My biggest problem with guilds has been when the leader doesnt lead or is just absent. And when fellow guildmembers dont make an effort to be social and help you.
i like the small close knit guilds more then i like the huge massive pve/pvp/raid/ etc guilds...the smaller guilds tend to be more focused to a specific thing and usually, you level together and form nice tight bonds and learn how to play well together within that small group or groups...
for me one of the best guilds i've been in has actually been one whee i had real family members in it...where I COULD tell my sister to stop being a b1tch and rolling need on everything in the dungeon so she can sell crap for more gold...or my brother in law to quit being a doosh and trying to aggro everything in the dungeon etc...or a friend who is the know it all to shut the frak up and tell his wife that he needs to get laid so he quits being a jerk...
course the downside of this is that most of these people know your phone number and will call you when you don't log in after work or wonder where the hell you are when u have to cut the grass on saturday afternoon and can't run a dungeon in ice crown or whatnot...or when u do finally get in they give you a ton of sh1t for not being online cause they know you've been watching tv cause when you called mom she told them what you've been doing...
one of my other favorite guilds actually happened to be in star wars galaxies it was the 1st guild on kauri and the biggest i think at around 4-500 i think, it was massive but...there were so many wonderful people, happy people, people that would talk into wierd hours of the night and a guild leader that was so great she would lead groups, raids, pve, a huge roleplayer and a big crafter and a leader in the coundil of jedi she made cities and people followed around her...alot of people , in the younger crowd even called her mom...but we had a great guid, no real cliques...there's always an odd few that didn't fit but they didn't hang around long of the knights of kauri was one of my favorite guilds...EVER
Two things have me hitting the Leave guild/corp/clan button instantly. If the people in it dont chat and if they spend all their time doing solo work in game. I join guilds/corps/clans to play with people, to chat and relate to people not look at my self spamm the chat box and have people solo all day. Why bother?
There are some like me that are a combination of 2 problems. I have ADD, and when I am playing online I find that the only way for me to quest and not get killed as often is to focus completely on one thing and block out the rest. That's why I don't chat much at all in my clan (I play on Jade Dynasty).
The other problem is that in about all the MMORPGs I play, whenever I start them I try to ask questions, but get nothing but silence or rude comments. They're not even "noob" questions, not for the most part. Then later when I ask for help with a quest I'd know I'd have a lot of trouble with (or required at least 2 ppl to do), I'd get next to no takers, even in a clan or alliance. It got to the point where I simply went solo 99% of the time.
As to the 5 signs the guild isn't for you...
There's one they missed that's a big one.
"Clash of the Morals"
On JD there was one alliance I was in for a time, and not fully by choice. That's because my old alliance basically underwent a merger. It turned out that the ally was...to put it nicely, sex oriented (and I don't mean gender). The conversations by most of the alliance members were pretty explicit. Problem there was, I was raised to be a lady, and to my mind, what was going on in the alliance was immoral. I tried to stick with it (and either try to set them straigt or just not talk much) for the sake of my own clan (I was a clan chief, which translates to being a guild leader) and the sake of those that were merged. One day, though, I realized that nothing was going to change and that thinking otherwise was just running away. I not only resigned from being clan chief, but also left he entire alliance.
I feel the same in all cases, when I found Old Timers guild it was to good to be true. The only thing that we require is that you have to be 25+ in age. I know there is alot of grief about age restrictions but it works really well for us and we have all types of players so its easy to find members with the same play styles through about 10- 15 different mmos. The idea was to create an enviroment were adults can enjoy their gaming without having to be screeched at by an over caffeinated 12 yr militaristic elitist jerk (which in one guild that actually happened to me). I've been with this guild for 5 years now and I doubt I'll ever leave. motto: "Laid back, not so seriuos, all about the fun"
Other things that bug me about guilds is: Forced grouping/raiding, if I only have an hour or 2 I can't commit to raiding that much. Military style guilds. Where if you want to talk to the guild leader you have to send 10 messages to the chain of command before your granted an audience. Subscription memberships: You have to pay $50 to be an elite member. /cough....(Goon Squad) or your just canon fodder. Required equipment/gear: If you don't have the atleast tier 6 epic gear then your crap and you can't join this guild of elitist.
i've seen the old timer's guild members around different games and if it wasn't for me running with some game friends from back "way when" I would have applied.
The age restriction was actually plus for me as well as the laid back attitude.
Yeah, I would have applied myself to Old Timers since I more than qualify (ahem) but I usually game with my son who's 17 and they make no exceptions to the policy. I understand why, but I think I might have had some fun with them, esp in LotRO.
We have been known to make exceptions for Friends and Family Kyleran. It's really up to the Chapter Leader of a game to decide whether or not to alllow exceptions. 17 may still be a bit too young though. We ARE mature but also are not G or PG rated when it comes to chat haha.
You really need a guild that understands they are playing a game. Games are supposed to be fun, a form of relaxation. Too often they get too ... anal... and start treating the game like it's a second job. You see this a lot in the "hardcore" raiding guilds regardless of which game it is. They tend to bury you in rules, restrictions and requirements... to play a game.
Pretty much after that is just finding a group of people that mesh with my personality.
I've been in guilds and I've run them. I think I'm a generally decent GL. I look out for my folks, maintain the peace and organize see that fun stuff happens. That said, my favorite type of guild is one where 5 to 10 folks are all on the same wavelength, generally on the same times and aren't hard core about anything. Just come in, hang out (when you aren't in a PUG you can't get out of) and have fun.
Sadly, this doesn't happen much these days. More and more often with the MMORPGs of late I feel like sometime in the not too distant future, I'll be hanging up my sword (bow, wand, axe, mace ETC) for good and not coming back. The 'cherry high' is gone. I suspect though that if I find a 'good' MMO and could find one of the few and far between 'GREAT' small guilds, gaming would suddenly become GREAT again. I dearly hope so.
great article, sparked some interesting stories from the community. I've had guild problems since i joined WoW, was in one for about 3 months, until the guild leader turned into an idiot over a girl and kicked me for disagreeing with something that was done (in a polite way). In the end, 5 other members left after i was kicked and the guild was dissolved months later (apparently they agreed that the guild leader was insane).
Another time was the guild that formed after the story above. Went with the old corp members, except the leader wasnt a leader at all, made all the wrong decisions and eventually i left and he switched servers because he didnt like the people on our server (was in that corp for about 2 months.)
The last guild i was in on WoW i enjoyed quite a bit. Got along with everyone, got a high rank in the guild. Until of course i offended one of the leaders irl (or it mighta just been a long time friend) friend and i was pretty much shunned by everyone. I stayed in the corp, but quit WoW since i didnt like the idea of getting another 10 levels.
Then in EVE i was in a corporation for 8 months, a small corp i joined to learn piracy and pvp. The corp got bigger and bigger and young members became old members and we were a force to be reckoned with. I was a FC (Fleet commander) and known for being the top killer for 3 months in a row. I was quite popular, people asking for advice, asking to fly with me etc etc. Until another corp moved into our system. We fought and won most of the time, until they decided to bring out carriers. Our leader botched the diplo talks, and i got help from 2 other alliances to help us. The day before we decide to go carrier bowling, our leader tells us to leave them alone and just go elsewhere, and if we engaged them we would be punished.... So we pretty much were supposed to avoid fleet battles and go roaming because thats what "real pirates" do. This annoyed me since i had to inform the 2 alliances that we wouldnt need their help anymore, and i just moved all my stuff to another system.
I voiced my disgruntlement in a fairly large forum post and dropped it (needed to vent, although as much as i wanted to, i didnt call anyone names or blame anyone in the post). The leader got his panties in a bunch and told me we needed to work out the problem i was having, after i told him i dropped it and was willing to move on. He kept talking and i called him out on everything he was accusing me of. In the end, he kicked me, i joined a new corp (one of the corps that were going to help us) and have been happy ever since.
Playing: EVE Online Favorite MMOs: WoW, SWG Pre-cu, Lineage 2, UO, EQ, EVE online Looking forward to: Archeage, Kingdom Under Fire 2 KUF2's Official Website - http://www.kufii.com/ENG/ -
Ditto, great article and I too have these problems still to this day.
Wanted to add too that when I did find a really, really, great guild with like minded people, I generally started to hate the game we played and couldnt get the others to try anything else, even though they also hated the game to some degree. I think it had a lot to do with having invested that much time and money into the game and hard for them to leave. Its never hard for me to leave no matter how bad ass my toon is!
MMORPGs are broken because they are still new. In 10 or 20 years they will get better as long as game companies keep attempting to make new ones.
The biggest problem with MMORPGs is how they take too much coordination and time to get mass amounts of players to do raid content. Developers chose to use a stratified method of picking players (guilds) for raids instead of random or systematic methods which would take far less coordination and time. Example: World of Warcraft's Dungeon Finder.
It's a common misconception that the MMORPG community believes random people can't coordinate. They can. The problem is no MMORPG has even TRIED. Lots of blame to be put on Blizzard for not allowing the Dungeon Finder to work for raid content.
In some of the cases, this is why this article even exists.
I would more or less just group with a guild I liked if I ran into them every once in a while. Some times they would end talking me into joining them and it would very rarely work out well because of the politics and stuff. I would always tell them from the beginning I wasn't a guild type.
The guild leaders would be like" You cant kill these guys anymore" Then I'm like "But I have been battling with guys every since I have been playing this game". This would usaully end up in a dispute and I would have to put the guild I was once in on my hit list.
This could be really fun sometimes especially if I got to kill somebody in my ex guild that just thought they was top dog or a high ranking guild offical. I believe a few times I could really see steam coming out of thier chars ears after killing them.
I had to laugh at #4 with the hitler on teamspeak.
There was a guild on my server whose leader was so notorious that his own guild actually made a soundboard of him. It was never confirmed but it's widely believed he's actually the raidleader from the "MOAR DOTS!" video too.
Thought I'd share that with you all.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
I must confess I'm currently in a guild I may not stay in because of the peon reason. In DDO My guild has 2 rogues, a multiclassed 2 rogue 2 mage, and me, level 8 pure rogue. I'm commonly brought into higher level things that I get no xp from just to help the guild leader and guildies out with something. While I don't mind this for the most part, I'm not leveling because of it. Only good thing that comes out of it is some gear every blue moon that I can use, and plenty of money for more potions. Yes, I'm a self sufficiant thief. Eternal Wands and potions fill 3/5 slots of inventory. But I always have what I need for situations, and can even buff myself with potions to disarm/spot traps in level 12+ dungeons over 4 levels above me most the time in difficulty. And now just recently solo'd the pit with a hireling after getting through all of it up to where you need someone else. And getting help from a guildie who was high enough I get no xp anymore despite completing 1 hr of work going through the place.
I can't take guilds in MMOs serious anymore. When I was younger I thought they were the most fun aspect of gaming. Although I had played MMOs prior to it, my first guild (allegiance) was in Asheron's Call. In fact I was leveling so quickly in the brutal to level beginning days of AC that I passed even the monarch in levels which led to me taking have the allegiance and making a new one.
yep, agree, Guild used to be some organization in a game that isn't easily being a part of, i used to be estatic in my old MMO games whenever i was accepted into it, and would devote myself to that guild, and feel proud walking around with the guild's name below my Avatar name
the recruitment were also strict in the old days, you just dont apply and just get accepted, you need to be with them in the game itself to get close to them and then you are invited, or even if you are being picked single handed ly to join the clan
even as many people now say that their guild is a family guild bla2 and prioritized the social and etc, in the end, it's just another same one
there is still guilds like that out there, but it's probably a 20:1
Am I the only one who hates quitting guilds? It always feels awkward, whether it's an obviously terrible guild, or just a nice but ill-fitting one, I feel like a jerk for leaving. So much so that in some MMOs, I end up never joinging a guild at all, which leads to being quickly bored by the game, and moving onto another MMO entirely. Often I've joined only one or two, not liked them, and ended up quitting a game before ever finding a good one, because I can't bear all the guild hopping that seems to be necessary.
Yet people talk about how if you want to really get into an MMO, you have to join a guild, as if it's that simple. I've gotten lucky once or twice over my years of online gaming. A few and far between exception, not at all the norm.
So I wish devs would come up with some sort of new guild mechanic that would streamline the process of players getting to know guilds - and vice-versa. I'm not sure how it could work exactly, but it would be great if I could find a guild that was right for me, without actually needing to join it first. Maybe if there were some in-game bulliten board system of tracking guild stats and variables, which guilds could use to advertise, and players could use to make better initial choices?
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
I currently belong to a raid-centric guild on Age of Conan. The raids are well-executed and I've received my share of epic gear. But when I read this article, #3 should have been in flashing neon. I understand that while I'm a relative newcomer to the guild, I've noticed there is definitely an inner circle there...and if you're not part of it you're pretty much ignored.
I've tried to be social in both chat and vent. Nothing major - a 'hello' when I log on, a 'grats' when a guild member scores a piece of raid gear they were looking for and a "good night and thank you" when the raid is over and I log out. The reaction I've received to these interactions could be described as stony indifference, especially from the higher-ups. I've not descended to the realm of bodily function jokes (nor will I) because I have the foresight to know it wouldn't make any difference.
My epiphany came today when I realized that if my station will never improve in my guildmates' eyes there is nothing I can do to change it. And you know what? I'm fine with that now. The main reason I joined the guild was to get my share of raid gear. Once that's done we can part ways with no regrets or hurt feelings. I helped them with my class/game knowledge and they helped me by assisting me in acquiring my epic gear. A simple business deal, nothing more.
Besides, there's always hope that the next guild will 'get' me. That's always something to look forward to.
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. - Marie Curie
Comments
My biggest problem with guilds has been when the leader doesnt lead or is just absent. And when fellow guildmembers dont make an effort to be social and help you.
i like the small close knit guilds more then i like the huge massive pve/pvp/raid/ etc guilds...the smaller guilds tend to be more focused to a specific thing and usually, you level together and form nice tight bonds and learn how to play well together within that small group or groups...
for me one of the best guilds i've been in has actually been one whee i had real family members in it...where I COULD tell my sister to stop being a b1tch and rolling need on everything in the dungeon so she can sell crap for more gold...or my brother in law to quit being a doosh and trying to aggro everything in the dungeon etc...or a friend who is the know it all to shut the frak up and tell his wife that he needs to get laid so he quits being a jerk...
course the downside of this is that most of these people know your phone number and will call you when you don't log in after work or wonder where the hell you are when u have to cut the grass on saturday afternoon and can't run a dungeon in ice crown or whatnot...or when u do finally get in they give you a ton of sh1t for not being online cause they know you've been watching tv cause when you called mom she told them what you've been doing...
one of my other favorite guilds actually happened to be in star wars galaxies it was the 1st guild on kauri and the biggest i think at around 4-500 i think, it was massive but...there were so many wonderful people, happy people, people that would talk into wierd hours of the night and a guild leader that was so great she would lead groups, raids, pve, a huge roleplayer and a big crafter and a leader in the coundil of jedi she made cities and people followed around her...alot of people , in the younger crowd even called her mom...but we had a great guid, no real cliques...there's always an odd few that didn't fit but they didn't hang around long of the knights of kauri was one of my favorite guilds...EVER
http://www.forceofarms.com/index.php
There are some like me that are a combination of 2 problems. I have ADD, and when I am playing online I find that the only way for me to quest and not get killed as often is to focus completely on one thing and block out the rest. That's why I don't chat much at all in my clan (I play on Jade Dynasty).
The other problem is that in about all the MMORPGs I play, whenever I start them I try to ask questions, but get nothing but silence or rude comments. They're not even "noob" questions, not for the most part. Then later when I ask for help with a quest I'd know I'd have a lot of trouble with (or required at least 2 ppl to do), I'd get next to no takers, even in a clan or alliance. It got to the point where I simply went solo 99% of the time.
As to the 5 signs the guild isn't for you...
There's one they missed that's a big one.
"Clash of the Morals"
On JD there was one alliance I was in for a time, and not fully by choice. That's because my old alliance basically underwent a merger. It turned out that the ally was...to put it nicely, sex oriented (and I don't mean gender). The conversations by most of the alliance members were pretty explicit. Problem there was, I was raised to be a lady, and to my mind, what was going on in the alliance was immoral. I tried to stick with it (and either try to set them straigt or just not talk much) for the sake of my own clan (I was a clan chief, which translates to being a guild leader) and the sake of those that were merged. One day, though, I realized that nothing was going to change and that thinking otherwise was just running away. I not only resigned from being clan chief, but also left he entire alliance.
i've seen the old timer's guild members around different games and if it wasn't for me running with some game friends from back "way when" I would have applied.
The age restriction was actually plus for me as well as the laid back attitude.
Yeah, I would have applied myself to Old Timers since I more than qualify (ahem) but I usually game with my son who's 17 and they make no exceptions to the policy. I understand why, but I think I might have had some fun with them, esp in LotRO.
We have been known to make exceptions for Friends and Family Kyleran. It's really up to the Chapter Leader of a game to decide whether or not to alllow exceptions. 17 may still be a bit too young though. We ARE mature but also are not G or PG rated when it comes to chat haha.
You really need a guild that understands they are playing a game. Games are supposed to be fun, a form of relaxation. Too often they get too ... anal... and start treating the game like it's a second job. You see this a lot in the "hardcore" raiding guilds regardless of which game it is. They tend to bury you in rules, restrictions and requirements... to play a game.
Pretty much after that is just finding a group of people that mesh with my personality.
I've been in guilds and I've run them. I think I'm a generally decent GL. I look out for my folks, maintain the peace and organize see that fun stuff happens. That said, my favorite type of guild is one where 5 to 10 folks are all on the same wavelength, generally on the same times and aren't hard core about anything. Just come in, hang out (when you aren't in a PUG you can't get out of) and have fun.
Sadly, this doesn't happen much these days. More and more often with the MMORPGs of late I feel like sometime in the not too distant future, I'll be hanging up my sword (bow, wand, axe, mace ETC) for good and not coming back. The 'cherry high' is gone. I suspect though that if I find a 'good' MMO and could find one of the few and far between 'GREAT' small guilds, gaming would suddenly become GREAT again. I dearly hope so.
great article, sparked some interesting stories from the community. I've had guild problems since i joined WoW, was in one for about 3 months, until the guild leader turned into an idiot over a girl and kicked me for disagreeing with something that was done (in a polite way). In the end, 5 other members left after i was kicked and the guild was dissolved months later (apparently they agreed that the guild leader was insane).
Another time was the guild that formed after the story above. Went with the old corp members, except the leader wasnt a leader at all, made all the wrong decisions and eventually i left and he switched servers because he didnt like the people on our server (was in that corp for about 2 months.)
The last guild i was in on WoW i enjoyed quite a bit. Got along with everyone, got a high rank in the guild. Until of course i offended one of the leaders irl (or it mighta just been a long time friend) friend and i was pretty much shunned by everyone. I stayed in the corp, but quit WoW since i didnt like the idea of getting another 10 levels.
Then in EVE i was in a corporation for 8 months, a small corp i joined to learn piracy and pvp. The corp got bigger and bigger and young members became old members and we were a force to be reckoned with. I was a FC (Fleet commander) and known for being the top killer for 3 months in a row. I was quite popular, people asking for advice, asking to fly with me etc etc. Until another corp moved into our system. We fought and won most of the time, until they decided to bring out carriers. Our leader botched the diplo talks, and i got help from 2 other alliances to help us. The day before we decide to go carrier bowling, our leader tells us to leave them alone and just go elsewhere, and if we engaged them we would be punished.... So we pretty much were supposed to avoid fleet battles and go roaming because thats what "real pirates" do. This annoyed me since i had to inform the 2 alliances that we wouldnt need their help anymore, and i just moved all my stuff to another system.
I voiced my disgruntlement in a fairly large forum post and dropped it (needed to vent, although as much as i wanted to, i didnt call anyone names or blame anyone in the post). The leader got his panties in a bunch and told me we needed to work out the problem i was having, after i told him i dropped it and was willing to move on. He kept talking and i called him out on everything he was accusing me of. In the end, he kicked me, i joined a new corp (one of the corps that were going to help us) and have been happy ever since.
Playing: EVE Online
Favorite MMOs: WoW, SWG Pre-cu, Lineage 2, UO, EQ, EVE online
Looking forward to: Archeage, Kingdom Under Fire 2
KUF2's Official Website - http://www.kufii.com/ENG/ -
Ditto, great article and I too have these problems still to this day.
Wanted to add too that when I did find a really, really, great guild with like minded people, I generally started to hate the game we played and couldnt get the others to try anything else, even though they also hated the game to some degree. I think it had a lot to do with having invested that much time and money into the game and hard for them to leave. Its never hard for me to leave no matter how bad ass my toon is!
MMORPGs are broken because they are still new. In 10 or 20 years they will get better as long as game companies keep attempting to make new ones.
The biggest problem with MMORPGs is how they take too much coordination and time to get mass amounts of players to do raid content. Developers chose to use a stratified method of picking players (guilds) for raids instead of random or systematic methods which would take far less coordination and time. Example: World of Warcraft's Dungeon Finder.
It's a common misconception that the MMORPG community believes random people can't coordinate. They can. The problem is no MMORPG has even TRIED. Lots of blame to be put on Blizzard for not allowing the Dungeon Finder to work for raid content.
In some of the cases, this is why this article even exists.
I'm not just a guild type person myself.
I would more or less just group with a guild I liked if I ran into them every once in a while. Some times they would end talking me into joining them and it would very rarely work out well because of the politics and stuff. I would always tell them from the beginning I wasn't a guild type.
The guild leaders would be like" You cant kill these guys anymore" Then I'm like "But I have been battling with guys every since I have been playing this game". This would usaully end up in a dispute and I would have to put the guild I was once in on my hit list.
This could be really fun sometimes especially if I got to kill somebody in my ex guild that just thought they was top dog or a high ranking guild offical. I believe a few times I could really see steam coming out of thier chars ears after killing them.
I had to laugh at #4 with the hitler on teamspeak.
There was a guild on my server whose leader was so notorious that his own guild actually made a soundboard of him. It was never confirmed but it's widely believed he's actually the raidleader from the "MOAR DOTS!" video too.
Thought I'd share that with you all.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
I must confess I'm currently in a guild I may not stay in because of the peon reason. In DDO My guild has 2 rogues, a multiclassed 2 rogue 2 mage, and me, level 8 pure rogue. I'm commonly brought into higher level things that I get no xp from just to help the guild leader and guildies out with something. While I don't mind this for the most part, I'm not leveling because of it. Only good thing that comes out of it is some gear every blue moon that I can use, and plenty of money for more potions. Yes, I'm a self sufficiant thief. Eternal Wands and potions fill 3/5 slots of inventory. But I always have what I need for situations, and can even buff myself with potions to disarm/spot traps in level 12+ dungeons over 4 levels above me most the time in difficulty. And now just recently solo'd the pit with a hireling after getting through all of it up to where you need someone else. And getting help from a guildie who was high enough I get no xp anymore despite completing 1 hr of work going through the place.
yep, agree, Guild used to be some organization in a game that isn't easily being a part of, i used to be estatic in my old MMO games whenever i was accepted into it, and would devote myself to that guild, and feel proud walking around with the guild's name below my Avatar name
the recruitment were also strict in the old days, you just dont apply and just get accepted, you need to be with them in the game itself to get close to them and then you are invited, or even if you are being picked single handed ly to join the clan
even as many people now say that their guild is a family guild bla2 and prioritized the social and etc, in the end, it's just another same one
there is still guilds like that out there, but it's probably a 20:1
if you ever find a guild like that, you're lucky
So What Now?
SOMEONE FIRE THIS COLUMNIST. IF YOU DIDNT ALREADY KNOW THIS STUFF YOU SHOULDNT BE IN A GUILD IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Am I the only one who hates quitting guilds? It always feels awkward, whether it's an obviously terrible guild, or just a nice but ill-fitting one, I feel like a jerk for leaving. So much so that in some MMOs, I end up never joinging a guild at all, which leads to being quickly bored by the game, and moving onto another MMO entirely. Often I've joined only one or two, not liked them, and ended up quitting a game before ever finding a good one, because I can't bear all the guild hopping that seems to be necessary.
Yet people talk about how if you want to really get into an MMO, you have to join a guild, as if it's that simple. I've gotten lucky once or twice over my years of online gaming. A few and far between exception, not at all the norm.
So I wish devs would come up with some sort of new guild mechanic that would streamline the process of players getting to know guilds - and vice-versa. I'm not sure how it could work exactly, but it would be great if I could find a guild that was right for me, without actually needing to join it first. Maybe if there were some in-game bulliten board system of tracking guild stats and variables, which guilds could use to advertise, and players could use to make better initial choices?
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
I currently belong to a raid-centric guild on Age of Conan. The raids are well-executed and I've received my share of epic gear. But when I read this article, #3 should have been in flashing neon. I understand that while I'm a relative newcomer to the guild, I've noticed there is definitely an inner circle there...and if you're not part of it you're pretty much ignored.
I've tried to be social in both chat and vent. Nothing major - a 'hello' when I log on, a 'grats' when a guild member scores a piece of raid gear they were looking for and a "good night and thank you" when the raid is over and I log out. The reaction I've received to these interactions could be described as stony indifference, especially from the higher-ups. I've not descended to the realm of bodily function jokes (nor will I) because I have the foresight to know it wouldn't make any difference.
My epiphany came today when I realized that if my station will never improve in my guildmates' eyes there is nothing I can do to change it. And you know what? I'm fine with that now. The main reason I joined the guild was to get my share of raid gear. Once that's done we can part ways with no regrets or hurt feelings. I helped them with my class/game knowledge and they helped me by assisting me in acquiring my epic gear. A simple business deal, nothing more.
Besides, there's always hope that the next guild will 'get' me. That's always something to look forward to.
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. - Marie Curie