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Voluntary Principles - JapJaan - 05-15-2005
I think that there is great merit to Sabra's proposal that Lurkers on Stormrage undertake a responsibility to advance the level/power of the guild generally. Because there is too much noise on the other thread, I am starting a new thread in the hopes of encouraging a productive dialogue in the vein conceived by Sabra.
What I am aiming to get out of this is a stickied thread that describes a set of voluntary principles for Lurkers to follow. These voluntary principles are of course not rules, rather they are hortatory in nature. I would like us to think seriously and collectively about how we can change things from the way they are now so that all Lurkers would be better off and how we can model such changes so that we will all want to adopt them.
I begin with two observations that should not be controversial:
1. WoW contains end game content that requires group play (i.e., soloing is impossible).
2. Most people have real life commitments that prevent them from rigid commitments to Wow.
Per the above points, I have this premise: that we would all be better off in our gaming experience if everyone has at least one very capable high level character. This is so that at any time, regardless of who can or cannot be on, it would at least be possible in theory to form groups of 60s. The sense in Sabra's proposal that we begin aggresively to escalate each other's characters is that in the end we are all better for having a stronger population in the guild.
I have the following thoughts to expand on Sabra's starting point:
1. Guild bank - I previously proposed this and it was met with strong disfavor, but I think that might have been due to my error in describing the idea. Keep in mind that everything is voluntary. What I am basically suggesting is a take a penny, leave a penny system. In other words, it should be voluntary deposit and withdraw and no one should have expectations for it other than good faith behavior among us. Equipment is very important in WoW for some characters and a guild bank can really help if done right. Some degree of selflessness and sacrifice would be required. For example, the blue rifle that you found might be more useful to someone's primary character than to your alt. Or that green that marginally improves your equipment might be a meaningful upgrade for someone else.
2. Targeted questing - We should give priority to helping each other finish certain quests due to the rewards. It is not an efficient use of time to help someone hunt tigers in STV. On the other hand, we should always try to help people complete the Deadmines, or the Uldaman necklace quest, or the Big Game Hunter quest in STV, or the Crone of the Kraul quest in Razorfen Kraul, etc. because those quests result in equipment that significantly boosts the power of certain characters.
3. Pooled resources - It is much faster for a higher level char to mine copper, collect linen, etc. If we all take some time to donate resources to a common fund, this will decrease time that we spend individually gathering for alts, etc. More efficiency means less time consumed on non-leveling tasks.
4. Play choices - It might be the case that you would rather play your new alt than your level 60 character, but all of us should start to think of our time more altruistically. A decision to forego playing the alt on any given night might mean that a group of 60s can run for equipment. Similarly, you might be dying to level your hunter or rogue. However, you would be doing everyone a favor by leveling a priest or developing a tank. I think that for larger groups/raids situations, Lurkers can make up for our small size and inability to coordinate by always having healers and tanks available. Other dps oriented classes can be more easily filled in by on the spot recruiting from Basiners, etc.
Look, I realize that these are not fully fleshed out ideas and that some of my thoughts might not be fully or well described here. But let us try to talk about these things and others and see if we can make some progress, ok?
Voluntary Principles - lfd - 05-15-2005
ObDisclaimer: Not much of this applies to me as I'm not on any servers with Lurkers (pseudo-)guilds.
JapJaan,May 15 2005, 04:02 AM Wrote:These voluntary principles are of course not rules, rather they are hortatory in nature.
I had to look "hortatory" up. Great word.
However, because of this:
Quote:2. Most people have real life commitments that prevent them from rigid commitments to Wow.
I suspect you'll find that people are extremely resilient to having what they do with their play time dictated to them, even if it's just in the form of being gently prodded to do so as per:
Quote:Similarly, you might be dying to level your hunter or rogue. However, you would be doing everyone a favor by leveling a priest or developing a tank.
See, I think there's a place for most characters in a party. You might equally be doing everyone a favour by levelling a mage or warlock, for example. I've come to love the AoE devastation a mage can inflict, even if it has on occasion required me to stand targeting them with my flash heal button pressed repeatedly.
Quote:Equipment is very important in WoW for some characters and a guild bank can really help if done right.
Money is also very important in WoW (until you get nearer the end of the game). Anything fancy that drops for me in games tends to get offered on the guild channel (either for free or at a lower 'guild rate') before I vendor or auction it. If people have said "keep an eye out for a gun, I need one" then I can do that, but storing up items on the offchance that someone might use them will lead to everyone being poorer, I suspect.
What's Blizzard's position on bank characters?
Quote:2. Targeted questing - We should give priority to helping each other finish certain quests due to the rewards. It is not an efficient use of time to help someone hunt tigers in STV.
...but don't you need to have that quest done to even get:
Quote:the Big Game Hunter quest in STV
offered to you? I know it didn't appear for me until after I'd completed the elite part of raptor mastery, having done panther and tiger earlier (with the raptor line being the highest level). With the "kill nn monsters" quests, it's much more efficient to have a group of people than can solo/duo the monsters you have to kill; even if you all pile on one mob at a time, that reduces the downtime before you can move onto the next one.
I think "Sorry, I can't help you with that quest, because it's not an efficient use of time" or "because it only gives you money and xp, rather than something that can be banked" would be a sorry state of affairs to reach.
Quote:4. Play choices - It might be the case that you would rather play your new alt than your level 60 character, but all of us should start to think of our time more altruistically.
No. Dictating what other people do with their WoW time in any way, to any extent, even if it's leaning on them gently ("what we REALLY could do with is a priest")... well, I can feel my heels digging in ;-) People play for fun, and as such should be free to choose their own method of enjoyment. It's one thing for people who know each other to do this - if I'm playing my druid alt and a guildfriend[1] asks for priestly assistance, then I'll finish what I'm doing and switch - but it's dangerous to create an atmosphere where people feel they can't level their alts. You'll just end up with people's alts not being in the pguild (whether that is better than people's mains not being in the guild is left as an exercise for the reader).
Quote:I think that for larger groups/raids situations, Lurkers can make up for our small size and inability to coordinate by always having healers and tanks available.
I think you can throw as many healers and tanks as you like at an end-game situation; if you're not co-ordinated, you ARE going to wipe. The solution here is better co-ordination, not delaying the inevitable.
I can see what you're trying to propose, and some of your points I think are excellent - mostly the ones I haven't quoted here ;-) - but I think it comes too close to dictating what people do in the game, even if it's just in a passive-aggresive way - "hey, congratulations on levelling up your mage, but why aren't you farming instances with us with your 60?". Sometimes I just don't want to run instances. Sometimes I don't have the uninterruptible time available. Last night my play time was interrupted twice for upwards of half an hour each time (long enough to be auto-disconnected). I wasn't instance-running (for this reason), so I could find an inn to sit in or even just log in the wild; that would not have been possible had I been coerced into an instance.
Voluntary Principles - Tal - 05-16-2005
JapJaan,May 15 2005, 12:02 AM Wrote:1. Guild bank - I previously proposed this and it was met with strong disfavor, but I think that might have been due to my error in describing the idea. Keep in mind that everything is voluntary. What I am basically suggesting is a take a penny, leave a penny system. In other words, it should be voluntary deposit and withdraw and no one should have expectations for it other than good faith behavior among us. Equipment is very important in WoW for some characters and a guild bank can really help if done right. Some degree of selflessness and sacrifice would be required. For example, the blue rifle that you found might be more useful to someone's primary character than to your alt. Or that green that marginally improves your equipment might be a meaningful upgrade for someone else.
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Until Blizzard implements a guild bank system or guild housing I will have to continue to say no to this suggestion. Just one of the problems is that of time required of the person acting as the bank. What if you are on opposite times from the person acting as the bank? What if the person acting as bank drops out due to RL issues for a few weeks at an inopportune moment? I won't even go into the can o' worms that sharing account name and password create.
JapJaan,May 15 2005, 12:02 AM Wrote:2. Targeted questing - We should give priority to helping each other finish certain quests due to the rewards. It is not an efficient use of time to help someone hunt tigers in STV. On the other hand, we should always try to help people complete the Deadmines, or the Uldaman necklace quest, or the Big Game Hunter quest in STV, or the Crone of the Kraul quest in Razorfen Kraul, etc. because those quests result in equipment that significantly boosts the power of certain characters.
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I agree to an extent with this but also would prefer that Lurkers also group together even for quests such as the tigers in STV. The more we get to know each others play styles, the stronger we will be in end game.
JapJaan,May 15 2005, 12:02 AM Wrote:4. Play choices - It might be the case that you would rather play your new alt than your level 60 character, but all of us should start to think of our time more altruistically. A decision to forego playing the alt on any given night might mean that a group of 60s can run for equipment. Similarly, you might be dying to level your hunter or rogue. However, you would be doing everyone a favor by leveling a priest or developing a tank. I think that for larger groups/raids situations, Lurkers can make up for our small size and inability to coordinate by always having healers and tanks available. Other dps oriented classes can be more easily filled in by on the spot recruiting from Basiners, etc.This I disagree with completely - the Lurkers on Stormrage are first and foremost about people having fun. I love playing Sharanna but there are times I feel like playing the more resilient and dps heavy Shalandrax or cutting loose with my mage Tal sheeping sheep in Elwynn. Or going heavy dps monkey with Jacktheskell and I simply refuse to give up that freedom of choice.
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Voluntary Principles - savaughn - 05-16-2005
Not to say they aren't valid points, but items 2, 3, and 4 have been brought up on this board as items of criticism. The arguments distilled into:
2 - Doing quests significantly below your level cost the player the fun of completing the quest and the play experience gained in learning how to form a functional party.
3 - Low level characters have to fight through a number of monsters and can't get the ore any other way. High level characters are effectively stealing these resources from newbies by collecting them for their guild mates.
4 - Altitis begins at 45 and becomes strickening in the 50's.
I don't have a Stormrage character and am not arguing one way or the other, I just remember the earlier conversations on this.