MMO Guilds

I have played more than a few MMORPGs in my day. One universal truth of the genre is that at some point in the game you will need a larger group to accomplish something. As picking up random people is rarely a recipie for success, this will lead you to join a guild. A "guild" might gi by another name is one game or another, but the idea is the same, a group of people with goals helping one another in said goals. Raiding usually being one of the biggest aspects of a guild. However, there are many other reason you might be in or even form a guild. Questing, group finding, trade skills, company, etc.

However not all guilds are created equal. Goods ones deal with an even hand. Bad ones generally work by having "haves" and "have nots". It should be noted. that you might be a member of a guild only to find out that the goals of the guild and yours do not line up. Some games have ways to research guilds, some do not. Here I want to talk about my worst, and best experiences with guilds.

My worst guild experience was with the first guild I was ever a part of, in the first MMORPG I ever played. The game was Everquest, the guild went by "Free Norrath". I joined because several real life friends I was playing with joined. This guild talked a lot about working together, and being more of a family than a guild. That should have been a warning sign to me, but I was new to this and maybe a little naive. Frequently there was talk of doing big events, such as raiding, and these would generally not happen. If you went on their forum to ask about what happened, you would be told "you shouldn't be complaining, we are not a serious raiding guild". Which is fine, but when you schedule and event, it is reasonable for members to expect it too happen. There was also a lot of members that expected people to drop everything to help them, but would never return such favors. Also, voicing any dissenting opinion was meet with harsh reprisals This included most of the officers. This left a very bad taste in my mouth. I eventually found a good guild by the name of "La Catena". It ended poorly, but that is a story for another day.

The best guild experience I ever had happened on World of Warcraft. It was guild named "Red Ribbon Army", which I joined only because of liking the Dragon Ball reference they were making. When I joined, I joined only to have one character with the tag on them, mostly for my own amusement. I soon found that they were all very nice people. Almost all willing to work toward goals, and have a good conversation while doing it. Events that were scheduled always happened, in one form or another. If something did get canceled it would be made known in advance. You could voice your thoughts without fear of anyone trying to stump it out. Easily the best guild I ever spent time in. It is a shame that this guild came to an end. Not because of drama in game, or real life tragedy. No it came to end due Blizzard, and their apathy toward making worthwhile content. While I don't really miss World of Warcraft, I do miss the people of the "Red Ribbon Army".

There are many other guilds I have been a member of, even a few I have been an officer in. No need to go into all of them. At the moment I am without an MMO to play, and not really looking to find one. If I do, I hope to find another good group, but that is hard.

How To Win At MMOs

Improving World of Warcraft Part 2

Warlords of Draenor

A new expansion to World of Warcraft released this month. Just like the last four expansions, the launch went poorly to say the least. Long waits to sign on, new incredibly glitchy content, and of course the worst trolls and white knights fighting for hours in general chat.

To actually play the game you will need to wait. It will take between 90 minutes and 5 hours to sign on. You will need to find something to do during this time. This is where a handheld or gaming console would come in very handy. Never thought a new PC release would lead me to playing more 3ds and Playstation 3. Seems Blizzard found a way to make it happen.

Now once you are on you will be greeted with new content. For some reason almost none of this content is phased, so you will be trying to do the same quest as over a thousand other players at the same time. This will make completing any quests virtually impossible. You need to kill 8 of a particular monster, so do the other 1500 players in your immediate area, so good luck with that. Not only that also the servers are going down several times an hour hotfix various problems, so after hours of waiting you will likely get less than 15 minutes of time in game. That monthly charge on your credit card seems so worth it.

Now if you do actually manage to get on for more than a few minutes you will get to watch "The rule of Aaron" in action. If you are unfamiliar "The rule of Aaron" the idea that the worst 1% of a group will ruin it for everyone. In this case the worst 1% is debating in general chat about how the launch is going. One group feels that there is no problem and no mistakes have been or are being made.  The other feels they are being raped (or worse). Both groups are very vocal, and neither are interested in facts or logic.

Now the actual new content is good. There is a city building mechanic that is very well done, along with new and interesting zones. The loot system has been revamped giving you more of a reason to go through content multiple times. The new stuff is great, actually getting on to enjoy it is the main problem.

Pet Peeves Vol 3

Well it seems like it is time for some more hatred directed to the trivial things in this world. Somethings are big, somethings are small, but you know I hate them all. Third time we have done this here, and there is always more to come.

People that drag the cart behind them at stores. People doing this should have their feet cut off. Then they could never do this ever again.

Stephen Colbert. He only has one joke, and it is long past old at this point.

This new breed of troll that pertend to not understand what you are saying.

Fast food fish. Every year for Lent all the fast food place have some kind of fish on the menu. Every year these dishes are just god awful. Fish is just not something fast food places should serve.

Rage quitting people on MMOs. Not everything is going to go your way. Sometimes your character will die. Sometimes internet lag will mess up what you are doing. Unexpected things happen from time to time. Quitting because of it just shows off your true douchebag self.

Ironic user names. If you can't follow simple logic, don't call yourself Sherlock Holmes.

Creationism in the science classroom. Just a problem of location. Creationism would be a fine subject in the philosophy classroom.

People that take their dog everywhere. I know you love your dog. You need to understand that not everyone loves your dog. In fact, some of us hate your dog. Some of us see your dog, and what to skin it alive in front of you.

Success Does Not Equal Quality

For whatever reason thing that aren't very good become popular from time to time. Sometimes this is temporary and a backlash happens, and whatever it was is seen for what it really was all along. Others seem immune to any kind of backlash, and continue to make money for years. It is the successful low quality products, and the makers thereof, that are getting some attention today.

McDonald's might be the most successful restaurant on planet. It can be found in many countries around the world, and the company as a whole makes millions of dollars a day. That is all great for them. However, the food leaves much to be desired. The food is rather bland, is objectively bad for you, and the quality of the ingredients are a subject of debate. While no "fast food" is great, some of it is better than others, so why does one of the worst remain at the top? It is cheap, it is familiar, it is everywhere. How it got to this point is hard to say, one might assume they were better in the past than now.

Blizzard was great back about 15 years ago. Now they seem to be completely devoid of any original ideas, or even the smallest amount of innovation. They seem to be getting rather lazy, as if they think their brand alone is enough. Two releases of this company make me question the quality of there work. Both are extremely popular, but this popularity seems grossly undeserved. The releases in question are World of Warcraft and Starcraft 2.

The first is World of Warcraft, the Fisher Price of the MMORPG world. It is a very simple game, that seems to almost play itself. When it came out in 2004 it had almost nothing in the way of innovation. It was then, and is now, a much oversimplified game. Nothing is ever really a challenge, and therefore you never feel as if you accomplished anything. While simple design can be a wonderful thing, when you are paying a monthly fee to play, one comes to expect something more. Everything in the game comes with so little effort it never really feels like you are out of a tutorial. However most World of Warcraft fans don't expect more, and are happy to pay for the worlds longest running game tutorial. 

The other release that seems lacking is Starcraft 2, but for very different reasons than World of Warcraft. Starcraft 2 came out 12 years after the first game, the first game being mind blowing back in 1998. When Starcraft 2 came out in 2010, it had a somewhat interesting single player campaign, and multiplayer that was almost unchanged from the first game.  After over a decade of time it is time for something new, not just an old game with better resolution. If the multiplayer should have offered something new, something that would be as mind blowing today as the original was in 1998.

In the end we will never know why lazy and low quality products sometimes become grand successes. it is a matter of taste to some degree. Like the old saying goes "there is no accounting for taste". However, when the something lack luster makes money it leads to more of the same coming form others sources trying to emulate that success.