Player Associations Archive
Thread: Guilds, What Kind of Players are You Churning Out?
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Rothin
Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:59 am
#1
While some guilds may be the 'support network for churning out stupid PvPers' as you claim, I find it very steriotypical that you claim most of them are like that, in fact I find it almost offensive.
This is a place for the discussion of guilds and how to use their mechanics in game and generally a nice place for people to post and ask questions. Your post is rather off topic as it's an anti-guild thread and shouldn't have been posted here as it will most likely bring in nothing but flames.
Guilds are for the social player to interact with other friends and even help make new friends overtime through those interactions. Yes most guilds are a type of support network, but that's also a purpose for guilds. For players to group together to take care of each other, it's the most sincere gameplay benefit available and what is envisioned for most games. Players helping other players. Now, do you have to be guilded to do that? Absolutely not. You can be guild free and be just as helpful. The difference with guilded players however is that you know you can usually call on the person and they'll help you out because you're a friend and a guildmate. It's what my entire guild is based on. Take care of each other first. We're like a family more like a guild.
Do we do what you say? No. We're not in it just to churn out PvPers or make people so dependant on us they can't leave. That has never been a goal of ours and it's insulting that you claim thats what guilds do. We recruit players of all levels and welcome to the guild as a place they can find assistance and friends. We don't just give them freebies, we teach them how to get those items by playing the game, not just the grind. Do we help them out when they are in need? Yes. We might give them that first set of armor or a weapon to help them out but at the same time they provide for everyone else once they learn the game. They know not to strictly depend on the guild itself either. We have many friends who are in other guilds or guildfree that they interact with to buy items. We do guild hunts. We do hunts and let anyone join like pick up groups. We don't isolate ourselves. We play the game. We teach our guildmates to play the game. If they have a question, we answer it. It's just that simple.
What you suggest to players is your own opinion and I respect that. However, since you've always been guild free perhaps you should consider the other side of the coin and actually join a guild before you begin to judge them as a whole saying we're just in it for our own greed which is rediculous. Join a guild and see how they operate. There are a lot of players who do join them just for freebies and those are the ones you're running into. You're not finding the ones who truly know what a guild is about or how to participate in one. Just some food for thought.
DathylBran
Mon Mar 07, 2005 5:37 am
#2
Nice thread there, one for thought. Perhaps it indicates the way people are generally these days, expecting things given to them, but thats another discussion entirely.
I have been in big guilds and to put it bluntly, apart from the core PvPers and high end PvE hunters, they are pretty faceless. Often lots of muscle but no character for those who aren't in the 'clique'.
Currently my guild is small (very small indeed now, see my other thread), with about 10 active people. What tha means is thatwe know each other well, what skills we have and what our goals are. We help each other. I needed help with the Sennex cave, two guys were with me inside 5 mins. I found the Bladeback boar and was able to return the favour and the guy who needed it had his badge within 10.
Essentially, we play as individuals, but we have support when we need it (our Master Doctor always saves some of his best buffs for us, at cost, for those of us who need it) and I don't want it any other way.
Unfortuately that does limit things when ppl start to talk about the Death Watch Bunker.
Malcolm_CaKre
Mon Mar 07, 2005 7:08 am
#3
Disclaimer: I am guilded, and I prefer to play guilded characters, and have for a long time.
I think that you get out of a guild what you put into it -- and also what you look to get out of a guild. Poor, rude players will tend to form up into poor, rude guilds. Good, adventurous, and wise players will tend to form their own guilds... and while they'll get their share of poor and rude players, they'll tend to either weed out or grow up.
I tend to use my guild membership as a sort of automated friends list. I do things with other people in game, and try to meet people as I go, but my guildies and I have been thru a lot together. Life and death, hairs-breadth rescues. Ground and space. They are, to my character, the closest thing he's had to family since he left his homeworld.
It hasn't always been so -- I've been in poor, rude, bad guilds, and hated it.
For what it's worth, I think it's fair to stereotype a guild by it's worst member that you meet, if that's the image that sticks in your mind. But I don't think it's fair (or accurate) to paint all guilds with the brush of the worst member of any guild you've ever met.
mal
Kinshi
Mon Mar 07, 2005 7:27 am
#4
I will agree with you in part, but just in part. Yes, I think there is some truth to be had in the support network making newcomers dependant but being in a guild is all about the support network, its about being in a team, and supporting each other is what a team does.
Now, in SWG, I have found that since darn near every aspect of the game can be soloed, teamwork is strictly optional for the most part. I have yet to witness the inter-group/interguild coordination that is necessary to pull off complex tasks in other MMOs. Mianly because I feel this game doesnt require players to be organized nor act in a coordinated manner. None (none or very few) of the missions or dungeons really require that.
As such one of the biggest problems I witness in SWG guild is that new comers (read: noobs)are typically left to their own devices, to go figure out the game on their own until they get up to the level of the rest of the guild, and they may be under pressure to hurry up and level/gain XP (as that may be a requirement to stay in their guild), thus they have to go to the grinding capitols of the galaxies.
It may very well serve noobs best to stay away from the faster paced guilds at start, instead seeking out a casual, laid back one where they can go slow and figure things out, then once they outgrow it, then consider moving on the faster paced guild.
Now, in SWG, I have found that since darn near every aspect of the game can be soloed, teamwork is strictly optional for the most part. I have yet to witness the inter-group/interguild coordination that is necessary to pull off complex tasks in other MMOs. Mianly because I feel this game doesnt require players to be organized nor act in a coordinated manner. None (none or very few) of the missions or dungeons really require that.
As such one of the biggest problems I witness in SWG guild is that new comers (read: noobs)are typically left to their own devices, to go figure out the game on their own until they get up to the level of the rest of the guild, and they may be under pressure to hurry up and level/gain XP (as that may be a requirement to stay in their guild), thus they have to go to the grinding capitols of the galaxies.
It may very well serve noobs best to stay away from the faster paced guilds at start, instead seeking out a casual, laid back one where they can go slow and figure things out, then once they outgrow it, then consider moving on the faster paced guild.
PoetDancer
Mon Mar 07, 2005 1:32 pm
#5
I am unguilded. After a year and a half of this game, I like being unguilded. I also wear the helper tag to help new players get acclimated.
And yet, I get a player with guild tags, a master rifleman title, composite armour, and a T21 on the /tell from approximately two game feet away. He asked me,an unguilded dancer, for 15,000 credits.
The box was scrolling too fast, so I asked him, "could you speak in spatial? The box is scrolling too fast."
He said no.
I asked why, and he replied, "because I can't."
So I asked him, in spatial, "why don't you ask your guild, ?" Imagine that. A player with the entire financial backing of an entire network of free goods, free automated buffing services, their own cities, and all of that has to ask me, an unguilded dancer, for 15,000 credits. Indeed, why should I have to do the things that this player's guild should be doing for him?
He said, "They aren't on. Plz, I need it quick."
I said, "Why not do missions?"
He said, "I can't." Now imagine that. A master rifleman with a T21 and composite armour cannot do six simple 2500 credit missions at Coronet so he wouldn't need to ask.
So I told him, "Why do you need 15,000 credits?" He replied, "For doctor buffs. I need them."
I asked him, "why can't you do three double missions for 2500 credits here in Coronet?" It will take you all of fifteen minutes, and you'll have all the money you need.
He said something so suprising that I thought it was a joke until I thought about it.
"I don't know."
Butthen I soon realized that this player said this in all sincerity! And I imagine the reason he thought this was he was told exactly what and how to grind by his guild for so long that he honestly never even stopped to consider that it could be any other way than how the guild always told him to do it.
Guilds, what sort of players are you churning out? Because I see this sort of scenario happen all too often from guild players. And I imagine that its because they simply do not understand how to earn things or to get by on their own. They have become so divorced from the game in its most basic respects that they simply do not know what to do without their vast support networks.
Why do you all feel you have the right to /tell players who are standing right in front of you? Probably because you are lost in your own /guildchat and voicechat worlds that you lost the ability to communicate in the common language everyone shares.
Why do you feel that you can only earn credits while buffed, on the hardest of hard worlds? Probably because you have everything handed to you from day 1, you have always had guaranteed help, and none of your members had to go without.
And indeed, you do the new players no service by taking them under your wings, giving them buffs, giving them their tools, and making sure they speed quickly to a major master or PvP position as quickly as possible. Because these are not players who have the slightest idea of how they can play without you. Or perhaps that's what you want, isn't it? Players that are so lost without your support that they will be unable to leave.
Because what I have discovered in recent times is that the untagged players are simply much nicer, because they have to be. They have to follow Shug Ninx's advice when he says on Page 81 of the rulebook:
"So keep your tounge in check: the Bothan you insult today might be the only medic around to save your hide tomorrow."
Guild players really don't, now do they? Because they have their own cities, their own support networks, and even their own communication networks that are insulated and self sustaining. And that may be why whenever I see indifferent or antisocial behaviour in the cantina, its always with tagged players. Its because they simply either forgot, or haven't learned how to interact with anyone outside their ranks.
I am starting to give a lot of new players advice not to join the guilds, at least not right away. I tell them the truth, that guilds by in large need players a lot more than players need guilds. A good player who is amicable to all I think can get by in these galaxies a whole lot better than a player who doesn't have a game without the guild constantly defining their experience for them.
Who knows? Maybe if enough players discover that with a little goodwill and openness, we wouldn't need guilds to give us a game. We could give ourselves a game.
Message Edited by PoetDancer on 03-07-2005 02:38 AM
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