January 26, 2010
Ask an MMO player what they think of when you say the word “guild.”
The common image is that it’s militaristic - a highly structured organization, draconian by-laws, rigorous recruitment process, and high demands.
It can be!
The somewhat less intense analogy is the sports team. The coach (guildleader) motivates. Raids are games, where players hone skills and have chalk talk the following day with parse analysis. Guildies are passionate players, proud of their team, love to trash talk other guilds, show highlight reels through machinima, zonewide guild shouts. There still exists a demand though, that isn’t always realistic to expect.
Above: Forming up for a relay race during our recent guild birthday celebration. Centaur illusion was a requirement. Cheesy 80′s headbands were not.
A third, and greatly overlooked, analogy is the guild as chess club. Players share common interest, but not required to sweat blood for their guild. People come and go as their play schedule, and their desire, allows. There are some basic minimal expectations (don’t be a ninja raider), but you don’t always have to do what the pack does.
Yes, guilds are organizations that have websites, attendance policies, dkp trackers, ranks, and recruiting red tape.
But only a few guilds fit that description these days.
You, yes you, the one that plays with a set group of friends once a week – you’re a guild. What is your MMO doing for you?
You, over there, with the lean and mean 7 person regime? You may not have enough to raid endgame content, but you’re a guild. What is your MMO doing for you?
And you, the one with the 200 person juggernaut, filled with lots of friendly people who like to play but approach it as a game, rather than a lifestyle. You’re a guild. What is your MMO doing for you?
I feel like MMOs have been notoriously negligent of the needs of guilds and social networks in their games. That’s a shame, because guilds and games want the same thing – they want loyal players and they want them to stick around. 10 years later, though, MMOs haven’t adapted, and as a result, guilds are forced to style themselves around the sometimes unrealistic demands of the games they play.
Think about how MMOs affect guild behavior. Game design drives how much time a guild member plays, and they affect a player’s choice to take an extended break. They affect class choice. They affect distribution of resources. They affect the sizes of the guilds themselves.
Many players resent guilds, to the point that they have taken a sworn oath never to join one again. Guilds respond by flipping off those players, and dismissing them as greedy, antisocial players, who are to blame for the emphasis on solo play in MMOs, and thus the decline of Western Civilization as we know it.
They’re both right, but their attention should be on changing their games, and not each other.
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January 17, 2010
A while back, I had a vision in my head for a podcast that was devoted to the topic of guild leadership. I wanted to hear from guild leaders of all types, to learn their philosophy of running a guild and dealing with the many issues that come up. But I also wanted to have them don a developer hat for a bit, and share their views on what makes their game of choice tick, and what they’d want to see added that would meet the needs of their guild better.
I did a couple of episodes, and then, for a number of reasons, I podfaded.
However, I met up with Adam, from Epic Slant, and I’m happy to say that we’ve jump started the show. We’ve changed up the show a bit, and we focused on giving our advice on common issues and pitfalls that every guildleader has to deal with at some point. Thanks to Vagary.tv, our “relaunch” episode is now live!
Show can be found here.
Topics:
-Introductions about what we’ve been up to as of late. We discuss our characters, guilds and the general activities that keep us entertained.
-Five “Dos and Donts” of building a successful guild. What should a guild leader do when they first form a guild? What should they avoid. Adam and Karen give five examples each that should help anyone getting into the guild business.
-Exploiting in MMOs. More players and guilds than ever are using dubious tactics and exploits these days. Should a new guild do as everyone else does or stand firm. Karen and Adam weigh in on the topic.
-You Make the Call! In our direct advice portion of the show we create hypothetical situations or answer fan questions about guild leadership. Each host explains how they would handle the given situation and why.
This episode, we look at guild websites and give our views on whether it’s still a necessary part of running a guild.
If you’d like to submit a question for A View From The Top you can either email us, comment, or use the “Ask A Guild Leader” form on Epic Slant.
I welcome any feedback, so please feel free to let me know what you think!
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January 12, 2010
I think 2010 will be a memorable year for MMOs, but more like the equivalent of 78 A.D. in Pompeii. We bloggers will have a nice year of navel gazing and pontificating, but after that, buckle up.
– Guilds (I use “guild” as the catchall for any social network, like alliance, clan, corporation, etc) will finally get recognized as something more than a place to raid, and a place to chat. There are just too many that do not fit that description, and have been around for longer than many currently released MMOs. The people in these guilds transcend the games they play, and they need to be given much more attention than they have been. I’d like to see more cooperative, multiplayer content that doesn’t consist of “everyone stab this boss and follow the script.” And give guilds more tools to be the “onramp to socialization.” Let guilds help new players catch up to the veteran playerbase, give them meaningful incentives to teach new players, and reward them for getting players to stick with a game over the long term.
– Going along with that, all those players who bemoan guilds during their regular group nights with friends will have an epiphany and finally accept that, yes, they are guilds too. Games and players both haven’t yet caught up to guild evolution. I predict that I will be writing about this quite a bit in 2010…
Above: No, guilds do not have to be a militaristic organization with a tyrannical guild leader who eats your dkp for lunch and forbids you from leaving your chair during a 12 hour gaming session. I can still dream though, can’t I?!
– 38 Studios will give us more about “Copernicus,” which isn’t asking much, since we pretty much just have 5 concept art pictures. We’ll also begin to see some of the out-of-game items that will tie in with their MMO, like comic books, print stories, and painted collectibles. In addition, they’ll contact me about working for them, because I’m a stone’s throw away from their Maynard office, and I’ll work for free.
– Brad McQuaid will finish his retrospective on why Vanguard failed. And shortly after, Vanguard will shut down.
– Star Trek Online will launch this year. And it will also shut down this year.
– Bioware will reveal more about the multiplayer gameplay of Star Wars: The Old Republic, and beta will create quite a buzz, but the game will not launch this year.
– NC Soft will throw up its hands on the Western Market, and will close all North American offices.
– Lego Universe will have a hugely successful launch and will bring in tons of new players to the MMO genre. We might not see it immediately, but this game will out do WoW. Yes, I’m dubbing it a WoW killer. It will redefine how we view MMOs, giving us a simple but catchy overarching storyline, some fresh “class” choices, and (finally) a real purpose to player created content. Plus, no elves! Heck, you can even designate some of your creations “smashable.” Seige warfare anyone?! Waagh!
– Veteran bloggers will flippantly dismiss Lego Universe, and will continue to insist that the game is no good, despite the fact that it’s a huge hit with millions. The Brittany Spears music analogy will also be tossed around a few times too.
– Someone will ask the question, “why was Raph Koster politely given a pass on Metaplace, while Brad McQuaid continues to be everyone’s MMO uber villain?”
– Some game developer studio will announce plans for a historical-based MMO, a genre that is rich with content and has not really been explored by MMO developers as a possible game setting. Imagine a historically accurate MMO about Ancient Egypt or the Crusades. Or better yet, time travel! The expansions are endless…
– Eve will have 5 c-f scandals, but this year might be the final straw for the “foundation” guilds that make Eve what it is. Frustration factor, along with several new competing titles, might create a brain drain among the Eve elite. I keep comparing Eve to EQ, and at the risk of complete blog exile, I would compare Eve’s 2010 to EQ’s 2004.
That’s it for my predictions. I’m not including anything about WoW, because there’s really nothing to predict. Not a whole lot of cheer in my post, unless you like Brittany Spears or McDonalds. Go Legos!
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January 9, 2010
I’ve had a lot of downtime recently, thanks to a broken ankle, so I rolled up my sleeves and got back to blogging. I was perusing the stack of blog entries that are sitting here in queue. Some are unfinished, and some are personal reflections on leading a guild that contain sensitive stuff I’d never print publicly – those are a mix of catharsis and cautionary tales that, with any luck, will enable me to do it better the next time around.
Among the entries was my “Predictions 2009″ entry. I never published it, although I’m not sure why. I figured it was worth putting up on the blog now, along with some comments on how accurate I was and what the heck I was thinking at the time. Here it is:
RMT – the door was officially kicked down, and I think we’ll see a lot more use of it in current and future titles. Games aren’t going to sell epics and leet armor though, and you’re not going to have to shell out 5 bucks per zone you want to visit – what they’re going to sell is the stuff that most people describe as the “wouldn’t it be cool if…” stuff. Like, wouldn’t it be cool if I could get a pointy hat, or a lava lamp for my house, or a book that I can actually scribe a story in, or a painting that I create. Maybe we’ll be able to pay a small fee to name our mount, or our epic weapon. Maybe games will let inactive players choose to preserve their player housing for a small fee. I think RMTs will really go hand in hand with a long overdue focus on “quality of life” aspects – things that make us stand out as individuals, things that let us enjoy the worlds we play in.
I think I got this one right, and my biggest vindication came on SUWT, when I predicted WoW’s eventual foray into RMTs, which they did in November. My only concern is that it feels like in some games, RMTs are becoming the last ditch act of desperation to squeeze any last available penny out of stalled out MMO titles. And that notion makes my eye twitch a bit. I really don’t want my MMOs to feel like pretty versions of Mafia Wars, Farmville, or any of the other seedy-facebook games that Zynga and Offerpal crank out.
On the bright side, I think it’s worth noting that both Free Realms and Wizard 101 have changed their RMT marketplaces to only include appearance items and “quality of life” stuff (fun pets, house decorations, illusions, etc). Both had originally included weapons and armor that gave top notch stats to brand new players. Obviously this creates a huge imbalance in gameplay, and it also undermines any real player market. Whatever the reason, it’s nice to see these games step away from putting stat items up for cash. Future games, pay attention!
Last year, I predicted that Eve Online would have a huge, c-f scandal, and no one would mind. I was wrong – they had two (the source leak and the mining scandal). So this year, I predict that Eve Online will have 3 huge, C-F scandals, and no one will mind. And despite all the claims of being ground breaking, the more I hear about what happens in game, the more I have this urge to make a hand puppet and silently gesture “blah blah blah.” Eve’s not much different from EQ’s gameplay and community from 1998, only in space. Don’t get me wrong, I loved EQ!
Eve did have their share of scandals this year. (The bank scandal was one of the best) But oddly enough, my opinion of Eve has changed. I still contend that Eve is very similar to the Everquest of old, in terms of player community, rivalries, scandals, double crossing, and competition. And precisely because I miss all of that, I have to give respect to Eve, because they really do what no other MMO out there does, and they do it better than the rest. So I predict they’ll have 4 major scandals next year, and I’ll tip my cap in appreciation of each and every one.
Rise of player generated content! Not in frills and fluff, like quests and little chunks of myspace, but in nuts and bolts, like UIs, plug ins, guild tools, maps, etc. Vanguard did this last year when they adopted a player-made map system as their default, EQ2 also adopted player made maps with their last expansion, and they’re looking to continue the trend with a new default UI, using much of the community for input and development. This makes sense, and with all the neat tools that players create (dkp trackers, raid data parsers, broker watchers, spell timers, wikis) it’s shrewd for companies to integrate it into the game. For far too long, it’s almost an expectation that you never ever use the default UI – that instead, you have to scour third party sites to get necessary add-ons. In an ever competitive industry, the games that make it easier on players are the ones that will do better.
Welp, the closing of Metaplace isn’t exactly an affirmation of my theory on the rise of player generated content. On the other hand, what I originally meant was utility stuff, and I do think that’s something that will happen, even though it didn’t this past year.
38 Studios will showcase the amazing tools that more and more companies will start to outsource, in order to make their games. 38 Studios is currently using Unreal, Bigworld, and Vivox, three cutting edge tools that should make it easier for them to skip the “reinventing the wheel,” part of development and allow them to focus on (sorry Darren!) polish. They also seem to be focused on the big picture, like UI, with the hiring of Irene Perieria. And, of course, they want to push their game outside the boundary, into print books, cell phones, collectibles…essentially make it a franchise. They can’t do it if they can’t get people emotionally invested in the storyline and the main characters of the world they’re creating. I can’t wait to see how they do it.
I am projecting so badly on this game, and I’m not even kidding myself into thinking I’m not. This is my Warhammer. There has been continued silence about game details, and I’m of two minds on that. The “cup half full” outlook says that it’s a good thing, because they aren’t wasting time with loud developer promo videos filled with hilarity and wit, which end up failing to deliver. The “cup half empty” part of me starts to get the twitchy eye though, because A) they said they would divulge more details at comic con and B) it’s a recession. I’m still right there though, still a believer! 2010 will be THE year! (And I grew up a Sox fan so I’m patient). I’m breathlessly waiting for a printed copy of the 10,000 year history of the “Copernicus” world timeline, I have a 5 day rotation for my Copernican concept art wallpaper on my computer, and I’m constantly beginning all of my sentences with “wouldn’t it be cool if….”
Raiding will be redefined. Traditionally, raid content was designed with stiff barriers for entry, and was aimed at a very small (and hardcore) percentage of the population. Damion Shubert’s speech at AGDC highlighted the importance of the endgame in MMOs, and gave a great rundown of what makes endgame content both great and tedious. More and more people are raiding, and the fact that over one million people have gotten Kara loot in WoW means that future MMOs need to do a good job with the endgame. I think this means raiding will be a lot more accessible to the player population. Some games have been doing that already. Everquest II made raiding much more flexible thanks to instancing and, more notably, mentoring, which allowed players to scale down some raid zones. WoW also added flexibility with the release of zones with various levels of difficulty. And Warhammer, with PQs and RvR improvements, made it possible to do multi group content with no fixed size. Raid content will continue to be challenging, and will be something that only the dedicated player population will defeat. But the barriers to trying it will drop – key farming, flags, etc. Raiding should be hard, and I think it will definitely continue to be, but more people will be able to sink their teeth into it.
I definitely think this is a growing trend in MMOs, and it’s a good one. I’ve said before that I think MMOs shine when they highlight the multiplayer part of gameplay, and yet for too long, raiding has been confined to the small percent of the population that A) devotes lots of time to the game (arguably, too much of it), and B) has the discipline to prepare, backflag, min/max, farm, backflag, grind, farm, backflag, etc. WoW’s new /looking for raid system confirms that raiding is now for everyone, and to that, I say amen. And now to figure out what the real purpose of guilds is…
The blogging community will continue to grow, but we’ll see more veteran bloggers retiring. 2008 was a blow to the older gamers, many of whom make up the current blogging community around here. If they aren’t invested in games anymore, it’s hard to find the inspiration to keep writing, which will lead to some fairly old blogs shutting down. (And by long I mean like, 2-4 years). On the flip side, new gaming blogs will blossom. I’m amazed at how large the MMO blogging community has become – especially in the past year or so.
I think this one is sorta true. Blogging seems to be fading, and twittering/facebook seems to be replacing it. I think it’s harder for veteran gamers/bloggers to get invested in MMOs these days, which, ironically, is the last topic that came up on the Shut Up We’re Talking podcast. I’m very curious to see what next year will bring for Virginworlds and for MMO blogging/podcasting in general.
Games I’m rooting for – Copernicus, Stargate Worlds, Red 5′s game, Free Realms, The Agency
Games I’m worried about – Age of Conan, Stargate Worlds, Red 5′s game, The Agency, Star Trek Online, Darkfall, MMOs that are 8 years and older.
Ugh, another year of downer predictions! I’m just going to keep my head down, put the blinders on, and enjoy what I’m doign in EQ2!
Of the games I’m rooting for, the only one to speak of that delivered was Free Realms, which had a great launch and seems to be doing well in the market they aimed for. As for the games I was worried about, I think I should have worried more considering that you could add Vanguard, Warhammer, and Age of Conan to the list of endangered MMOs.
Predictions coming next! Hopefully this time, I’ll actually print them in the year 2010.
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