Communities and Guilds

So I've been thinking about this for quite a while, and I've come to the conclusion that there are game communities, and game guilds and they definitely are not the same thing. For the better part of the last 5 years, I've actively been a part of an online gaming community. I was one of the first members, an officer, and someone who cared deeply about the direction of the community. I took an active part in redrawing our charter, and trying to build a community that could put down lasting roots in an MMO. You see, despite being around as a community for 5 years, we had never put down lasting roots in a single MMO, and the pattern was alarming similar each and every game that we delved into. Bursts of activity early, zerg recruit all sorts of people, and around 60 days post launch members would start leaving the guild or the game, officers stopped honoring their duties and would disappear as well. On average, I'd say 90-120 days post release (sometimes longer, sometimes less) the guild would be down to single digit active members from highs of 80-100 active players.

The general sentiment of the officer team was that it was never the guild or the structure, but it was always just the games themselves, that nobody liked them. Considering that Vanguard and Final Fantasy 14 were titles we ventured into, I cant entirely argue with that idea.. I started to disagree with that sentiment last summer though with our Rift experience. While I did not get deeply involved in the game itself, I saw a divide in how a casual community operates. I saw what happened when people who were committed raiding types needed to pull people who were very casual, unfamiliar with min/maxing, and did not invest time outside of game to learn about encounters, were all put together. It was honestly a disaster.

This is where I started thinking about the differences between a game guild, and a gaming community. A community has a diverse group of members, quite often without any real bar to membership, and this means a vast variety of playstyles. Nothing at all wrong with that, in fact it's a very positive place for people to be. A game guild on the other hand usually is drawn together because they share a common interest in a single game, and they also usually have a membership application that helps them determine if an applicant shares a similar style of play. Extending this line of thought, while there is no guarantee a guild will last, it is my thought that a game guild has a better chance of an extended lifespan in a game than an online gaming community. The difference is level of investment in the game, versus investment in a community.

In order for a gaming community to make a lasting home in a title, I think that certain things are needed. The online community I belonged to had a relatively flat leadership structure, but I dont think that translates well into a game. I think that there has to be a single leader type. This doesnt mean a dictatorship, most decisions can be made among an officer team, but there has to be a person who makes the hard calls, or the unpopular calls, and does what needs to be done. Flat leadership too often means people dont take responsibility, and you end up debating for weeks over issues that need to be handled in hours or days.

The community itself needs to have strong leaders, and multiple voices. If there is a single strong leader, people again take the path of least resistance and just go along with him/her because they dont want to have a debate. If there are two strong voices you end up more often than not with cliques that form, or popularity contests going on.  This eliminates honest debates over merit, and people make decisions for reasons other than merit of the sides being presented. Short version is that if either of those things happen, you have piss poor people in leadership positions, because they dont feel comfortable, or confident enough to express their own opinions. So how does this happen? I think this happens when you dont accurately identify leadership characteristics in people, and you reward long time members and contributors for service, instead of making officers our of people who are truly leaders. Just because you contribute doesnt mean you are a leader. contributors can come in all shapes and sizes. Some folks who are contributors are leaders, and it isnt accurate that every contributor is a leader. I think this is a style that proves the adage: "The true test of a man's intelligence is the degree to which he agrees with you." You may have harmony (does anyone sense that I was the abrasive voice more often than not?) but you doom yourself to fighting uphill battles to have success as a guild in an MMO. This doesnt mean you cant do it, it just means you have to work harder, and the work falls on less and less shoulders. I believe the odds are against success with that format.

So after 5 years involved in the community I exchanged an e-mail with the founder, and resigned. Although I had not been active with the community in a few months, I got a nice send off post, and I wish everyone there well. These are tremendously great people who I respect, admire, and think will have fun in any title the venture into, however I believe the Chicago Cubs have a better track record of World Series success than they will of finding a game to make a lasting home. I'm sure it can happen, but I wont put bets on when. I'll still continue to game with several friends I met thru the community, but I've decided that for my next title, I want to play with people who will be there, and be active 120 days after launch. Maybe I'll pick wrong, but after 5 years of doing it one way, I'm going to find a group of people that embody what I want to find in a game, and I'll get to know them, and enjoy a title with them. Oddly enough, some of my best and longest game experiences were started just that way, and now I wonder why I got away from that.