Greedy Goblin

Friday, November 12, 2010

Guild in the guild system

This post is obsolete, it contains no longer hold my views, as I found a practical solution to the mentioned problem.

The philosophy below was that the opposite of "competent" is "M&S", and the "excellent" ones form a sub-group inside the "competent" group. Since small raiding guilds and arena teams are excellent, they are closer to us than they are to the average player in the server. So they are better off inside, so they can find competent players for off-hours activities, and they can use the guild perks coming fast from the larger guild size.

What I forgot is that there are certain tools that can be used for both bleeding edge progression and pointless social activities:
  • voice communication: can be used to discuss the fight fast and also to tell arthasdklol that he is currently standing in the fire, which is bad
  • alts: can be used to allow the players to access the "flavor of the month" class or a class that is OP on that boss, but can also be used to strike e-peen over having 3-5 "1337 toon", while he can't play with his main
  • loot council: can be used to maximize group benefit with an upgrade but also to reward buttkissers, buddies and such
  • social chat: can be used to decrease the stress over the 82nd wipe but also to replace performance with good feelings
In The PuG these actions are forbidden to keep the M&S out. In bleeding edge groups the presence of the M&S is impossible, as a single one would make sure that they are nowhere near the bleeding edge.

What I missed is that there are always topguilds, they are in constant change. The competition decides between them, and they pay the prices of their decisions alone. However if they would be incorporated into a bigger group, without without having to comply the rules of the bigger group, that group would also pay the price of their decisions. Example: topguild X consists males in their early 20-es. They find talking about porn and "joking" about women fun. It helps them relax. Of course it makes it impossible for them to recruit women (or men with healthy relationships), but that's a price they happily pay. However if they would be a sub-group of The PuG, their speech would make the whole guild insufferable to women.

Excellence comes with a price. It is an unwalked road (a road walked by many is by definition mainstream). We don't know where this road goes. No one knows. Maybe an inevitable doom is coded in it (like in the usage of cocaine: high performance in the short run, total destruction on the long). Excellent people must walk their own road, but can't force others to go with them.

I don't completely given up on the "incorporate top groups into The PuG" plan, but I cannot give any extra privileges. However, as nonconformist myself, I can show the loophole: "what the boss doesn't know is something he can't punish". So if you manage to use vent or loot council on raids where everyone accepts it and nobody rats on you to me, you can. If you have alts on different accounts, you can get them invited as I'll never figure it out. If you tell disgusting jokes on your private, password-protected chat, I won't know anything about it. And I won't break my arm and leg just to find it.

If you can accept the rules or if you are ready to play hide-and-seek, you are welcomed to join. But make no mistake, if people send me a screenshots about you "loot-counciling" or "are u on vent?" I warn you some times to stop, and finally you'll be flying after Wickedstylo. (on the other hand if they like your way, they won't send) Look at the guild perk list and look at the guild rules then decide if the gain worth the cost!
-----------------

Cervino found this specimen, who can perfectly describe the downsides of stamina stacking:
What can I say about a tank who has more int than srt? He indeed needs that intellect.

37 comments:

Andru said...

You're not going to do yourself any favours this way.

If a good guild wants your players but doesn't want your rules, they can just make a 10 man guild outside your guild, and just invite people from your guild when they're missing someone, or need fast dungeons or whatever.

Since you can't force anyone in your guild to raid with you, such a parallel guild would get most of the benefits, without being even coming close to being threatened by your rules.

Your offer is simply not good enough.

Gevlon said...

How could our guild members know that this "parallel guild" is good? I mean some guy comes out of the blue and say "hey blow your raid save with us instead of The PuG", how many will simply ignore him without bothering to look the guild up on wowprogress?

However I'm fully aware that my offer is not really tempting and don't expect guilds swarming here. Maybe a few arena teams.

Coa said...

The analogy doesn't quite work in that if a guild that chooses to join the PuG uses vent or loot council in their raids i.e. raids with 10 people from their guild or maybe 8/9 with a PuG member it doesn't really have that big a detrimental effect to The PuG raids.

Anonymous said...

With the restrictions on guilds within the guild, I don't think there will be much interest either. The idea is quite bad now.

Gevlon said...

@Coa: the problem is that arthasdklol can claim that his 10-man guild is also using vent and loot council and I shall accept them as whole too. On what basis shall I reject them? If A can use vent why can't B?

Anonymous said...

To Gevlon: Lds from today's Moron of the Day is a paladin, not warrior. This doesn't really change the fact, even if int does a few things for him (on the oher hand nature spell power from his back does not), he indeed is a wonderful specimen.

chewy said...

I find it fascinating watching how the original purist ideal of the Pug is changing.

The original ideal was to create an environment with no obligation and no structure but policed by rules to keep out the M&S. But your objective seems to have changed slightly, now you seem to be interested in faster progression and guild firsts.

These two are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but the more you dilute the original ideal in order to achieve secondary objectives the less relevance the original ideal has.

It's all very well saying "Just don't tell me and I won't know" but what you're doing is "decriminalising" rather than actively policing. In respect of your original ideal it has the same diluting effect and hence starts to invalidate the experiment.

Visalyar said...

In point of the voice communication, in Raids it usually was a tool to save the raidmember some macros. Since you can have DBM who needs someone to explain when something happens that makes your screen flash in 25(subjective) different coclours and 289(also subjective) different soundeffects.

Where I prefer and recommend voice communication is the arena. You will never be able to set up 256 macros and premade tactics to cover alls situations and combinations (if you think else pleasy play rmp as priest or rouge above 1,8k in the coming season). As your rules seem to ban voice communication only in raids I see nor further complications. If your intention is that you ban it also in small autonomous groups (arena) I´ll have to leave as soon as I find some educated well performanced mates.

BGs are slightly different, since you have more distraction than benefit. Unless you form up 5+ teams of 3+ players to act as seperate teams. This was our usual AB & AV tactic. But I

Visalyar said...

Crap, endet mid-sentence. Creepy boss at all.
I´d add shot: But I wouldn´t start a debate / leave by that point.

Grim said...

Perhaps its time to relax the rules then...

Voice communication:
Ban it in normal mode farm runs only.

Where a farm run means that anyone in the group has already killed the boss. Progression raid groups do not need Vent for a normal mode boss that they already know. M&S cannot be boosted through hardmodes by vent alone.

Loot distribution:
Leave it to raid leader's discretion.

This is the part that I never understood - why enforce gold bid? Yes, you have explained how it is the fairest, but it still does nothing to keep M&S out. If 10 Puggers decide that they don't want to bother with it and will just need-before-greed it, they bloody well should be allowed to do it - it saves time and is thus actually better for any group that values progress more than gold.

Social chat is a non-issue - /casual is still around.

No-alts is also a non-issue. For FotM one can just /gquit on one char and join with the other. For specific boss fights there is no need for the alt to be in guild.

Riptor said...

@ Gevlon: Group A can use Vent because they are ranked among the Top 200 10Man Raiding Guilds Worldwide and Arthasdklol’s Group just barely is able to down Sindra hc in ten Mans. Since the PUG does not seem to follow the “we are all special and equal Snowflakes” Principle it’s totally acceptable for you to give Benefits to better Players or Groups as they are probably more valuable to the Guild as LolDK. Also at a certain Level especially Voice Communications becomes a necessity. What I have seen in the beta, doing a 10 Man heroic without Voice would bring more difficulty and will make some fights almost undoable during Progress. Also you can not expect a 2500 Arena Team to do Battles without Voice. Since the PUG is based on asocial Principles it really should not be a Problem to allow outstanding Groups within the Guild to use Voice, Lootcouncil and so forth. I also think it won’t really be a Problem for those Groups or the Rest of the Guild. Functioning Raid Groups and Arena Teams all have their Tools, be it their own Server or Skype. If they continue to use that and not publicly announce that they have it (i.e. no Guild Vent, as every group must look to their own Tools) you should be fine.
You must always think about the kind of Player you want to recruit. If you want to distinguish Casuals, Minions, Socials and M&S your Guild works great, but if you want to attract small Top Notch Groups for the Benefit of Guild Size and Perks (as well as reputation), you must give them the means to remain Top Notch

Fubuar said...

Quick question, it was mention in yesterdays comments but overlooked.

What is going to become of the extra income generated for the guild bank since we do not have such need for a "communist collective"

I can understand if you must choose this guild perk but if you do not have to then why are you taking it ?

Kuckuck said...

I like the moron's nature spell damage cape. I can see the many uses as a palladin tank.

/giggle

Gevlon said...

@Grim: relax the rules until nothing is left

@Riptor: definitely a good idea, but at the beginning of Cata it's unfeasible, as everyone is a leveling lowbie. After the first content patch there will be differences between a topguild and arthasdklol's team

@Fubuar: will be a post

Grim said...

@Gevlon
Good old "slippery slope" fallacy?

You suggested that people just ignore the rules and try to hide it from you. Is that really a better way to deal with dysfunctional rules than changing them?

Anonymous said...

My only comment is about voice chat.

Letting raids use it while doing raids/competitive arenas isn't harming in any way. From my personal experience as a raid leader M&S will die in a fire even if you yell at them over vent.

Of course using vent for social purpouses while not raiding can be totally banned, since most of the bleeding edge guilds don't really care about it.

But I can't see guilds serious about raiding or really good arena teams be willing to join your project. Getting faster the guild perks doesn't even remotely compare to being able to use voice chat in terms of raiding or pvping usefulness.

Just my 2 cents by the way.

Gevlon said...

@Grim: the rules are fine for 95% of the people. The top 5% needs to be more relaxed and they deserve it. But I won't risk the 95% for them.

The "able to hide it" is an intelligence/cooperation test. A top guild can do it, arthasdklol cannot.

Also, the rules exist as they can be broken only with complete agreement, if someone doesn't like loot council (because the leader has favorites), then all he have to do is send me a screenshot and soon the loot council will disappear.

@Anonymous: I don't doubt. Today's post was exactly about how they should stand alone, despite the slower perks, walking their own way.

Tobold said...

"Maybe a few arena teams."

Why wouldn't you allow Vent on Arena Teams? Or have you consider it?

Moraller said...

let me say this, look up Vodka or Paragon guild's. They would get world firsts in ICC, the old guild I was in got realm firsts in all of ICC and we was the 10th guild worldwide to down 25mHM, all with 2 alts and people named stuff you would classify as "M&S" and would never let join. Funny how those people slip through and get into some of the top guilds, while you talk about it and barely have 10m kills under your belts. From now on, talk only about the "M&S" on your realm, not "every" realm. I can show you 3 US realms that will make you eat your words about "all" realms.

Visalyar said...

@Moraller: I can introduce you to a 7 times glad & "25 icc hc serverfirstkill" as well as sunwell prenerf raider. He is 15 years old and couldn´t even do some basic math nor can he write a single correct sentence (he even speaks with lols etc.).
If that´s an excuse for being an idiot well, everyone has his own goals ond some put them real low. But well at least that are only real life issues, aren´t they?

Anonymous said...

Are the perks exclusive of your guild?

Bulbasaur said...

Sorry but I thought that the goal of The Pug rules was trying to let the people's idiocy apart from raiding, and all that is left would be a bunch of people with some skills that raid whatever they want. But now it seems the rules are trying to just puor out people to get only the best raiders without any work or fun.

Seems like the next change will be "We'll pay hardcore raiders to 'carry' us", in a similar way you did with your druid.

(I used the word "carry" but it's not what I ment to say, I don't know the correct expression in english)

To form a big guild of raiders with litle autonomies within seems very silly when you can form two different guilds.

Anonymous said...

Gevlon asks:

"How could our guild members know that this "parallel guild" is good? I mean some guy comes out of the blue and say "hey blow your raid save with us instead of The PuG", how many will simply ignore him without bothering to look the guild up on wowprogress?"

This can't be serious. It is possible to get a rough estimate of player/guild skill by a variety of means. While Gearscore and achievements are the forms most commonly used in /trade, it is often possible to get an idea of a player's skill by looking at guild their guild tag, asking others you know about the person in question, inspecting gear, checking their entry in pugchecker.com or a similar system, or through a variety of other methods. Just because somebody is a stranger doesn't mean they are a mystery; you can check their raiding resume.

Gevlon said...

@Bulbasaur: have you actually read the post? That's exactly that such system cannot really work and the perks are most probably not worth it.

Anonymous said...

Gevlon,

My Arena team in the PuG used skype when playing matches. I don't even consider it to be an issue, as I am sure that you do not. I doubt that you could get anywhere in competitive team pvp without it.

Coa said...

Gevlon, it shouldn't really matter how bad Arthasdklol's guild really is to you. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the main reason for you wanting to join up with another 10 man guild to get access to the various benefits faster? You're essentially just using them and vise-versa. You do your thing and they do theirs.

Ferdinand said...

Bu- but... but INT makes Crusader Strike crit harder!

Gevlon said...

@Thenoisyrogue: it's not a problem. But imagine a raid guild getting 3 more people from us and demand to come vent. Then people would start demanding vent everywhere. I have to draw a line. Arena teams are pretty much fixed and don't pull in other people.

Visalyar said...

"Arena teams are pretty much fixed and don't pull in other people."

Nice to see I´ll get the chance to convince some of my favorite arenamates to take a look around.

Anonymous said...

So, basically anyone can use vent as long as he doesn't enforce it on others?

And there can even be vent or not vent raids?

I still fail to understand how it's harmful to your guild if someone is willing to push a little bit harder in order to conquer something. Vent is not rarely found in trade channel pugs either.

Anonymous said...

Tried to post this on tobold's most recent post but, he doesn't allow anonymous and I am actively against registering for an OpenID or using my g-mail. Maybe you'll share it?

***

sociopath: a person with an antisocial personality disorder.

Remove the word disorder (and \change antisocial to asocial, but really the two are quite close in most people's eyes, just not Gevlon's) and Gevlon would agree with you -- and take it as a compliment.

Gevlon's whole point seems to be that being a sociopath is better than being a social person; once you get over the shock value of that statement and start thinking about it, it is harder to think of why it is incorrect.

Complain at whomever you want, but calling Gevlon a sociopath isn't really a meaningful criticism.

Big Heals said...

I agree with Gevlon on vent. It is an excuse for players to be unprepared. "Can someone call out when I need to move" is usually the prelude to a less then fun session.

It's also possible for a raid to use vent and not accept raiders that use it as a crutch. It's just another tool like guild chat.

Anonymous said...

I just cant see arena teams joining with your No voice coms rule. Arena battles are dynamic your not fighting bosses on timers who do set things at set times, Unlike humans who can be very unpredictable I can't see a "no voice com" arena team progressing further than 1600 rating working with macro's etc etc.
(unless all players are in the same room)

Gevlon said...

@Anonymous: what they do in the arena is their business, I won't snoop around to find it out.

Anonymous said...

"I agree with Gevlon on vent. It is an excuse for players to be unprepared."

That's why all top guilds use it: because it's an excuse.

Anonymous said...

I have a solution for the vent issue.

When someone says "Can someone call out when I need to move" is usually the prelude to a less then fun session." you simply say (wait for it.....)

no

If they dont move, you have rules to deal with poor players.

Problem solved.

Anonymous said...

@The Anonymous

No they don't use it as a excuse, they use i because it helps. If they relied on on people n vent telling them what to do, they wouldn't be a top guild.