In my opinion, I really don’t think that a guild needs to take on the responsibility of training anyone they don’t want to. It’s their time, their money, and the truth of the matter is, you just can’t take care of everyone. And beyond being polite and supportive, I don’t really think you should have to; World of Warcraft is time intensive enough (not to mention mentally, having to navigate through all the personalities in your guild) without wondering whether or not it’s right to reject that nub hunter from your guild because he never had the chance to learn to play in a group – All this is only imho, though. : )

:[ and why do you put the Pats up and say such mean things like win the super bowl….. ;.; that was a sad night I’d rather not remember…

Many raiding guilds are set up for the sole purpose of raiding. They could care less about friendships and the social aspect of WoW. They’ve all been playing long enough that they probably have friends in other guilds that they talk to and do the odd jobs with. Remember why a guild is set up and if that’s what they want to do, fine, more power to them.

Although “phat lootz” isn’t what I play for, it sure is a nice goal that I try to attain on the way. It’s the reason why I haven’t joined a hardcore raiding guild although I’ve had several offers and why I’m still raiding Kara. I don’t want to be told what, how, and when I can do something. I have a job and I don’t want to make WoW my second one. That said we can’t and shouldn’t expect others to “recognize [that] as the reason to be in a guild.”

Keeping with a sports analogy, when an MVP in any sport does something wrong, he gets a pass. Hell he doesn’t even go to jail sometimes if it’s a broken law he committed.

There is a sickening double standard that exists in organized sports, gaming, business, anything. It’s human nature to give leniency to the best.

So my point being in relation to this discussion: Good or great WoW players don’t have to be nice, courteous, or helpful, by virtue of their skill.

This can be seen in any highly progressed guild. Like Blue Moon, they have several complete asshats lead by king crap on turd island (daara) and he’ll never be kicked because he’s a fantastic player.

I think it speaks to the character of the guild when these individuals who continually cross the line, but are great players, are kicked anyway. Those are the kind of guilds I’d want to be in and most people should recognize as the reason to be in a guild. Not phat lootz.

-TJ

It’s why the American Olympic basketball team has gotten their asses kicked every year, it’s why companies can’t succeed on the strengths of a single executive, and it’s why a solid team will always beat star performers.

Everybody’s got to be good; but everybody’s also got to be a team player.

Not in the “We only want xyz roles and xyz players”. You’ve got to be serious about being a team, and being a good team means you take the time to really get to know and trust everybody on your team.

Great post, Matt. I think you really captured the essence of it.

There is a hole in between the two arguments, however.

Your argument assumes that players know how to play their class IN A GROUP before reaching raiding. Tobold states that Blizzard designed WoW so too many people get to 70 without playing IN A GROUP, and thus not knowing how to do so.

Both points are absolutely and completely correct.

So what happens? Players have to learn to play their class in a group on their own. They have to put in effort to either find a social group (most of the time a guild, but not always) that will teach them, or they have to do outside the game research to learn.

To misquote an old maxim, “The teacher will emerge when the student is ready.”

Honestly, forcing characters to group, as Tobold recommends, in order to level will make them more likely to be ready for “end game” things once they reach 70. It will be helpful for those who *want* to learn, but for various reasons have a difficult time “finding the teacher.” But it will not make everyone ready for it, as we know there are way too many idiots playing WoW.

On the other hand, cherry picking characters who have proven raiding experience for your guild does, in fact, limit the long-term growth of your guild by essentially limiting the raiding pool on the server. It is the old “I need a job to get experience, but can’t get experience because I don’t have a job” quandry. BUT… the bottom line is that this is a time-limited past time for raiders, and they *do* have to maximize their time investment. If the population was stable, you could afford to go think more long term. But this is a relatively transient game and that makes it more difficult.

So where is the answer? I certainly do not know. But that is why we are all here on blogs discussing the questions. So that the people at Blizzard who I pay to come up with these answers (and Blizzard is by far the best company at tapping into the community to make things better) will have an idea sparked by what we discuss.