What will our guild do in WoW (or any MMORPG)?

[Lord Terentius]

Experiencing my first MMORPG by playing EverQuest I quickly became unsatisfied with my role as an individual in the game. This stems from EverQuest not providing me with the feeling that my in-game character was an individual person in a real world and society. I feel that EverQuest is nothing more than a game in which I power leveled my in-game character so that the character could become as powerful as possible. Having developed this opinion about EverQuest, I am hesitant to get excited about any MMORPG because I question whether or not any of the games I read about- WoW, SWG, Horizons, and EQ II- can fulfill my gaming desires. Assuming our guild, “our guild” meaning those of us who have maintained enjoyable relationships for two years now, collectively plays a MMORPG as a whole, what will our guild be doing in the MMORPG?

I recognize that this question is vague; however, allow me to convey my thoughts and ideas so that the question becomes more clear. As a gamer, I want to role-play an individual character in a dynamic and interactive in-game world. EverQuest left me with a sense that every individual person controlling a game avatar could make in-game decisions without those decisions impacting the in-game society/world. My character had no purpose except to level and become a more powerful person so that I could attack and kill more powerful monsters. I was not role-playing in EverQuest and I was not part of a larger world, society, or story. Will WoW, SWG, Horizons, or EQ II be different than EQ in that people will not feel they are gaming, but rather living in a realistic world (realistic for the content of the games universe; obviously the content in most games is not realistic)? If the answer is indeed “Yes,” then what will our guild’s role be in the game of our choice?

(CONTINUED)

[Lord Terentius]

I do not want our guild to be a collection of players who simply exist in the world of our MMORPG leveling and collecting loot so that we can become extremely powerful individuals. Many gamers believe high numbers of powerful characters in a guild equates to a powerful guild. I do not want to see our guild play a MMORPG that revolves around this type of thought. Unfortunately though, games like EverQuest encourage this type of thinking.

I want to see the guild submerge into role-playing a smaller part in the larger, dynamic world of the MMORPG we play. This requires our guild to be in a game that has this larger, dynamic world and it assumes everyone in this guild shares the same want I have.

(CONTINUED)

[Lord Terentius]

Observe the following example:

- The example will use SWG because I know the Star Wars story more than the story of WoW and I believe SWG has a chance to offer the dynamic world I want because of the simple factor of good v. evil; players will have an actual goal in that they help the Rebels or Empire prevail to control the galaxy. This good v. evil will naturally encourage players to think about how they as individuals and guilds will impact the dynamic world(s) they live in. EverQuest does not do this and I hope WoW does. Note; I do realize SWG may not do this, I simply believe it will based on the good v. evil rationale.

(CONTINUED)

[Lord Terentius]

-I would be more excited about seeing our members collectively run a cantina, operate a Star Destroyer in the Empire, or be in charge of a Rebel fort on Hoth than I would be if we had all of our members be powerful individuals with separate goals. My dream is for us to all have a collective goal and accomplish it. My collective goal desire revolves around role-playing the content and world handed to us by the MMORPG we play. I do not want to log into the game only to have Jeedian message me and say “I just reached level 42 today and I bought the best blaster you can get.” I want to log on and see Jeedian say “Our fort was attacked by 25 Empire players who commanded 25 NPC Stormtroopers, but our defenses held and we did not lose the fort.” See the difference? The first quote revolves around the individual whereas the second quote centers around a guild effort.


-To accomplish reaching my goal that is exemplified in the second quote I feel simplicity and conforming to the game is important. Developers hopefully try to make a MMORPG with the intent to create a realistic world within the contents of the game. I feel that simplicity would help make this realistic world more realistic. Meaning, we are not the main characters. In SWG we would not be Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan-Kenobi, Vader, etc. We would be role-playing the smaller roles in the game. Perhaps our guild of twenty members would run that rebel fort or establish a successful business, etc. As for conforming to the game, we must play by the standards of the world. Jeedian developed an idea for a WoW story in which we were people from another dimension who overtook the bodies of WoW races. Creative idea, but it does not stay within the rules of WoW universe. Imagine if he wrote the same idea, but applied it to SWG. See my point? We must not make a story and make the game fit our ideas, we must fit our ideas realistically into the story of the game.


-Again, I am not favoring SWG with my ideas. I do not know enough about WoW or even the MMORPG I have played-EQ- to come up with examples from those games.

(CONTINUED)

[Lord Terentius]

So I pose the question again; what will our guild be doing in the MMORPG we play? I have no idea what to answer. I would be more excited about seeing our guild do something simple like collectively working together to run a weapons shop in WoW more than I could ever be if we simply become individuals trying to level and become powerful. I once made the comment, as a negative, that to play SWG you had to take on the attitude that you would be the background characters we see in the movies working at the Cantina Bar, standing around in Jabba’s Barge, preparing an X-Wing for launch, etc. Perhaps taking that attitude is the best option if every member of the guild worked to have the same experience, therefore encouraging more interaction.

I would love to know your desires and hopes for a MMORPG. Do you want to become a powerful, important individual or do you share my wish of having a guild work towards a realistic and common goal? What do you want our guild and your character to be doing in a MMORPG?

I believe it is crucial for our guild to discuss and be on the same "page" in our guilds in-game goals.

[Lord Neketh]

Personally I like the idea of building up to becoming a powerful individual, but in an MMO persistant world it doesn't really work becuase the whole story of the world does not focus around you. In SP games the story revolves around you as a protagonist and thats why I think that MMOs have a tough time of it. They can't focus on one person but have to craft a story that allows all the people in the world to be encompassed by it, otherwise they'd have to be constantly writing new code as players developed and the story would evolve from there.

I think this all depends on the main story for WoW, this will shape what happens I feel. If their are guild wars and things of that nature then, as a mercenary group we could sell our services to the highest bidder, working to bring down opponents armies for the reward of some coin. Or if evil threatens to strike the land then we can ally ourselves with the forces of darkness and march alongisde its dark banners destroying everything that comes in our path. I would love to have a world like Terentius suggests, where there is a dynamic you feel a true part of and I'll let you know if SWG achieves this or if it is just EQ in space.

This months PCG slates WoW for a Summer'03 release and I imagine they have a better idea than we have, perhaps all the quiet on the official site is leading up to the announcement that the beta will start after X-mas, that would be sweet. We'll have to see what new information comes out in the next release, I wish they'd give us more to go on than gorgeous screenies!!!

[Lord Lythas]

I agree that Everquest was disapointing when it game to anything other than leveling / improving your character(s). EQ should have been called a MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online game) not a Rping game as aside from having a different looking character most people were fine to group with anyone and not RP at all.

While I don't belive that a game should force any issue, you should be "encouraged" to play the game in a particular way, esspecially when it comes to role play.

The main problem with EQ was that it was good v's evil but the only evil in the game came from the monsters your fought against - not the people playing the game. Therefore it soon became PC's V's NPC's resulting in little / no role playing. As you have pointed out SWG will consist of different factions which means players are able to attack each other with out all the "lets have a duel" rubbish. By having different factions your automatically placing your character into a role which encourages players to play that faction. For example a rebel in a hostile environment could attack the imperial but isn't forced to. Of course 9 out of 10 times that is exaclty what they would do resluting the the two players RPing their characters under the factions that they chose.

When it comes to the "guilds role" in a MMORPG, thats going to depend on the MMORPG your playing. As you would have seen by posts I've made, I've been looking at the faction that I want the SWG Malador to play under. The reason for this is because each faction has its own goal within the game - The rebels want to defeat the Empire, and the Empire wants to crush the rebels.

In time there will be other factions introduced into the SWG universe, each with their own "general goal" - ie the Hutt faction; to make profit by any means possible - usually by underhanded methods. Aside from the factions there is another possibility for players to choose, the sympathiser. "Players can only belong to one faction, but can be sympathisers to many". This is like the methods used in EQ where if you killed an orc, you had better faction with the elves etc.

In SWG however players will be influenced more by these factions, as killing a rebel may improve your faction with the Empire and its supporting players, but inturn would allow you to be attacked by rebel supporting players. In EQ this simply didn't happen. You remained "indifferent" towards everyone, where I think if an Human PC killed a Ogre NPC, altering their faction, Ogre PC's should then be aware of that Human's faction with Ogres as a whole - allowing them to be KOS towards each other and improve the whole RPing thing.

Malador has generally focused on RPing evil characters, and I believe that this is what most of us prefer to play. For SWG that puts us in allience with the Empire faction, however as I have stated earlier, you can be a "sympathiser" towards a faction. I think that this is the route that I'll take SWG Malador down making the "Malador Crime Lords" - a criminal faction.

While Malador wouldn't strictly come under the Empire faction I would make it a point that the Empire, as well as the Hutt faction, were both to be of good standing, sacrificing the rebel faction to achieve this. That would allow Malador players to support the Empire / Hutt faction doing missions for either, but our goal would be to further our own quest for more credit / wealth.

As for WoW and the guilds focus there, thats depends on the games mechanics as to whether you can choose to RP under a particular faction etc.

[Jeedian]

"I simply believe it will based on the good v. evil rationale."

I hate to break it to you bud but every game is based off that concept. In SWG for example, another reason I left was because of the time period. We already knew the outcome. How could you possible want to roleplay when you know who the key characters were and who did what? I still believe they should have made it during the Sith wars where anything could have happened and nothing was official. If I went into SWG, I know for a fact I could not even kill Luke or Vader. Bummer.

In WoW, we don't even know who the good and bad guys exactly are. Hell, they have not even released all their races yet and they better hurry, people on the WoW forums are getting tired of waiting. Blizzard said they are going to try to make it as much RP as possible and try to void the gamers of the griefers who just cause trouble. But that is more easily said than done. There is just too little information released about games these days because devs from all companies literally do not know the game they are making until the day that it is released it seems.

[Lord Terentius]

Lord said:

Personally I like the idea of building up to becoming a powerful individual, but in an MMO persistant world it doesn't really work becuase the whole story of the world does not focus around you. In SP games the story revolves around you as a protagonist and thats why I think that MMOs have a tough time of it. They can't focus on one person but have to craft a story that allows all the people in the world to be encompassed by it

Excellent post Neketh. With that in mind, perhaps we as players need to put more effort into focusing our characters into the story of the game. That is why I wish the gamers did not center on power leveling a character, but rather encouraging people to take enjoyable roles as a collective. Imagine if in WoW our role as a guild was to only operate and defend a single fort at a river crossing. Granted, we would not get to develop powerful characters and be the star of the game, however, we would have to work as a guild to be successful. We would role-play and game our role in the world.

[Lord Terentius]

Lythas,

You seem to agree with me about having a smaller role in the larger picture of the game, however, if I were in the SWG Universe, I would not want to be a crime lord. I'd rather side with the Empire or the Rebels...hehe.

Again though, you and I usually tend to have very similar views about role-playing.

As for our guild role-playing as evil, again, I do not think we should label ourselves at all. We should simply exist and take the actions we see fit. Let others label us as evil, good, neutral, etc.

[Lord Terentius]

Kai said:

I hate to break it to you bud but every game is based off that concept.

**News flash** I know most games, movies, etc focus on good v. evil *lol*.

First of all, you are correct in stating that WoW is not giving enough information. This definately frustrates me.

I really like your statement about developers not knowing what their game is like until it is released. This concerns me because I worry none of the soon to be released MMORPGs will offer me the gaming satisfaction I need *lol*.

[Lord Terentius]

Anyhow, does anyone see or agree with my point? I ask again because not everyone has answered the way I want you to answer haha *LOL*. Should we focus on role-playing a specific in-game role as a collective or will be a collective of gamers seeking individual power by leveling, etc.?

I do not want a repeat of EQ in terms of what my character's life is like in the game.

[Jeedian]

I am sure everybody agrees and sees your point. It is just that the games out ther are not designed like that because there are so many players who like to play fantasy games or sci fi games but do not wish to "role-play" in a sense so the developers can not make a game that shuns the non-rpers away otherwise they lose a substancial amount of business.

[Lord Neketh]

In SWG for example, another reason I left was because of the time period. We already knew the outcome. How could you possible want to roleplay when you know who the key characters were and who did what?

Good point Jeedian, I posted something on the SWG forums abouthe devs making the movie into a game instead of a game from the movies.

I think we should RP as a group, we know what we're about and what we want from the game. I think a really good group of close-knit friends such as we are should reap huge benefits from an RP game once we can get together in the right game.

What Blizzard could do is have RP only server (or RP encouraged servers) and normal servers. That way those who wish to RP can be on the servers where like-minded people exist and all griefers once reported and verified get banned from them as its unwanted. Splitting the servers into RP and non RP doesn't mean that they have to have any more servers, or charge more in a Legends kind of way, but ill provide an outlet for the majority of the people waiting for the game. They could even do a poll on the official site to see what people think. Hell I'd post this idea myself but they're not accepting new registrations on the Battle.net forums.

[Lord Lythas]

Posted by: Lord Terentius Posted on: Dec 15th

I would not want to be a crime lord. I'd rather side with the Empire or the Rebels...hehe.

I'm trying to keep the PA's options open (and mine) to the characters that they can RP. When thinking back to the films, Boba Fett worked for the Empire as well as for Jabb the Hutt. I want to re-create a similar "faction" allowing Malador to take missions from the Empire as well as the Hutt faction, which is to be released some time after the initial release.

How I go about this I'm keeping open until I know exactly how the factions work in game with each other. As I currently understand it "you can belong to only one faction but be a sympathiser to many". The "sympathiser" suggests the type of faction that I'm looking to recreate not purely dedicated to one faction but able to work alongside / for them - just as Boba Fett did in the films.

In game I'm expecting "Bounty Hunters" to be paid equally well by either the Rebels or the Empire (unlike in the films where the Empire could afford to fork out the credits to pay for the best BH'ers in the galaxy) but because I want to remain true to the films in this particuar aspect, and RP an evil character, I will ensure that Malador has high factions with only the Hutts and Empire factions. I'm not sure if we'll actually belong to either one and be a strong sympathiser to the other yet though.