The nature of guilds throughout mmos, and the changing nature of mmos

Lately, I have seen many comments containing phrases like "you dont have to be in a guild", "not tied to a guild", "dont wanna be in a guild", "play with node players, without a guild".

Why this aversion?
We had a couple of Dev discussions, about what you want from a guild and what tools you'd like to see in running a guild, but somehow the fear of some people regarding belonging to a guild has not been brought up as an official topic.

What is it that people dont like about guilds?

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George_Black

Is it because people have been offended by the guild chat?
Is it because people have felt oppressed by the demands of the leading players?
Have people felt ignored when in need of help with progress and crafting/gathering?
Is everybody questing, or crafting in their home, or gathering, too busy to even acknowledge guild chat?

Have guilds become a place where some players feel alone in the midst of others, and think "what's the point of remaining in this guild? I'll leave, and wont bother joining another."

George_Black

Now, if you have so many disappointed players with guilds over the years in mmos, two things must be recognized.
The first thing is that when developers provide guild leaders with tools that enable them to AVOID human interraction with recruits AND members, you see guilds with large numbers of strangers, filling in roles for dungeon runs, instead of friends and team members.
I for one did not bother to join 500 member guilds in eso, in which I could belong to 5 guilds simultaniously, and there was no challenge that groupfinder or /zone randoms wouldnt help me overcome. I got all the gear sets I needed.
Same with ff14. I never joined a guild. What for? Everybody was doing something solo, easily.
The ease with which players completed activities put them in lethargic mode. I am guilty of it too. "Some1 needs this crafted? I cant be bothered. Ima keep 1shooting these mobs here. After all, he can craft it himself if he bothers with a bit of cooking."

George_Black

The second is that players want the option, want to be able to play alone, and that is why we have seen more mmos with:
1) Main story Quest, solo exploration/lv up
2) Smallprogres journey/easily traversed map.
3) Repetitive endgame/ instanced PvE, PvP from parked players in towns
4) Potential for a single character to progress in ALL paths, just a matter time (solo).
5) Cheap and easy gear in order to equip many alts

George_Black

I think that the size of guilds should be closer to 100, with less tools to provide the leader with the excuse to be faceless, rather more active, thus promoting a sense of keenship and community. Pride and a sense of identity for self and guild, in a group of people that we are supposed to belong, as opposed to what mmos end up being. Ez solo games, with coop and versus instances.

George_Black

Imho...

... Now, every time I started on an L2 server, I couldn't wait for the moment to join a guild.

DirtyMuffin

I don't care to be in a guild with people I do not know. As well, guilds often place demands on members. Be it some sort in game currency, items or, just time in general.

My personal life isn't about to give up it's schedule for a games, let alone a guilds demands. Life comes first. If I log on (Likely) to play, I am doing so with a days worth of stress. I then have to work with people to extinguish my stress through video games. I would rather not put that on people and, don't care to be some random persons stress relief. Than are an adult (hopefully) they can do it themselves.

This brings me to a strong point I've had with guilds in the past. Setting goals. The world moves on and so does a game, with or without me logging in. I often get left behind in a guilds goals because of my personal life. So now I have to find a group of people who are at my point in life, similar personalities (because we aren't all programed robots with the same opinions), who share my same goals in game, and have a similar schedule. Do you see where finding the right guild quickly narrows down to a few?

Otherwise it will be guild jumping to get what I need, get what they need, and then we go our separate ways.

McShave

DirtyMuffin wrote: »

I don't care to be in a guild with people I do not know. As well, guilds often place demands on members. Be it some sort in game currency, items or, just time in general.

You don't have to join a guild that is competitive like that. Some guilds out there are super casual and just for fun. I was once in a guild in FFXIV and it was just like 10 of us having a good time, talking to each other's days and what goals we had for ourselves in and out of games. I didn't know any of them before joining the guild, but it was a very wholesome group.

I can see many guilds forming based around node communities. When you start seeing the same people around often, you natural start to form relationships and then sometimes that leads to starting or joining a guild.

Also guilds will have percs that mean your daily gameplay activities will be more efficient, probably. We don't know exactly what these are, but we know you can choose either larger guild or useful guild percs.

Khronus

@George Black I can't answer your questions other than presenting the theory that greed has led all gaming down a path that limits social interaction. If players are addicted, they will pay more money. To get them addicted, the games need to be easier and have a lot of rewards. Now we have dumbed down games, with cash shops and loot boxes and zero need to truly interact with other players. This is the reason there are so many games that feel large but are really just filled with bots using "player names". Now fast forward to this moment in time when the original mmo players (who experienced the good old days) have divided into those still playing and those who have moved on in life with family/careers and replace those people with a new generation who only know the current shit state of mmo's. AoC is my last hope for something fun and community driven. After this, I think I will have led a good mmo life haha.

@DirtyMuffin "I don't care to be in a guild with people I do not know." I am not trying to sound rude here at all....but I don't know what you even mean by this. Clearly, you have to get to know the people you are playing with. Narrowing guilds down to a few that fit you is not some crazy outcome. It's normal. You are unique and different and your own person so wanting to spend time with other like minded players is natural and should be expected. Hop guilds, find what works for you. Join a guild, be a good person and help bring the mmo genre back from the heaping pile of shit these other development companies have made it. Shameless plug incoming - Add me (Khronus#4299) on discord. Let's chat.

I had trouble finding the right guild until I just decided to make my own. I hopped around to a few different guilds and found nothing but toxic people doing toxic things. The internet has a way of making people think it's ok to do/say whatever they want. I grew tired of this and made my guild where anyone is welcome but the rules must be adhered to. No toxicity, no racism, always strive to improve/learn from your mistakes. This ended up being my discord community rules and now we have a decent chunk of players who hop on everyday and are able to communicate not just about games but about anything. Feels like family and we're able to support each other through the best and worst events we go through.

Fun fact - my first job where I interviewed for a management position and got the job on the spot was because I was a guild leader (this was like 15 years ago haha). I happened to play wow at the time and my guild was rather large. There was much drama, organization requirements and a lot of time went into perfecting mine and other players rotations, specs and gear min/maxing. I interviewed well and it got towards the end when the district manager asked me to give an example of my leadership skills. I went off like how they do when the dude in the movie Limitless takes the pill. I was passionate about this and it showed. I applied how leading a guild in WOW had taught me and how it would apply to my everyday activities in the job. Ultimately, I got LUCKY. The district manager was a guild leader in wow with a similar size guild and I somehow made the most direct connection with him without knowing he played.

Dygz

LMAO
Why the obsession with guilds is the better question.

I'm a Chaotic Good non-conformist. And I have a casual challenge playstyle.
Which means I don't like to be beholden to a bunch of rules or obligations.
Even when I was kid, I was up for playing basketball or football for an hour or two on the street to be social and/or to even up teams, but at the end of that time, I'm ready to go do something else.
I want to feel free to help others for a while and then go do something - help out with one quest and then go fishing if I want, rather than feel obligated to finish an entire questline.

Any guild that lists their rules and obligations - I'm not joining.
The "groups" I hang out with tend to be more like informal communities.
We formed through social media like Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, FB and Discord.
TheoryForge will have a guild in Ashes for those people who want to hangout with us in the game - especially since we might want to participate in Castle Sieges sometimes.

But, in Ashes, it's not necessary to join a guild to become part of a community.
That can easily be done in the villages/towns/cities/metros we construct. We have open world housing, so we will be able to easily find the people who play at the same time we do. We will know who they are, when they play, how they play and where they live. We will be working together to progress and defend the Node.
We don't have to be in a guild to do that.
Anyone who wants to take advantage of guild perks, can join an in-game guild or create one.
Anyone who doesn't want to join a guild can have fun in the game without being part of a guild.

Not joining a guild, even not joining a group/raid, does not equal playing alone.
Solo gameplay really just means you are not part of a formal group/raid/guild.
That does not mean the solo player is not being social or is playing "alone".
You don't have to join a group/raid/guild to help out newbies in the starting area. You can do that solo.
One of the best things about EQ was being able to drive-by buff and heal others players while solo.

Percimes

Most guilds have been a member of consisted of my off line real friends, we once all played MMOs. But even then we didn't often play together mostly because of level disparity or, in my case, not being available at the same time.

"Normal" guilds have always been an extra chat in other cases. Biggest advantage of having one was not being constantly invited to join another. Dead guilds are great for that purpose.

One reason not mentioned by @George Black for me was that I've kind of always considered my faction to be my guild, never felt the need to subdivide smaller than that. Guilds have a tendency to keep to themselves and prioritize their members, which is totally normal to certain degree, but I've often seen big guilds ignore the rest of the faction, not necessarily in malice, sometime simply because they did their things and didn't bother to communicate in general chat to the rest of the pleb. At other time the game is designed in a way that members of a faction are more in competition with each other than with the other faction(s): the more you get for yourself, the less there is left for the others.

Okeydoke

Favoritism. The natural kind of favoritism that exists when people have known guy A for years but guy B is a new recruit. That's to be expected, just part of life, takes time to develop relationships.

But then there's the more corrupt kind of favoritism that is not going away under any circumstances. There's a core group of players that make up the guild and everyone else is just there, and the favoritism manifests itself in all kinds of shitty ways.

"Officers" that are officer in title only, just for elitism purposes. They don't actually do anything as far as organizing and maintaining the guild. And they can tell you to go fuck yourself for no reason. But if you say the slightest cross word to them, you're gone, instantly.

There should be an actual officer in charge of directing all members of the guild to an Excel spreadsheet, website polling, discord polling, something, where players can kind of sign up as currently needing help or a group to complete some of the known harder or multiple people required content of an mmo.

Because in reality, it's extremely awkward for a new guy in a guild to type in guild chat, "hey can anyone help me with this." Often it's just completely ignored. Aint no one helping. Like clockwork, the message gets displayed in guild chat, all guild chat ceases for a few minutes as everyone pretends they're afk. And then the normal speed of guild chat resumes as everyone attains plausible deniability that they ever even saw the message asking for help. lol. Seen it dozens if not hundreds of times.

I could go on and on. Guilds are human created and run. As such, highly imperfect and completely dependent on the quality of it's leadership. Just don't give up and find the right one for you, it's out there somewhere.

George_Black

Elitism cant develop of guilds allow for less people to join, that what we have been conditioned to expect with recent mmo guild designs

Khronus

Okeydoke wrote: »

Favoritism. The natural kind of favoritism that exists when people have known guy A for years but guy B is a new recruit. That's to be expected, just part of life, takes time to develop relationships.

But then there's the more corrupt kind of favoritism that is not going away under any circumstances. There's a core group of players that make up the guild and everyone else is just there, and the favoritism manifests itself in all kinds of shitty ways.

"Officers" that are officer in title only, just for elitism purposes. They don't actually do anything as far as organizing and maintaining the guild. And they can tell you to go fuck yourself for no reason. But if you say the slightest cross word to them, you're gone, instantly.

There should be an actual officer in charge of directing all members of the guild to an Excel spreadsheet, website polling, discord polling, something, where players can kind of sign up as currently needing help or a group to complete some of the known harder or multiple people required content of an mmo.

Because in reality, it's extremely awkward for a new guy in a guild to type in guild chat, "hey can anyone help me with this." Often it's just completely ignored. Aint no one helping. Like clockwork, the message gets displayed in guild chat, all guild chat ceases for a few minutes as everyone pretends they're afk. And then the normal speed of guild chat resumes as everyone attains plausible deniability that they ever even saw the message asking for help. lol. Seen it dozens if not hundreds of times.

I could go on and on. Guilds are human created and run. As such, highly imperfect and completely dependent on the quality of it's leadership. Just don't give up and find the right one for you, it's out there somewhere.

Your view of guilds has me thinking you have had some bad experiences in the past? If I am wrong please correct me. I only say this because in my guild, I would often open up discussions with all players in guild chat who asked any questions or needed help. If I wasn't able to immediately help I would chime in and ask if there was anyone else available to help. Sometimes I would even incentivize the players who volunteered to help by giving them items/currency. Anything I can do to make it a more fun/engaging environment for my members and I, I am all for. After a while, other players began to do the same thing and eventually the chat was lively, the ganked were avenged and we had a freaking blast.

You're right. Officer rank as just a title is bullshit. Every rank should have expectations and those expectations should be followed. You only get the rank if you are willing to be a decent person to other people and help out in the first place. Leadership in an MMO can very much lead to real life leadership skills if handled properly. Not always, but the potential is there. Guilds are highly imperfect, it's like a business that is unpaid. Some leaders fail because they realize "why am I doing this for so long and for no real benefit?". Some players realize "why am I doing this for this person when they are just using me so they get the rewards". I too can go on and on but eventually we find the right guild or we make the right guild. We recruit the right people and we grow as a true community and not just a guild players bunny hop to and from.

Noaani

From my perspective, most of the reasons people dislike guilds is because they have a history of joining guilds that don't suit them.

People that don't want a rigid structure shouldn't be joining guilds with rigid structures. People that don't like elitisms and cliques shouldn't join guilds that have a core of long standing friends. People that want to maximize their online time should join guilds with scheduled activity.

If a player joins a guild that isn't suited to them, then that player didn't do their research properly. No one can tell you what it is that you want in a guild, you need to understand that for yourself.

In my time running and scouting for top end guilds in various games, I've come across a good number of players that are really good at the game, but simply don't fit in to the necessary structure of a top end guild (or sometimes just not in to my guild).

Sometimes I can see this before inviting them, and occasionally I am even able to suggest a guild that may be better suited to them. Sometimes, however, we all miss it, and this person ends up as a recruit in the guild and things don't go well for them. This is always unfortunate, but sometimes this is the only way to learn what kind of guild you actually do want.

Okeydoke

@Khronus Nah I'm usually in small, tight knit, skilled pvp guilds, mostly with players that don't need a lot of help. In Archeage I was in a big mega guild. And Black Desert. But I've played mmos for 25 years, I've seen it all, or heard about it anecdotally. You don't even really need to see these things, just understand humans and you can extrapolate outwards the things that are likely to have happened.

Khronus

Okeydoke wrote: »

@Khronus Nah I'm usually in small, tight knit, skilled pvp guilds, mostly with players that don't need a lot of help. In Archeage I was in a big mega guild. And Black Desert. But I've played mmos for 25 years, I've seen it all, or heard about it anecdotally. You don't even really need to see these things, just understand humans and you can extrapolate outwards the things that are likely to have happened.

I mean, I get it. You have the experience and that experience has led you into your opinion which comes off a bit biased. I don't consider this a bad thing because you are right. Understanding other people will give you an extensive knowledge on all types of guilds and how they could be run. I've never been in a mega guild personally. I enjoy recruiting very much and helping players get to the skill that you are used to in your tight knit guilds. I just can't be in a small guild and I can't be in one that promotes a toxic atmosphere. I like to turn that small guild of elite players into 75-100 of them.

Okeydoke

I didn't mean to be biased. I was just answering the question the op asked, What is it that people dont like about guilds? Whatever I said, or whatever anyone else says doesn't apply to every guild ever. But they are some of the pitfalls when trying to find a good guild.

Another reason why some people don't like guilds is that they're just either shy, anti social, or don't like interacting with more than 2 or 3 people at a time.

But there's a ton of good guilds out there. I found a great one in WoW classic. Having never played WoW before, within a month or two I found myself raiding with a competent guild. Loot rules were fair. There were a couple items that were reserved for core members, but in general a fair roll for everyone on the vast majority of items. They were helpful. They coordinated members and gave direction on getting pre raid bis items. They had a spreadsheet of raid drops and everyone's name showing who got what already. If you already got something you had to wait until every one else in your class got something before you got something else, applicable to everyone, not just new recruits. I got BiS leg armor my first raid.

But I heard the horror stories too. One of my friends ended up in a guild where he was never even allowed to roll. It was a constant carrot on a stick "trial program." Core members got geared up, everyone else, maybe one day if we even still feel like running this after we got everything we want.

JustVine

My personal 'aversion' is that guilds large enough to do guild 'oriented' content like 40 man raids and world bosses tend to be 'the general public'. Once you get beyond 16 people it's kind of hard to 'control' group dynamics and vet out everyone. Not impossible, just harder and more likely things slip through anyway.

To Noaani's point:

There are good guilds, but they are hard to find that have the numbers to do said content. This is amplified by the fact that guilds 'need' to sell themselves which means you can't really look at the surface. People have bad experiences with guilds as a function of 'salesmenship' as much as it is desperateness to have a group capable of guild 'oriented' content. Some people 'don't know what they want' but plenty do.

It's ultimately just part of the design of large numbers of people oriented content. Cool and epic as it is. Guilds will always first and foremost be oriented towards that content type or at least want to have enough people to do it as a guild (and therefore 'requires ' salesmanship)

When things are impersonal and dealing with the general public being in a pug has the advantage of being a one time thing. Because, quite frankly, dealing with the general public is a roll of the dice whereas a guild is an investment (rightfully) AND a dice roll.

'Why not join a casual guild?' I might. But I already have a core group. I'd honestly be joining it for the minor gank deterrent it serves at that point.... Which is a fair reason to join mind you. I like the idea of Node guilds for that reason. It resolves a lot of my personal aversion in long post rant level detail I won't get into.

Tl;dr Obviously people will have bad experiences occasionally when the system is geared towards larger groups putting pressure on people to sell themselves and set up possibly false or 'well intended but not met' expectations.

Sunboy

Why people don't join social groups? Fear of rejection. Rejection hurts. No one wants to be hurt.

Much love ❤️❤️❤️

Noaani

JustVine wrote: »

Obviously people will have bad experiences occasionally when the system is geared towards larger groups putting pressure on people to sell themselves and set up possibly false or 'well intended but not met' expectations.

Part of just being human is to take the information presented to us (a sales person selling their product or service), and passing that through the filter of our own experience in order to come out with out own conclusion at the end.

Part of this is filtering out salesmanship. This is why we don't all rush to buy every product we see advertised that says it is the best ever, or is 96% discounted, but only today, and only for you!

I'm sure there are some people out there that don't know the difference between someone telling them about their guild, and someone trying to sell their guild, but even in these situations, the end result is a person being in a guild that is not right for them - which is the issue I was talking about anyway.

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