It is the responsibility of the GL to manage the people of his guild *if* he is concerned with his reputation. You cannot let someone run amuk doing things that are making the guild in general look bad and then say something like: Well he doesn't represent the feelings of the rest of the guild etc. If you are concerned with how someone makes your guild look and they are doing such a thing, then it is up to you as the GL to take it in hand. Look at a good deal of official server forums (I don't really suggest this but there is proof there) and you'll see the amount of stupid skirmishes that happen, and not once have I ever seen the excuse that that person doesn't represent the rest work for them. If you let it slide then it's automatically taken as condoned. Which isn't a bad thing if you don't care about rep.
I think a good deal of people who try to be at least respectable to others on the server had a very big EQ background. It takes some time to get out of the mindset that you basically have to be nice to everyone even if they screw with you because come tomorrow they might KS your Idol of Rallos Zek.
All of WoW mechanics are directly set up to keep guilds mingling amongst themselves: Instances, few contested spawns, *very* zone specific chats, the inability to train (Reliably, I try ; ;) tags on mobs from the first hit etc.
As such you very rarely open yourself up to receive retribution should you go the jerk way of things.
Even being known as the "bad-guy" guild doesn't stop you from getting good apps, as long as your PvE progress stays at the forefront of content.
(Emphasis added.)
I don't think anyone disagrees with that sentence. The question is what happens when the bolded part stops being true.
There was a guild on my server that was at the forefront of raid progress from the beginning of MC all the way through C'thun, whose leader essentially took their raiding primacy as carte blanche to behave like a jerk. When they stumbled a bit early in Naxx, lost some folks, and fell behind in progression, they suddenly found that their poor reputation was working against them. In the end they tried to address the problem by switching servers, at which point I don't know what exactly happened, but I do know the guildleader has since left the game and their progress has improved.
My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.
Cathela: what you describe is more of a system problem. People will tolerate a bit more being in the top guild. But once they drop from that spot, they suddenly find it a lot more difficult to deal with a jerk of a leader, or an unfair system when guild 1-3 have better policy and leadership and are doing better than them now. I've seen this in multiple games as well, including WoW. Almost exactly as you described in fact.
You have a strong guild-member. Does his job well, rarely argumentative, knows his shit.
He says something stupid, not offensive, not horribly egregious, perhaps teasing, to a member of another, friendly, guild.
Do you: A. Discipline the person publicly. B. Let it slide and value your guildmember over the misinterpreted feelings of someone in a completely different guild on the server. C. /gremove them.
Curious to see what most guild-officers would do in that situation.
If it's not offensive or egregious, I so no reason whatsoever to make a big issue out of it. Others have said it already: Just ask the guy what's up in private and get the lowdown on things so you can find out if anything is brewing. If not, simply tell the member to behave, if there is something brewing, then you got a whole nother can of worms ready for you.
Cathela: what you describe is more of a system problem. People will tolerate a bit more being in the top guild. But once they drop from that spot, they suddenly find it a lot more difficult to deal with a jerk of a leader, or an unfair system when guild 1-3 have better policy and leadership and are doing better than them now. I've seen this in multiple games as well, including WoW. Almost exactly as you described in fact.
Well, what you're talking about there is people already in the guild leaving when it starts to falter. I'm referring to people not yet in the guild deciding whether or not to apply. The first group is going to be more influenced by the leader's internal behavior, the fairness of the loot/raiding system, and other internal factors. The second group is going to be more influenced by the guild's reputation and by how they act toward outsiders.
So it's two different things, but they do almost always happen at the same time.
My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.
I think the simplest metric for reputation is PvE progression. When someone is thinking about transferring to a server, they make a level 1 alt and ask someone in Org/Ironforge, "Hey, what's the top guild on this server?" They don't ask "who's the #6 guild?" For a guild that relies on recruiting to survive, maintaining a high profile to keep the applications pouring in is obviously crucial.
In the grand scheme of things, though, reputation in WoW matters very little. World bosses and the one-time AQ opening event are the only situations I can recall it ever making a difference. If you have your little insular core of players, you can do your thing, and no matter how reviled you are, it matters little. Yes, there's something to be said for having an opposite-faction group allow you to down a world boss unmolested after wiping a different guild that has a worse reputation. But WoW never really requires people to rely on others on any broad level, and thus social pressure tends to have less of an effect than it might.
Huh... I think it all depends upon the focus of the guild. If you're looking to pick up top-notch server transfers (why are they leaving?), then sure, no one asks who the #6 guild is on this server. However, server communities are small, very small. Sure, the levelling curve is short and I can level an alt in three weeks on any server I want and start my life over in TBC.
My counterpoint to this point would be that guild rep (and by extension player rep) regardless of progression, is paramount (to some). To guilds not focussed on top-notch end-game raiding, guild reputation of other types is more important than to the top notch guild. I'll rely on a story, as I appear to be having issues getting my point across. My guild, the one in my tag exploded. I'm still a member, so its still in my tag. The total membership is about 5 accounts at this point, myself included.
We were the number #3-5 guild on alliance side until basically the Naxx push. We were one of the first guilds on the server, we lasted longer than all but one other I can think of before something... odd... happened and a new guild, basically the same reformed.
When we blew up, there was, crazy as it may seem, honest and real sadness from other alliance guilds, individuals and a few horde players. We were known, server-wide, for 1) not sucking, 2) not being jerks (no offense intended to the EJs here, I realize its a joke) and 3) generally helping out others and being good peoples...
Six months post-explosion, I am still invited on pug/premade pvp runs with people who don't know me, but who know my guild tag. A group (of the five) one night happened to be all sitting around in IF and multiple random people walk up and are excited, in textual chat, that we're getting back together to raid (we're not), since we were always so "cool" and nice.
Our goal was to raid, raid well and raid very few times a week (gasp). We accomplished that goal for a long time and people noticed. Two or three "copycat" guilds spawned on our server just as we were dying, similar scheduling, similar guild structures, etc. All of my guildies had no problem getting into any guild they wanted (even the top guild) mostly based upon the on-server rep of our players. Even when we had "lost" some of our suckier and a few good players to other "top" guilds on our server previously.
Having an AMP tag, even on my alts, ensures that people, still, know that I am not a moron, that they can expect me to do whatever I am supposed to do and do it well. Guild rep, across servers, sure, we're no one. Like Gurg said, no one transfers servers to join the #6 guild... But people on the server, they know who saved them 5 months ago from some murloc in South Shore or who ported them for free, just for kicks to Darnassus.
Its small stuff, but it adds up.
I also find it odd that two mages, one druid and one priest in my guild were considered "probably the best [insert class] on the server" in a game where other players rarely play with them much less watch them in raiding or pvp. How does that rep happen? It's subtle, and I surely don't know, but its true.
It all comes down to cause and effect, if you want the effect to be that most the people on the server hate you and wouldn't go out of their way to piss on you if you were on fire then by all means be a bunch of dicks. It will come back to bite you in the ass at some point.
If however you want people to actually have a desire to help you out or be part of your group then act like an adult and treat people fairly and with kindness, that too will also come back to you at some point, its how the universe works - even the digital one.
Having an AMP tag, even on my alts, ensures that people, still, know that I am not a moron, that they can expect me to do whatever I am supposed to do and do it well. Guild rep, across servers, sure, we're no one. Like Gurg said, no one transfers servers to join the #6 guild... But people on the server, they know who saved them 5 months ago from some murloc in South Shore or who ported them for free, just for kicks to Darnassus.
Its small stuff, but it adds up.
I also find it odd that two mages, one druid and one priest in my guild were considered "probably the best [insert class] on the server" in a game where other players rarely play with them much less watch them in raiding or pvp. How does that rep happen? It's subtle, and I surely don't know, but its true.
This is definitely true. I suppose it depends on your server also, how active your server is with regard to transfers, and so forth. I think my initial response was formulated more with an eye to Mal'Ganis as it exists today, where the server population increased drastically due to transfers, and the server has lost something of the personal feel that it had a year ago.
I think my first post probably came out the wrong way. I personally value reputation a lot, and EJ's reputation over the years is something that I've been very invested in preserving and building. Obviously being well-liked and respected has its advantages, beyond just the warm fuzzies from having people say how cool you are in Org/IF. I just think that to an, WoW as a game does not really force you into situations where a bad reputation would be crippling.
Cathela: what you describe is more of a system problem. People will tolerate a bit more being in the top guild. But once they drop from that spot, they suddenly find it a lot more difficult to deal with a jerk of a leader, or an unfair system when guild 1-3 have better policy and leadership and are doing better than them now. I've seen this in multiple games as well, including WoW. Almost exactly as you described in fact.
I'm quite interested in this. It'll be interesting to see what happens in TBC.
At "my" server there's a horde guild that's really not that well liked among the other raiders. I'm quite biased because of history, basically the raid group split over a year ago, because of internal issues between a few of us. "They" formed the guild and the other (smaller) part went to form another group.
When they split we thought they would not get so many people with them, as we thought the leaders of the new guild were total idiots and couldn't get anything right, but we were wrong (at least about the part of them getting people). In the end a lot more than we thought ended up staying, it wasn't sure we'd get enough of a core to get some raids going so maybe it was a simple "Hey, free epics with these idiots" vs "Maybe get something with these people" question and most chose the first, or we totally miscalculated a lot of people and they liked the others :)
I still know a few people from the old group and they are nice people, but the leaders are still idiots. Ever so often there's talk about what goes on in there, and while you shouldn't take it serious all the time, I do trust those saying it so I'm sure it has some merit.
Hmm.. this became quite a bit longer and more unstructured as I had hoped. Anyway, what I'm wondering is what will happen when the slightly annoying people loses their grip. What if you could get the same with another group that is slightly "better"? Why shouldn't you swap then? So yes, I think maintaining a good reputation has a very big impact, not in the short term but in the long term for the guild as a whole.
(ps. if anyone from EU-ER horde feels like I'm talking about you, I probably am :) )
This is definitely true. I suppose it depends on your server also, how active your server is with regard to transfers, and so forth. I think my initial response was formulated more with an eye to Mal'Ganis as it exists today, where the server population increased drastically due to transfers, and the server has lost something of the personal feel that it had a year ago.
I think my first post probably came out the wrong way. I personally value reputation a lot, and EJ's reputation over the years is something that I've been very invested in preserving and building. Obviously being well-liked and respected has its advantages, beyond just the warm fuzzies from having people say how cool you are in Org/IF. I just think that to an, WoW as a game does not really force you into situations where a bad reputation would be crippling.
I would say WoW does have situations where bad reputation is crippling: specifically on low population factions. On Kargath, where horde are outnumbered 3:1, there was a guild formed from the dregs of a respected guild, and rapidly established themselves to be the trash of the raiding horde.
They got off to an an auspicious start by stealing the contents of the old guild's bank, and continued to build on their reputation by pathetic behavior in battlegrounds (remember the days when you actually knew the opposing team strategies & gear levels?) and behavior around world bosses. While they had decent success raiding BWL (this was back when BWL was the end-all-be-all), they ran into major problems right around Chrommagus-Nef and never recovered. Fast forward to server transfers, their only solution was to flee to a server that didn't automatically do a guild history check and check for their red-flag guild name.
edit: Hmm, just thought of an alliance example (and we're really populus). There's an alliance guild on Kargath that suffers from their reputation. At their height they used to be arguably the best (or at least neck in neck with the best) alliance guild. Three (or is it four now?) splits later, the vaunted guild ends up giving a Hand of Rag to a druid. They still retain several highly skilled players, but how many serious geared raiders do you think are actually applying to them nowadays?
A little post I made on my former guild's (Blackblades of Durotar) forums regarding recruitment and guild image. I thought it was pretty relevant to this topic.
BBoD was a guild of the "good guys" as someone mentioned earlier in this thread, we weren't the badass "we're better than you get out of my sight you blue geared scum" kind of guys.
I don't think it's a secret to anyone that our raids have been a bit short lately. There's only one good way to fix t hat; recruit more players, and the only way to recruit more players(without pulling some shady stuff) is to get people interested.
How do you get people interested in BBoD? You show them what they want to see, namely success and a good attitude.
Showing off success is easy, it's all in the gear. If you're just standing around org, put on your best. Wear recognizable gear(good recognizable gear) and chill in a high traffic area where people will inspect you. People start to link BBoD with good gear, and people want a piece of that. Sure there are higher end guilds with more gear than us, but no reason we cant get a piece of the fashion show action too right?
Second is a good attitude, talk it up in 5mans PvP and 20man PUGs, make lots of friends. Friend referrals are the number one way to get people interested, so be a friendly dude(or dudette). Of course a lot of the people in those runs are either undergeared or already in raid guilds but it never hurts to get people to apply.
Pretty much BBoD needs more good people, and unless we start pulling shady underhanded tactics(never gonna happen) there's only so much that we can do to influence the right people to apply. Anything, even as simple as going afk in good well visible places in org helps a little bit.
By shady tactics I was referring to stealing members from lower guilds via whispers and outright offers of membership if they leave their guild. While that might work if your guild has an elitist attitude, it does nothing but cause drama and bad blood.
Now, a guild like EJ is in an odd spot because they have a hopelessly good reputation. At this point, EJ could probably post a pic on their front page of Kaubel strangling a prostitute while dressed in a French maid outfit, and the guild's reputation would survive (as long as he did a /flex afterward).
Mother of ass, I was assured that picture was deleted right after it was taken.
Originally Posted by Lyta
I've been trying to concentrate on studying for my Proof Methods test tomorrow, and all I can think of is your hotness, radiating out from the pixels on my monitor, seared straight into my neurons.
Guild rep is something that can evolve and change over time too. my own guilds rep is something that has evolved over a year and a half.
It started off as "huh, I never heard of you guys" when doing scholo as 10 man was an achievement for us
We got taken a little bit more seriously when we took down Rag and Ony. But still we were viewed as a more fun/casual guild.
that rep changed again as we cleared BWL. The guild always had it's PVE goals but we were not as "elite" focused as other guilds. i.e. we hardly ever kicked people from the guild (unless they had acted like a total wanker) even when they went inactive for months. The guild only recruited friends of friends so having idiots in the ranks was something that was very very rare.
We moved onto AQ40 and we got to C'thun. At this time, summer and soccer world cup proved the death knell for many a guild. But our guilds ethos ensured we kept on going while more elite PVE goal focused guilds collapsed. So now were we being viewed as one of the best on the server purely as we were one of the few guilds actually progressing. Within the raiding community we were viewed as a people freindly guild who happened to have some terrific players that took the guild forward.
Onto Naxx and again our rep increased as we started killing bosses. The guilds focus on people staying together and having fun over being an elite PVE goal focused guild has ensured our survival while many a guild has folded. We ended up as only one of 4 horde guild capable of doing Naxx. This longevity (one of the 3 longest running guilds on the server) has given a rep of a very stable guild with a friendly helpful membership whilst simultaneously been seen as a guild that can take on the latest end game content
You have a strong guild-member. Does his job well, rarely argumentative, knows his shit.
He says something stupid, not offensive, not horribly egregious, perhaps teasing, to a member of another, friendly, guild.
Do you: A. Discipline the person publicly. B. Let it slide and value your guildmember over the misinterpreted feelings of someone in a completely different guild on the server. C. /gremove them.
Curious to see what most guild-officers would do in that situation.
That's pretty easy. I'd choose:
D. Talk to the person privately and say "Hey, you can't do things like that, okay?"
Exactly lol. Option D is what most people owuld choose =)
As far as guild reputations go, we all know there are some guilds that are founded on the basis of "raging" other players. Anyone remember the "He stole my cap!" Mc incident?
For me personally, the people are FAR more important to me than the progession. I used to play on the american servers, Joined a great guild and met some great people. After a while it became apparent that it is not possible to live in europe, have a job and live on EST time =). So I joined the EU servers. I joined a guild soon after hitting lvl 60. They were an ex PvP guild and basically on their first foray into MC DESTROYED it (rag down pre sons first attempt). So they wee clearly going to be a PvE progressing guild, and I had got in on the ground floor. Woot?
Nope, no woot =/. Sadly I did not like a LOT of the members. I just found them to be (sorry!) elitist jerks. Truly though. Until you had the ZoMg EpIx they had, you were dirt in their eyes and treated as such. They ninja'd the blood of Drakkisath and the GM laughed about it (sure, no big deal, but it IS irritating if you are the person that got ninja'd off of!). They general acted immature and I left them to be guildless rather than grouped, speeding through PvE content, but playing with people I just did not like.
Instead I joined another guild, less progressed, even progressing quite a bit slower, but with NICE people. People that made me feel welcome.
So I guess if you want to skip all the text above, just read this part:
Infamous is NOT the same as famous. And friendly and unknown is better than famous and infamous =).
Oh, and guild reputation means nothing to me. I don't judge a person by their guild tag, but by how they have personally treated me. And if someone wants to hate me because of a guild tag over my head, that is their problem, and all they do is show themselves to not be mature in my eyes.
There is light at the end of the tunnel.
The only problem is, it's often an incoming train.
Guild reputation affects sustainability, and enjoyment I find. Most guilds, freaks like EJ excluded :-P, have to deal with turnover, and there is a difference between the type of people who don't care about a guilds rep as long as stuff as dying, and the people who prefer to have both.
I've been involved with both types, and honestly I prefer that the people I play with treat those around with just a little respect. I carry myself online pretty close to how I do in RL, and I don't think many people change much. Its a lot easier to meet other people, co-ordinate with other guilds, etc if people don't think you are a bunch of assholes.
When I transferred my guild off the server we started, we had an long thread of people from both factions who considered us friends begging us not to. Unfortunately was an oceanic timezone thing.
If you are trying to establish a respectable reputation as a new guild, there are a few easy steps that will help.
1) Don't tolerate drama.
2) Tell your members to stay the hell off the public forums unless they have something constructive to say.
3) Make sure you have 1-2 good people who are acting as spokespeople and posting publically. You still have to create an image to start with, its marketing.
I used to be in a "bad guy" guild. We constantly made server firsts, but the majority of the guild enjoyed talking trash, cheating, exploiting, griefing, drama, training, spamming, etc, and was widely hated by the rest of the server (and other servers).
Perhaps it helped keep everyone competitive and gave them a desire to try harder and perform better. It didnt allow inter guild runs of lower instances, and trading with other guilds was not an option. It also made world spawns and world instance entrances a constant war (with both factions) and massive griefing. We never had trouble getting new members, stealing recruits from other top guilds was the preferred method.
I didnt like this part of the guild. However, it kept it interesting and many members enjoyed the competitive aspect of it. From now on, I'll be joining non drama guilds, regardless of progression.
In my opinion there are two kinds of reputation: "The propoganda train" and "The truth"
The propoganda train is made up of people who are jealous. Generally the people spreading this info about your guild are less progressed. Sometimes they've lost members to you and are genuinely angry about it.
We started our guild out as a TBC prep guild. Back when before TBC was put off we were planning on recruiting to 30-35 and closing recruitment. Our raids are PUG with the smaller guilds on the server but lead by me. We didn't plan on ever filling 40 man content on our own so we didn't push to recruit these people into our guild, just include them in raids so we could raid. Eventually people who were raiding with us recognized strong leadership and saw a chance for progression with us that they didn't see in their own guilds (often much larger guilds). We went from having 2-6 members in our ZG raids to filling most of the raid on our own. At that point we decided to start pugging MC (bringing 12-18 members of our own). There were several guilds on the server at that time stuck on Rags, one guild in BWL (stuck on Nef for 3 months), and one guild in AQ40 (huhu, they broke up soon after we recruited to 40). We pugged our way through Rag in 3 weeks and when TBC got delayed we decided to recruit to 40 and push BWL. Our third week killing Rag we decided to try Razor and we downed him first try with a full 40 from our own guild (most of our raid had never been to BWL, but we had posted videos and practice that they did).
In the process of recruiting to 40 many of the other guilds on our server 'lost' members to us. Most of them came straight to me and told me that they saw us as a method of progressing that was far superior to their own guild. Some of them disagreed with the leadership methods of their old guild (the leadership horde-side on our server is poor to say the least). All of them came to me on their own. This lead to the leadership of other guilds starting to spread rumors about us. I've heard them call us the "PUG guild" and say that we couldn't do anything on our own (I am proud of our ability to PUG so I see this as a strength). They've said that we have members of the AQ guild that broke up fueling our progression (we got 2 people from them, and they're both DPS warriors so this is completely untrue). Many of their members will send antagonizing tells to my members trying to get them to curse then report them to try to get a 3 hour ban. I've had a GL of another guild complain about one of my members when I have screenshots of 6-7 of his members antagonizing this person in order to provoke a response.
This is the bad side of our reputation. People are jealous that we're on Nefarian and they are still stuck on Razorgore so they make excuses for their inadequacies. They make up "The propoganda train".
"The truth" is our reputation among the people who judge for themselves. People in our guild are encouraged to PUG because I know every member will put forth a good face for the guild. We're known to be skilled players (we have a very strict recruiting system and have NEVER publicly broadcast for recruits) and have very strong leadership. We have turnover like every other guild and we get recruits through many methods. Bringing PUGs to raids has always worked for us so I encourage off night events to bring them to assess skill and show them how our guild runs. We never sacrifice our standards just to fill a spot. Every member of our guild comes prepared to raids and ready to execute strategies. This has kept us from reaching progression hurdles. While we're not well known because we don't make fools of ourselves in public chats and forum, our website and progression timeline speak for themselves. After having a conversation with a competent person about our guild they generally want to join and I just have to decide if we want them or not.
It's hard to battle the rumormongers but we try to ignore them. What matters most is keeping the drama out of the guild and the focus on our current goals. Reputation matters a little, but it can be overcome when needed.
I think the simplest metric for reputation is PvE progression. When someone is thinking about transferring to a server, they make a level 1 alt and ask someone in Org/Ironforge, "Hey, what's the top guild on this server?" They don't ask "who's the #6 guild?" For a guild that relies on recruiting to survive, maintaining a high profile to keep the applications pouring in is obviously crucial.
In the grand scheme of things, though, reputation in WoW matters very little. World bosses and the one-time AQ opening event are the only situations I can recall it ever making a difference. If you have your little insular core of players, you can do your thing, and no matter how reviled you are, it matters little. Yes, there's something to be said for having an opposite-faction group allow you to down a world boss unmolested after wiping a different guild that has a worse reputation. But WoW never really requires people to rely on others on any broad level, and thus social pressure tends to have less of an effect than it might.
The #1 benefit of a good rep is like Gurgthock mentioned, recruitment. First tier guilds take recruits who got geared in second tiered guilds, who are perpetually stuck in the second tier, and third tier guilds lose their players to replace those who were recruited. Being #1 is nice because you get your choice of recruits. Other than that, there isn't really much benefit, especially since server transfers are so readily available. Your guild can be complete and total assholes to everyone, and people who have no clue will server transfer and join and not care. It used to matter, at least it did to me, but now everywhere is so overpopulated and people transferring here/there, it doesn't really matter anymore.
I remember back in The Day when I played on Lightning’s Blade, US, when we killed Ragnaros and this was deemed an evil and dirty act by a lot of the servers populace for reasons, to this day, I don’t quite understand. We didn’t do anything conceited or use any underhand tactics, in fact at most was we carried around one person who was quite vocal about how awesome he was. The result was you couldn’t go anywhere without a small newly-formed guild spitting on you, spamming “noob” in whisper, and writing senseless rants about how we were “stealing loot from the horde.” One even posed to be a member and tried posting a key logger on our guild forums, and for all this constant spam in yells in Orgrimmar with about twenty tickets filed against him a second the most the main culprit got was a 3 day suspension. This went on for about a month and only really ended when the guild did (which is when I came to the shocking conclusion raiding on the US realms from the UK might not be such a good idea. “It’s like Diablo 2 only with more people,” indeed).
I’m also in the leading PvE guild on the server here on Vashj, EU (though we kind of imploded recently), and I’ve not seen anything so ridiculous even though there was a instance borrowing mishap* that probably would’ve warranted it - yet for all the potential and scorn on our name it generated one thread on the realm forums that slipped off the front page in three days, despite our more gifted and tactful members posting responses to the effect of “You’d only wipe because you’re not awesome like us.” I imagined our name would be dirt, but it completely blew over.
To recap: Killing bosses first is terrible; killing other people’s bosses on the grounds they couldn’t kill them themselves is fine.
After these two completely opposite and confusing experiences I got the impression guild reputation doesn’t really hold much weight, really. Through both affairs we had people wanting to join us constantly - good people. I’m sure if you’re known for being a right bunch of assholes other people will take every opportunity they can to screw you over on bosses and trades, and it’s much better to be known for being nice guys, but so long as you’re ahead on progression you’ll have a constant slew of applications and your guild will be cohesive.
Now individual players, now there’s where reputation comes into play.
[* “Yeah you can have our instance” ... “What the hell are you doing in our instance?”]
So I guess if you want to skip all the text above, just read this part:
Infamous is NOT the same as famous. And friendly and unknown is better than famous and infamous =).
You can still be friendly and known/famous though. My aim anyway.
I think the above is not clear, let me try and retype it with some quotes =)
Infamous is NOT the same as famous. And "friendly and unknown" is better than "famous and infamous" =).
Might help clarify it. But I do agree with you 100%, that is an admirable goal. However, it is 100000 times easier to become famous from something bad. You could ninja loot 5 bosses and become a legend. But if you gave away 5 epics, the only people who know you would be those who you gave the epics too and their friends who will bug you every day asking when the next "insane person give-away" is taking place =).
Famous and infamous is the easy route to fame. Sadly any attention is better than no attention to those folks =/.
There is light at the end of the tunnel.
The only problem is, it's often an incoming train.
We're in an interesting position in regard to reputation:
Our guild dates back to the release of The Frozen Throne and values reputation and social values highly. Meanwhile it has evolved into one of the best raid guilds on the server and is now balancing between being a hardcore raid guild and still appreciating social values. The top guild on our faction is a notch above us and at a level of dedication we won't be matching (nothing else matters as long as their raids work out) but they are also extremely arrogant and generally coming across with a horrible attitude on the realm.
This has turned out to have the convenient effect that we've become the natural choice for people who care about raiding in a good social environment while we rarely have to bother with applications from dramaqueens and lootwhores since they soak all of those up - though that's not to say they don't get some nice players too of course.
That aside I also think people appreciate the stability in joining an old guild (though we have issues much like most other guilds in Naxx) and our members are generally quite loyal and happy to be in the guild, which I feel is in part due to the reputation we work to maintain.
I also consider it important that a guild tag signals credibility. A bunch of other guilds on my server recently said that they couldn't care less if their members were to ninja or grief as long as it wasn't done to guild members and such issues make people lose trust in their pickup groups and traders etc. I'm not sure if it was a big issue but I just find it very convenient that people always know you can be trusted.
Of course there are also the guilds who make it an aim to grief. One in particular is basically KoS for all alliance raiders which winds up causing them some heavy downtime at raid starts, I think. In these days with world buffs being required, being able to cooperate with rival guilds instead of engaging in mutual griefing is more important than ever and I think that guild suffers a heavy handicap in that area while the two other top Horde guilds mostly enjoy reasonable reputations.
http://www.defendersofvalor.net
\"Never trust anything that a man will not set his reputation and name upon.\" - Medivh
On causes of guild reputation:
What sort of actions would you say are (most) effective in building or ruining reputation in various forms?
Posting on the WoW server forums is probably the most effective way of building or ruining a guilds reputation, especially for large guilds, because it is one of the best ways to be viewed by the general public. On a smaller scale I would say videos of your guild in action can also have a large impact on a guilds reputation, or even something small like creating a great Addon.
Those last two might not directly effect your guilds reputation, but they get people to look at your guild and form an opinion.
Or posting a full in depth spoiler of a raid zone that less than a half dozen guilds have managed to make signifigant progress into ;)
12/15/06, 8:10 PM
Similar Threads
