General: Editorial: Casual Raiding Guilds

Dana

Darren Bridle gives us his thoughts on the plight of the casual raiding guild. Raiding is a large part of many MMORPGs - especially the EverQuest games - and sometimes its tough for the less than hardcore to keep up.

But what happens when you try to combine two different types of these guilds into one guild? You tend to get chaos, arguments and ultimately unhappy members. Is there a way to find a happy balance? This article examines some of the “Trials and Tribulations” of trying to raid in a casual guild and offers suggestions to guild leaders in the same boat. The experience personal, from being a guild leader for more than four years, both in EverQuest and more recently EverQuest II. I will examine some of the problems faced trying to find a happy medium between the two types and open a line of discussion on the forums.

To read his article, click here.

Amathe

In my experience, as a guild leader and an officer in a number of casual guilds, when a casual guild tries to get some raiding going, oftentimes the people who are most gung ho about it eventually leave to join more dedicated raiding guilds (either so they can raid more, because of the lure of better loot, or out of frustration that the raids are not as organized and/or well attended as they would wish). Once those people leave, it becomes that much harder to get anything going, and you hear cries of "ack we are losing all our high levels."

The best antidote for this is an alliance of various small casual guilds who raid together. This remedies many of the complaints and makes for a nice bit of raiding to round out the overall casual guild experience.

qbangy32

I've been playing MMO's for quite sometime now and for each game i have played i have always preffered to join the casual guild, their goals mirror my own, i do not have the stamina to sit thru hrs of raiding or to be talked to as if i was a child by someone who probably is.

The WoW guild i am currently in has recently suffered a split, this was due to the fact some of our members where hardcore raiders where as our founding members had only thought of our guild as a casual guild (we are actually spread over many MMO's) and as such arguments started to arise when DKP discussions where brought up or the need to attempt raids before server restarts and throughout the weekdays, something which most of our members did not want to do.

We only achieved a balance when the hardcore players decided to make their own guild, they had hoped our own guild would crumble as revenge for "Holding them back" but as our guild was not just formed for WoW this attempt failed and we are actually stronger than ever, in fact the split brought many old players back out of retirement to show their support.

From personal experience i would say that the hardcore raiders and casual raiders cannot co-exist in the same guild, they end up pulling in different directions and in the end it serves no purpose to keep these ppl together as the arguments turn to personal attacks, after all we see it said so many times, this is just a game but for the serious raider it's a way of life.

Beatnik59

I think this article showed me something very important, and something that the games of the future are going to have to deal with sooner or later.

The trend of organizing players through private, player generated clubs creates problems that are outside the scope of a developer's ability to correct.  And the more these games rely on guilds to facilitate major aspects of the game, the less they will be able to guarantee a good, worthwhile, and satisfying experience for their subscribers.

So while the article says that guilds are a "fact of life," this doesn't mean that they don't cause major problems.  But unlike the problems that come from design or coding, the problems guilds create are impossible for developers to correct.  For guilds are something that are not created and sustained by a game.  They are things that are created and sustained by forces independent of the game.

A guild is not in the business of making the game fun for all.  Its in the business of making the game fun for its members.  While I can't fault guilds for thinking this way, I'm of the opinion that the goals of the developers, and the goals of the guilds run counter to eachother more often than we'd like to admit.

These games want to make inclusiveness a high priority, especially when they stress grouping.  If a player needs a group to experience large chunks of content, then the providers must ensure that a player can find a group, or the game cannot work as intended by the developer.

The problem is that guilds are not created with the purpose of being inclusive.  They are created with the purpose of being exclusive, because its up to the guild to decide who is and is not a member.  The very fact that they are under no obligation to take anyone they do not want to take, means that they cannot be relied upon to facilitate the needs of subscribers en masse.

I remember a thread I saw here on the MMORPG boards for EVE Online.  A new player wanted advice on how to enjoy the game, and almost unanimously, the posters said, "get in a good player corporation."

Which got me to think for a bit (which can be dangerous).  None of the players who gave this advice, said "join my guild," and why should they?  The new player may be unwilling to register with their forums, or log on to Teamspeak.  They may not be the "mature players" every guild seems to want.  They may not fit the profile of what the guild wants from their membership.  Yet, even though we are unwilling to include this player in our guild sight unseen, we assume that someone, somewhere, will take him.

Its very easy to say to subscribers, "if you want to make the most out of a game, get in a good guild."  But its never our good guilds who are burdened with the responsibility of taking subscribers, and making the game work for them.  Its always some other guild's problem, and especially, the non-guilded player's problem, to facilitate the game, because we are too concerned with our own members to care about those who are not members.

Which begs the question, what is to be done if no guild wants to take the player?  Because if we want to be picky with our guilds, then how can we expect others to not be so picky?  And more importantly, who are we to say who can and cannot be included in our games?

As long as the provider has welcomed them, and they follow the rules, they should have as much fun as we are having.  Yet as long as players have the power to include or exclude others on the basis of their arbitrary personal preferences, we can never guarantee others will enjoy the games.

Now of course, its not our burden as players to make the game fun for others.  That is the provider's burden.  Which is why I have to wonder why developers are still toying with this notion of making private player guilds responsible for so many of the critical functions these games need in order to meet expectations.

The fact that guilds can exclude players, means that its an unreasonable expectation to assume no player will be excluded from guilds.  They are, and they will continue to be excluded, for no other reason than we in guilds have the privilege of doing so.  The more critical guild membership gets--either formally, or in its capacity as a matchmaking service--the more that the guilds as a whole can get away with being as selective as they want, and the less the providers can guarantee a quality product that meets the expectations of all.

If there is one entity that I trust to govern the game, its the provider.  For they usually have the good of all the subscribers in mind, or at least they try to.  But privately organized groups of players?  They not only cannot be responsible for all the players, they don't want to be responsible for all the players.  They only want to be responsible for their own good, and the good of those they like.

All in all, a thought provoking article.

darkraptor

First I would like to say that Beatnik, that was well thought out, and I think I agree with you on all points.

With that said, I must admit that truthfully, I can see no balance in hardcore raiders and casual. That is like casual counterstrike players and hardcore. In fact, the difference is more drastic in games like Counter-Strike, than it is in World of Warcraft...I would say so because the difference is more noticable in counterstrike immediately, whereas in WOW it may be noticed 3,6 months down the road, when a player has hit the maximum level. I played in a casual guild first, followed by a hardcore guild, and we raided 7 days a week/5-8 hours a day. The casuals got separated from the guild within a day or two, typically.

I would also agree that provider controlled "grouping" of people is a mixed bag of sorts. But I would also agree that there may not be any viable alternative other than trying to embrace it in some form or another. Yes, it draws the line between casuals and hardcores. However, if there were no "collective entities", per-se, they would naturally be created anyway. Anything that is not solo oriented is, by default, going to create a private clique of it's own. In any group situation you will make friends, those friends become more "yours", per-se, and more exclusive to everyone else.

I believe the reason for leveling, is for the casual gamer. The "end-game material", represents the hardcore gamers. Upon further analysis, it is fairly clear why such things exist instead of just giving people maximum level (or having an exceedingly short leveling period), and why it's hard to find a balance. The reason, I would believe, is money. Casuals are probably not expected to have as long  of a playtime, of "subscription". They hit maximum level, perhaps 2 or 3 times, alts/etc, and they either become a hardcore, or stay casual (which a great majority of, would leave). However, the hardcores, invest time, invest money. They represent the cash cow that is subscriptions, as they dont' want to leave the game for a majority of reasons: resources invested (be it time,money,etc), or the social experience (friends made, brought their own friends in, etc). Blizzard is trying to find a balance in WOW, and to be honest, there isn't one.

The whole reason for the "minimal reward/giant effort" that represents endgame is because if the rewards were larger, hardcore members wouldn';t be satisfied. Comparable to reaching the ring on a carousel, the higher up it is and/or immaterial of the percieved value the reward, the more satisfaction someone would get, on a psychological level.

What I would like to see, is a change of pace from all of this. I dont' really know that there is one viable given the current status of how gaming is, as an industry, and as how MMO's are, in general. It's always a sliding scale of more effort -> less reward, as the levels go up. Guildwars almost on some levels, represents that with their support for casuals, painless leveling, and great flexibility. But even then, casuals do get worn out. I wonder if anyone out there has any idea what could be a good representation of something that doesnt' fit in what defines an mmorpg, yet is an mmorpg. Perhaps that is the paradox of online gaming.

Just my 2c.

Jenius

When recruiting for a guild I've found that it's best to only go after casual or hardcore, but not both. If you try to please everyone, you'll end up pleasing no one. And if a member's gaming style changes, politely give them a swift kick out of the guild. This might be hard if they're a close friend, but it's likely that it will save you from even more problems in the long run.