Deleted User
02-29-2004, 01:44 PM
Temerity,<br /><br />Today I seek your approval for my application as a guild member. As motivation I copy/paste some posts I made on the board of my former guild, Evolution, in which I expressed a measure of displeasure at the disintegration of said guild and what I was/am looking for in a guild but found sorely lacking in it.<br /><br />I made the decision to leave on my own, I harbor no ill will to anyone in my former guild but I felt there was no room for my character to grow and growing further, alone and unguilded, proves to be incredibly hard and quite lonely. Sony Corp. [may their shareholders and senior management forever smile favourably upon us] intended for this game to be co-operative and mutually dependent so that a sufficiently large revenue stream could be assured by the presence of many players to offset the development and maintenance cost of the environment.<br /><br />My personal feelings and motivations for joining and participating in a guild I voiced in the following two, slightly edited, posts which may or may not suffice as a motivation for joining. Speed readers rejoice.<br /><br />"<br />On finding the guild disintegrated<br /><br />I have the bandwidth, I am known for my incessant yapping, why not add my two cents into the mix.<br /><br />I logged on yesterday and I entered in my usual landing zone, the stone closest to the entrance to POK bank. I turn around because I hear <name removed> talking and I don't see him where he's usually at, in front of the bank.<br /><br />When I see him [and 3 more people], I see "Shield Of Norrath" under his name.<br /><br />I must have been the first fictional character doing a double take on a lone rock [don't care if I'm not].<br /><br />After the vote and many plans I heard and read about, all of a sudden the guild goes 'POOF' and I wasn't even casting anything.<br /><br />I still don't understand why.<br /><br />I can see where there are not enough people on the server to warrant many guilds, but that is no argument. I look at the figure, there are [were] 65 -then- guild members. It's not an army to meet the hords of Mordor, neither is it two people finding themselves in a lonely tavern, meeting only because a storm broke loose and this was the only place to sit out the bad weather over the night.<br /><br />The argument seems to be that there are not enough high-level players in the guild, I'm assuming lvl 45 and up. That will very well be true now, but it won't be forever.<br />I for one have every intention to rise as high in the levels as the game allows for. Not because of the big number next to my name, but because there are many more places you can go to and survive being there and also because you can do so much more, have so many more techniques and means available, so many things to learn, when you are a higher level. HP is not the reason I play, because that would really be too boring to contemplate, but it is a factor. It is a key element in the game. Ludor took a group of us to Kaeon... [you know the place in Cabilis]. People who don't consider HP to be important should take a group of lvl12 alts there. You're all looting your corpse inside of 5 minutes flat. It's as simple as that.<br />HP matters. If you're in your 30s there is a lot more you can waltz past. Camp1 in Butcherblock was a big problem when I was 10. I now start harvesting corpses 35 seconds after the last goblin has popped.<br /><br />I am now able to help people as people helped me when I was younger because I have a vastly improved repertoire and it is a pleasure to be useful, to make a difference for the better in someone's gaming experience.<br />Helping people is part of the journey, it makes it all worthwile. Why would you try and get 1^6 PP at lvl 65, what would be the point in that? It's a game, you don't race to the end, you savour the journey. You savour the journey because making the trip is the whole point of the game. And taking along those that are younger, getting acquainted with the truly vast universe that EQ is, if you're going to play anyway, is the reason for being there.<br /><br />If there are not enough seniors, help the juniors get ahead. While they're getting there, show them what their skills are, how to develop them, how to make their skill an asset to the guild. It is a bonding experience, the stuff that ties a group so close that they know without speaking what their part in a new encounter is. A union so self-evident that dying [in that relative sense that we're all masters at in EQ] for the team to reach the goal, to save another guild sister/brother from some big MoFo mob, is a price happily paid. A trust so deep that any effort required by a needing guildmember is not a constantly-begged-for favor but a matter of course. A sense of home so strong that the mere fact of having the name of the guild below your own when you're naked, looking for your corpse, is everything you need. Killing the dragon, purportedly the ultimate aim in the game [I've not heard about it before, I assume it's true], is a mere triflle among the myriads of possibilities EQ offers. <br />The greater effort, the hardest thing to do is to give. To give freely, unquestioningly, immediately. Your inventory is just the stuff you lug around. The biggest prize, the greater comfort, the most valuable asset you have is pictured above your head. Your guild's name as your warm blanket, your safe haven, your best hope in your hour of need. The only thing you want to keep. The one thing you would not give away, not for any bounty in all of EQ. All the rest you give to your guild brother/sister when they ask for it, just because _they_ ask for it. Just as you shall be given when you ask for it.<br />That, me hearties, is the difficult part. Not killing mob 2.405.311, not levelling up, not finishing the quest. Not killing a dragon. Simply giving. That is the source of pleasure, that is the reason for being there, that is a game worth playing.<br />When you can do that, whatever the number next to your name is, that's when you've got something. Then you have a guild. Then it becomes easy, whatever the challenge.<br /><br />It is what I look for in every group I join. I rarely find it. I don't think I'll find it here.<br /><br />But I can hope.<br /><br />I haven't decided yet what I will do. I might stay, I might leave. Either choice seems to make the same option available, whatever guild I end up working with. A bunch of children wailing over baubles.<br /><br />Avast ye, aqua goblin! Some beancounter wants your blood!<br /><br />On the comment -gist version- that it is next to impossible to keep fast-leveling players in a guild where most players are lower-level.<br /><br /><name removed>: As far as spending your money goes, you will always be the master of your own means. And you will decide what the best use of those means is.<br />As far as staying in a guild with lower-level players goes, by your own argument any guild that has no higher level players is doomed to lose those who level up through grouping with other guild groups to other guilds. So, what you're saying is that no successful new guilds can be formed.<br />The argument is flawed because the higher level players, at some stage or other, had to break through the barrier too. If the argument is that they were helped by others who helped them, the question is: who helped the higher level player get to where he/she is? Some group, somehow, overcame the problems of reaching the highest level when no higher level players than them were around. They must have done something right. The experiment some guild members were engaging in prior to the guild exploding, creating alts to build a fast leveling group, is very worthwhile. The right mix of players would have made sure the group was balanced and ready for the challenge of reaching a high level together. Why did the guild in turn not do the right thing with their new players?<br />The guild has always been in a position where this right mix could have been created. For some reason I still haven't found out, alts are deemed inferior to the main character. It baffles me but there it is. You, Gumgak, are yourself a very successful alt. So, at some point you overcame the pressure to stay with your main. You just made Gumgak your main [you even created a really cool graphic for him] and proceeded, alone but successful.<br />Of course the guild must count enough real humans among its number to be an effective force. Six players with 5 alts are still only six players.<br /><br />This board is the instrument by which the guild could construct and maintain an environment of properly balanced castes and races so that everyone logging on would find a nucleus of a group to team up with at just about any time of the day. I have seen players camp to come back as an alt to either serve as a tank or as a necro to summon the corpse of a group member. When a group of players is online and they find that the mix is not correct, they could fetch their alt and build a more heterogenous group. Good communication in the game and on this board would go a long way to establish a balance in the guild. Over time, the guild would grow to be a powerful entity.<br /><br />Although by rights we could not ask the higher level players to stick around and wait for the lower levels to catch up, they [the higher level players] could play an important role in building the guild. Not merely in helping the lower level players to level up, not even only to show them what skills each class has, but by being the mortar that holds the guild together. To craft a band of brothers whose very escapades into that vast realm called EQ would be the stuff of legends.<br /><br />We cannot build that. It will not be built. Today's universe, today's reality wants a return on investment even on entertainment. For every penny we pay we want to reap a hundred-fold. The meager alms we drop into Sony Corp.'s [may their shareholders and senior management forever smile favourably upon us] coffers have to be redeemed by the relentless hunt for 'value for money'. I hasten not to judge other's motives. Mine certainly aren't more noble.<br /><br />What I will not do however, is to run around in the realm thinking about the monthly fee Sony Corp. [may their shareholders and senior management forever smile favourably upon us] allows me to give them. It would suck the fun right out of the game. A good book and a nice beer would be far preferable to seeing the joy trickle away a penny at a time.<br /><br />A guild means something in my cultural background. It is not a recuperated concept that I do not identify with beyond having a name above my head. To be a member of a guild you had to have apprentices following the guidance of the guild master. Only after proving you were actually any good, could you become a master too. And great respect was derived from it. The apprentice's duty was to study but the master's duty was to teach. To give his knowledge to those without.<br />Giving. I have said more on the subject in a post earlier. I will not repeat it.<br /><br />It seems it is too hard to _really_ give, and I won't say it would be easy for me. What it boils down to though is that this group will never rise above the level of hovel dwellers. Lest you think I berate my guild brothers/sisters, I want to assure you that, for those I have come to know personally, I have nothing but the utmost respect. There is even one among our number who will not call on me in vain whenever my help is required, whatever guild we find ourselves in. Those I have not had the pleasure of meeting I consider to be my loss.<br />Fine people my guild brothers/sisters may be. But it is a mere name above someone's head in a game. It is not a bond which transcends the pitiful, shameful chase for lucre. To those unfortunate enough to come to us at a tender, vulnerable age, it acts as a billboard advertising the ambulant nuissance. Here is a class of players whose every ambition of making a famous name for themselves is extinguished as they click 'ok' to accept the invitation to join the guild. Our welcome message should be "Abandon hope all ye who enter here".<br />As such, I neither have the taste nor the ambition to serve this walking corpse. Although still alive the body is rotting away. I feel not as a strong pillar, a foundation upon which to build the Olympus of tomorrow, rather the conversations I hear while walking in the realm, paint me as a maggot on a festering corpse.<br /><br />I need a bigger stage, an open podium upon which to display my art with gusto.<br /><br />No more opera in this house. I just heard the fat lady sing.<br />"<br />