[split] Stormrage Lurker Guild Discussion - Formerly known as Cat Beta

[Bun-Bun]

And there are still a some of us that try strange things.

I'm sure there are. And I'm sincere in asking; as part of on line guild activities? Is there any organized craziness like, for instance, the Seven Samurai group in D2? If so, then my apologies. I can only base my observations on what I read here and what I see (and occasionally hear) while online.

Alas, there are no such things. Between splitting the people inclined to such things across servers and the time consumed with the raid goals of much of the guildies, the critical mass to do things like that isn't there. Add to that the obstacles WoW's design places in front of any ad-hoc group, and it's darned near impossible.

If I may pontificate on the game deisgn for a bit: the three tiers of WoW content all have hurdles to "organized craziness". Soloing is largely quest driven, which is once and done; hard to keep a group synchronized with that. Five-mans need four or five people with specific specialization demands; if three people are available, it's a nonstarter, and if six show up someone's left out. D2 was much more flexible with scaling content and no requirement for a tank-healer-dps trinity. Raids, of course, require even more people and lockouts complicate things further.

All of that can be overcome, but the higher bar has, IMHO, driven people back to the intended designed activities, or to other games.

When I've inspected players, I find that the Lurkers are by and large just like anybody else in terms of gear and build. From the events scheduled here on the fora, from the few reports on those events, and from the general discussions, I find that they are also just like everyone else in their goals and desires.

Granted. There's very little wiggle room in the talent structure. If you change points around, there's no way to get a different play experience; you just don't do as well. When the world was young, and we all walked to Scholo in the snow, uphill both ways, you could spread your talents around the three trees and do something interesting. I had a tri-tree 'lock, and I didn't feel like a druid if I didn't put a few points in feral so I could tank on a whim. Nowadays though, it is the express intent of Blizzard that everyone goes deep in one tree, and specialize in one function. And if you're not deep in your functional tree, there's not enough in the other trees to make up for the lack in your designated area.

As for gear, the badge system creates much of the homogenization. Add to that the limited variety in overall gear, and you've got clones. At most levels of the game, there's usually one Best Thing, and since repetitive content is the rule for most of the life of an expansion, an awful lot of people wind up with that Thing.

In terms of goals and desires, that's a reasonable statement. The guild has been focused on providing end-game raiding opportunities for its members for years now. That focus has tended to weed out those who weren't as interested in that; conversely people who wanted more a more hardcore approach have moved on as well. I'm not saying this is good, bad or indifferent; I am saying that is a hard challenge to be all things to everyone.

Which is all really a longwinded way of agreeing with you, with the proviso that the game provides a limited palette of choices in many regards, and a set of choices was made many years ago that drew us to this end. I think many current <Lurkers> would relish some organized craziness if it were easier to fit into the game. I would.