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Drama Mamas: When you need some breathing room in game
WoW players -- can't play with 'em, can't play without 'em. Most of us would agree that Azeroth is best when shared with a congenial group of others, but what if you find yourself saddled with overly needy or intrusive game buddies? Or perhaps you get along just fine for the most part, but things get sticky whenever you decide you'd like to chill out with some uninterrupted solo time. Isn't there a nice way to tell someone to buzz off without hurting their feelings? There absolutely is -- so let's head off the drama before it happens with these techniques for friendly disengagement.
Looking For Guild: These guilds need you!
Ordinarily, we like to help Massively readers find their next guild in this column, but this week we're doing things a bit differently by reversing the roles. That's right, this week we're allowing guilds to get their info out there for all to see. The response to our call-out was excellent and I'm happy to say that many of you might just be finding the guild of your dreams today. For the next edition, we'll be going back to normal, but I'd also like you to submit a personal story if you've been helped through this column. I'll include a few testimonials in future columns down the line. But now, on to this week's list of guilds just after the cut!
The Guild Counsel: How to keep your guild from disintegrating when you need a break
Let's face it, everyone needs a little MMO break from time to time. The open-endedness of MMOs gives a lot more freedom than a fixed-content single-player game, but after a while, that freedom begins to feel grindy. For a guild leader, taking a small break is a dicey prospect, and many leaders have returned only to find that the guild they carefully pieced together and managed is now empty and defunct. The thought of losing the guild has even led many guild leaders to press on and continue playing even though their hearts aren't in it. Can a guild leader take a vacation and have a happy guild upon returning? This week's Guild Counsel suggests a few ways to do just that.
Drama Mamas: When you realize you've become That Guy
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. Kudos to this week's letter writer for comprehending what his guild's problem is: him. I have a problem I haven't seen on DM before. First off let me say, I am the problem and I know it. I joined a raiding guild mid way through ToT as a tank and we progressed fairly well through it. As time went on and I grew more comfortable with them, a side of me emerged I have never seen before. I became more sensitive to what people said, impatient and just overall "jerky". Now the other night they raided, one shot all the normal bosses we would do and my guild leader said they sounded like they had fun because they didn't have to worry about upsetting me. This came as quite a shock. I didn't know people were walking on egg shells around me.
Storyboard: Using the fourth wall for good
I don't remember much of the poetry course I took in college whilst pursuing my (ultimately useless) English degree, but I do remember my professor quite vividly. The first day of the class he stood up in front of the room and wrote a line from renowned poet Theodor Geisel: "It's fun to have fun, but you have to know how." In his case, he was leading into a discussion of the rules of rhyming schemes and such, but he also admitted that the lesson is applicable to a lot of other things. Case in point: using the fourth wall in roleplaying. MMOs lean on the fourth wall all the time, some more or less than others. But roleplaying generally steers clear of it because leaning on it too heavily can really screw with the overall roleplaying atmosphere. So let's talk a little bit about what the fourth wall is and how you can use it with care to enhance roleplaying rather than damage it.
Fellow players share their favorite WoW tips and tricks
With a hefty 200+ tips and more still rolling in, our recent call for helpful gameplay tips and tricks is ready for your perusal. This outpouring of advice goes way beyond pointing out that you can eat and drink in game at the same time. (That little trick's become a default example of a handy tip -- so you've heard that here and you knew it already, right?) Readers are sharing advice on how to escape Gilneas with a level 1 character, confidence- and skill-building tips for new tanks and healers, recommendations for favorite addons, and even tricks for efficient garden weeding. Who doesn't love a good efficiency tweak? Seriously, go bask in the golden rays of knowledge warming the comments of this post. You'll wonder how you ever got by without knowing this stuff!
The Guild Counsel: Is shared interest in an MMO enough to justify a guild?
It all starts out so innocently. A few friends are casually chatting and realize they all are excited about an upcoming new MMO. Maybe a group of gaming bloggers connect over their shared appreciation of a certain game. Or even here at Massively, readers notice that there are many others who share their positive impressions of a game's launch. Next thing you know, someone suggests that it would be a great idea to start a guild, and the roller coaster begins. Forming a guild based on a shared interest in a game doesn't guarantee success, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. It does come with its own unique set of issues to address early on, however. Let's take a look at these connoisseur guilds and how to make them work in this week's Guild Counsel.
Ask Massively: Why WoW's 1.3% matters
Welcome back to Ask Massively! Let's play with numbers and WoW. I like numbers and WoW. "I'm no WoW fan, but a change in population of 1.3% either way is nothing worth writing about," wrote a Massively commenter last week on the pre-BlizzCon news that World of Warcraft dropped another 100,000 subscribers over the last quarter. Sure it's worth writing about! Ever hear the phrase "no news is good news"?
Looking for Guild: WoW and FFXIV
Things have been going well for the connections made through this column behind the scenes. It seems that we're connecting someone just about every week, although mostly in Final Fantasy XIV! But this week we have someone looking for friendlies in World of Warcraft (OK, and also FFXIV). For next week, I want to do something a little different and switch things around to be all about guilds looking for members. You can certainly still send in your requests for guilds as normal, but in two weeks, it will be all about guild advertising, then we'll go back to normal. So read on past the cut to see how you can get your guild on the next installment of this column, and check out those looking for a guild of their own in this week's list.
The Guild Counsel: How guild meetings can help your guild
I know what you're thinking after reading the title of this week's column. Why in the world would anyone want to have a meeting in-game when many of us spend our days in meeting for our work? But holding a short guild meeting every so often can actually help curb guild drama, boost morale, and bring your guildmates closer together. The relatively short time spent bringing the guild together can pay off later on by reducing time spent on drama created by miscommunication, low morale, and frustration. In today's Guild Counsel, let's take a look at why you should consider holding a meeting and how that guild meeting can improve your guild overall.
Drama Mamas: Don't be caught being That Guy at BlizzCon
BlizzCon 2013 is the year's richest opportunity to hobnob with fellow WoW enthusiasts. Thanks to Blizzard's polished event management, you can expect an entertaining weekend whether you're a party animal, a die-hard e-sports fan, a cosplay enthusiast, or simply squeeing at the opportunity to rub up against all things Blizzard. Make no mistake: With something in the neighborhood of 30,000 fans expected to attend, BlizzCon is most assuredly a social event. You'll be interacting with a great many people in close quarters, some of whom will be eager to meet you and some who won't. (The Drama Mamas will be there, too -- say hello at the WoW Insider/Wowhead Meetup on Thursday night, or come rest your tired dogs and review the weekend's fun with Drama Mama Lisa and others from the WoW Insider staff at the Meeting Stone at 4 p.m. Saturday afternoon.) Connecting with guildmates face to face for the first time? Meeting Blizzard staffers and well-known members of the WoW community? Making new WoW friends? Just enjoying the show? Bring it on -- but let's avoid bringing the drama by clarifying how not to act like That Guy in what's sure to be a spectacular nexus of WoW geeks and Azerothian energy.
Ask Massively: Nick Burns edition
Today's Ask Massively letters come from David and Abionie, both of whom wrote us over the summer with comments about, well, our comments. This first one's from David: I'm probably not the only one who is generally displeased with the state of trolls on the internet today. You know them: doomsayers, hatespreaders, the "HAHA company X is failing, finally!" types, the kind of people for whom the hatred of a video game or company has become more addictive than playing the game that company made. Unfortunately, the internet gives soapboxes to people who probably don't have much of a relationship with soap. I would like to see more moderation towards keeping an articles comments on the topic of the article. It's becoming tiring to open up an article talking about something I am interested in, only to fear scrolling down too far and inadvertently opening up the comments to see "FAIL GAME IS FAIL COPYING X GAME IS LAZY" and the many hundreds of comments like that. We hear you, David, and not just about the soap. But also that.
The Guild Counsel: How to handle the horrors of conflict
With the arrival of Halloween, I'd like to revisit an all-too-common nightmare scenario: handling guild conflict. We've looked at how to treat complaints before, but what should you do when those complaints balloon into full-fledged clashes? Guild leaders dread dealing with conflicts, to the point that it deters many players from giving guild leadership a try. But even if strife is inevitable, it can be made less painful. Let's take a look at how to steer through the choppy waters in this week's Guild Counsel.
Drama Mamas: Still haven't found the guild you're looking for
Sometimes you think you're just having a bad luck, drama bomb experience -- and sometimes it turns out that you're squarely in the wrong place at the wrong time because you haven't really found the guild you were looking for. I have been an avid WoW player since 2006 and have been in many guilds since. Some of them were great experiences that I just outgrew and reached out for something different and others were just...well, awful! My recent issue was a plethora of things. When I joined the guild, someone from a server I had just transferred off of happened to be in it. She didn't know me but I knew her. To keep things short and to the point, this young woman was known as a drama stirrer and someone I wouldn't want my boyfriend near for good reason. As the months began to go by, I noticed that this person began to compete with me for everything. My guild was an RP-PVP guild and ranks were based on how often you attended events and how competent you were at PVP on your class. I soon climbed the ranks, as did she, until we were both just below a sub officer rank. Getting the next rank was tricky as you had to pass a few criteria. Popularity, ability, and well...how good you could suck up to the officers. She wasn't a suck up type and so she began to try and outdo me via popularity... However, the method in which she did it was via lies and slander, and by convincing people who had been my friends that I was saying things that I clearly was not. Each time I would go to the officers with my issues, I would be told that I either got over the lies or I would be ejected for instigating a problem where there was none. Needless to say, I am gone now. But did I handle this poorly or was leaving the guild the best option?
Looking for Guild: FFXIV and Fallen Earth
Did you miss us last week? Now that the submissions have slowed down quite a bit, we're switching to a biweekly schedule for the Looking for Guild column. So if you're on the fence about jumping in and joining up with a Massively player guild (or creating your own), now's the time! This week we have three Final Fantasy XIV players looking to join up with other like-minded adventurers and one from Fallen Earth who's tired of soloing the wasteland. You can catch the entire list after the jump.
The Guild Counsel: Low in levels? Join a guild!
Every single MMO player should be part of a guild. Yes, you too! Massively Shawn's recently launched Looking for Guild column has been well received and is bridging players with potential guilds. But one comment that pops up quite often is that players like the column but plan to wait and level up more before throwing their hats in the ring. Don't wait, and don't hesitate! It's never too soon to join a guild, and there are plenty of good reasons to jump in even if you aren't of the same level as everyone else. Let's look at a few in this week's Guild Counsel.
Drama Mamas: The case of the lingering ex
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. How do you handle moving on from one intense relationship to another? Dear Drama Mamas, [...] My first love, of nearly six months two nights ago told me, for the second time, that she had just wanted to be friends. And that a long-distance would never work out for her. A few days before the relationship ended for the first time, I could tell it was over. I just didn't want to admit it to myself. She was the first person that showed me just how special ERP could be. The first girl to ever trust me enough to be "naughty". There were many partners of hers before me, though she had constantly assured me that what she had with tens of others had meant next to nothing to her. She broke off all relations with these guys and girls to show me she was committed to me and only me. She was very clingy, and it didn't bother me one bit. I enjoyed having her around most of the hours of every day we played together.
The Guild Counsel: Is it time to shift your vision or just shut down?
A big part of running a successful guild is having a clear idea of what type of guild you want to have and knowing how to make that work. Everything revolves around your vision for the guild, from recruitment to scheduling events to guild rules and even the overall tone and atmosphere. But what happens if your guild philosophy ends up clashing with that of the bulk of your members? Massively reader Mbbrazen, who commented on a recent Guild Counsel article, illustrated the issue: The other issue I've seen, which is not specifically mentioned in the article, is what should the guild leader do when the people who originally joined the guild because they all had similar interests are gone (burned out, gone to other games, etc.) and the majority of the new people have more varied interests? Should the guild leader shut the guild down or adapt to the new membership? I actually think a guild I was in recently is dying a slow death because the leaders needed to decide to either shut it down or adapt to needs of the active membership. Thoughts? This is a tough situation but all too common. Let's take a look at some options in this week's Guild Counsel.
Ask Massively: The dilemma of the free-to-play sandbox
Reader Sharvis recently emailed the Massively Speaking podcast with a question I felt deserved more than just a quick verbal reaction on the 'cast. That, and we just discovered that the ask@massively.com email address went dead approximately three weeks ago, and I've not been receiving your letters there (so send 'em again!). In the meantime: Sharvis. What makes a sandbox so susceptible to its business model in comparison to a themepark? I'm not experienced with sandbox titles, and I can only guess on some of the implications. For example, selling boosters in a themepark is fairly acceptable, but in a sandbox, as Jef pointed out [in his ArcheAge column earlier this summer], that'd be cutting into one of the main features of a sandbox. I'd guess it has to do with these sort of MMOs being more player-centric, and that's a very delicate system to be messing with. See? I told you this was a juicy one.
Drama Mamas: There's a guide for that
Stand back, Drama Mamas readers -- Robin and I are going to put ourselves out of business this week. I say "this week" because I'm not going to spoiler-ize the Drama Mamas for all time ... Just for this week. And I'm doing it because I want to remind everyone about a resource we've been working on since the beginning of this year, something designed to shake loose new insights and solutions for frustrated WoW players, old and new alike: The Drama Mamas Drama-Buster Guide. Allow me to roll up my sleeves and demonstrate: Due to some very persuasive to give the Warcraft a try again i decided to jump into it. The first things i noticed once i stop the grind to max level is that. My old server...is empty...dead..The City where i do my auction house is all changed around. Also guilds seem to be less about community and more about guild perks. I'm scratching my head at a loss at what to do now that i am 90, with a guild who does not talk to each other. I've not played since Wrath of the Lich king. I've been curious what to do in game, and even if i should roll a new toon on another server with all the time I've been gone. Could you offer your thoughts? Confused Warcraft Player Thanks for writing in, Confused Warcraft Player. You're not alone in finding yourself socially adrift in game, despite how many other players constantly surround you. The Drama Mamas solution: There's a guide for that! As you've discovered, WoW's not as much fun without someone to share it with, so let us show you some proven tactics for finding some gaming buddies to play with. It sounds like your socially limp guild isn't much a help, either; a better guild match would go a long way toward propelling you back into the fun zone. And where is the friend who talked you into coming back to play? He or she really ought to be sharing this experience with you.
