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MMORPG.COM News: Debate: Guild Favortism
Dana
Member Posts: 2,415
Frank and Garrett argue the idea of guild favortism in MMORPGs as our Saturday debate series continues. We encourage you to read on and then join the fray on our boards.
| Garrett Fuller: There is nothing wrong with guilds in MMORPGs. They are designed to have friends and people work together throughout the course of the game. There are countless single player games on the market for people who enjoy that type of game play. Using guilds in MMORPGs create fun alliances with other players all across the world. Solo content is needed in MMOs, but group content should be the driving force of a Massive Multi-Player game.
I belong to a great guild in WoW and was part of a good one in DAOC who always worked and played together. Whether it was PvE or PvP playing with your guild mates is always fun. Even with DDO out now you need a well designed group to accomplish the dungeons. This was the basic concept behind RPGs to begin with. Therefore guilds are formed in order to give players access to these high-end dungeons. I have a very close friend who I have tried to convince to play WoW with us. He really only likes solo-player games, so he sticks to them. I have to agree with that philosophy. In an MMO guilds are the way to go. |
You can read the full debate here.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Comments
I have to say i am totally against the guild-only features or content in ANY way. Just like someones signature in the boards says that a true raider will be perfectly happy with abilities gained in raids that only are useful in raids too a guild should only have features that are helpful for the guild itself (like emblems etc.).
The way WoW does it, they're basically taking at least one of the M's out of MMO, the Massive. You just hang around the same people all the time, not even because you like them, but because you can "get stuff done".
Now, i was in a really great guild back when i played DAoC, we were small, but we were great friends who still maintain an RL friendship (that sprang out of the IG friendship!) up to this day, and we were GOOD at playing our chars, so somewhat skilled. Also we usually organized Caer Sidi raids EVERY friday, with everyone lvl 40+ able to join. The guildmembers would mainly function as the leader group, sorting out things like leading, lottoing, assisting etc. Guilds are great to do things like that, since you have to rely on each other a lot for it. We were also good at handling minor epic encounters rather easily with a guild group, because we wouldnt even need to communicate, neither type nor voice, to know what the others are up to or when to heal. This is partially because of the closeness, but also a lot of it comes from actually knowing how to play your char, and because of this can be recreated even when grouping with strangers.
Now, after telling how great my guild was, lets get to the part about how i "got stuff done". Stuff being lvling, questing, trial-ing, farming. Lets say im in a group, with strangers, doing something. We have a spot opening in the group, sadly it's the main tank or main damage dealer or whatever that left. Now some guildy asks in the guild chan if someones got a group for him. He's in the right lvl range etc., only his class is practically the least thing my current group needs. So what do i do? I tell him that we dont need his class at the moment, and i keep looking for the type we need. This is perfectly ok, because we all play that game as a hobby, we pay for it, we want to get stuff done, and we're still friends even if we dont constantly group together, so i always stick to the most effective setup to get something done, be it with or without guildmates in my group. Guildies are whom you can rely on if everything else FAILS, not the solution to everything so you never ever have to get in contact with those strange other people playing the game.
WoW basically eliminated the possibility to "get stuff done" without a guild. You dont have a chance of finding an open MC raid, or you're only "tolerated" and have to be submissive. The players in WoW have ELIMINATED part of their freedom. It's not only that you cant get stuff done unguilded or in a small yet friendly guild, but most guilds except the occasional great one i've encountered are, though being entirely filled wiht people from democratic countries, worse than most totalitarian states when it comes to guild politics, choice, freedom and questions of leadership/hierarchy/what to do in the future. What is happening when you join a guild to get the raid content is basically considered a trade-off..... submission to guild rules for raiding groups. Yet, how can they demand that you give up part of your freedom for content that YOU have PAYED for? And all this is done to the players by the players themselves....
I'd rather have a completely guildless MMO, with not even the possibility to form one, and just a nice friendlist feature, so i can keep in touch, than the mess WoW made out of guilding. MMO have always had a large social aspect to them, and guilds were an offspring of it. Now guilds are made into tools, devices to get the item or quest you need. Honestly, most MMOs that've kept me for long did so because of the friends i had there. Naturally the majority of them would be in my guild, yet in DAoC i had pretty much the same amount of close friends in and outside of the guild, and they had no problem joining my groups or even mostly guild groups, because guilds are not meant to CONTROL you, but only for benefit and social aspects.
Lastly I turn to the communities. I wont go into detail about the WoW community, but, seriously, do you like having communities like this, all focused about their guild and their small elitist group? I like my community to be SERVER-WIDE. I want to play with everyone anytime if i want to, and be able to accomplish something. I want people ive never met before to come to my raids, and i want to go to other peoples raids and just join in with all the other people. I want to have friends i can rely on, so when there's an emergency and we absolutely need some scout to pull for us or the raid will fail, i can call someone, and he comes, and i want it to be the same for them, i want people to send me a /tell and ask if i can come help them out, or if i wanna group with them, because THEY WANT TO, not because i'm in their guild, and have to submit to guild rules in order to even get a group. I want freedom, choice and community.
I've played a whole batch of mmos for a while now, but I never stuck with one long enough to reach the lvl cap. However, I decided to put an end to that and return to WoW and reach 60 with my main. In the beginning, it was enjoyable getting up to 60 but that soon came to end when I actually hit the lvl cap.
I joined a pretty big guild in order to move on and get in on the 20-40 man raids and epic gear, but I really couldn't say I liked anyone in the guild. To be honest, it was as if everyone there was just too l337 to focus on anything other than getting epic loot. I couldn't really find anything to conversate about with the members nor did I even feel as if I was any part in the guild at all.
Basically in order to move on in the game and do all the fun and new stuff, you need to be part of a big uber guild that you probably won't even like. I find that to be pretty crappy imo and I honestly don't know where to go to next but I'm close to throwing the towel and calling it quits.
Julie "Lissette" Myers
Lissette, Lissy, Lyssette etc of LotRO
formally,
Lissette, Lissy, Lyssette etc of DDO
Lyssette of Anarchy Online
Lissette of Shadowbane
Lissette of Asheron's Call
Lissy of World of Warcraft
And many more!
That's crap. I've played a number of mmogs too and there have always been alliances across guilds who share the same goals. It can, and does, work in WoW too. Yes it may take more organisation, but 2, 3 or more guilds can join up temporarily to form a larger raid or tackle a common goal. Meta-guilds are formed all the time.
Guild only content is bad, plain and simple.
The guild structure adds a lot to a game and finding the right one can lead to a lot of fun but having guild only content, guild only advance paths and all other things down that path is a bad thing. I want to play a game to have fun, if I happen to have more fun with a guild that's great but if I have to put up with some racist loser with infinite time on his hands spewing stuff in guild chat to access parts of the game that's not a game for me.
The problem is not guilds. The problem is not raiding. The problem is that raiding make all non-raiding trivial.
Guilds and raids challenge should just have no impact at all on the solo aspect of the game. I understand folks who work hard don't want a soloer to just be doing the same without doing anything but soloing. But I also understand that a soloer want to be the BEST soloer on the server. Both are legitimate needs. The only answer is to have different end games and different end way to progress, each been proper to itself.
Guilds benefit from a strong soloing game most than anyone else. If peoples are happy and soloing then you have a very nice ressourcefull pool to recruit members. If peoples aren't happy soloing, than guilds find themselves more and more isolated, more and more in a desolated wasteland. The best soloer has to be a soloer, not a guilded raider, a soloer. The best raiders has to be folks who earn it raiding. Folks should earn what they care for in those samelike activities.
Giving an ultimate sword of doom that is overall best at everything is flawed, it is lazy design, it can only bring to all peoples been excluded to be unhappy about it. Solo uberness has to be earned soloing, group uberness earned grouping...and raiding uberness earned raiding. If you earn the overall best in only 1 activity, than all other activities are trivial and ill.
You have to see peoples soloing like there is no tomorrow and peoples raiding as hard as possible, each according to their own hearts, not to the devs wishlist. Nobody is more solo worthy than a soloer. Yeah that is some work, but considering that solo & grouping is more than 90% of the MMO players pool, you either drop raiding or design it that way.
Will guilds lose some peoples if it only give raiding uberness? Prolly, but it will be for the best of those guilds and the best of all other players who will be able to earn what they care for the way they enjoy.
Peoples who believe that "Hardwork" and "enduring" raiding while it is not fun deserve anything think in a non-hobby way. We are in a hobby, giving best items to peoples who pay RL $ would offend me less than giving those items to peoples who actually raid despite not enjoying it. Only peoples who enjoy raiding should be raiding. Folks who raids for solo uberness and that cry at the very idea of the Ultimate Sword of Doom not been given raiding should not be catered to, should not be tolerated. Anyway, they would just go where their heart belong even if they can't admit it.
Afterlife and FoH are prime example of what a guild should NOT be under any consideration, peoples are harsh, they are not enjoying raiding and...they are not raiders (there are a few exceptions, there are a few peoples who actually enjoy raiding in those guilds, but they are minorities). They are folks who enjoy finding an "unfair" advantage at the expanse of the majority.
I don't know which part of this is so hard to understand for anyone. There is not even the same amount of players, those are NOT the same activities. Subjugating soloing in a MMO to any non-solo activity is a mistake, a crude design mistake. Some pro-raiding folks are so blinded, they say peoples should play single player games, but don't they understand that raiding would be that much better if it was not crippled with all those raid-haters that actually rather be soloing or doing anything else but are raiding for the leet? Raiding could be fun, but it have to attract a majority of raiders first, not a majority of players who want to rules in solo/grouping and actually dislike raiding.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
For reference: Anofalye's signature is what i was referring to in the first paragraph of my post.
That's crap. I've played a number of mmogs too and there have always been alliances across guilds who share the same goals. It can, and does, work in WoW too. Yes it may take more organisation, but 2, 3 or more guilds can join up temporarily to form a larger raid or tackle a common goal. Meta-guilds are formed all the time.
Hmm have you succesfully done this on WoW? Majority of guilds follow their own raid schedules and systems as to how they handle their raids. If you have a guild of friends that casually play, there's most likely going to be a problem in finding a guild that will ally with you and help you on your raids. Also, there are always many conflicts when dealing with epic loot and dkps and I'm pretty sure if you're running a raid with let's say 5 of your friends vs. 10 or more of another guild, you're not getting that loot.
Whichever way you put it, these endgame instances have become guild exclusive. There's no way that you will fully enjoy all of the endgame content, unless you belong a big guild. Also, the alliances that I've seen have been formed by various medium-large sized guild, which I will again say that I highly doubt that a small guild of your friends will make it.
Been looking for an article about this topic.
Glad to see one.
Personally I think GUILD ONLY content is an extremely bad idea.
However i see more and more incredibly bad ideas and design decisions with each new MMO from an established company.
Its amazing how these companies tend to end up their own worst enemy.
Just mentions sony's name and watch the justified dislike flow
Same with turbine
Personally i dont think its an issue of "you cant make and keep people happy". Ive got games that are 10+ years old that i still play and i am still happy enough with.
The ideas of forced grouping and now the even more bizzare forced GUILDING (to access content no less) are just so OUT of touch with what alot of players want, its just so hard for me to understand how the companies can be so clueless.
I mean theres "out of touch" (not having a clue what the customer currently wants)and theres things like this which could be called "none existant touch" (not having a clue about anything related to the product, period).
Why are so many MMO companies, especially the established ones getting more and more in the "none existant touch" catagory ?
It cant just be corporate thinking taking over ? Can it ?
The guild I was in was large enough to not form an alliance, but I do know that a few guilds did this. I'm not saying it is easy, just not impossible.
Frank is right Garrett is not, period
I agree to a lot of this, guilds have a place in MMO's but FORCING grouping/guilding was what drove myself and our small contingent of friends away from EQ1&2 (played from the start on both with 2 accounts). Guess I probably payed Smeds wages for 7years.
Sony are simply rude and stupid when it comes to CUSTOMER SERVICE, it wasn't simply guilds and grouping that really caused their STATUS as No.1 A$$#%|3$
(More often known as "CS" or Customer dis-Service)
But from my experience in and out of guilds it was patently obvious the large POWER guilds are run by either a top PAID employee or a friend of such with as many as 10 accounts shared by the guilds for farming phat lewtz and cash to sell online (not ALL guilds, just a few).
This is not a fantasy, EQ started it and the other games have promoted this aspect of guilds and you will often find military or someone of armed forces/police background in many of the better ones, not to say they are ALL Farming, but the treatment of some members etc. is pretty much based on a military system in many instances and I KNOW this, having been in one of these type.
This is fine, guilds are OK but to be honest until a game comes out like some people hope for, the Soloer is pretty much just so much muck between the toes of most MMO companies at the moment. They are simply a minority. Corporations like "Sony" will always go the way of the BUCK to pay the shareholders. Corporate thinking isn't taking over, it was ALWAYS here and has been since the early 90's of the last century (at least, and probably as far back as the Howard Hughes era).
As far as soloing is concerned..
So SOME guildies like to solo now and then.
These are usually the UBER clothed "PIG" factor that tend to creep towards guilds for their kicks of grinding fulltime soloers under their heels. EQ1 was full of the "Hildegarde Bard" types who got enjoyment out of running keyboard hacks to raise some extra cash and cause discontent in general just for kicks.
I seriously doubt if there is EVER going to be any decent MMO without guild favored content, simply because "powerheads", "children" and "ex-military" people are a MAJORITY. You often find these types have a problem differentiating between ARCADE BEATEM UPS<(nintendo etc.) and RPG<(which were the mainstay of MMO once upon a time). The high score has been replaced by the UBER GEAR, most CASH & "I AM L33T3st" ingame.
Simply put, GUILD forced gaming will always attract the same cross-section of society anyway so maybe some of the lesser MMO's will be nicer places to go in the future.
The best thing to do is write your own game, it seems there are a lot of platforms out there and literally hundreds of homegrown efforts.
We can only DREAM and isn't that what our time online in the MMO's is about?
)
P.S.
I think if Hitler was alive today he would be running some sweet guilds and probably Dominate the WEB...
again Frank is right
Guild Wars 2 is my religion
I agree with Frank.
I join a guild because it's fun to play with them and not because there are efficent co-workers cranking out packages of loot. I quit WoW because the end-game was no fun not being able to do it without my "fun" guild members.
At least GuildWars is being up front about guild based content right in their name. It's like the upcoming film "Snakes on a Plane", if you don't like snakes on a plane, don't watch it. Even then I'm playing Guildwars with no intention of playing the endgame PvP and the guild I'm a member of has no intention of doing it either.
Guilds are fun to be a part of if they are not necessary to the game. I have no desire to turn my hobbies into my job, so I don't really want to be employed by a guild to help harvest loot for them minus the fun.
I have hopes for some of the upcoming MMOs out there that are promising that guild content will not drive the endgame and I hope they are telling the truth.
It actually depended greatly on the game's target audience.
(Hard)Core player enjoy guild only contents, while casual players do not.
Where the mass market is? It's the casual players. Like hell, casual player just hate the idea or grouping, or better to say this way, they hate to spend the TIME to find a group. And so, in order to make money, you'll need to have more contents for solo players.
Actually i think you're confusing hardcore with something else.
Basically, a hardcore player is a player that is tremendously good at getting what he wants. He will level fast as hell, he will get all the best items if he wants to, and he will have great success at everything else he puts effort into.
Yet, the hardcore player has an alltogether different mindset than what you described.
A hardcore player gets what he WANTS, yet he doesnt necessarily want everything. And i myself, being hardcore to a certain degree at least (i would list stuff ive done but you'd have no reason to believe me anyway), am against guild only content, because while i want to get the stuff i want, i also want to get it in a way i like. If i dont like the requirements to get "it", then i wont do it.
The people you described are pretty much the kiddies, the gankers and the "I r teh leetest!" guys that just want everything there is to show how much better than everyone else they are. There might be some hardcore players that are like this too, but i would advise against generalization of hardcore players.
Actually the discussion contains some error.
Eve Online does feature some high end content only available to corporations (guilds) and alliances (formalised groups of guilds).
Things like formal territorial control have the requirement to form an alliance. Things liek player owned structures in space have the requirement to form a corporation. And even the most basic pve content in the form of missions does sometimes require grouping and will require it more so in the future.
Of course, it's by no means a majority of the content, but it is a growing share of it. It's perfectly ine by me tbh, since the soloplayer or smaller corporations can find their place within the conent offered by these additions wthout actually owning them. They just depend on the owners and need to negotiate agreements.
As long as that is very likely to happen (and in Eve context it always will be), there's imo no issue with restricting some of the high-end features to use/ownership by groups only.
I have belonged to guilds in almost all the games I have played. For social interaction. When a game starts requiring it I leave the game. I left Earth and Beyond because the gear content became restricted to raids. I left WOW at level 60 for the same reason. Now I played Diablo for ever. Me and my wife would team up to play, I would play alone, me and a buddy would play.
I would love to see more games that use scaling of difficutly by the group size. That way everyone who played could do the same things and it be a challenge.
In WOW the raiders said this would be bad. You have to work to get the gear. It seems if you are not in a group, its not work. Guilds do two things. Bring some friends together, or create an elitist attitude.
Gave up COH/COV because of forced grouping also.
When Auto Assault breaks its promise I will leave it also. Untill it does I will play it.
More casual, solo players need to quit games that change the format on them. Maybe they will get it finally. WOW has some hardcore players, that are Devs. They changed the format of the game. Their plan was minor differences between raid gear and non. Not the case.
ruat caelum
It's a difficult dilemma. As much as few like the 'business only' guilds, I think that they're always going to form, whether or not content is directed their way. It's like some law of physics that people working in a group are going to achieve greater success than individuals in any situation. If you create content intended for 1-6 players, then 12 players will inevitably gather together to more easily blast through that content.
I've often wondered why I'm not able to be a part of more than one guild in a PvE game. In many PvP games with GvG content, the reasons are obvious. But in a game where you don't have to worry about spies or interest conflicts, where its players vs. content, I think we should be allowed multiple memberships. That way, I can remain with my super-casual fun time friends guild who never get anything done, and also be a part of that mandatory raid night guild that helps me get my raid exclusive content. Imagine how much more tolerable that raid with mates we don't care about would be if we could retain a chat channel with casual guild friends to shoot the jokes with.
I mean, In RL, there's nothing to stop me from joining a serious win-oriented football team and also join a weekend casual poker group at the same time. There's nothing to stop me from getting two jobs if I want-- one to make money to pay the bills, and one because I like the people who work there. I think MMOs should allow me the same opportunity.
http://erickveil.com/
Your question/example of having to abandon your friends at work to get ahead is a great example of what's busted in most MMO guild implementations.
Why not model guild membership like real social circles - ie - you can be involved in a number of them, to serve a number of different goals? That'd give you the ability to be involved in one guild for hard-core adventuring, another guild for fun/casual/social play, and another guild for other game mechanics (crafting, etc).
Requiring membership and allegiance to a single guild would be like only allowing you one circle of friends, or one news source, or a single restaurant chain to eat at.
It's a legacy dinosaur from the infancy of the industry - and it should go the way of the dinoaur.
Making monsters just as strong so a group of 5 players or 40 players, with diminishing returns above *variable X* numbers of players, is artificial, gamey, and lousy game design. Its nice to see ALL games copy this concept, ruining all future and pressent games, with everquest cloneage.
Dont forget, you need 1 healer, 1 tank, 1 nuker, and 2 miscellaneous, or else your gimp.
THIS IS FREAKING LAME! So are guilds and the high command in wwiionline. I dont want to play a damn rat maze, whether its a literal rat-maze or a figurative one.
Well, I belive that the problem of the "guild only content" is how its implemented and how its work. Because, if the "guild only content" is much better that the standard content, them all problems will come, leaders abuse, elitism, monopoly, great difference and distance between "member of ubberguilds" and the standard players (casual or not).
So the "guild only content" should be a part of the reason to join on a guild, not the main reason ! Also, content should not be ovepowered, and also be acessible to players out of guilds, or members of small guilds.
As exemple of the problems that could come of the poor implemented "guild only content", of Ragnarok online, is War of Emperium, where the clans might take a few castles that not only give acess to special dungeons (with exclusive monsters), but a economic tool that allows not only to take good things but a few that can be only get from castles.
So what happens? ubber clans take castles, and so the take all of this content, with this, they get morepowerfull, they get more rich, what happens later? the continue to hold the castles, because of this advantages while the other have a incresed difficult. Very soon, the ubber monopoly
several castles. (join this with the alliances between ubber clans, to have even more problems).
As long the cicle continues, the ubber will get more ubber, the other face a crushing force without chances, the ubber then could easily take down most of the mpv (the bosses of ragnarok, drop
good itens and have good xp), while the others face major dificult. (it is very annoing to be hunting
a mvp, only to see him killed by ubbers, how proabily already have killed him several times on a row)Also in pvp the ubber will have advantage.
Soon, major of the content of ragnarok (actually the game don't have much at all) is on the hands of major clans and people for small/medium clans wishing to have acess to this "guild only content" (since they don't have much other content to use) start to leave their clans and become just numbers on this guilds.
So, as I have side on the begin, the "guild only content" don't is the problem, but how its implementedand how its work, it should be a reason for join or build a clan, not the main reason. And also solo and small guild should have acess at least to part of this content.
There is a subtle symbiotic relationship in MMO's between the various playstyles. If MMO's continue to favor particular playstyles at the exclusion of others, it will end up destroying the relationship. That's not good for business or for players. No particular playstyle can support a good game alone.
Sooner or later this will become obvious to companies. Then an innovative developer will realize this and this unfortunate trend will be reversed. The pendulum will swing the other way.
In the meantime, the single-player game market will benefit, as more and more people have their playstyles bullied out of MMO's.
There is a fine line between having a choice to group or join a guild and being forced to join a group or a guild. I personally join guilds with friends of mine in them or with people I've been friendly with in the game I'm playing. I don't join them so we can go on massive raids, I join them to have fun and to have people to hang out with and group with and to in turn help others with their quests/missions/etc. I can't stand guilds who basically run around trying to own everything and everyone on a server. A little competition is a good thing, but I've seen too much trouble caused because of the philosophy that only by being part of a big guild or a power guild or what have you is the only way to survive, the only way to play, and that if you don't like it go find another game. That's just plain wrong. Period.
Should there be some type of system for huge rewards for huge guilds? Nothing that is any better than what any other charater can make or find in some fashion with smaller groups or on their own with some amount of difficulty. Epic items call for epic play, and that's really what guilds are about, but it's unfortunate that guilds have become so elitist that they're destroying the foundation of people getting together to have fun. If your only purpose in life on an MMO is to log on, find your guild and go on massive raids for loot, I think you're missing out on something. What's the point of quests and good graphics and such when you have to turn down all of your settings just so you don't lag in a huge fight? What's the point of playing if you're not having fun because you're too busy trying to take down the mob of the week for his shoes?
Don't get me wrong. There's plenty of people who enjoy this style of play. But why penalize the players in a game who don't? Why offer something cooler/better/more uber for people who do and then screw over the ones who don't? There needs to be a good balance here, and forcing people into massive guilds is not good balance.
Watching large groups of people form up massive guilds before a game's release and then attempting to extort items and status from the designers should be illegal. Personally, if I were a designer, I'd certainly take the time to listen to their suggestions about various different structures and styles, but if I fel that I was being blackmailed or extorted by this group, then I'd ban them from my game. They're taking away from the other players by trying to take away what others have just as much right to.
I have to agree with everyone who has stated that there must be two paths to play. One for the large guilds with their huge epic content, and one for the smaller groups and solo players. There must be items that help those in large groups, and equally vauled items for the smaller groups and solo players. But as long as the designers of a game listen more closely to the large groups and cater to the extortion and pressure they put on them, this debate may never truly end.
If a game cannot find a good balance for the large groups and the small ones, perhaps it's not worth playing. If there are players out there who ruin the fun for everyone else with an elitist attitude and a belief that their way is the only way, they should be banned, or at the very least ignored. But the only way to make true change is to go the designers and devolpers - or find a game with ones who will listen.
Ardda
"Perception is nine-tenths of Reality. Be careful what you perceive."
And this is what those MMOs devs have to realize and understand! Torchwood is not an exception! Even if I accept CoH group enforcing, it is BAD and the majority is not going to accept this.
Kaalin underlines many great points! Most peoples in "uberguilds" consider me like an ultimate hardcore, yet, I don't raid (which make them really mad). I don't like raiding, I don't care about raiding. Eventually I quit because I find my toon to be to backward in EQ and CoH, due to raid-reasons. Honestly, I think the casuals players enjoy guilds MORE than the hardcores...or maybe it is the "social" players, dunno...but from an achiever point of view, guilds are not really a strong focus of every instant!
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren