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Does anyone just 'help' anymore?
I've played way too many mmo's than I am proud of, but it seems WOW has a completely different take on grouping and guilds. I remember in EQ1, being in a guild meant helping in raids so people could get geared for even bigger raids down the road. We would help those who didn't complete their epics, get them, because we wanted the prestige. We liked when others outside the guild look at us and thought "now THOSE guys help each other". We had guild meetings, we met each other character to character, and basically just tried to build something great out of it.
But I've played WoW off an on since Vanilla launch. I've always been a loner in WOW, the guilds I was in in other MMO's have long since retired into the guild graveyard. And it seems in WOW, the guilds and groups have taken the mentality of "you already need to know everything if we bring you in, we don't want to actually help you". How is a player suppose to learn if he's already suppose to be an expert before even walking into a guild or a Random?
I have an 84 Ret Pally, I've been in..MAYBE..7 instances in that character's life span. Mainly because, no guild wants anyone that doesn't 'know the fights' or anyone that isn't already geared or got voted out because the group couldn't zerg win the dungeon in 5 seconds as opposed to 15 seconds. Which is backward logic if you ask me. I mean, if I was already geared and knew all the fights...why would I need you? Ahh but I am of a different mindset, I need you because I want to help others who are going through what I went through. To help others learn, without being pressured into being perfect the first time or risk being kicked, and to grow as a guild that actually becomes friends instead of co-workers.
I don't think I'll ever see that in WoW..and its a shame..WoW is a great polished product that could be so much better if people would be more patient with players that are learning to dungeon run.
Sorry, had to get that out there.
Comments
wow is like a gas station mmo. it's all about convenience now. people can't be bothered to go that extra mile.
My personal experience in WoW has been that people are usually quite tolerant of new players as long as they tell them ahead that they are new to a dungeon and are willing to learn.
On forums I hear horror stories about people getting mistreated over low gearscore but in the hundreds of random heroics I have run I have seen one mention of gearscore and that was people offering more help to the undergeared guy.
People in WoW help out all the time but you have to know how to ask for that help properly and not simply use 'I am new' as an excuse.
Millions of people play.
How about making it more the way you want it to be?
Go form a guild, then use a small message to tell others what you want to do. I think you would find many others that would enjoy a guild that wanted to learn the raids, and have fun in them not just see how fast they could be ran.
Just have to understand, that to many of the raiding guilds that is what they enjoy. Running raids as fast as possible.
It really is up to you.
I see messages every day of guilds forming that want to learn the raids looking for new people. So even if you do not want to form your own, what you are looking for is out there. Just have to go find it.
I joined a guild in WoW after leaving an elite stuck up pig guild, because they needed help. So I bring over the class they said they need and I try to get in groups with them so I can learn how they work together and couldn't even get answers to the /tells. At the same time, I PUGged and got Halls of Reflection, god I hate that place as a tank. I told them upfront that I didn't know if I was good enough to tank, but they talked me into staying. We wiped and one DPS bailed but the second time we walked through very easily. So there are both good and bad, but it was really sad that a PUG ended up being more helpful than a persons own guild.
Like others have said, I've seen quite a bit of both myself. Generally, guilds that are looking for any level will be very helpful to everyone - assuming they have leaders who stick around. Guilds who are only looking for 85's are probably not going to be terribly helpful usually. I was in a guild for a while, though, that had mostly 80's but would take lower levels and were fairly selective with their recruitment. That guild was awesome about running newer players through stuff and teaching them how to do it so, like others have said, they are out there. All that said, bad experiences have made me very guild-shy and currently I am not guilded.
** edited due to an error.
I was pleasantly surprised when I went from Apprentice to full 5 star Elite in under 2 months. I was pleasantly surprised again when I went from Elite to just barely Hardcore in 2 weeks. Apprentice, here I come!
I think this stems down to things just being easier and more solo content. In BC you needed to be Keyed. This brought guilds together to help each other get keyed and get gear. Vanilla even moer so. With the whole WOTLK people have a totally different mind set. You tunred 80 and you did heroics the same day. Good gear was just handed out. So there was no reason for anyone to help each other. Pretty much all group quests you were able to solo.
On another note I was in a guild where you were in your 10 man raid (which was all guild members) and you really didnt talk to the others.
Back in BC and Vanilla my first and fav guild was awesome. We used to have events weekly, help each other out all the time and best of all people respected each other. No Drama. I think those days are gone.
In a nut shell its just the people that Blizz has brought into the game. Console gamers who are just not used to working with others and also Kids who dont understand yet how to work and respect others.
I've seen both sides of the coin. And been on both.
I've been in a very helpful guild and in a not-very helpful guild. Same guild actually. It morphed and split. Lotta drama.
Now I see things differently and am just having fun with RL friends and family in WoW. We just hang out and help eachother out. No drama. No need to rush for latest and greatest gear.
I've run plenty of 5-man where a really undergeared person was basically carried as worthless. I dont mind. If I outgear them and I run a random and he's poorly geared and doesnt know jack from squat and tells me, cool. I'll help him. If he's poorly geared and causing problems, then I dont hesitate to vote yes to that kick.
Its a matter of make what you will of it.
You want a helpful guild? Stay in a city and watch trade for one of the guild adds to pop in and check it out. Or create one yourself.
I cant tell you how many "helping" guilds I've seen. Ones that specify saying they want players new to the game.
People help newer players even today in modern MMOs. Even in WoW.
However even back in the old days people tried to help themselves first. That just doesn't happen anymore. People see other players as mobile pez dispensers shooting out shiny items for them to use or strangly coded NPCs that behave strangely but exist to carry them to the shiny goodness. The level of entitlement in MMOs nowadays is staggering.
Another problem is the internet. WoW has seen an explosion in numbers no other MMO has ever seen before (and probably won't again). With such a large playerbase every bit of the game gets dissected, studied, debated and splattered all over for everyone to see in a matter of seconds.
There are no secrets.
There is nothing to figure out.
Before the content gets released it has been smashed and splashed over sites from beta events. There is only a vey small portion of WoWs playerbase who go into anything blind, simply because it's all there, it's been done and people have probably posted guides how to do it. Step by step. If you haven't looked into it, I can almost guarantee someone in your group or guild have and they will go over it before the fight.
But in WoW, I discovered most people who want help don't really. They want someone to do things for them. How many people have helped someone to be asked after for items, gold, even more 'help'?
I miss the old days before mass instancing were guilds would hoard their secrets until content was outdated and people had patience to figure things out for themselves.
This is not only Wow,this is the Wow generation that grew up playing Wow,it is the ME generation,very selfish players.
I have been in guilds ALL except maybe 2 where i was the most helpful,more so than the entire guild put together.Worse than that is everyone can plainly see when someone needs something by their level,players dont ASK,if anyone needs help,you practically have to beg them.Usually i do run into the very rare guild member that is like me and says "hey junior,i see you need to do so and so right now,want help?"You just will NOT see it in ANY game,excpet like i said as RARE as the rarest loot drop.
This is why FFXI at least in the old days was far superior fro community.When i grew up playing FFXI,i had to play with unknown people and mostly JPN because people i knew were not in the game yet,they had to wait for the PS3 release/hard drive.What i saw was amazing,i would see JPN players using the awesome translator ask me if i needed help,i thought wow man,that just does not happen,and sure enough,these guys on many occasions would help me out.
When i started playing FFXI,i was a true noob,and righfully so,no internet to guide me in the hardest mmo made to date,yet the JPN players helped me even when i was dying like a noob,no complaints,no dropping group or booting me,just helpful as heck.So i guess maybe it is the JPN/Asian thing,i have nothing but respect for them,VERY helpful people,way more so than NA people.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I think one major problem in games these days is that the guilds have become too powerful.
Back in the glory days you had maybe 8% in true hardcore guilds, 8% in wanna-be hardcore guilds, 3% in roleplay guilds, 25% in social/family guilds and the other half of players, guildless. Guilds had no "powers" other than a chat channel.
Now guilds get all kinds of perks in games that people not in guilds do not get. There are levelling guilds that are there as stepping stones. At the endgame most people from the social guilds drop them in favor of a more hardcore guild.
I would have to say today it is more 8% in true hardcore guilds, 40% in wanna-be hardcore guilds, who roleplays anymore?(sigh), 25% in social/family guilds, and 20% in levelling guilds with only 7% guildless.
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But with all of the perks currently -- you are insane not to guild in a lot of games.
And this leads to the closure of the people -- they do things within the guild. If you are on the outside you get far less help.
The guildless in the old games used to be some of the most helpful people around. The guildless in the current games are more likely people who couldnt find a guild or people who dont want to "join the wrong guild" on the way to a hardcore guild, or a solo only player.
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The other big change is voice chat. Before ventrillo people watched the shouts a lot more carefully.
Now a lot of people are in their own world. You can't concentrate on a vent and manage to pay attention to the rest of the world also. It is kind of like the walking zombies in their cell-phone daze IRL.
I really have to agree with this.
I have been away from WoW for a few months, so I'm not in a guild. So far, that's okay. I have been in three PUGs and they were all good, helpful and patient. I'm sure that is good luck. But also, whenever we entered an instance, people said whether they had been there or not. We started out like that each time and said "hi" etc, when coming into the group to feel out the mood of that particular PUG.
The last time I was in a guild, I wasn't searching. I just ran and instance and a couple of the people from my server saw that I was not in a guild and asked if I wanted to join them. It turned out to be a really nice guild. I didn't ask for help, but they scheduled raids and invited newer players in to do the raid dailies. "The first team" would go in to raids first, get geared first and so on. But they were also learning the fights first so they could teach newer members. If you were patient for a couple of weeks and went to raids when spots opened up, played your role, corrected errors, read up on certain fights, you got more invites. Its just a fact of life that organized and decent guilds reward competence or at least effort to improve for the team.
If you weren't in a raid, you could still hang out in guild chat or vent. It was like a WoW radio talk show where experienced members would give lots of good advice and insight in their conversations. You could also hear what was going in raids. Sometimes people leave and you get a call. It was fun and felt like you were always connected. I grew with the guild, but eventually took a break from WoW. I hesitated for a long time, because I didn't want to leave that great guild.
Some people left early because they were impatient and didn't get on the first team raiding in the first week. They were the ones always checking gear score. They assumed because they had higher gear scores than others, they should be on the first time - in spite of their crap attitude.
And there were also those people constantly asking for/demanding help. They didn't last long either.
So, if you are patient and just have fun playing, and have a positive, friendly attitude, you will eventually find a guild and/or they will find you. That's my experience.
Got to say i love those percentages you are pulling out of your ass.
*thumbs up*
I was actually in Syndicate on UO and EQ for a while (anyone who's anyone in MMO's knows who they are). And several guilds branched off of them. I was in a great one on EQ, people actually gathered in person to meet and greet..having tradeskill contests. We dropped our gear and everyone fist-faught in the Arena (well except the Monks, they had to sit and watch lol). But it was little things like that that TRULY symbolized what a 'family oriented' guild was. You started to actually care about the people you saw log in, even though you don't know them irl. So that, in turn, made helping them get their epics, or whatever..even more meaningful.
I'd say in my WoW-life, encompassing all of my characters..I've tested out about 20 guilds across roughly 5 servers so far..yeah, I've literally shelled out $ to move my toons in search of decent adult oriented and helpful guilds. I recently moved to Zangarmarsh to get out of queue hadies from Area 52. I won't give their name out of respect, but I joined a self proclaimed 'family oriented pugging/raiding guild'. Heck, their main sales pitch was "be apart of a family with no drama and helpful people". And the longer I was in, the more profanity and immaturity began showing itself. They'd start complaining about their pugs and about how everyone they were teamed with didn't know what they were doing.
So when I hear that, I begin thinking "ok I haven't grouped that much because of this right here...if I group with this guild are they going to go off on me like they are doing everyone else?" It definitely doesn't send a good signal.
Now let me preface this by saying, when I 'test' a guild. I test things that they advertised. But I do it with class, and I don't do it all at once. Most times, I'm in a guild for several weeks, to give people time to get used to me, and to show I'm not there to clean out their bank lol.
If they say they are helpful, I test it. Couple weeks in, I ask for help running a dungeon, I pick one that's easy just to see if they will do it..or heck, just general knowledge questions: "Hey which of these items should I go with?"
Crickets...always crickets. And no, they aren't all on Vent raiding or too busy. I make sure to pick times to ask things when not a lot of things are going on. So really I am basically just gauging if they are what they say they are. Most of the times they are not.
I know there are great guilds out there somewhere, and yeah, I have contemplated starting one to encompass my own view of how things should be run. But I'm starting to wonder if there are enough players like me to even make it worth the work.
Good friends are hard to find ... doesn't matter what world you're in.
I don't think anything is wrong with WoW or the genre when it comes to helping, sometimes in wow I get zero help, but when I first played and now in Cata I get help all the time, just yesterday me and a few others dealt with some low level wipes to help teach a tank how to tank, and rules for grouping in general.
However, I think we as MMO gamers should try to be more helpful more often, being unhelpful destroys the community faster then trolling, in my opinion. For example, in Lotro nobody helped me at all in the beginning, so it really made me hate the game. Nowadays I don't think Lotro has a crappy community, I really don't know what kind of community they have nowadays, but because of my bad experiences I just don't feel like retrying the game.
-I want a Platformer MMO
i help people whenever i can in any game. the problem though is sometimes you get people that are just, well...idiots. i know that sounds mean but, it takes them ages to grasp simple things. that really makes me think twice when offering to help somebody out because i never know if this quick 5-10 minute task will turn into a hour long process.
but ya, people do just help.
And don't get me wrong. I'm not asking for handouts. To me, its not about the gear. I one of those mmo'rs that go out of my way to help someone get what they need. I just see less and less of that being done. In the guilds I've been in its been more of a mentality of 'get the gear you need to join us on your own'..and then we'll all group together as a happy family after the fact. To me, people today have it backwards.
And what is comical, is the ones that have ran these a thousand times are more vocal about the fear of wiping than the ones trying to learn and don't know what to expect. Well, think about it...who do you think is more afraid of wiping or messing up..you, who have done these a billion times in your sleep...or the new tank or healer that is terrified of messing up and making more enemies accidentally than making friends on purpose? One wipe for you probably isn't going to be as traumatizing as it will be to the new guy.
And when I mean new guy, I'm obviously talking about a player who really is trying their best..not the lazy player who doesn't really intend on helping but instead tries to coast and use the fact that they are new to mask what their real intentions are.
as for help in WoW it seems a lot higher on non-pvp servers people are more laid back there , a bit less focused on attacking and more or general gaming the world instead of getting strong enough to challange other players
I challenged my reflection to a staring contest....4 days later i won
I've experienced this from every mmo I've ever played. You will often get insight into people only looking to advance themselves in a new mmo when say you're leveling at a moderate pace and you have obvious power gamers forming guilds and only looking for people that are "X" level +...it's like you know you're a good player and would make a darn good guildmate, but obviously they are only looking for "highly" motivated gamers that put in booku time.
But I just started playing WoW again and I found myself starting over on a new server and found a lot of really nice, courteous players in the pugs I've been in. I swear the tank I had one night in a Silverfang Keep run could not tank the last boss and we wiped at lease a dozen times. One hunter left, but the rest of use stuck in there until he got it right. I mean if you're not going to be an example once and a while so others can witness the "correct" way of dealing with impatience then who has room to talk?
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
You get the strangest reactions out of people when you refuse help actually...
IE you are playing a game like WoW except that you havent played it before etc and everyone wants to get you to the endgame.
When you say you dont want to just get to the endgame but you want to experience the levels inbetween, you almost break some people.
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The last thing one wants in a game is to have 1,000,000 gold dropped on your lap making the game utterly trivial.
Advice sure. But that noooo..
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I look at it the same way from the other side -- if someone wants to know how to do something -- great. If someone wants me to do something for them -- glare.
QFT