Greedy Goblin

Monday, August 7, 2017

Guild "poaching"

Over MO, I've found a "good advice" how to deal with "guild poaching". What happened in the story is simple: two guilds, neither one that could fully staff raids started to appear with alts on each other's run, and the more progressed guild started to poach mains of the lesser guild.

To save the guild, the author suggests to immediately cut ties to prevent further poaching and be content with lesser progression as they recruit more casual players who needs to get up speed.

This advice is retarded due to one reason: guilds aren't people, just like corporations aren't people. It's not even a "be a-social, ignore people's feelings" post. Guilds have no feelings, people have it. There is no inherent value in a video game guild or a real world corporation. It's a formalization of a group effort that is supposed to serve the members. The Guild is there to help members get bosskills and loot. The corporation is there to help workers get salary, owners get profit. If it no longer serves the people, it should be disbanded and another formed or joined.

There is absolutely no point trying to save that sucking guild from "poaching". It's an absolute betrayal of the members to turn it from a raiding guild to a casual lolguild. The clear action is admitting that the guild ran its course and disband it, letting everyone find new places to raid. Sure, not everyone will, some will not be welcomed in functioning raiding guilds but they are responsible for the downfall of this guild, it's their incompetence that caused the lack of progress. If they weren't be so bad, this guild would "poach" the other.

What I want to say is that loyalty to guilds and corporations isn't even social, it's just dumb. Keep friends if you want to, but keeping structures for the sake of keeping them is crazy. They should serve the people, not the other way around.

I realize that "loyalty to a guild" is usually a shortcut for loyalty to morons and slackers in that guild. Loyalty to those who don't carry their weight and expect others to do so. When you disband the guild and apply for a better one, you know that other raiders can do the same, but what about "friends" who "need more gear"?! Screw them! They could improve like you did!

Finally, it's a sad moment for a guild leader. He has to confront with the fact that he failed to provide success for his group. Many keep the lights on just to avoid admitting this. However doing so is the best for everyone. Not everyone is good at fighting morons and slackers. While the pill is sour for a day or two, the benefit of swallowing it is becoming a happy line raider in another guild instead of trying to boost morons and slackers for the sake of the fake glory of being a boss. It's better to be servant in Heaven than king of a dung pile.

4 comments:

Jim L said...

I generally agree with your sentiment, but it should be noted that there is potentially some inherent value in guild structure s in MMOs where there are guild levels and guild benefits. A guild that is at a high level is valuable to it's members.

Phelps said...

Our/My guild was on both sides of this equation several times.

How did we deal with it? Keep the shell of the old guild. Keep an alt as the guildmaster, and when the absorbing guild blows up (as it always does) resurrect the old guild, counter-poaching the best of the imploding guild.

Guild perks did a lot to kill the efficiency of this system, but I stopped playing WoW around that time anyway.

maxim said...

You are trying to simplify a rather deep issue and then calling everyone who acts out of any sort of complexity "stupid".

You can't really be a guildmaster, if you are willing to just up and abandon your guild if things go south. Guildmasters inherently need to be a bit "stupid", if you will.

Phelps said...

You can't really be a guildmaster, if you are willing to just up and abandon your guild if things go south. Guildmasters inherently need to be a bit "stupid", if you will.

For bad guilds that take advantage of the members for the benefit of the officers, sure.