"Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountain, like wind in the meadow. The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow. How did it come to this?”
Theoden – Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
I’ve had lots of great memories during my days as an MMO player, but very few that were utterly filled with emotion. One of the most moving was when I read the post announcing that our Guild founder was leaving AC2. I cried – real life tears, knowing that it marked the end of an era. I find myself once again looking into the chasm of unwanted change knowing that “what was”, will never be “as it was”, ever again. I believe that I am witnessing the passing of a guild dynasty.
The World of Warcraft guild that I’m a member of has been having issues with raid participation. The problem started about three months ago when we suddenly couldn’t fill raids that had formerly been on farming status. Now getting passed the first two bosses in BWL has become some what of a memory. The more hardcore members are suggesting that mandatory raid attendance rules be implemented. The casual players, including myself, don’t see how this can be a fair decision for a guild that has until now, categorized itself as a casual guild. The forums are on fire and tempers are flaring.
I’m not surprised as a person who hadn’t created an alt until almost 2 years of playing. Honestly, how long can you play the same toon and do the same instances? More importantly, how much gear do you really need? For myself I need very little. Sure I like epics but I’m not enamored enough with them to sacrifice the vast majority of my time to their acquisition. This is where I become casual and differ in goals to more hardcore players who want to master every boss and have access to all the new loot. As it is, we are disenchanting epics because many of the raiders have been raiding on these same toons so long, it was bound to become boring. Given an opportunity, people tend to cease boring activities, and WOW is nothing if not voluntary. Can we all say “game”.
I left the guild several weeks back because I didn’t like the air of pressure to participate in raids when I might really just need the space to do my own thing. Some of the posts were a bit insulting. Especially those that asked why anyone who didn't want to raid wanted to be in the guild. I'm not sure when the two became the same thing. Or why so many guilds are electing to place such a narrow focus on guild activity - end game or nothing. Another oddity is that we are on a PVP server but no longer do guild PVP. We used to run 5 and 10 man instances, quest and farm together. Now nothing really gets scheduled except ZG, MC, BWL and AQ20. If you don’t want to do these very specific raids then there is no organized guild “anything” and you are suddenly not behaving as an active member. We used to count ourselves as a unique guild - casuals that raid and have MC, Ony and ZG on farm status. Then along came BWL to separate the men from the boys, and pit casual against hardcore for real!
This problem seemed to materialize overnight. How did we go from such a happy and fun guild to being at war with each other? When did the level 60 PVE raid-content become all there is to the game? How does a casual guild even consider implementing mandatory raid attendance? Leaving this guild on my main would mean the end of Saylah. She can’t “be” anywhere else that's why I brought her out of hiatus and came back. I feel naked without playing her some times and won't ever put her in another guild on Illidan. I know that people want to see all the end game content and have an opportunity for the loot. I want to stay in the guild, participate and have time to do my own thing - mainly play alts. I don't have the answer. And I've read about many guilds facing this same question. All I do know is that I enjoyed the game much better when the word casual wasn't such a dirty word.
I couldn't agree more. I joined a young but ambitious guild when it had 24 members; now we have over 260 and grow more and more everyday. At first the recruitment strategy was friendly and welcoming: Looking for friendly new members, all races and all levels welcome. Now it is a little different: Looking for level 40+ players pst for info. I am not sure exactly when we went from looking for anyone because we generally cared about advancing all areas of the guild to focusing on players who will most likely join just to have more people they can use to further their own looting. When I first joined, our officers would help with anything no matter how small it may have seemed. Now, many of our 40+ players are asked for help and they always seem to be too "busy". I try to help out as much as possible but one char can really only do so much before u end up running the same dungeon 4 times per night on double honor weekend. It would be nice to have things back the way they were, with officers helping everyone over lvl 10 with anything they needed and everyone getting to know each other in the process; but that time is just a memory now. Funny how you can almost have guilds within a guild with the way some members know and respect each other having come so far together while simultaneously forgetting how much that one DM run meant to them when they were level 16 and needed help. At what level do we stop looking at people as if they are "noobs" and start respecting how far they have come?
Posted by: wolfgangdoom | May 26, 2006 at 01:44 PM
I read somewhere - dont recall exactly where, that being an MMO player is a lifestyle. The truth of that statement becomes clearer to me everytime I play. I spend as much time on WOW as I do working a demanding fulltime job. However, I dont think that makes me hardcore because I'm laid-back in my expectations. We raid, we don't; it's all the same to me. Full epics or not, I don't sweat it. I'm a PVE player so I measure the enemies that I can kill and act accordingly. I don't plan my gear to survive PVP or ganking. I try to defend myself as best I can, and move along to the task at hand. I'm geared enough to do any 20-man and hold my own which is enough for me. WOW is as much RPG as MMO, and players that want more of the RPG aren't noobs.
As you said...casuals, lowbies - all deserve respect. We are all paying Blizzard the same damn fee. Players can do as they please but if they drive casuals out of this game it won't be sustainable. Every society must have worker-bees and the silent masses that fill in the gaps of existence.
Posted by: Saylah | May 26, 2006 at 02:06 PM
People get bored and for some reason some of these bored players stick around because of the carrot dangling in front of their fat noses. They see one way to advance their character and they assume this is what the rest of the guild should be doing... progressing. They can't stop for a second and realize that there are players that have reached a point where they are done progressing... where it is time to sit back and do something fun. Something that probably will get them no epcis and wind up being nothing but a fond memory.
This is why guilds die off over loot. You get the hard chargers that want it combined with those that want to just sit back and enjoy each others company. What was a guild is suddenly changed into "us" and "them". This never ends nicely. Mandatory raid schedules are the first sign of a guild break up. Unless you have been together for years and through many MMO together setting up hardcore raiding schedules will be the ultimate doom of your guild. I've seen it happen a half dozen times in WoW.
Fortunately I went through this phase in Dark Ages of Camelot and realize the importance of doing things that I enjoy :) I found a guild, The Pod People, that do exactly that... and its a blast.
Posted by: Heartless_ | June 13, 2006 at 04:30 PM