Massively Multiplayer: A Primer Part 2: Kids

I recently received the following Email from a friend of mine;

Hey Ulaa
can you give some advice/information for parents of a child who wants to join an online guild? Rules, etiquette, things to watch out for…?

Why yes I can. Here are a few thoughts on my MMPORG experience of Guilds and their membership.

1. Reputation follows you, whether its earned or not.
For me the most interesting part of any Massively Multiplayer game is the Guild that you elect to join. When you are invited to join a Guild one of the first things that happens is that you will you recieve a Guild tag above your head.

The Guild tag is visable to all other players and indentifies you as a member of a particular organisation. How that organisation is viewed by other players in the game is a result, not only of the actions of yourself, but of all other members present and past. Like any organisation, unless its brand new, a Guild has a history, it will have enemies, friends and allies. If the Guild that you join is known for anti social actions such as Kill Stealing (KS’ing), Raid Jumping, Griefing or any of the other various actions that can be performed to the detriment of other players in an MMPORG, then regardless of whether you yourself have ever participated in any of the events, to most other players you will still be tarred with the same brush.

For example: There was a Guild in EQ (Who shall not be named) who were known as a “Zerg” Guild. They would throw immense numbers of Players at a game event, until, through sheer persistance and weight of numbers they would win. In Everquest game terms this method of play usually implies a lack of skill and dedication on the behalf of the indivdual players within the Guild. The Guild were also known generally as unpleasant players, it was always assumed that they would be unfriendly, KS’ers, Trainers etc etc.
Generally not nice people.

Now whenever I saw that Guild Tag in game I was always on my guard expecting the worst sorts of behaviour from those people, yet I very rarely had a bad experience with the individual players within that Guild, in fact many of them were friendly and highly skilled. However due to its past history the Guilds name still came with unpleasant connotations.

Now in a game such as Everquest where Player vs Player (PvP) is not a major part of game play, having a bad reputation doesnt come with many in game repercussions. In a game such as WoW, DAOC or EVE where PvP combat is a major part of game play, having a bad reputation can mean being corpse camped, it can mean people going out of their way to kill you over and over. This can most definitely spoil your game play and for children it will quickly ruin the game.
Some people actively seek to join Guilds with bad reputations and make those reputations worse, many are proud of having a bad reputation and seek to make it even worse.

Guilds being real life organisations, they can sometimes cross games and game genres. Thus you may see the same Guild name emerge in multiple different games.

People being social animals they become very attached to their Guild tag and sometimes try to have their Guilds move with them into new games. This can happen in the manner of Southern Armada or the Fires of Heaven, where the entire Guild essentially changed games. It can be that a Guild transcends any one game and has representatives in multiple games and genres such as Organisation:Drow.

Southern Armada has also sort of gone down this path with representatives of the Guild in both Everquest2 and World of Warcraft. However there is no connection between the two guilds apart from some members in both Guilds played together in EQ1. There are also Guilds that may completely disband in one game and then re-emerge in another game with no connection between the two instances except the name. Sometimes this can be a deliberate attempt to trade on a Guilds already established reputation, sometimes its just ex-membership of the original guild starting again.

Check a Guilds reputation before joining, either through playing with its membership or even just asking around on the same world shard.

2. Even a Half-Assed Guild has a Website.
Unless its only 5 minutes old (and thats possible) most guilds will have a website detailing their beliefs and policies. Find your potential Guilds website and have a good look around. The sections you particuarly want to read are the rules on player interactions, and the Guilds policies. Try to read between the lines a bit as Guild policies can range from “We dont care what you do at all” to “When you log on you must check in with an officer and obey that officer in all things forever and ever amen”.

IE some Guilds are run by Hippies and some are run by control freaks.

This is also a good time to review what it is that the Guild is going to require of its players. Raiding Guilds (or those who aspire to be raiding Guilds) will often have minimum required play times. Sometimes this is just a requirement to raid a certain number of times a week, but sometimes it is a requirement to be online for a certain number of hours a week.

Something else to check is to have a look at the Guilds Forums. Every Guild has one of these as they are the best method for the Guild members to communicate with each other and for officers to post information about upcoming events. This is usually where the Guild will also have a recruitment Policy and application form. Most Guilds will also post some form of warning about “appropriate use” of language in the Guild Chat Channels (See more below).

These warnings will vary from “We allow adult language/ topics” through to “We only allow the type of language as she is spoken in the Bible” Have a good look around the Guild website for policies and belief statements.

3. Play with your Child: Understand the game they play.
Im not saying that you have to control every moment of your Childs online play, but try to sit down with the Child and if you can, play the game with them, or have them explain what it is that they do in the game. I have found that most kids love explaining the stuff they are doing in a Computer Game. The better that you understand the game that your child is playing the better you will be able to make an informed choice on whether you want them to play that style of game at all. A blanket ban on all computer gaming or completely ignoring what they do are not answers to the issue of online gaming.

When joining a Guild your child will suddenly have access to a chat “channel” that is only visible to other Guild members. This is so that Guild members can communicate across the entire physical game layout. So even if you have watched the child in the past, when/if they join a Guild sit with them again and just watch the chat channels to check out the new level of conversation.

4. Etiquette
The Eitiquette of Massively Multiplayer is not limited to only the interactions with other Guild members. Because the entire premise of such games is interacting with other people in a fantasy setting, the etiquette of the game itself will probably dictate a large part of the inter guild rules.

A. Assume that the person behind the toon to whom you are speaking is the sex of the toon.
For example, if the toon is female, assume the player is as well. Sometimes it can be very obvious due to the tone of the chat you are having, that the female Elf is in fact a real life Male, sometimes it isnt. It may be easier ( you may think ) to assume that all players are male and act appropriately. However there are more and more women involved in the MMO Genre and many of them play Male toons in order to escape from percieved in game “harassment”, So you really never know.

It is not strictly speaking considered polite to ask the Real Life (RL) sex of another player unless you have known them for some time. My toon in EQ, Ulaa, was a very pretty Dark Elf, I had a number of embarassing encounters where I had to tell other players that I was in fact a male player, before their flirting went any further. I had one encounter with a young man where we had been chatting in game for some months off and on, then one day out of the blue he asked me my sex in real life. I told him and I didnt hear from him again for some weeks. I think he had been thinking I was female and learning I wasnt was something of a shock. I had never hinted or pretended that I was, but he was upset none the less.

The acronym for this kind of question is occasionally a crossover from the classic IRC chat channel question; A/S/L?

This means Age, Sex, Location and there is no obligation to answer it.

This leads us nicely to:
Always remember, there are real people on the other side of the screen. It may be a game, it may be “Fun”, it may all be Fantasy/SciFi, it may all be pixels and code, but on the other end of every Character in the game is a real person. Treat them as such. Be polite and friendly, exactly as if you had just walked into a room full of strangers.

B. Do not share intimate personal information with people unless you know them very very well and even then be careful.
After a couple of months of playing with Southern Armada I met up with my Guild leader as he also lived in Auckland at the time. I am a 100KG’s Male and have no problems looking after myself. However when I organised to meet him I did it in a public place with lots of people around and excuses ready in case it all became unpleasant. In my case it didnt, but if you do elect to meet someone from a game, do it publicly and do it carefully. Never share personal information like Address or Phone number in game.

Much like other public places, MMPORGs in general or public chats do not condone the use of explicit or racist comment. If you are playing a female Gnome and greet your Guild at each login with “Whats up my Niggers?!”, its inapropriate and isnt going to make you any friends.

C. DONT SHOUT.
It is generally accepted internet usage that posting all in caps is considered SHOUTING. Dont do it, its annoying.

D. Dont beg.
Would you allow your child to stand on a street corner and beg for coins? Im sure most wouldnt. However a surprising number of children (and they are easily identifiable as kids) will send chat messages to high level players begging, this is usually along the lines of “gimmee Gold pleeze” or they will simply stand in a zone and shout to be given items. Not only is this bloody annoying for all other players but it defeats the purpose of the game. If I hand you a high level account with all the most powerful gear in a given game, whats the point of playing the game?. Go out, kill stuff, do quests, you will soon earn your own money and items and have fun doing it. Persistant beggars just end up on my ignore list.

Asking for help is perfectly fine and this is one of the reasons many people will join a Guild. If you cant find the place/item/monster you need to finish the quest, ask in Guild chat. Someone will either know, or be able to find you the information. Asking for help to kill a Mob or finish a Quest is also perfectly acceptable. However do remember that your guild members are not obligated to help you out. If they want to help and have the time, they will, if they dont, they wont.

E. Written english comes across very differently than spoken english.
An enormous amount of communication is non verbal, its eye movement and body language. Be careful how you write what you are trying to communicate. What may seem funny to you in your head can come across as outright rude when it shows up on someone elses screen. Think about what you just written before you hit the Enter button. In reverse, if someone writes something that you find offensive or rude, ask them if thats what they meant to say. More often then not, they just didnt manage to get the joke across in the manner intended.

5. You get out what you put in.
Like any other organisation, the more you put into the Guild, the more you will get out of it, both personally and in game. As discussed above, reputation plays a big part of the game. This applies to both Guilds as groups and Players as individuals. People will get to know you and will judge you based on the persona you project. If you are outgoing, participate in Guild chat, show up to help others when they need it, join in Guild events, post on the Guilds web boards, try to organise fun events for other players etc, you will get a lot more out of the game than if you dont participate at all.

On a wider scale, if you are known as a good player and a good person you will get people searching you out to group with, people will respond more favorably when you are asking for help. In other words if people like you and regard you as a good player, they are a lot more likely to help you out.

For some people its not the in-game participation that counts, its the out of game stuff. An active Guild web site requires a lot of support. Beyond the coding, design and layout of the site itself there is content updating and moderating and security of the Guilds web boards. I know of Guild web sites where the people who actually maintain and support the Guilds website/board are no longer actively playing any sort of game. They are still regarded as respected and active members due to their participation in the Guilds life in other ways.

6. There are assholes everywhere
This is true of games as well as life. You like to know who your kids play with in RL, so you really should know who they are playing with in Game as well. This is sort of related to 3. Play with your Child: Understand the game they play, in that its a good idea to sit with your child and learn what they are playing and who they are playing with. There will always be assholes everywhere and your child will encounter then both in game and out. In MMPORG’s which involve PvP combat such people are usually known as “Griefers” or “PlayerKillers” (PK’s). These are people who go out of their way to make your life miserable by repeatedly killing you for no other reason than they can.

Oddly enough most of the Griefers I have ever come across have themselves been children. They are usually unsupervised 10-16 year olds having a bad day and determined to take it out on other people. The best way to deal with Griefers is generally to get away from them. If you cant do that, then its time to put the call in to the Guild to come and help you. Most Guild members will come and help out if you are repeatedly being Ganked by someone a lot higher level than you. If that doesnt work. Just log out and do something else, play another toon or another game. Smack talk and anger just excites a griefer, log out and you have taken away his/her fun.

Thats about it for now. Feel free to leave comments or ask questions if you want to know anymore or want me to expand on something.

Guilds and Clans in Massively Multiplayer games: A Primer

With the massive expansion of the online genre happening I thought I would write a little introduction to one of the newer aspects of the phenomenon, the online “Guild” or “Clan”. Guilds are funny beasts, they exist entirely in virtual worlds and tend to focus on a single virtual world or game, they inspire passion and the sort of closeness amongst their members that a few years ago would only been found on the sports field.

Also known in some circles as “Clans” or “Teams”. Anyone who has ever played a game online knows what these are, for those who don’t I have created this little guide. If you accept that “You don’t get to choose your family but you can choose your friends” as a truism then the clan is the online circle of friends of the 21st century, also known amongst the psychological community as the “Third Place”.

A Clan or Guild is essentially a group of like minded gamers who gather together to achieve a given set of goals within a game framework. Team goals can range from the more casual, but no less hotly contested goal of domination in a First Person Shooter such as Quake, or crushing the opposition in a Real Time Strategy Game such as Command and Conquer. The penultimate level of this type of competition is the more complex and on occasion heavily personal race to raid targets in games such As Everquest.

There are also “Clans” and “Gangs” in non combat online games such as the Sims where people gather their virtual avatars to hang out in virtual malls together. It seems the human social drive is a lot more powerful than was ever realized and the need to group with other like minded individuals is spilling into the completely virtual worlds. There is also a type of Guild known as “Gaming Guilds”. Generaally these are groups of friends who are not dedicated to a single world or game, but instead play a variety of games while continuing their association across the genres. Possibly the biggest and most famous of these would be Organisation:Drow AKA Venom AKA Blood of the Spider. I have encountered a few of these types of Guilds including the Underground Warlords and The Syndicate. These guilds are huge and very, very hard to manage, requiring hours of unpaid work from Guild and Website admins and leaders.

The interests of such groups can range from a focus purely on the gameplay experience of their members through to being virtual gaming portals with links, reviews and subsite hosting for their members. These virtual relationships have begun to be studied by serious academics, the two leaders of which would be Nick Yee and Damion Schubert. Nick Yee studies online and virtual relationships from the point of view of an academic doing research for his PhD whereas Damion Schubert looks at them from the point of view of both a player and a professional, successful game designer. Damions site also has some great links to other sites looking at such things as Online Economies and the science of game design and management.

From the point of view of a common player a Guild offers several things. It offers other people in the game from whom you can learn the mechanics of the game, it offers people to chat with, to game with, to raid with, to achieve the sorts of things that require more than a single group to complete. Beyond even that, it can offer friendship, “mateship” and even the opportunity to meet people in real life. “In Real Life” is also commonly known as ‘IRL’ and the acronym will be used here from now on. In short a guild can fully flesh out an experience that even within the framework of a massively multiplayer game can be a lonely one. A good guild can help advance your Avatar and gain you respect within the game world, a bad Guild can create you a reputation that may even follow you from game to game or world to world.

There are many different types of guilds and then there are sub classes within the Types. For example within a Massively Multiplayer game that includes an element of Player vs Player (PvP) you will have Player Killer (PK) and Anti PK guilds. Good guys and Bad guys. I can only really speak for the Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game (MMPORG) genre of Guilds as that has been my primary playground for the last few years but many of the guild types can be applied across game genres. First I need to explain the difference between Hard Core and Casual gamers in relation to MMPORG’s.

A Casual Gamer is someone who can log on to play anywhere from 1-20 hours a week. They often have families or commitments outside the game. They want to be able to login, achieve something within their limited playtime and log out without major penalties to themselves. The ‘High End Game’ is not where they are headed, they are there to hang out with friends and maybe peek timidly round the corner while the Uber Guild (See Below) is cleaning out the Dragons and/or Gods. A Hardcore gamer is someone who plays as much as they possibly can. This can range from 15+ hours a week out to 60+ hours a week. The Hardcore tend to haunt message boards and information sites. They go into an encounter knowing as much as they possibly can about that encounter. They will max level within weeks or months of a game going live and will stay up at MaxLevel for years. They are often rich within the game world as they are the first to get their hands on rare sellable items and/or spend a lot of time earning cash through tradeskills.

These players also often Multi Box ( own two or more computers and two or more game accounts and play two or more characters simultaneously. If you are playing with more than 4 PC’s and Characters you are playing a “Hydra”) The hardcore tend to drift into Raiding or Uber guilds and tend to be more focused on advancing their characters and in seeing new zones and killing new monsters. Casual and raiding players tend to be attracted to specific guild types, however there are no hard and fast rules for the type of Guild a player may join. A Hardcore player may join a Family guild simply to be the big fish in the small pond and be happy there.

Family Guilds
These are made up of people who are playing for the “experience” and the friendship of other players. The family guild is really there more as a chat channel for its members and to allow members to come together to help each other. These types of guilds are usually strongly represented on the so called “Role Playing” servers that are supported by many MMPORG’s.

These guilds don’t usually raid or aim for the “high end” of the game. They are really there for the fun. They can be made up of hardcore and casual members although the hardcore tend to move on to Raiding guilds if their needs are not met within the structure of the guild. Family Guilds will have a heavy emphasis on friendship and the mores of family life when recruiting. Such Guilds can often contain several hundred members.

Casual Guilds
The casual guild sounds a lot like the family guild but with less emphasis on ‘family’. The casual guild is often made up of a small group of real life friends and is created largely for the members to be able to ‘hang out’ together, they are often made up of people with limited play times. You will rarely find the Hardcore player in such a Guild unless the entire Guild is made up of a small number of Hardcore IRL friends.

Raiding Guilds
Raiding Guilds are designed around the concept of the raid. Within the MMPORG genre there are several method’s of joining together with other players to achieve something.
Soloing – Obviously doing something yourself
Grouping – joining with 4-6 others players
Raiding – joining up with 40-60 other players.
A Raid is often a complex scripted event where all of the members of the guild have to do their jobs simultaneously and in a proscribed manner in order to achieve a given goal. Often this goal is to do with the death of a big target such as a Dragon or Giant. Raiding Guilds often have strict rules which players must adhere to or be forced out of the guild. For example the Guild may raid 6 Days a week and attendance at least 5 raids a week is mandatory. Players in this type of guild tend to be the hardcore type.

Uber Guild
These are the Superstars of the guild system. This type of guild will have mandatory online time and raid rules. They tend to be run with a strict multi tier structure and penalties for broken rules are severe. This type of guild is pushing the boundaries of the game system all the time, they are the first to kill the Dragon and be the first into the Evil Castle. They will maintain websites where they can tell others of their accomplishments and non Uber Guilds can go to drool over the uber items the Guild has aquired for its members. The membership of the Uberguild is heavily influenced towards the Hardcore player. To make life interesting the boundaries of Family, Casual and Raiding Guilds can often blur. For example you can have a FamilyRaiding Guild that is capable of killing the big monsters without the heavy strictures placed on members in a normal Raiding guild.

Guilds are living breathing entities. They change and flux constantly with changes in membership and the needs of the guild members. You may initially join a Casual Guild that grows into a Family Guild over the years. Then the Guild may have an influx of hardcore players who want to raid. These players may attempt to steer the guild towards being a Raiding Guild. Sometimes this will work and the Guild will evolve towards its new form, more often than not the guild will split into two smaller guilds. Sometimes the Guild will disintegrate completely and two new Guilds will form, or the original Guild may continue on its way and the split Guild will take on a new name. Guild names can be passionately fought over when a guild splits with both sides claiming the ‘right’ to the original Guild name and all the history attached to it. Guild names or ‘Tags’ are proudly carried and insults to the guild name can be treated with all the seriousness of an insult to a set of Gang colors.

These are all my personal observations from many years of involvement in the MMPORG genre. I have had my share of flame wars over perceived insults to my guild. I have had Guilds disintegrate under me and helped build guilds up. It is all part of the fascinating fabric of the web. At the end of it all I am a Proud member of The Southern Armada. Don’t like what I have to say or feel like insulting my Guild?. Come join me on the http://www.Ausguard website and you can tell me to my “face”.