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Are all hardcore guilds run by people with anti-social tendencies?
Lienhart
Member UncommonPosts: 662
So I've always been a bit of a "hardcore" gamer; that is I spent crap loads of time playing video games. I didn't really get into the whole guild thing (except with a few friends) until Aion, which I joined a "hardcore" guild. Mind you, I've been playing MMORPGs since Ragnarok Online was in beta, after that game it was Final Fantasy XI, from then on I've tried everything that's been out except F2Ps.
This hardcore guild consists of two main leaders. One, named Icy, likes to go around power tripping. The other, Elvine, who seems to enjoy sitting beneath Icy and sucking his ****. What bugs me? One dude, who's friend was in the guild and I don't know either of them, went AWOL for 4 days due to life issuse and had no internet connections. In my previous "guilds" (or corps in EvE Online) I had the GM (or CEO) send me emails when I went away for a while without warning. It was usually due to retarded girl issues but it was nice when the GM/CEO checked up to see if everything was okay.
Back to the original topic; Icy decides to boot this person. His friend is like "wtf? I just found out about what happened today". Icy then power trips and tells everyone "You're all replaceable". Oh great, I've played teamsports before, infact I'm pretty built and play football for my uni (well...did actually), and the last thing youu want to do in any team as a "coach" is to piss the team off and kill team morale. So..ehh....?
So my question is, are all "hardcore" guilds like this? A lot of us shit talk behind Icy's back, but no one wants to say anything to him because we know we'll get kicked. My main reason for staying is because we're the 2nd highest Legion on our server and it's easier to find players that are not stupid in this guild but...as I asked:
Are all "hardcore" guilds full of anti social assholes who display behaviour that would certainly get your ass beaten in life?
EDIT: Anti-social behaviour refers to behaviour that would get your ass fired/beaten/kicked in life, which ironically is anti-social behaviour itself, paradox much? But meh. Don't believe me? Wikipedia it.
Comments
Being Anti-social and leading a group a people are kind of contradictory. Part of being anti-social is not wanting to socialize. So unless the guild leader never communicates with his guild, it's not being anti-social.
So no.
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I don't know that they have anti-social tendencies, that would seem to be an oxymoron since they have to be social in order to form the guilds in the first place. I would say that, at least in my experience, a lot of people who run guilds seem to have serious social problems. One that I can think of in particular ran several guilds, lost his job because he spent all of his time in the game and when he got his job back, didn't learn his lesson and even though he faced losing it again, still logged into the game 10+ times a day to make sure the world wasn't falling apart. Apparently he thought the game couldn't survive without his continued and constant presence.
I think a lot of these people are pretty screwed up, trying to live vicariously through the game, but anti-social? I don't think it fits.
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Asshole not = anti-social.
What I've discovered from years of playing MMO's is that uber guilds are held together by the collective greed to obtain new items. Once new items cease to appease the greedy masses these uber guilds tend to cannabalize and turn on one another. You'll find resident uber guilds can suddenly vanish in one day. Most are lead by a small clique of real life friends. Everyone else exists to support that clique in getting what they want, the rest are fed leftovers. They won't speak out because they don't want to jeapordize their loot feedings. Only when things start to go south that you'll find huge multi page threads as the disgruntled members suddenly vent their long held feelings because they know they don't need the other people anymore to get their phat lewtz. Suddenly they fill out applications for the next resident uber guild and act all nice and lovey because they want their lewtz.
Sorry, I've taken psychology before.
Anti-social does not mean "not wanting to socialize". Look up the wikipedia description to get a better understanding, I have a horrible time explaining stuff without getting too scientific.
EDIT: wait, I think the dude above me (a few posts above) described it best.
Anti-social behaviour refers to behaviour that would get your ass fired/beaten/kicked in life.
Anti-social is probably not the bet way to describe this I would use elitist or dbad personally.
To answer your question all probably not a lot probably. This isn't just a hardcore guild issue either. This type of elitist mentality is killing mmos communities. Everyone wants to bitch about soloer in mmos but soloers are the cause not the effect. Want a better community, want more people to group fix what causes this elitist mentality.
Yep. This ive seen as well. This is the main reason why level cap is the end of the game for many. While there is content to do ,a lot of people do not want to associate with the people you have to , to get the content done. So yeah, anit-social does apply i think because as Skarwolf said, once you are no longer of use, you are expendable.
I can't speak for all guilds because I don't know, but what I suggest is that one day while alot of the guild is online, you secretly talk to everyone in the guild that hates that icy guy and all leave at once and go start a new guild together and then only recruit friendly members, and make it a rule that if your rude you will get kicked. Problem solved.
Well, I may get my ass back to EvE Online then.
I've only been in "hardcore" corps/guilds in EvE Online. While we were quite hostile (and rude) to other people coming into our space, there was no "you're all expendable lil bishes" attitude going on within the group itself. I know some of those dudes knew each other in life. And honestly, as carebear as this sounds, I thought the "send email if guy goes awol for a few days" thing was a norm in hardcore guilds...but no, you just get booted because games > real life apparently.
Yes thats true. I often ask that of people who like to trash talk and anti social behaviour. If you talked that way to someone in real life what would happen ? There is a generation who are growing up on the internet not being afraid of what they say because they think being anonymous protects them.
For example;
When I was a kid one day on the school bus we passed some older kids from another school. I made some stupid comment to make fun of them out the window as the school bus drove along the road. We laughed at them. Then my friend pointed out the kid was following the bus on his bike. He proceeded to follow til my stop and I left the bus to get promptly thumped. I learned to watch my mouth, because I could get thumped.
That doesn't happen these days. They spend their free time shooting their mouths off in game and getting away with it.
In another game I used to have plenty of trash talking arguments on this forum. One player in particular used to always target what I said regardless. Well one day I went to EBgames and happened to be checking out the expansion for that game. Some 90 pound squeaky voiced kid standing nearby noticed got all excited going into detail the features of the game how he owned he played this and that and it was great and his guild was the best. I played dumb, what guild and server etc ... turned out it was the mouthy little puke from the forums I was looking at. I could not believe it. I started laughing and this kid seemed confused. I asked him if he ever saw the movie Casino ? He said yes, I then asked if he remembered the part where they deal with a guy they catch cheating ? The part where they take a hammer to the guys hand. The kid nodded. I then told him who I was in game. His face went very pale and I'm not kidding, he ran from the store. After that he never bothered me again on the forums other then to say he'd sue me if I touched him lol.
Definition of anitsocial according to dictionary.com:
# shunning contact with others; "standoffish and antisocial"; "he's not antisocial; just shy"
# hostile to or disruptive of normal standards of social behavior; "criminal behavior or conduct that violates the rights of other individuals is antisocial"; "crimes...and other asocial behavior"; "an antisocial deed"
The wiki you're talking about is based off UK culture.
Definition of anitsocial according to dictionary.com:
# shunning contact with others; "standoffish and antisocial"; "he's not antisocial; just shy"
# hostile to or disruptive of normal standards of social behavior; "criminal behavior or conduct that violates the rights of other individuals is antisocial"; "crimes...and other asocial behavior"; "an antisocial deed"
The wiki you're talking about is based off UK culture.
Do not take rail this topic off topic please. If you have a problem with the psychological definition of what anti-social means (rather than the English, and stereotypical meaning) please take it to my PM or something. Or hell, take it to your nearest psychology professor cause I haven't taken psych since first year but it changed my view on the term anti-social.
I had something similar happen, but I was on the other side of the stick.
I was still not really a stereotypical nerd back then (mind you, I was at one point), I wasn't as built as now but fairly built. Got into an argument with some dude on forums (Toronto, where I live, Asian forums) and said somethings I really shoudln't have that escalated into a real life fight. There is no come back behind this story because I will admit; I got my ass kicked.
I guess my guild master really needs to get his ass beaten.
Hardcore guilds, whether pvp or pve oriented are all about one thing, winning. (no, not whining)
Their goal is to be the best, get to the top first, be the strongest, and be the most efficent players in a game.
This draws a certatin type of player base, and their leadership can be quite "colorful" to say the least.
No one argues with a real life coach about his motivation methods or management style if the team is successful, same is true in gaming.
I was in some very successful guilds and put up with some real crap just to be a member of the team, but eventually I got fed up and realized it wasn't worth it, I prefer to play for fun.
In EVE today I'm in a very laid back corp that lets its members pursue their own goals. The "team" I'm with work our wormholes and run our own affairs.
Its true, we'll never take over all of free space, but I've had enough of that already, happy to carve out my own little piece of the universe and enjoy the game. (I get more sleep now as well)
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Most of my leaders were Managers more than anything else. So if you were a bad employee they were an asshole to you (but the good managers were only assholes in private.)
My guilds were mostly a step below hardcore. I imagine as the stakes get higher things shift from Corporate Management to Military Command.
That's one of my problems with raiding actually. It involves enough people that you need management, and even if that manager isn't me I find it detracts from gameplay ("We still need more healers, man I wish the Guild Leader would recruit more.") The true problem being that there aren't gameplay advantages to offset the disadvantages, when going from 5-10 man content to 15+ man content.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I think people want to believe that hardcore guilds are full of whiners and assholes because they aren't as good as them. They dominate games, and people hate them for it. So they use the "They're assholes anyway" excuse.
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I agree with this. But anti-social tendencies does not mean good management. Any manager that acts that way would lose respect and eventually get physically assaulted.
I've been in a hardcore guild before, and I found the guild leaders to not be as power-trippy as you've experienced, and being a guild leader it's sorta hard to be anti-social. I cannot provide any other comment than to say that at least in my experience I haven't had issues. Obviously, it wasn't the same in your case. Judge from that what you will.
I think it's better to find out early on what the guilds leadership is like than to invest many months before it happens.
In my opinion Skarwolf described the guild situation the best. Most guilds that i have been apart of have mainly focused on loot. They advertise they will get u geared and ready for raids but most of the time it does not happen. What ends up happening is they have more bodies whom to group with so they can get the loot they want. After they get it it just so happens that the guild dosent have time time to run the instance or dungeon anymore lol. It dosent really bother me but i can see that there are alot of people who are hurt by this lack of participation by the guild.That is the reason why people start quitting the guild or in extreme instances the game! I look for the mature guilds and join them because its mostly people who just want to meet and talk with other adults with whom they have something in common with.
1. Yes
2.
Have you never had a boss? They are the essence of your definition of 'anti-social' behaviour. They aren't there to be friends with people.
even softcore guilds are being run by powertrip nubcakes. finding a good guild seem to be a thing of the past.
if you can't find the guild you want, create it.
The first hardcore guild I joined was lead by a guy who multi-boxed 3 accounts at once. He never told anyone and acted as if the other characters were real people. He'd say stuff like they were his roommates and AFK a sec while I wake them up and log in the other account. The guy was practically a guild unto himself. He had a tank, CC, healer, whatever was required at the time and he was a good player who seldom if ever spoke. He kind of lead by example.
Most of the best loot went to his characters, his warrior was always the main tank, his cleric the main tanks healer, his enchanter the main CC'r etc. Nobody really questioned that because we progressed considerably under his leadership. It wasn't until it came out he was playing all the characters and what drove the guild apart was that he was getting all the loot. Someone questioned why his tank should get the loot some should goto the backup tank in case his tank wasn't around (guy was on 24/7) and then it all went downhill.
As for what someone else said people being jealous so they call them "assholes anyways." It doesn't usually happen that way.
If the guild was hardcore and treated other people nicely you would have people disagreeing and saying "Hey I dealt with them and they were actually nice people." The reason people call the hardcore guilds assholes is that they probably are. They can't be just hardcore, they have to mock their rivals ability or who has what loot, aka be assholes.
When someone calls them as such the resident trash talker runs back to their hardcore guild and will post on their internal forums hoping some of their asshole guildmates run over to help the aforementioned idiot speak for themselves. You may have a well spoken and not asshole seeming officer of that guild post some kind of lame half hearted apology to make amends and most people will sheepishly think Oh they're not that bad !
The main reason people put up with assholish behaviour by hardcore guilds.
They're probably applying to join them.
It takes all sorts of people. With respect to OP, if people are hardcore, as in dedicated "This is what I do with my life and my spare time" kind of gamer, there are usually forums, e-mail addys, and contact numbers should situations arise. If key people are not around to "do their job" so to speak, then everyone else is sitting around with thumbs-up-ass syndrome because someone went awol.
But as above posters have said, if you've ever had Bosses, or been one... not all are assholes... most, but not all.
"There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."
My current guild has some of the nicest kindest people you could wish for, I've met about a dozen of them in real life and there are at least 2 to 3 offline guild meetings every year.
Of course with 40-50 ish regular members there are a few miscreants which fit the op's description, not however the folks that run the guild.
The loot rules are not standard (dkp), there is a "pecking order" based on raid attendance, rank (linked to raid attendance and other factors).
New members get a months trial, it is rare for people that fail this, however it does occasionally happen, but we also have a social/casual ranking system for people that cant necessarily raid due to work circumstances or other reasons.
Tbh your guild leader sounds like a total ponce, I'd talk to the other players you get on with and discuss a mass exodus then leave and reform a new guild.