Warning for Nuuna: 9. Do not sign your posts.

Kaubel · 03/25/09, 8:23 AM

Post: Raiding Theory
User: Nuuna
Infraction: 9. Do not sign your posts.
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Original Post:

This is a fascinating discussion to drop into, and by now, quite long, so I may be repeating somebody else here. I'll still risk it though

According to writing about games, there are some relevant truths about why people enjoy games. These are some of them.
1. Games are voluntairy, they are freedom. Play isn't work.
2. Games are tense, there's risk to playing - you can always fail.
3. Games are safe - failing in games does not mean you are a failure in general.
4. Games offer a sense of control, of mastery.

Now, combine these with raiding.
1. Raids often tend to reduce the freedom and the volunteer sense of playing. To be part of a stable raiding community you need to be reliable, you need to make appointments, and the support you get from your mates creates responsibilities and obligations. You don't take your fully epic healer, carefully and lovingly geared up by a group that really needs your abilities, and go to another raiding guild just because that's more fun. If you're the kind of raider good guilds want, you are hard-working, loyal and reliable. It looks an awful lot like work...

2. The risk that you may fail can tip over into resignation. After the fifth day of wiping on the flight part of the Malygos encounter, you no longer feel any tension about it. You no longer balance on the edge betweeen winning and losing, you know you will fail. It can't be done. You have learned that through perhaps a hundred deaths, and if you're smarter than a rat, you know it will happen again.

3. While games may not be the real world, gamers are very quick to tell each other what losers they are. Character judgements are made based on how you perform at any given point, and for instance a tank to a badly coordinated dps group can expect to be told exactly what a worthless worm he is in all channels, down to being shunned and never again invited to a group. The time which should cheer you up turns out to be a time which breaks you down, and the sense of failure stays with you on logout.

4. All of the above reduces your sense of control. Your raid leader says if you may or may not play with the rest, the encounters you keep failing take away your belief that you can do it, the feedback you get confirms that you're useless.

Good raid groups need to avoid these traps. They are big enough that somebody else are happy to fill yoru spot when you need a break, they are not obsessive and understand that hard encounters have to be rotated with easy encounters, they are quick to give praise and slow to criticize, and they reserve judgements until they know more about what goes on.

The problem with that is that the leaders need to enjoy being these superbeings, too. Guild- and raid leading really turns into a job fast. So the group needs more people who can step up into that very important position, to create a rotation that keeps leading as fresh as participating.

What we see is that most decent guilds have a two-year life-cycle. The balance between fun and duty is, in my opinion, what kills the guilds once they reach the raid-progress stage.

Nuuna