15 Minutes of Fame: Care packages spur renaissance of community spirit
by Lisa Poisso 
Sep 22nd 2011 at 2:00PM
All we need to introduce the topic of this week's 15 Minutes of Fame is a simple realm name: Moon Guard. Aha! I see some of you out there have been paying attention ... That's right, Moon Guard's the realm with the reputation for, shall we say, a somewhat more exotic (or was that erotic?) playstyle. Ready to go behind the scenes with a leading realm figure who'll give us the inside scoop on what really goes down on Moon Guard?
Well, hang on there, Hoss -- because this ain't yo' mama's Moon Guard (or even your creepy Uncle Harold's). This is a decidedly more respectable Moon Guard. This is a Moon Guard that helps out new players with free care packages, no strings attached. This is a Moon Guard that's building an entire YouTube channel to spotlight interesting realm personalities. This is a Moon Guard whose players josh around with an in-character advice column run by a goblin. This is a Moon Guard boasting a recent player-run roleplaying event that virtually exploded onto the forum scene.
Meet Venita, who's spurred on a huge part of this renaissance of community spirit with a wildly popular care package program for realm newbies plus an upcoming community spotlight program making its debut next month on YouTube.
Main character VenitaGuild Salvation
Realm Moon Guard (US-A)
15 Minutes of Fame: Care packages on Moon Guard, of all places -- what a project! What inspired you to get out there and create the care package program?
Venita: The big inspiration came from the community itself. You see, Moon Guard had been hit hard in the recent months with waves of people mocking our server and really putting us on the map for the not so lovely places. It was really putting a damper on the community as a whole, and everyone seemed to be a bit bitter over what was being broadcasted. I was also a little fed up, but I didn't want to sit around and just wait for things to change. One night, I just started writing up how I felt about Moon Guard, what I've observed and how I can help give the community ideas to pull together.
From there, it was history. People really liked the idea of the care packages and wanted to support it. This was a chance for our server to show people who wanted to invest time on here that the community is strong, kind and incredibly generous.
How exactly does the program work? How do new players who really need the stuff find out that it exists?
New players can easily find out by the program from in-game and out-of-game sources. I have a very detailed thread on our server forums about this, and I also have a lot of friends helping post our ad in general and trade. Sometimes, we fly out to lowbie zones and just advertise in general there or go up to them personally for a roleplay experience.
Whatever way the new person finds out, the ad is very simple to follow. They would contact the person listed for the faction by in-game mail. We ask [that] they include their level, class, spec, professions and also their toon's gender, for RP clothing purposes. From there, they just simply wait as the request goes to get process.
But it must take so much stuff! Where do you come up with all the items and the gold that you give away?
The goods come from a collective effort from the community. On the care package thread, you can see a list of the donors who have contributed in the smallest and biggest of ways. I cannot supply this all on my own, and because of the push to do something good, people are steadily donating to support the cause.
How do you screen out the jerks who are just looking for a free ride? Is there much of a problem with leeches?
Usually, you can tell through the letters. Most people looking for a free ride will demand a high amount of gold. Sometimes they lack the information we are seeking, and occasionally someone will pester me nonstop about their package and needing specific items when they are at a higher level.
Surprisingly though, there's not a problem with this. I am sure someone has slipped through the cracks, as I cannot always screen someone needing a package, but mostly everyone seems to acknowledge it would be pretty lame of them to take advantage of a service meant to give back to the community.
It took me awhile to count my list, but the number of people we have helped has been 8,264. That number climbs with each passing day. As far as gold goes, it can take anywhere from 7 to 10k per week and per faction. Mind you, that's total goods calculated as well.
Are there versions of the program for both factions?
Yes, of course. For Alliance, my alt Adaira runs it, and then for Horde, my alt Ladania.
And as if the care package program weren't enough, now you're working on a new program called Spotlights. What's that all about?
You are aware of all the bad press Moon Guard gets, yes? All the blogs, videos and server trolls who come to MG to make a mockery of something they have little knowledge about. The server has grown tired over the years and years of bad press. With the wave of support for building a new community, I had an idea to really portray to people about Moon Guard. We are certainly more than what the blogs, videos and so on say.
Beyond Goldshire is a very alive and thriving place where the RP is everywhere to suit any sort of desire within a story. Not to mention, our PVE and PVP teams have picked up in speed and making some major progress in competitive gaming for the server firsts, etc. So, with all that said, I decided it was time to start up a video project for Moon Guard, a dedicated channel to promote the server for the positive, not the negative.
It was sort of a chance to bite back at the haters and show them a side of the server they failed to see. In the Spotlight, we are working out a schedule of a weekly program. I know we are going to promote individuals, guilds, events and so on to bring attention to them, much like your 15 Minutes of Fame. The Moon Guard Spotlight!
As I mentioned, the server was being highlighted for the bad. Another one of my ideas was to make a dedicated Moon Guard YouTube channel showcasing the awesome on our server -- and by awesome, we wanted to make promotional videos for guilds, ads for special events going on for the month, start up lore/server/WoW-related discussion and also give some of our very talented writers/actors their own days to respond to RP mail they may get. There's also a player of ours named Blammy who does an in-character advice thread, and he will have his own show on the channel to respond to the mail he gets from that thread.
There's just so much we are doing with the Spotlight program. Our ultimate goal is much like the care package one, just to bring the community together and stand stronger.
Well let's get the word out, then. When will the new program debut?
Oct. 1, 2011.
Over my years spent on WoW, I've been in every role imaginable. I had been given promotions to officer and veteran ranks over the years until I began my guild leading experience. I have been a guild leader for a little over three years now, so I like to think I have enough invested time at this point to offer solid advice.
As far as topics, I cover a variety of different things. Since Salvation is an RP/raid guild, I get to mix it up what I can cover and provide interesting advice, stories and moments relating to either aspect. One day, I may cover a raiding topic and then on the next, I am talking about how to strengthen your guild's storyline.
Venita, you pour such an incredible amount of time and effort into your guild and your realm's player community! What do you do in real life?
What's real life?! Ha, I kid. I actually work as a video editor for various companies and YouTubers. Sometimes I oversee projects of partnered YouTubers before their videos are published and things like that. It's a very awesome job.
Kudos to Venita on all her hard work, which seems to be paying off in spades as Moon Guard's players revel in the community spirit flooding their realm. Look for more 15 Minutes of Fame on Moon Guard's community renaissance in upcoming weeks!
"I never thought of playing WoW like that!" -- and neither did we, until we talked with these players, from a player battling Alzheimer's disease to Game of Thrones' Hodor (Kristian Nairn), gaming industry insider Liz Danforth and El of El's Extreme Anglin'. Know someone else we should feature? Email lisa@wowinsider.com.
Filed under: Interviews, 15 Minutes of Fame
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Goradan Sep 22nd 2011 2:10PM
Yay, Venita! Venita is one of the most awesome people on the server.
arcady Sep 22nd 2011 2:21PM
This is all nice and well, but if you still can't go within shout distance of certain parts of goldshire / stormwind / silvermoon... unless you're thing is to play one-handed...
Then what's the point of trying?
(cutaia) Sep 22nd 2011 2:36PM
I know, right? A long time ago, I realized there are places I wouldn't want to go in this world, so I stopped donating to the Red Cross. It just seemed like the next logical step.
arcady Sep 22nd 2011 2:41PM
I know I was rated down and I can understand people not liking a negative comment but I'm going to follow it up anyway.
The ideal care package needs to also come with some serious work to change the reputation where that reputation lies.
Is my comment about Goldshire wrong now? It -was- true last time I was on the server, some time ago. If its no longer true - the do a bit of a publicity campaign and point that out to people.
If it is true, get blizzard admins involved and clean those people out of those spots. WoW is not the right place for that kind of RP anyway. There are even free online-games now for "that element."
But again if its false, make that known. It matters less if a reputation is true than if its believed. And my blunt comment above -is- believed by a lot of WoW.
- Because my comment above might not be liked, but its a popular view, and if wrong needs to be 'marketed against'.
I have a separate comment about the care packages and things to consider for them that I'll post not as a followup to this but in the other comments.
arcady Sep 22nd 2011 2:49PM
@(cutaia): That's a non-sequiter criticism of my blunt comment.
But let me make it clearer with more polite language than I'd used since my sarcasm has had the wrong effect:
To fix the image of a place you attack the negative image where that image lies, not in (or just in) other aspects.
Its great that Moon Guard has care packages. But if they were started as a way to address Moon Guard's image then they're not tackling the main 'issue' with that image.
Astoreth Sep 22nd 2011 3:12PM
Moon Guard's Goldshire is full of people from other servers who have heard about Moon Guard's Goldshire and have come to see what the fuss is about (and more to participate than will admit). Most Moon Guard regulars avoid Goldshire because there's nothing there for them -- but unfortunately Goldshire makes for a lot more entertaining Youtube videos than the other 98% of the server. And so the cycle continues.
The reptuation Moon Guard has -- that the *entire server community* is made up of Goldshire -- IS undeserved. Maligning a server community of thousands based on the actions of less than a hundred (and most of those a rotating roster of tourists) is unfair to the whole. And it's very specifically unfair to Venita, who's working hard to make Moon Guard a better place -- trying to bolster the community and promote the positive about MG, to fight that unfair reputation -- to tell her and anyone who might be inspired by her that her efforts are pointless.
*That's* why you're getting downvoted. It does seem like, in a way, you're on her side, but you've got a funny way of expressing it. The player community *can't* fix Goldshire on its own -- and while Blizzard admins do get involved, with new trolls rolling in all the time it's something of an uphill battle even for them. But we *can* promote the awesome community outside of Goldshire. And maybe someday the entire server will not be judged for the actions of a few.
Bellajtok Sep 22nd 2011 3:15PM
/applauds Astoreth
Perfectly explained. Thank you.
(cutaia) Sep 22nd 2011 3:16PM
You're missing the point, man.
Good people seek to create positive change -- and here's the important part -- in the ways that they actually have control over. There's no reason to belittle the things they're doing because they're not "tackling" larger issues, in your mind.
You might as well joke about someone who sponsors children in war-ravaged countries because they're not working to overthrow a despot instead.
Kylenne Sep 22nd 2011 3:22PM
I seriously never understood the reputation Moon Guard gets. Goldshire is like that on *every* RP server, largely because of trolls. I played on Moon Guard for nearly a year, and I can count on one hand the times I ran into people publicly ERPing. And I did the majority of my RP in Silvermoon, which has Goldshire's reputation Horde-side. I just never saw this supposed epidemic of cybering that people are always screaming about. Even the Darknest people were pretty discreet with their shenanigans.
Of all the legit problems with Moon Guard, this is so far down the list I can't believe people still make a fuss about it to the point where it's still a meme, Lisa included.
tibbelkrunk Sep 22nd 2011 3:27PM
It's not like we (Moon Guard players) have personally seen the error of our ways and are trying to make amends. And Goldshire hasn't magically become a shining example of quality role-playing.
But this project isn't about proclaiming Goldshire "clean". This is about Moon Guard's community as a whole. The vast majority of Moon Guard has nothing to do with that Goldshire crap.
We respectable citizens are just sick of the fact that the face of Moon Guard hasn't been a fair picture.
Bravo, Venita, for highlighting what our community is really about!
StClair Sep 22nd 2011 4:05PM
I've played many online games with RP, both text-only and MMOs, and let me assure you: every one of them had a "Goldshire" (by any other name). It seems that there are a few constants to human behavior here: people like to imagine having sex, they like to have an audience (and there's a fair amount of overlap there), and they like to make fun of the first two groups. As others have noted above, I bet half of the Goldshire crowd on Moon Guard are either gawkers and tourists, or trolls and those doing it "ironically" (a favorite excuse of those who think this makes them better than those who do the same thing sincerely, or who don't want to admit that they like it themselves).
My experience with public RP (both online and live-action) also suggests that while the sort of RP that goes on in such places tends to be silly and melodramatic, it's how people make connections, get noticed, and get "their foot in the door." Those who rise above the noise will sometimes get tapped on the shoulder, as it were, and invited elsewhere (to a guild, somewhere else in the world, or both) for more private and usually deeper play. (What many don't get is that this means playing /better/, and sometimes quieter, rather than louder and harder and more over-the-top.) The cream gets skimmed off the top, leaving the insipid froth.
woecip Sep 22nd 2011 2:24PM
Wow this is awesome. UO was and still is this way in a lot of respects. Glad to see some of that community spirit around in WoW!
crystal.dragon.esmeradin Sep 22nd 2011 2:26PM
Venita is one of the few shining examples of the Moon Guard community. There are many more that assist with helping new roleplayers, and even donating bits and peices to help them get started out with their very first RP characters.
Kylenne Sep 22nd 2011 2:41PM
I'm glad to see Moon Guard is trying to turn things around, because I had the exact opposite experience during my time there, which is why I left for Proudmoore. The Moon Guard I played on was full of elitist douchebags that seemed to do nothing but bash people for RPing wrong, whine and complain that RP was dying, and unless you were in somebody's clique, good luck making friends or finding RP buddies. There was constant, nonstop drama when one clique was fighting with another one. From what I saw, a lot of that element left when Wyrmrest Accord opened up, and maybe that helped the situation, but my experience on that server really left a bad taste in my mouth and turned me off WoW RP in general. It felt like high school, tbh.
Xantenise Sep 22nd 2011 5:22PM
You don't see it so much these days, but you're right there. I've been on Moon Guard for years, and that was the one thing I despised about it. So. Many. Elitists.
Luckily they seem to have mostly gone.
Kylenne Sep 22nd 2011 6:58PM
It really depressed me, because I did meet a couple of cool people on there. But once my RP partner moved irl and disappeared from WoW, I found myself kind of lost and out of the loop, unable to really get anything going (Ulduar also splintered the guild we were in). I still have a couple of my old 80s on there, including one on Alliance, and every once in a while I get the itch to take a "vacation" there. But my yen for RP gets fulfilled writing fic about my characters nowadays. The thought of trying to break into that scene again is pretty intimidating. It's good to see things have changed since I was there, though. It's encouraging me to give it another shot, though I'd never do it full time at this point.
tabardsrock Sep 22nd 2011 2:41PM
Wow, this is really awesome work! Kinda makes me wanna transfer a toon just to help support the cause :)
/tar Venita
/salute
Bellajtok Sep 22nd 2011 3:04PM
You stole my entire comment! You said what I intended to say almost word-for-word! YOU MIND READING BASTARD!
....Oh, and this is totally epic in every way. My sincerest compliments to this magnificent community.
threesixteen Sep 22nd 2011 3:03PM
my goblin alt (malivoire), named after the lovely ontario vintner, runs an "art gallery" as part of my bank alt guild system, . The gallery itself is simply called "The Grey's Gallery" and is supported both monetarily and through grey item loans and contributions by members of "The Society for the Appreciation of Greys"; all housed as mentioned under the umbrella guild "Deadwood".
THe gallery showcases the best and most legendary grey items in the game; specially focused of course on Greys with accompanying 'flavour text" though we dont restrict ourselves by any dogma; we're not lars von trier about it.
For example, some notable favourites of course:
http://www.wowhead.com/item=18230/broken-i-w-i-n-button
http://www.wowhead.com/item=5173
http://www.wowhead.com/item=27442
We don't yet have our site up and running (where details on membership, fundraising, and altruistic realm activities will be features) but we are well on our way.
In order to visit the gallery, you do need to be a member of the guild. Lvl 1 alts seem to make the most sense and allow people to stay in their raiding guilds, while still partaking of the realms cultural offering.
For 100g you can join the guild as a patron of the Azerothian Arts and, at your leisure, meaner through the guild bank to peruse singular grey items and their associated flavour texts. Screenshots are permitted, but of course a mere screen shot won't allow you the pleasure of rolling over the items, and clicking through the various tabs.
for 500g, Deadwood will bestow the title of "Benefactor" on you and you'll be granted access to the "Fourth Tab" wherein are housed Grey delights few have ever laid eyes upon.
For a 1000g contribution you will be named as a curator and will be allowed to put together your own showcase of Greys in "Tab Five".
We are a fledgling operation having only formed a couple weeks ago, but so far we have over 50 works exhibited with more coming in every day from friends and past guild mates. Soon, through contributions, we hope to expand to a 6th Tab perhaps focusing on our "White" exhibit. But that's looking ahead.
Please feel free to send in-game mail with questions or donations to Malivoire or Threesixteen on Turalyon.
Amaxe Sep 22nd 2011 3:01PM
I'm reminded of a pearls before swine comic
http://www.icoolen.com/sites/default/files/u6/20020119P.gif