Trust
Last night something came up in my WoW guild that got me to thinking. Yeah I know, it should happen more often, this “thinking” thing.
I’m almost level 79 so I’m running some stuff with friends, trying to level. As such I’m not in Naxx with the rest of my guild on the nights they run that. Tarkheena is 80 and she has started running Naxx with the guild and as such was in the Vent channel with them during the run. Before I get into the details, let me set the stage.
The guild I am in has been together for years and years. They play other games and WoW just happens to be the game that they are playing as a group now. We got invited to the guild because we know some of these guys in real life. Most of the people in the core of the guild live here in Austin and we’ve been to lunch and we’re probably going to do a LAN party event here soon. They are adults, most of them have kids or long-term relationships, and have pretty good jobs in the high tech industry. As such, there is a very high level of trust among the core. I’m not likely to ninja something if I have to be on a conference call with that person in a few weeks trying to sell something to a customer. It’s just not gonna happen. Plus, no one wants to jeapordize that kind of relationship.
The guild has, in the interest of progressing a little more, started inviting people that are outside this circle. They live all over the US, don’t really know the people in the guild or the history of the guild. To them, I’m sure it’s just another tag and group of people to play with. Sometimes these people grate. It’s because culturally, they are different than us. We’re probably not going to run into them in the grocery store. This probably isn’t the last WoW tag they will wear. Just the opposite is true for the core of the guild.
I’m sure that most seasoned MMo players would love to be in the situation that I’m in. Nearing 79, I’m getting the “hurry up and level so we can start running Heroics and Naxx together” tells. Most people that join a guild have to really earn their way into those situations. That level of trust already exists between us. They know I’m not going to do anything (too) stupid, and that’s nice.
So, back to Naxx. Last night I was running Gundrak with some friends not in the guild. Tark looks over at me, points to her headset, and says; “drama…”. So I popped over into the vent channel to see what was going on. As much as most of us hate drama, like a train wreck we have to see what is going on. It was a couple of the newer members calling out one of the guild officers for rolling on a particular piece of gear. I know, how unusual.
One thing I have learned is that with gear your opportunity will come around. If I don’t get gear tonight, then I’ll probably get it tomorrow or next week. Nothing that is going to keep me from enjoying the game. In a guild our size, this is particularly true. I know most guilds have had to go to some kind of loot system. I think this is a shame. In a perfect world we should be trusted to roll on what we need and pass or greed on stuff we don’t. That’s what I do. As an Elemental/Resto Shaman I regularly pass on nice gear that is more melee-oriented. It’s technically an upgrade, but I’m not really going to get the most out of it so I hit the “greed” button. I’ll take it if no one wants it and the RNG gods shine on me.
Things got a little heated in vent. Luckily the maturity factor kicked in and we got to talking about solutions. We’ll get it worked out but the whole incident pointed out to me once again that there is no real trust in MMO’s. Also, there is still an element of selfishness. You could argue on both sides which were the more selfish people in this case. At any rate the discussion is leading to the re-implementation of loot rules because the basic trust of the core group isn’t shared outside of that group. And vice versa, I think.
I know on an intellectual level that there will never be real trust in an online game again. Too many ninja-looters and scammers have destroyed that innocence. Just the same, I long for the days when I could trust the people I ran with and guilds weren’t like a Bic lighter that you just threw away when you were done with it. I know I’m old-fashioned. I just really enjoyed it when things were that way. Meanwhile, back in the real world, we’re probably going to use Suicide Kings. It’s imperfect but it’s agnostic and we’ll all eventually get geared up.
Me, I just wanna be 80.
I haven’t been to the site in a while (Google reader FTW) and hadn’t noticed the changes. Nice re-skinning, though I was partial to the “You kids get off my lawn” tagline
I haven’t played WoW in a week, kind of burned out on the game so I took a break. I have been thinking about leveling my Druid, that I have left lingering at lvl 72. All this talk of adult guilds and friends playing WoW makes me wonder if I should xfer and come and bother you guys there
Oh, hell yeah. Get on over here and run with us.
I’m not a big loot whore. I like loot, but I’m like you, I’ll pass on it if I think someone will benefit more from it than me, mainly because i want them watching my ass when I get my loot lol.
But the trust thing will never really be there. I’ve been on the outside looking in, and I got loot sure, but I wasn’t always the first person asked to be on a run either, that usually went to the core, then if they didn’t show up or friends of friends didn’t appear then I’d get the nod. This would irritate me, but since I’m not a loot whore and End game was something I was trying out, not dying to get into, I didn’t mind.
Then there is the perception that the circle of friends, will always try to gear up friends first over newbies to the guild. It’s almost never true, but if one guild does it then that rumor spreads like wildfire and then everyone is thinking that it might happen to them, so they get paranoid they won’t ever get look when they run with this circle of close friends.
Trust is earned not something we are born with, especially in WoW. I’m sure it took you a while to trust the circle of friends you game with now, and it will be the same with new people to the guild, I’m sure.
[...] lastly, Genda of Grouchy Gamer has a depressing story of what happens when a guild of real life friends starts recruiting people they don’t know in order to beef up to take on bigger challenges. When I played WoW, this same story played out [...]
First off, nice reskin! Hadn’t been here in a bit, so congrats on that. Second, congrats on getting near max level in WoW
Naxx was by far my favorite zone in vanilla WoW and it’s pretty fun even now.
I run in a guild on my server that’s full of people who know each other IRL. We may not live by each other, but we visit for conventions or even just “because.” Loot will always have the potential to cause drama whether you know someone or not. I think it’s because if you know someone well enough to call them your friend and you feel slighted by them in any way, it cuts a little deeper than the little punk PUG’er who just wants loot and will do anything to get it.
The difference is, hopefully you’ll drop it after realizing “hey, we’re friends and since he has it now, maybe I’ll get it next run” or whatever.
I came back to WoW after a couple months, ran Naxx on my DK and got like 5 pieces of loot last night. Funny thing was, we were only allowed 1 primary roll. After that you had to wait until secondary / offspec rolls were called. People knowingly passed to me even though their alts could have used the gear. I don’t hang out with these people on a regular basis, but they know I want to raid and in order to get into Ulduar I need better gear and they gave it to me. It’s those kinds of guilds that are a pleasure to be a part of.
I think a lot of it has to do with the amount of games around today. In the ‘good ole days’ you got into a guild and stuck with them until you were done with the game, many times that game going on for years (I was with one guild for the 3 years I played EQ1). Now with all the variety in MMOs it has caused a lot of bunny hopping from game to game. Sometimes you will not have the same group of friends in the new game that you did in the last. This of course leads to ‘can i trust him/her’ issues and drama.
Large multi-game guilds have been getting a lot more popular lately because of all of this, because you have the same rules and folks over many games.
Hello.
I’m actually quite familiar with this type of guild situation as I’m in one of those guilds but I’m sort of one of the few outsiders.
My guild is made up of people that have played together for years and years in various games and most of them know each other irl or have met up and had a giant BBQ irl. I met one of their members about 2 years back and became friends with them in-game. Thus earning me a guild invite.
It’s a little strange being an outsider but I really enjoy the atmosphere and the miniscule amount of drama compared to my previous guilds. I’ve been with them almost a year now. Well… Like 8 months or so.
It’s a little weird because they call each other by their first names but everybody calls me Moo. O.o