Mar 14, 2012

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United We Stand: The Machiavellian Guild Leader

United We Stand is an Ask A Jedi series focusing on guilds, groups, and other communities in Star Wars: The Old Republic. By examining the communities that we form, we can create a stronger game for ourselves, build relationships that will last a lifetime, and perhaps even change the world itself.

A while back, I read “The Prince” by political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli. The idea was that it would have cool stuff that guild officers could apply to leadership and that I could write about. This turned out to be kind of true. In the actual act and organization of leadership, what Machiavelli has to say isn’t particularly applicable. We’re not hiring mercenaries, doling out land and fortresses to loyal princes, or deciding whether or not to raze, puppet, or annex cities (Oh, hey there, Civilization 5!). Although, it makes me wonder if in an older MMO like Ultima Online if this kind of advice would be more applicable.

I put the project aside, until I picked up a copy of “World of Warcraft and Philosophy: Rise of the Philosopher King.” You may have seen this book or maybe its companions like “The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy: I Link Therefore I Am” or ‘Halo and Philosophy: Intellect Evolved“. At first, these seem pretty dumb, but it was actually really awesome. It is a collection of papers and articles about philosophy that all use World of Warcraft as an example. For example, there is one about how the World of Warcraft economy represents the capitalism that Adam Smith described in “The Wealth of Nations“. Another describes the philosophical idea of determinism through the example of a player controlling a character and that character not understanding what it is that causes him to move. In particular, there was an article called “The Machiavellian Guild Leader” by Moses Wolfenstein that discussed how guild leaders in World of Warcraft use some of the political leadership principles that Machiavelli talks about.

Wolfenstein points to the infamous Onyxia Wipe Animation as an example, in which the Boulderfist guild Wipe Club is trying to down Onyxia and after a particularly close loss the raid leader Dives began to yell and scream promising to punish them all with “50 DKP minus!”. Wolfenstein claims that Dives is employing the Machiavellian principle that it is better to be feared than loved or hated. Machiavelli says that if you want to rule a country and remain the ruler, it is much better to be feared because when you are kind and generous people will appreciate it. If you are loved, the people will not appreciate your generosity because it is what they expect of you and when you need to be harsh they will hate you for it. When you are hated, you cannot rule because you will be too worried about being overthrown. “It is better to be miserly than generous for when you fail to be generous where expected you will be hated, but if you are miserly than you will be unexpected.”

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Mar 10, 2012

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Council Chambers: Lady R’s View of the Guild Summit

Council Chambers is all about the ins and outs of guild leadership in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Each week, we’ll look at running and managing a guild through good times, bad times and everything in between.

For all those who did not get a chance to watch the live streaming of BioWare’s Guild Summit, Reedyn and I here at Ask A Jedi will do our best to get you as much information as we can about the event itself, game updates, and some of the news to come out of the game.

While the Summit itself was designed for guild leaders, a lot of the content being discussed Tuesday concerned the big patch 1.2 update, and the content included in that.  There will be some significant updates and improvements to guilds, in particular the inclusion of guild banks, with other much-requested features coming in future patches.  It sounded like after guild banks, the number one feature guilds sought was the implementation of an in-game guild calendar, and the design teams said they’ll definitely be working on this for a future patch.  No dates yet, other than “Not 1.2”.  Other items such as being able to invite people to groups from the guild window, better guild navigation and features, and some sort of guild logo that players can wear or display were also mentioned.

A lot of the discussion also focused on the Legacy system – which probably merits its own entry, as it is very complex and includes an extensive list of new features.  The Legacy system will introduce multiple self-casting buffs, unlocking new species/class combinations, and then convenience features such as powerful gear for lower level alternate characters.

Finally, a significant amount of information was presented about some upcoming changes to PvP and PvE.  In PvP, two of the more noteworthy items were the removal of Ilum for an indeterminate amount of time as the world PvP is re-examined and repaired to work more closely in line with what the developers had initially intended, and to also address many of the issues and concerns brought about by the community in the last major patch.

In Operations and Flashpoints, there will be a new Operation with roughly the same number of bosses as current Operations, and with adjustments to difficulty levels coming across all Operations.  What is currently considered Normal Mode will become Story Mode, and is designed for the very casual players who may not be regular raiders but still want to see that aspect of the game’s story.  Gearing and progression will be largely moved to Hard Modes and Nightmare Modes, and the challenge of Nightmare Modes significantly increased to truly make these encounters…..well, nightmarish.  An additional Flashpoint that completes the Rakghoul story from Kaon Under Siege will also be implemented, allowing players to learn the ending of that event and also to gear up in a more challenging flashpoint for the end game crowd.

Guildy, But Not Guildy Enough

For my part, I found the Summit very information and helpful, but felt like it could have focused a bit more on the guild aspect more.  In some ways, while I had fun and learned a lot, it felt a bit more like a “1.2 Update” event rather than something specifically designed for guilds. The small size and one-on-one time with the development team was fantastic – so definitely far beyond what one could expect at a PAX-type event or a future BioCon (for which there were many enthusiastic demands).  However, the content felt much more like a reward to active and loyal guild leaders more than the opportunity to really meet and get feedback from guild leaders about what they need, what they like, what they do not like, and some of the guild-based reactions to potential features such as a guild leveling system.

In the future, I’d recommend additional aspects like breakout sessions with guild leaders, and perhaps more options to discuss actual guild issues – for instance, not only what are the game features people most want to see for guilds, but also some more community-building sort of things.  For instance, when the Guild Headquarters was closed in early January after launch, guild leaders were told this would be reintroduced – but no word followed on when, if that is still true, or what will happen to the former Guild Headquarters.

I also would have liked a better dialogue with some of the guild leaders on how many of the “down the road” features that guild leaders actually want.  For example, there was mention Tuesday of some sort of “guild progression”, which sounds an awful lot like guild leveling.  As we saw in the entry from two weeks ago, guild leveling is something that has a lot of strong emotions from the guild communities, both positive and negative.  While I was there as a fan site representative rather than a guild leader, my inner guild leader would have welcomed some sort of round-table with other guilds to discuss with the developers whether this is something the community wants and needs, or where we would like to see efforts placed in terms of supporting the guild.

So all in all, while the event was a fantastic opportunity to interact directly with the representatives from BioWare, meet a lot of other fantastic players and guild leaders, and learn a lot about some of the upcoming changes in patch 1.2, it also still didn’t feel quite as guild-centric as I had expected.  That said, people gave some fantastic feedback about all sorts of aspects of the game, and I fully expect the writers and developers to take that feedback into account as they continue building a bigger, better Old Republic for us all.

Kudos

I do have to applaud the initiative that the TOR team displayed with this event, reaching out to the community and setting up an event on this scale. It’s something that very few MMOs have done – in fact, the only one I am aware of offhand is EVE’s efforts to work with a player-driven council to get feedback and address community concerns.  So on that, well done!  Given this was the first of its kind, I doubt anyone expected it to be perfect – and I think there is room to improve if a second guild summit is held next year, with some more breakout sessions on features with guild leaders, so that it really can feel like a dynamic exchange – but even getting this much was head and shoulders above what many other games provide.

Got a question for Council Chambers?  Drop a line to Lady Republic at ladyoftherepublic@gmail.com or post a comment here, and you may see your guild questions answered in a future column!

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Mar 2, 2012

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United We Stand: Drop Everything and Start It All Over, Remember More Than You’d Like to Forget

Don’t quit. That’s the thesis of this post. If you are a guild officer, don’t do it, don’t give up. Don’t quit your guild, don’t ask to step down, and absolutely do not just disappear. Burnout has always been a danger for leaders everywhere, not just in gaming guilds but in every volunteer leadership position. I know that you might feel tired of the responsibilities, but honestly: just keep playing, just keep logging on. You’ll thank me later.

I am an optimist, I believe in the best in everything. Every problem has a bright side, and no matter how bad things might get one should always remember all the good things that one takes for granted. I will always remember the smiling faces around me as we downed our first boss, cleared our first operation, or got our first piece of Rakata. I remember the energy that I felt at every new member and every small achievement. I remind myself of all the time and energy that we put into building a great guild and no matter how tired I might get, I’ll always rather have this than nothing at all. I just keep playing, and I just keep logging in.

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Mar 1, 2012

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Council Chambers: Whose Guild Is It?

Council Chambers is all about the ins and outs of guild leadership in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Each week, we’ll look at running and managing a guild through good times, bad times and everything in between.

This week’s topic comes from a question that a coworker was talking to me about with respect to his guild. He’s been a long-time member of “That Other MMO,” and after twice being in raiding guilds that suffered from chaotic or badly handled leadership changes, he finally decided to start his own guild about a year and a half ago.

All was well for a while, the guild was happy and making good progress, things were stable and quiet, but as time wore on and TOR drew ever closer, he found himself losing interest in his previous love. So, like many of us, he made the decision to pull up his stakes and move to TOR full-time. Except, in his case pulling up stakes turned out to be quite literal – he announced his decision to disband the guild he’d founded in That Other Game when he left.

Now, for him this seemed the logical choice. Twice prior to founding his own guild, he’d been in other guilds that had been great under one leader, but foundered or failed under the new leadership. However, his decision to disband has caused huge amounts of chaos and turbulence for his current officers and guildmates, in what otherwise was a very stable, successful guild. He came to me asking for advice because he truly doesn’t understand why the other members are upset. Yet to the members, they can’t make sense of his decision whatsoever – and in fact, most of them find it very selfish.

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Feb 22, 2012

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Council Chambers: No “I” In Guild

Council Chambers is all about the ins and outs of guild leadership in Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Each week, we’ll look at running and managing a guild through good times, bad times and everything in between.  

First, let me say – from a spelling perspective, yes of course I know there is an “I” in guild. The title comes from the famous expression of, “No “I” in team” – we’ll overlook the fact that there is in fact a “me” there.   Ahem.

Last week, we talked about the Guild Summit and what kinds of questions you’d maybe be interested in learning more about. While I got a lot of feedback about the game as a whole – which likely will not be addressed at the Summit, as it is specifically and solely about and for guilds – I’ll definitely keep my ears open for news on any of the topics our readers asked about, as well as doing my best to cover the event as a whole.

In the feedback and comments from that entry though, a very interesting – and sometimes passionate – debate ensued about what a guild actually is, what it should provide to its members, what its members should provide to it, and all those issues related to those things. It got me to thinking about this topic, and what guild membership really means to people. So this week, let’s look at what a guild actually is, and how that matches up to what players think it ought to be?

This is every guild, right?

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