run thru an instance, it is easier than ever.
on this new server, there isnt really much guild hate (yet *snicker*) but back on agamagan we always stirred up the horde like when we ninja skined their world dragon after they completed looting for the dream scales (gg druid skinners), that cause quite a ruckus on the forums.
Natali Feb 8th 2007 5:24AM
I'm in Reign in Blood on Kilrogg-EU, and we have affiliation with Titan & EKA, so while we're not exactly the largest/most successful/bestEVAR guild on the realm, we're pretty social and seemingly well liked. Whenever I see members of the other guilds, I'll give them a /hug or a /pat and then go on my way. Because they're nice people, and they're fun to quest/run dungeons/raid with and it's always nice when someone says hi to you ingame.
However... when I see a member of Them, I'll nearly always /spit on them, as they aggressively (and sometimes successfully) poached all of their members from other guilds, including my own (and tried to annoy me into joining) and thus, they have a bad rep. Pluh.
Reputation counts for a lot because you depend on other people to get loot/have fun/be generally successful. No one would play with someone that hindered their game play.