Decoding Dragons

[GW2] Guilds, friendlists, and social media – social apparatus in MMOs

When I talk about social apparatus, I mean the functions within games that we use to communicate, coordinate, and structure our social interactions. I think this is an area that is often under-developed in newly launched MMOs, and is sadly stunted in established games due to the complexity of improving legacy systems. This is not about social engineering, or telling players how they should interact with each other, but about giving players the tools to organize and communicate effectively.

This is a long-standing bug-bear of mine, ever since the Real ID debacle in World of Warcraft, but has been brought to the front of my mind by the rudimentary systems available in Guild Wars 2.  The game has only just launched, and the design teams will be focused on fixing all of those bugs, rather than building new features. I fully do not expect any MMO to launch with perfect social apparatus, but it still astounds me that the social apparatus so often seems like an afterthought.

Always online, always connected

ArenaNet have  implemented a BattleTag style account wide friendlist. This is a step in the right direction – keeping friendships and guild linkages at the account level instead of on the player level removes a lot of redundancy and adds much convenience. Players will also post on the official forums under their tag, meaning that their contribution to the wider community will be much more visible. This unified friendlist is mostly awesome, except that the ability to hide from guildies and friends on an alt is completely missing. That said – is the ability to hide relevant in this day and age of being always connected to social networks, email and IMs via Smartphones? ArenaNET has avoided most of the Real ID weaknesses – the service is global, has statuses, and does not use your real name.

Just as Blizzard wised up and made remote guild chat an integral service rather than a premium extra, the ArenaNet team announced prior to launch that they plan to bring GW2 to smartphones and tablets. Rift still has the gold standard in mobile apps, but the more MMOs give their customers useful mobile apps, the better it is for you and me. ArenaNet has always been about removing the barriers that stop people playing together, and other MMOs are falling in line with this reasonings. By enabling players to be connected even when not at their computer, and centralizing identity via the Tag system, MMOs are finally catching up with the way that people actually play their games and connect with their gaming friends outside of games.

Reaching out – Social Media and MMOs

ArenaNet shows a lot of social media savey in general, and this is very obvious from the way in which the CMs quickly stepped up to the plate on Twitter and Facebook in response to the headstart problems that Guild Wars 2 faces.  Their zero tolerance policy may or may not yield results in the long run, but the attempt makes me want them to succeed (I have similar ~feels~ about the Trion team.) During development, the CMs kept the game in focus through engaging with GW2 bloggers and tweeters, and generally supporting community, so it was something of a surprise to me that the game did not launch with something similar to RIFTconnect. Players in Rift are able to tweet, facebook or tumblr from the game with a simple inline command – and can even send screenshots straight to any of these social services. This feature was initially very successful for raising awareness of all the cool stuff in Rift, and allows players to communicate with their twitter friends seamlessly from the game.

The feature isn’t without it’s downsides. If you follow a lot of people, then twitter easily drowns out in-game chat in the chat window. If you forget to adjust your defaults, you run the risk of spamming your twitter/facebook/tumblr followers with achievements and discoveries.

I think a lot of GW and WoW players may well respond that they don’t WANT social media in their game. I know many MMO players who are openly disdainful of social media, so I can understand the lack of motivation to spend development resources on such a feature. I’m also hoping that they’re the sort of thing that ArenaNet will add in later, once launch wrinkles are finally gone.

Multiple guilds – not so multiple

The idea of belonging to multiple-guilds does not live up to what I was hoping for. I understand that it is not fair to allow players to garner benefits from all guilds they are a member of, and that it would be unbalanced for a character to contribute influence to multiple guilds at once. I do. I just wish that the communication/social functions of guilds were not tied to the ‘Represent’ toggle.

Currently, Guild membership is held at the account level, but active participation in a guild is controlled by the player at character level. This means that choosing to Represent your PvP guild while you arse around in the Mists results in cutting off your access to the guild chat of your RP or PvE guild. It’s fantastic that a player can treat their guild choice as a kind of running buffet, while removing the administration for guild leaders. It’s fantastic that I can ‘be in’ multiple guilds, but frustrating that it creates a social barrier.

I’ve seen a few other bloggers criticising ArenaNet for going so far with a great feature, but not carrying it on to the next step – mainly in regards to the Bank/Collections system and crafting. The guild interface and multiple guilds is another example of that. Perfectly functional, but it could have been just that bit more often. Just as you can view multiple guild rosters at once, I think you should be able to access multiple guild chats.

There are some minor interface tweaks that could be done as well, currently I find the interface doesn’t really make that much intuitive sense. Plus you get guild management functions popping up in bizarre places like the party interface. Hopefully the UX team will be taking a look at that in due course.

Social cues

Guild Wars 2 is also missing a few other things which are odd. Things I didn’t even realise I would miss. Things like guild/officer notes that help guilds sort out just who is who in this brave new GW2 world. As I throw a mix of new guildies together from a variety of sources, it would help if I could add identifying marks on the guild roster.

For me, what made Guild Wars 2 feel a bit lonely with regards to connecting with friends, was that the ‘always online’ nature of the account-guild relationship means that player presence is not telegraphed to any of the people they might be connected to. Think about things like guild achievement spam, the ‘welcome to the guild’ wall of text that often greets new recruits, or even the simple act of saying ‘hello’ to someone when they come online. There is none of that. There’s no sign of these social connections unless you’re looking at the guild or friend pane every five minutes.

Couple that with a simple thing like targeted emotes not doing anything, and the complete lack of /hello, /bye /thank, and GW2 is missing both some basic opportunities that prompt players into talking to each other, and the apparatus to encourage micro-interactions out in the field. What GW2 lacks is not co-operative gameplay opportunities, but the framework for conversations created by guild and social activity information. ‘Person X has come online’ is not a requirement for talking to a friend, but it’s the sort of nudge that has made Facebook successful, and World of Warcraft into the critical mass of players that it is.

(Please note that I understand it is early days yet for Guild Wars 2, and I’m loving a lot about the game in general)

 

[GW2] Guilds, friendlists, and social media – social apparatus in MMOs was published on August 31st, 2012, with the tags , , , , , , , , , , , , under the Analysis, Game Development, Games, Guild Wars 1/2 category. There are currently 6 comments on this article so far.

Putting real life before gaming – YMMV

This isn’t a quitting post, nor is it going to be a long post about why my posting levels are much lower than they previously have been. Knowing my yearly energy cycle, you can expect me to be most active from around March until September,  as that is when I tend to have the most creative energy to spend on side projects. What I want to talk about today is what phrases like ‘RL comes first’ and ‘fair rotation’ really mean in what amounts to a group setting.

The following has sprung up after various situations in the guild I am part of over the last year and a half. Although they have been prompted by recent events, I’ve tried to leave individual situations out of it.

Real life always comes first

It has become very clear to me that this phrase can refer to different things. Firstly there are absolute needs – emergencies and other unforeseen circumstances that cannot be avoided. This can be anything from bad traffic, to needing to work late, to your kid having an argument with her friend at a sleepover and needing to be picked up at 10pm. Stuff happens, and most guilds will be accepting and understanding of these situations.

The phrase is most often thrown around, in my guild at least, when someone has to study, or a birthday, or wants to hang out with friends instead of raid with online friends.  Never in a million years would I expect someone to sign up for a raid they can’t commit to due to school, work or family life. However in a guild where many of us work full time and have kids, pets, and other responsibilities; we all make arrangements and preparations so that the three hours we get to raid in goes as smoothly as possible. That way if the unavoidable does happen, you won’t get caught out by needing to be summoned, or still need to grab consumables.

What others often mean by this is that when their dinner is ready, they go and eat it – no matter that it’s 30 minutes into the raid. Or they have to go to bed early, or whatever they need to do that takes longer than a scheduled raid break. There are guilds where raiders have young children that may need random sudden AFKs, but the guild as a community has normally accepted these situations in advance and made arrangements for them.

If you do have a random, unavoidable thing that may cause you to take a break mid raid, and you know it will happen (e.g. a delivery, a repairman, etc) make sure the raid leader knows. Real life definitely takes priority, but these 3 hours belong to the entire group of 25 people’s real lives. It is your responsibility to make sure that those raid hours are clean of interruptions, within reason.

Fairness

A word that gets bandied about a lot. It is very easy to be frightened of things like loot systems, raid requirements. When I first started raiding I had a very definite predjudice against becoming what I viewed a ‘hard-core no lifer’. Nowadays I would definitely call myself casual, but I expect a certain level of preparation and dedication from myself and my fellow raiders. I often bump up against those who continue to view attendance requirements, dkp and performance requirements as the work of the debil, and I often wonder how much of the supposed animosity between hardcore raiders, average raiders and casuals is down to misconceptions and fears of these tried-and-tested mechanisms. The mechanisms of loot distribution, raid leading, lineup creation, raid team rotation exist because over the last 5 years many millions of players have learned from each other and figured out the best ways of herding cats. Just because you’re not familiar with them, or have had one bad experience with a particular group of people, it doesn’t mean that they don’t work or are the root of all raiding ills.

A complaint I often see revolves around how raid spots are handed out.

“If  I’m already saved, I should have a spot for the whole reset”

“I can only come 2 raids out of  3 or 4, so I should always get a spot on those nights. That way we both get to raid.”

“I’m always available, I perform well, and I’m reliable, I should get the spot.”

“I’ve not finished gearing, but I should still get a spot as those epics are a bigger upgrade and I don’t want to get left behind”

“I’ve been a member here for 3 years,  I should always get a spot”

“They only get perma-spots because they’re officers”

I’m not going to make any judgement calls about which of the above I think is fair, but I’ve often noticed a massive gap between the individual view of ‘fairness’, and what is best for the raid as a whole, or even what management view as fair. Then you also get to factor in guild morale and the impact it has on progression raid performance. It’s not easy running raids from a pool of adults of varying availability, skill levels and dedication. Personally I’m rather tired of it, but I’m never going to be able to dedicate myself to 100% signing up for more than 2 weeks in a row. I deliberately unsign from at least one raid per week to stop myself from burning out.

Also I hate raiding 10 mans.

Anyway, to get back to the idea of ‘fairness’, my point is that raiders need to try and think outside their own box of what is fair for them. Is it fair to expect the guild to progress slower, simply because you should always get to raid the one night a week when you’re available? Is it fair to expect other guildies to carry you, simply because your RL hasn’t allowed you time to get the best gear you could before you started signing up? Conversely, how quickly can you judge a raider’s performance, is it fair to bench them after only one raid of mediocre performance, when different raiders learn at different rates?

Not easy questions to answer, for any individual or any raid management team.

Putting real life before gaming – YMMV was published on January 25th, 2011, with the tags , , , , , under the Analysis, Warcraft category. There are currently 10 comments on this article so far.

Cataclysm Raiding — I have more than 10 friends

I am currently an officer of a 25 man raiding guild. We are having the inevitable struggles with being missing around 3-5 people as the summer draws in. In fact we’re taking a break for a week to give the officers chance to de-stress. It doesn’t help that I am on an enforced raid break due to RL.

ANYWAY

The changes to 10/25 man lockouts were announced last night, and I ended up with a couple of thoughts running through my mind. I’m not panicking or predicting doom and gloom. I also suspect there will be some changes to the system before it goes live.

  1. People have more than 10 friends
  2. Benefits for the casual player
  3. The rise of the alt
  4. Being on Backup won’t suck quite as much

People have more than 10 friends

When the announcement first happened, I didn’t have time to read the whole thing, so I ruminated on the basics as I left work for the day. I tried to imagine our guild pairing down to 10 man raiding. It would certainly be so intimate, but how could I chose who to have in the raiding teams? I would have to chose between raiding with people. I’m good friends with my guild leader, but with 14 players of ranged DPS characters in the guild, getting a spot in his raid would be difficult.

It would also mean I would miss out on raiding with K, D, A, E and a lot of other mysterious initials.

Yes, 25 man raids are more difficult to organise. Blizzard have a difficult task ahead of them, making 25 mans ‘worthwhile’ without reducing 10 mans to badge farms and time fillers for 25 man raiders.  I suspect, at the end of the day, there will be some slight edge for raiding 25man, and much of it will come down to whether you can give up raiding regularly with the 15 people who wouldn’t be in your 10 man.

If you don’t enjoy 25 man raiding then you shouldn’t be ‘forced’ into it because it is the supposed nadir of progression, difficulty and gear.

Benefits for the casual player

I can’t tell you how happy this made me. I won’t have to run the sodding 10 mans on my main in order to gear up quicker. Running ICC in 10 and 25 was somewhat soul destroying for me. I don’t enjoy 10 mans so much, because I go in there ‘overgeared’, they aren’t a challenge – they’re a chore. This is exacerbated by the amount of drama trying to fit 25-35 people into 2x10man ICC per week and still have a team pushing towards a 10 man. I am flat out tired of ICC10 drama.

The casual player with the hardcore mindset can do 10 mans now, without worrying about access to the shiniest purples. Blizzard doesn’t have to spend so much time on balancing the gear, so it can spend those resources elsewhere! The additional changes – different instances, more varied ‘mid length’ content means that the raids won’t seem unbelievably long (Naxx) or stupidly boringly short and trashless (toc). The casual 25 man raider can do 25 mans, without having to find another night in their week for 10 man.

The Rise of the Alt

I can get a character to 85, and take it along to 10 mans for fun and relaxation without screwing my main out of loot. This does beg the question of how to handle loot distribution in a DKP system when the loot tables are the same from 10 and 25, but I don’t particularly care about that right now. I can have a second character, and raid on it without being questioned over not paying full attention to my main.

This also means that 25 mans will have a bigger pool of ‘characters’ to draw from in order to balance raids. No 25 man tank signed up? No problem, the 10man tank is just as well geared and can take over for a week. The 25 man tank can do it in 10 man this week. Short a healer? No problem, one of the overbooked DPS can switch to their 10man healer.

Yes. I realise that creates it’s own problems for 10man progression. It is just an example of the sort of flexibility it gives you. I tend to be a one character girl. I have an alt at 80, but she is my old main. She was abandoned in T7 gear and some how I never have the time, money or energy to enchant and gem her ICC5 gear.

Being on Backup won’t suck too much.

I can see a new raid pattern emerging. 10 mans will be run the night before reset. 25 mans will be run throughout the rest of the week. If your main character doesn’t get saved to the 25 man, you’ll still get a chance at the tastiest loot that week in the end of week 10 man. Having these separate lockouts enables the 25 man raiders to run with a larger raiding pool, without leaving backups with completely no options. You can organise a 10 man run for your leftover 5-8 people, ensuring that they don’t get left behind on loot.

Or not. Again there are issues with that. 1 night only for what will be relatively more difficult content could screw with a guild’s 10 man progression. Plus the ‘main’ will have to compete with pure 10 man characters for spots. If 10 mans are earlier in the week, then you lose the backup because they’ll be locked out. Right now, at least, they can run 10 mans for emblems and gear without losing their potential for the weekly 25 man.

In conclusion

This change will knock down perceptions of 10 man as easy mode. Personally I enjoy 25 man raiding – 15 or 20 man would be perfect for me but that is not going to happen. I think we will see 10 man raiding grow in popularity, and 25 man will be left to those who really enjoy the larger team atmosphere.

Cataclysm Raiding — I have more than 10 friends was published on April 27th, 2010, with the tags , , , , , , , , under the Warcraft category. There are currently 3 comments on this article so far.