If WoW is social media, what function do guilds serve?
by Josh Myers 
Feb 27th 2012 at 5:00PM
In my time playing WoW, I've been in a lot of guilds. I've played in guilds that were fighting for the realm-first heroic progression spot and others that were content at realm 15th. I've been a part of the Reddit guild families, which are so large that they need a chat mod to link the multiple guilds for all their members. I've also been in guilds like my current one that have a grand total of 15 people as members.
The World of Warcraft guild experience is as wide and varied as the players who play this game. I'm an unabashed guild-hopper who wants very specific things from a guild and is willing to leave if they don't happen. Other players are loyalists, who find one guild and form lasting bonds that keep them playing with the same group of friends for their entire WoW experience.
Is WoW social media?
Cynwise at Cynwise's Battlefield Manual wrote a post last month about the fact that World of Warcraft is a form of social media. There's no denying that fact: The entire MMORPG genre is based on the idea that you are playing a game with other human beings, not just facing off against the computer as in the genre's predecessors. In fact, I'd go even further and suggest that in many ways, WoW has potential to be an ideal form of social media.
As a good example, Facebook is what immediately comes to mind when we think of social media. However, Facebook is boring. You can only write so many status updates a day, and connecting with your old friends from high school doesn't actually take up much of your time.
Social media alone isn't sustainable, so Facebook added fun into the formula. It added games and apps like FarmVille to keep you interested in being on Facebook. Newer social media like Foursquare and Fitocracy tried to improve on this idea, providing you points for checking in or working out and allowing you to compete with your friends. Social media evolved into gaming in order to sustain interest.
What functions do guilds serve now?
As Cynwise talks about in his post, the restrictive nature of guilds runs totally counter to Blizzard's intent of opening up World of Warcraft as social media. In essence, guilds are Google+'s circles or the rarely used group function on Facebook. They're a way for people with similar goals and interests to get together and socialize. We commonly see this in raiding, leveling, or PVP-focused guilds, but we also see the GLBTQ-oriented
For a very short period of time pre-Cataclysm, a few friends from the shaman forum community and I rolled on Frostwolf (US) and made the guild
The social guilds of tomorrow
This is the sort of socializing that WoW needs to be supporting and making easier for players to do. In essence, I have two guilds right now: the official guild I belong to and raid in
Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Guilds
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Piper Feb 27th 2012 5:49PM
"What functions do guilds server now?"
:chuckle: Ah, spellcheck, thy fickle heart.
Den Feb 27th 2012 5:49PM
Call me old fashioned, but to me, guilds are supposed to be teams. Towns. Militia. You work together to get stuff done. When you betray that, other people should wonder what happened and ask your previous guild about what went wrong. People were accountable for their actions because rerolling meant you failed, and guilds were your way into getting things done. If a guild or person acted out, the rest of the community quickly identified them (usually based on the guild) and reacted accordingly. Got a ganker in your guild that causes Horde guilds to target you, and your players don't want any trouble? Boot him, problem solved. With all the instancing now... who cares?
At this point, WoW guilds tend to be raid groups. Yes, there are actually communities, don't get me wrong. But how many guilds rise and fall because of a raid, or forming a new RBG team? You don't need guilds for that, you need half a brain and some social grace. If another guild raids cross roads... who cares? Most folks are doing BGs, heroics, LFRaid. Might as well make 4 super servers per region for pve, pvp, rp, and rp-pvp and call it a day.
Noyou Feb 27th 2012 7:02PM
That is exactly what my stance on guilds is too. It's my little online family. I take actions against my guild very seriously. I wish more people thought the same. We would all be happier for it :)
DarkWalker Feb 28th 2012 8:40AM
Not everyone wants that kind of commitment. In fact, I believe the majority of players don't want to actually feel committed to their guilds in any way; thus, the number of guilds that sprung up just for the perks, and that don't actually do anything together.
BTW, given that a character can only be part of a single guild, I end up having a similar commitment, but it comes with a heavy drawback: I take more than a year to actually join a guild. I first need to find a guild that looks nice, spend a lot of time with guild members, and be absolutely sure I like the way that guild works before thinking about joining.
(In fact, I believe I spent almost 4 years playing WoW before joining a guild for the first time.)
Also, in WoW, I draw my line at PvP and traveling. I won't, ever, help my guild with PvP matters, and will refrain from helping with PvE matters if I would have to travel too much in order to do so. Otherwise, as long as I have the time to help, I will help with almost anything.
Piper Feb 27th 2012 5:55PM
I'm waiting to for the MMO that understands that guilds should be your *social* circle, not your raiding team, not just the folks on your datacenter 'server', and definitely not just the toons on one side of a faction. The less friction the game client puts on my efforts to have a multiway discussion with my friends the better. Yes, battle-tags are a start, but those are one-to-one communications. The easier I can chit chat with my web of friends the more likely I am to stay involved with a developer's MMO.
LynMars Feb 27th 2012 6:07PM
Having my mains in the RP guild I've been fighting to rebuild and grow means, to raid with my friends in our sister guild, we miss out on guild perks, on guild achievements, and one guild is leveling far slower than the other. I am still really ambivalent about the guild leveling system due to what it does to new or niche guild concepts, and the people in them who want to raid with friends.
Luckily most of the people I know do just want to get together and have fun, whether it be at a RP event or running a raid, and screw the guild tags and subsequent achievements (though it's always nice to get them too on random occasions). While the support to go run dungeons or raids with folks you know is nice, most people play with or know more folks than just their current guildies, even in family/friends guilds.
People are why I still play WoW. The content's nice, I enjoy the story bits, I like beating up pixels to unwind, but I can get that from any game. The social aspect of WoW is what keeps me subscribed, and my social circle is more than my guildmates.
Bapo Feb 27th 2012 6:33PM
Piper, while I'm not sure if it will have the option like RealID when it comes out, but I know realid has the "create conversation" option (requires at least 2 other people to use though), and I'm hoping BattleTags gets that as well.
jealouspirate Feb 27th 2012 8:04PM
In Guild Wars 2 guilds will be cross-sever, and you can belong to as many as you want simultaneously.
thpthpthp1 Feb 28th 2012 12:23AM
Personally I've found raiding guilds I've been in to be far more social then most "social guilds" as long as you enjoy the people you raid with you'll naturally form a circle. Many the social guilds I've been in only connection is chatting in g-chat which hardly forms the same bonds that spending a few hours together 3-4 days a week tends to.
DarkWalker Feb 28th 2012 8:29AM
@jealouspirate
I was spreading this before, but I think I was wrong about the "cross-server" part. I thought that, given the fact a character can freely and easily travel to any server, the guilds would be cross-server.
It was recently revealed that, in GW2, each account will have a "home server", and only be able to fight for that server in the WvWvW (World PvP) battles (although characters should still be able to easily, quickly, and freely visit any server they want, and do any PvE content there). This server limitation seems to point that a player can only be part of guilds in a single server, though I haven't seen specific details yet.
The bit about players being able to be a part of as many guilds as they want is true and confirmed, though. Also, GW2 seems to be aiming at having more players per server than WoW, and also won't have factions dividing server populations into smaller communitites, so it should be way easier to find one or more nice, focused guilds that match with what the player wants to do.
Lishalacey Feb 27th 2012 6:28PM
I love your header picture! I love Wil Wheaton! That is all.
Except... Star Trek: Next Gen is available on instant queue on Netflix. Go. Watch it now.
Is it a bit strange that I still have an enormous crush on his Next-Gen self??
Artificial Feb 27th 2012 6:34PM
Considering how much cooler his real-life self is, yeah, a bit... :p
gewalt Feb 28th 2012 12:29AM
shut up wesley
Lishalacey Feb 27th 2012 6:44PM
For some reason, I have a hard time crushing on his real-life married self- I don't like the idea of someone crushing on my husband, so I try not to crush on someone else's husband, either. I know it goes against "normal" celebrity crushes, but there you have it. I find that reliving my school girl fantasies is more than enough, but watching The Guild and a few select episodes of The Big Bang Theory definitely do the trick, too. ;)
Noyou Feb 27th 2012 7:09PM
I think many guilds right now would be the enquirer or any type of trash rag. Lot's of flash but no real substance. Once you leave the check out line, you forget about it. I like to think smaller social guilds, can and should be those magazines you can't wait to get home and read, and then can't wait for them to come out again next month. It has been my belief that the social aspect of WoW is largely falling due to things like LFR/LFD. I do like reading things on this site, and hearing how other people take time out to make WoW a more social game. I think it opens up a lot of opportunities to play it social than not. Maybe pet battles and PvE scenarios can bring it back.
SamLowry Feb 27th 2012 11:40PM
Gee, I wonder whatever happened to "The Guild". WoWInsider stopped linking to it a year or so ago, so I guess it's done and over with?
Velaxis Feb 28th 2012 12:09AM
The main thing I find a bit difficult with this article is the poster's assertion he's happy to guild hop to get what he wants. Personally, I think guilds thrive upon loyalty. Ours has been together now for nearly 7 years, through thick and thin with a core membership, and we've seen a lot of guild hoppers along the way. We've had our lean times, and burgeoning times. As any guild who's stuck with it will no doubt say, it's just ups and downs.
As far as members are concerned, and their personal aims, it depends on what goals a guild has; ours is to progress as much as we can through current content, with adult members who have family/job commitments etc. But nowadays we'd be wary of taking on new members who'd clearly shuffled about a lot. It's annoying for any guild to have a solid raid member saunter off to another guild they regard as better to get their loot or progression fix quicker. To us teamwork, and building relationships to function better as a team, is paramount. In this respect I suppose WoW is a social media, but some people might choose to opt out of that and simply go where they perceive the shinies to be. That really isn't about socialising but just personal gain. WoW is a broad game; there are many facets within it, sympathetic to different styles of play and socialising.
Sarabande Feb 28th 2012 6:34AM
I guess if your only goal is to get something OUT of a guild, it won't serve as anything social - it becomes, IMO, a sort of service for the individual. I think raiding guilds still have their purpose because LFR isn't the same thing. You don't have 10 or 25 people (mostly the same people) working toward a common goal. You work together, suffer failures together, enjoy successes together, and hopefully, help each other outside of the raid instances and chat together.
With social guilds, we can use the tools we have available (LFR, LFG) and use it do to things with other members. We've never been a raiding guild so it was nice last week when 5 of us went into LFR together, explaining fights over vent, to people less familiar with it, etc. We work together to level the guild, keep supplies stocked. We give gems, most enchants, consumables, to members who have really become a part of our guild community. But if you log in, never answer when people say "Hello" or "Grats," never don't answer when we ask if want to run something with us, and only speak when you want something, the offers for those things (nor rank promotions) won't be forthcoming because I'll see you as someone parking here for perks only, and not for the community.
Guild can only be a community when the members make it so. The leaders can set the atmosphere, enforce the rules and decide what kinds of people to invite (and which to get rid of), but the members have to come together and build a home for themselves. Community, whether the WoW community as a whole, or each individual guild, is only as good as the people in it. If people decide to socialize and cooperate, and not put up with bad behavior, you'll have a stronger community, where people will want to belong.
DarkWalker Feb 28th 2012 8:57AM
I sincerely think Perks have turned most guilds away from being social groups.
Perks make players that would otherwise not want to have anything to do with guilds actually look for guilds to join. The problem is, those players don't become social players just because they join a guild. Thus, guilds that open their doors to those players end up with faster leveling, more gold due to the gold flow perks - but a lot of guild members that won't do group activities.
Besides, I actually think WoW is a really bad platform for hanging together. The US version of WoW, alone, has 245 realms. Which means it segregates players into almost 500 smallish communities (realm+faction), and charges $25 or more for a player to move between them. I have meet a number of players in real life, across the years, but I have never met another one who had joined the same realm and faction as me (which means I have a bunch of abandoned, previous main characters, since I flat out refuse to ever pay for realm or faction transfer).
For me to actually consider WoW as a worthy social platform, it would need, at the very least:
- To scrap guild perks as so. Remove the external incentives to join guilds, leave only the natural incentive of being part of a group of like-minded players. Levels and achievements can remain, as long as they don't give personal benefits to individual characters.
- To remove the guild size limit.
- To make guilds cross-realm, and preferably cross-faction.
- To allow players/characters to be part of multiple guilds.
- To either remove realm transfer costs, or at least to allow players of different realms to get together for any content - including non-instanced content.