Community versus raiders

[leane]

A comment in one of the other threads made me think of something and that was that it is the Raiding guilds that are the biggest destroyer of community on a server. Not instanceing, not soloing (although if you only solo you have zip community anyway, I'm just refering to the capacity to solo)

How much damage was done to guilds and communities that had been around for years when Planes of Power was released? Whole communities disintegrated in pursuit of the all holy flags.
High end guilds do not group outside at all, because a newb who isn't experianced with the raiding/hardcore instances will wipe the group and waste everybodies time and effort. Pickup Raids? Bet a lotta you scoff at the very concept and go back to your insular guild group. Pick up somebody LFG? only if they are MC/Rag/Time/whatever equiped, otherwise they are a liability. Just grab people in guild who know their stuff and spend the time grinding complaining in guild chat about the lack of community.

The higher and higher the games scale up the less and less room for error exists. EQ original didn't really have ANYTHING that really made people stand out or cause this selectivism, genericWarrior01 over genericWarrior02?. Now (continueing with the EQ example, just replace WoW in here if you like) if you want to do serious stuff or runs genericWarrior01 <<<<< endGameWarrior02.
Doing instance runs? why bother inviting a non raider, let them form their own groups and lose, we'll stay with our close friends/guild and beat it 50 times.
The newbs, even when they hit max level, don't have the gear or experiance and so are passed over in favour of other more experianced/geared players. The game starts becoming colder and colder, Look at how EQ is now compared to before.

Suppose theres no real solution for this disparity without totally fubaring the challenge of the encounters but if there was what could it be?

[Jait]

Shoulda kept it in the other thread.

This is a 5 year old dead horse.

[leane]

Originally Posted by Jait

Shoulda kept it in the other thread.

This is a 5 year old dead horse.

Pretty valid I would think with all of the discussion about community and lack thereof. Seems like the games are doomed to lose that sense of community as people end up spread across a wide development curve.

[Mkopec1]

How bout setting a limit as to which level a guild can be founded. I think this would help.

For instance in WoW, how bout having to be 40th level befre you can join a guild?

Hehe, but even then you only solo anyways so whats the point?

[Etadanik]

This is not a problem, but a solution. A biological solution, that is, to the incapacity of the human mind to keep track of too many people. The rise of factions and cliques is a natural outgrowth of self-centrism, which is the basis of the modern consumer society. A large community, in this respect, is merely the period of experimentation in which the individual picks and chooses the small clique with which he or she will eventually be associated with permanently. The alternative? Nationalism. Belief in one's relationship to a people, rather than persons. Belief in common destiny and collective advancement. Possible in MMORPGs? Certainly. Desirable? Well, it didn't work for the Nazis, but it sure can work if your purpose is to foster world war, which in the MMORPG world means large-scale PvP.

[Asmadai]

So join a damn high end guild. Don't have time to? Then you shouldn't have time to piss and moan about it either. MMO's will ALWAYS be catered to the hardcore gamer, and the hardcore guilds because thats the way shit gets done.

I don't think they really "destroy" the community as you say. They help build it. Maybe it was just me, but in EQ for example, before I joined the high end guild on my server, I saw them running around in-game tons. I heard of their raids and the stuff they killed. Did it make me mad that between 2 warriors looking for a group, more than likely the hardcore guild person would be chosen? Hardly. It gave me something to strive for. Thus I joined them, and we got shit done.

Imagine what the game would be like without the "community destroying" high end guild? I can really envision the current community of WoW, and the past community of EQ really banding together and doing the high content via pickup raid. Oh yeah. =P

[leane]

Originally Posted by Mkopec1

How bout setting a limit as to which level a guild can be founded. I think this would help.

For instance in WoW, how bout having to be 40th level befre you can join a guild?

Hehe, but even then you only solo anyways so whats the point?

Ya, for WoW thats the case but could be valid elsewhere. Thing is WoW is almost totally opposite EQ original. EQ originally there wasn't much difference between people. here in WoW you get the raider who groups constantly and hes not gonna want to associate with the over aggroing solo rogue or the meleeing hunter

[leane]

How about if they cut back on drop rates and have the drop rates increase if your groupped. like Solo have stuff drop like 50% of what it does now, with a full group have it more frequent so its in peoples best interest to group up. (like now people are getting like 25% more often than solo) And maybe have a modifier based on if people are in the same guild, like an all guild group only gets 20% additional per person and a mixed group gets like a 50% bonus to the base rates

have bonuses for a mix of guilded/unguilded, group size and different guilds

[Onte]

You're basically questioning why the hell guilds exist at all. People who know each other........surprise!!!!! do things together. Since we're all on our second or third game, there's more of a chance some of us know each other - and highly likely we migrate to different games as a group since we enjoy the company of our friends. Don't you gravitate towards your friends when you see them at a party?

[leane]

Originally Posted by Onte

You're basically questioning why the hell guilds exist at all. People who know each other........surprise!!!!! do things together. Since we're all on our second or third game, there's more of a chance some of us know each other - and highly likely we migrate to different games as a group since we enjoy the company of our friends. Don't you gravitate towards your friends when you see them at a party?

Not Guilds, I never said guilds themselves were bad, its the raid level content (which is guild centric) that is the thing. with no room for error you will not group or deal with anybody else outside.

POP destroyed a TON of guilds because there was no other way for many people to do the content without this inward focus. Many guilds that existed for years with networks of friends fell apart and their community was destroyed. It wasn't guilds that were the problem, they were a symptom.

People used to choose a guild because of the community, people now choose a guild based upon what content its doing. There has to be someway so people choose to group outside of their circle at least occasionally.

[boy-]

Originally Posted by leane

How about if they cut back on drop rates and have the drop rates increase if your groupped. like Solo have stuff drop like 50% of what it does now, with a full group have it more frequent so its in peoples best interest to group up. (like now people are getting like 25% more often than solo)

You mean like how currently (most of) the best gear only drops in instances, and the green droprate in instances is about 3 times as high as hippogryphs in azshara?

The incentives are there, people just don't take advantage of them, or don't even know that they're even there.

[Elgonn]

I think the eventual solution to community issues is simply segregating your player base to different servers. Everyone complains about guilds only playing with each other but would guilds be so damn picky if there was a "people who've killed Rag only" server? The far extreme example.

Each segment of your populace is more likely to want to play with players that are similar to them. Just try to group them together.

This reminds me of the New Realm thread on the WoW boards. Why not combine low pop PvP realms?

[Ukerric]

Originally Posted by Asmadai

So join a damn high end guild. Don't have time to? Then you shouldn't have time to piss and moan about it either.

His problem is not joining or not joining a high-end guild.

It's about interacting with high-end guilds.

The main problem is that, as the level of challenge rises, the opportunity to interact with high-end guilds dwindles away to nothing. If the challenge becomes extreme, no one will take a less-geared, less-AAed, less-experienced person with them. And if your gear and AA makes so much of a difference, then you're not going to reduce the amount of challenge to the point where you can autoattack without even worrying about the people around you screwing up.

At one point, übers and the non-über might as well play different games, as they don't interact at all anymore.


I'm not sure what the point is, though. The übers need the challenge escalation. As he said, in a game based on progression (thru levels, then thru gear, then thru AA, or whatever), you will end up essentially playing a different game. If your game doesn't provide the opportunity to raise the challenge bar, then the übers are not going to stay around and play the lesser game. They're going to play a - really - different game (Vanguard?).

So, calling for the disappearance of the über guild will not magically put all those übers back in the "general community". It will just mean the über guilds are going to re-form in a different game.

[xilsharn]

Aren't all you people tired of this topic? Been seeing this same dead-ass horse get beaten since early EQ days. Simple solution: if you don't like raiding, don't raid. If you do like raiding, raid. Otherwise shut the fuck up.

[Kilaara]

The problem in EQ was the Equippment.

The raiding guilds were equipped in a Form that a normal Wizard had more HP than a non raiding warrior and a Raidguild Necro could better tank than that non raiding warrior.

That stuff what is content for the non raiding .. is sleepmodefighting for the raiders.

A druid soloing Wuoshi ... , a necro soloing the Rhags ... ... thats more the equippment than the professional playstyle.

I remember well in Kunark .. you were well suited with 6 k hp / 1.4 k AC buffed as a warrior. Whats now in EQ 13 k hp / 2.5 k AC ?

The dps also has gone to an insane amount in that time.

So its not the raiding what is the difference .. its the inflation in equippment.