Posts with tag rp-guild

What is your guild all about? Many guilds are fairly easily described by their schedules and raid progressions (or their lack of either). More likely, though, the essence of your group -- the part that gives it its flavor and makes it stand apart from other guilds -- is somewhat trickier to describe. "Social," "casual," "raiding" ...These terms pretty much describe most guilds.

Even terms that seem fairly self-explanatory at first glance can be problematic for players trying to evaluate a potential fit. "We're a dedicated roleplaying guild." OK, so what's the spin? One RP guild might maintain a military structure and campaign, while another plays out some very adult-themed interpersonal dramas -- definitely not interchangeable concepts!

Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm.

This week's is a long one, so let's get right to it.

Dear Drama Mamas,

I belong to a small roleplaying guild on a fairly heavily populated server. Two of our guild leaders have recently retired, and the discussion that followed seems to have opened up a particularly ugly can of worms. There are a lot of complicated drama subsets that are going on at the moment, but I fear I may have started the one that's now bothering me the most.

Previous to our guild leaders retiring, we had a few incidents of members who had been very active suddenly disappear with no word of why or when/if to expect them back. (We have a forum for the guild, so the means of communication are readily available). We have a very strong policy of RL > the game; but as a small, close-knit guild, I feel that someone disappearing impacts guild members both in story lines and in the way they feel OOCly.

The Darkwinds Scourge is a roleplay Guild on the Sha'tar realm. They've created this machinima as a kind of trailer for their Guild. In terms of setting up a movie to help promote your Guild's themes and ideas, I think this works pretty well. The shot locations are spot on, and the music's totally appropriate. (The song is by Disturbed, I think.) The movie is credited to Almighty Farseer.

As a machinima, the visiual narrative could use a faster pace. The author's stuck in the loop of cool shot after cool shot. Individually, they all work well, but strung together, the scenes move a little slow. While AF says that the Guild is an evil-themed troupe, with the in-character goal of punishing "the traitor Darion Mograine," I'm not sure there's enough contextually in the movie itself to draw that conclusion. Some subtitles or screen overlays would help that immensely, and help draw the viewer into the story.

Still, it's a trailer piece for a Guild, and on that level, it works fantastically. It would be nice to see more Guilds put this kind of effort into branding themselves, and I look forward to more in this genre.

If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.

Previously on Moviewatch ..

Last night in the top secret WoW Insider clubhouse, Matticus, the Double Dans and I got to talking about our guilds a little bit. The sorts of people in them, that kind of stuff. I don't remember exactly how, but eventually we came to the topic of how our various guilds got started.

Dan O'Halloran (now known as Big Dan) is still with a lot of the folks he played with back in Everquest, and many of them have been together through a number of MMOs over the years. Daniel Whitcomb (now known as Little Dan) had a guild back in Everquest as well, and while he's not in a guild with them anymore, he's still kept in touch with many of them. My guild (and Little Dan's current guild) technically didn't come from another game, but rather a large message board a lot of us have frequented for years. Bunches of us have played other games and MMOs together over the years, but ultimately that forum was the connection. We've lost some people here and there, but we've gained a lot of people as well.