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The Daily Grind: What social tools do all MMOs need?
Heading into WildStar this past weekend, I was pleasantly surprised at how useful and easy the in-game social circles were. Instead of fretting about guild membership, I joined a few circles to talk with friends and made one up to keep in touch with a couple more. Somewhere Google+ is laughing haughtily, but I think that more MMOs should have a feature like this. So what social tools do you think MMOs need? I'd also nominate in-game guild finders, far more robust friends lists (that are per-account, not per-character), and handy emote buttons that eschew the need for memorizing a list of slash commands. What say you? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Daily Grind: Do you use in-game guild-finding tools?
Massively's sister site WoW Insider recently ran a poll asking its readers about the use of World of Warcraft's looking-for-guild tools. Approximately 56.9% of the respondents said they'd never used the tool, but a whopping 17.5% said they had. That 17.5% seems a staggering number to me, but then, I know my experience is abnormal; I've been in basically the same guild with the same core group of people for my entire MMO career. I just can't imagine treating a guild the same way I'd treat a group or a raid -- opening up a looking-for-guild panel and ticking all the right boxes until the tool found me a guild that at least on paper met my specifications. It just seems artificial and ephemeral to me. But clearly, it's been of value to almost a fifth of WoW Insider's readership, and since finding a good guild these days is apparently a pain in the rear, I'm calling that a good thing. So now I'd like to pose the same question to the broader MMO community. Have you guys ever used a looking-for-guild tool in any of the MMOs you play? If not, do you stick to traditional methods like ads on forums or chatting up people you meet in person? And if so, has the guild-finder ever led you to a permanent home? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Poll: Do you use the in-game Guild Finder?
Joining a guild has always been a core aspect of World of Warcraft. How to choose the right style of guild can be an especially large hurdle to overcome for new players, but it's something we learn along the way. Players currently have a few resources at their disposal, whether it be the Blizzard Guild Recruitment forums, GuildOx, WoWProgress, or other tools. But there's an oft-forgotten in-game tool that was released back in patch 4.1. What about the in-game Guild Finder? The options are a bit limited, and the listings depend on the effort put in by guild masters. Let's just say it's a neglected feature on a few fronts. I've used the Guild Finder before, when searching for a casual leveling guild on a new server. Outside of that, I stick to other tools when recruiting or looking for a new guild. What about you -- do you ever use the in-game Guild Finder? What's your preferred resource for guild recruitment and discovery? %Poll-81566%
Why I Play: EverQuest II
EverQuest II has always been a funny beast to me. I was not raised on a steady diet of SOE MMOs like some, and when EQII rolled around in November of 2004, I decided to go with some lesser-known title from Blizzard instead. I'd heard bad things about SOE in general, and EQII looked just as inaccessible as EverQuest did on the store shelves. Plus, to put a final nail in the not-interested coffin, I hated the graphics. I still do. Hate the graphics, that is. If someone was to award MMOs for Most Blandly Generic, Plasticy Models Straight from the Uncanny Valley, EverQuest II would be a shoo-in. Yet the years wore down my mostly semantic objections to giving EverQuest II a go, and after a few false starts, I spent a few wonderful months in the game last year after it went free-to-play. While I couldn't sustain interest in this on top of all of the other titles I was playing, I'd heartily recommend EQII to anyone complaining about tapped-out content in other MMOs. EQII is the Super Walmart of MMO features and content, far eclipsing most other competitors. Here is why I played and why you might want to, too.
Officers' Quarters: Cataclysm's benefits for guild organization
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press. As I predicted back in the summer of 2009, Cataclysm changed WoW's guilds and the guild experience more than any other expansion in the game's history. Many of these changes were a boon to officers, but even the positive changes sometimes had unfortunate drawbacks. Other changes were not as welcome. Let's look back and see how each of these shifts in game and guild design have affected us as officers over the past year and how Blizzard could improve them in the future. What we didn't get Every expansion has its list of announced features that don't make the cut. Two guild features that eventually got the axe were guild talents and guild currency. Despite arguing in favor of guild talents, replacing them with universal perks was probably the right move for Blizzard at the time. With all the other upheaval that guilds had to endure during Cataclysm, choosing talents would have been one more unwelcome source of stress for officers. However, I still believe that providing us with more in-game ways to distinguish one guild from another is desirable and good.
Breakfast Topic: How's the Guild Finder working for you?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. When Blizzard first proposed the Looking for Guild tab, I remember talking with my officers about whether we'd have a presence on it. The stated reason for the tab was to help people looking for a guild find one without having to stand in Stormwind or Orgrimmar and hollering, "Level 85 tank LFGuild!" My guild is rather specific in what we do and to whom we would appeal. Our recruiting is generally word of mouth and, I admit, winning one of the last WoW Insider Guilds of the Month titles helped, a lot. But we came to the conclusion that we should have a presence in the Guild Finder interface. You never know who is out there looking for a guild like us. So I drew up a sales pitch and opened up the interface the first day it was available. Honestly, it's a pretty generic format. We run all content and raid pretty much any day. We don't have class restrictions so if we have more hunters than anything else, well, we have more hunters than anything else and hunters are still welcome to join. The only way to really distinguish yourself was your carefully worded sales pitch at the bottom. Would that be enough for people to find us?
Officers' Quarters: Making the most of the guild finder
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press. A helpful feature for guild officers was added with patch 4.1, but I haven't seen many people talking about it yet. The guild finder isn't going to replace other recruiting techniques, but it can be a solid addition to your toolkit. For WoW, it represents a milestone: Players now have a viable method of searching for guilds within the game. In the past, looking for a guild usually meant whispering players you didn't know, combing through forums that often lack good search features, or -- worst of all -- asking in trade chat. (Yes, there is also a specific guild recruitment chat channel, but I've never heard of anyone using it.) With the addition of the guild finder, players have a far better option, but only if guild leaders use it -- and use it wisely. I did a quick search for guilds on my own realm (Khadgar US). With apologies to the guild leaders there, I didn't see a single ad that took full advantage of what the finder can provide. Let's talk about how we can make the most of this new UI feature.
Patch 4.1 introduces guild finder feature
Accessibility is the name of the game in Cataclysm, and Blizzard's next attempt at guild accessibility is launching with patch 4.1. The guild finder interface allows players looking for a guild to advertise their playstyle, time availability, class roles, and more, and lets guilds post recruitment messages and announcements to the realm's public. The new guild finder feature is available to leaders of established guilds and guildless players, making communication between prospective recruits and leaders easier. Only guilds that are actively looking for new members through the finder will appear in the guild finder interface. Guildless players can browse recruitment ads, while guild leaders are given the option to choose playstyles, types of content the guild is interested in doing, availability of members, and an optional comments section to discuss specifics. Hit the jump for the full announcement. %Gallery-122106%
