Two's Company, Three's a Guild
         Soloing, Grouping and Guilding in MMORPGs

                  An article by Dave Booth

The acronym 'MMORPG' stands for 'massive multiplayer online
role-playing game'. In this setting your character competes,
cooperates, socialises with, kills or is killed by, other
characters played by real people.  It's a feature that alternately
draws and repels gamers.

Since the first large-scale MMORPG, Ultima Online, designers have
worked to build worlds that accommodate as many players as
possible.  It's well documented on the Web (and in a past SynTax
article) that gamers fall into different camps - socialisers,
killers, and achievers being the most common groupings.  A
successful online game will incorporate checks and balances to
permit the three groups to flourish.  No game has yet found the
'perfect' balance - which is no surprise, as skilfully crafted
computer code is no match for human ingenuity, determination and
sheer deviousness.

When new to an online game, there is plenty to do solo.  It takes
time to get accustomed to controlling your character, interacting
with the environment, and discovering the region you live in, at
all times being wary of computer- controlled aggressive monsters.

How far you can progress solo depends on the game design.  In
Ultima Online (UO) and Asherons Call, it is possible to develop
your characters abilities to maximum completely solo.  Everquest
though required that, from a relatively low level, you grouped
with other players.  Dark Age of Camelot players can solo more or
less, depending on their class, but at higher levels grouping is
essential to make progress at a reasonable rate.

In any case, playing online puts you into a social environment,
even if it involves running back to town to sell up after days
hunting in the wilds.  Mind you that can seem an eerie experience.
Many times, a trip to town in Asherons Call (AC) meant running up
to join a dozen or so other players, all standing in front of a
computer-controlled shopkeeper, trading, in total silence.  Now
and then one would complete his transactions and dash off back to
slay more monsters.

Games with craft skills could almost have designed them for social
players in mind.  All crafts involve performing masses of
repetitive actions (make ANOTHER cuirass, brew ANOTHER potion) for
skill gains.  Most require static tools like a forge or loom,
classically located - once again - in towns.  (UO is the
exception, you can buy a loom, set it up at home, and tailor away
in splendid isolation). It's natural in such a situation to chat
to fellow crafters, if only to learn the trade by their
experience.  Town is also where your customers come to buy your
superlative goods.

Dungeoneering puts you into close contact with other players.  UO
has no grouping system, so competition is normal.  This results in
different styles of play, which interestingly I found varied by
server.  On the US servers, players competed aggressively for
spawns.  Sometimes the player to find a monster and damage it
acquired the right to kill it, but it was not uncommon for players
to let a player take 'aggro' by attacking a monster, then finish
it off in relative safety.  The latter of course was a signal to
move on.  On European servers, kill stealing was comparatively
rare, if not absent.

The other games mentioned have grouping systems.  Here you consent
to join up with other players, and share experience and loot for
kills.  Well- designed groups can turn over monsters at a
devastating rate; poorly built ones die very quickly.  Again the
in-game code design determines what groups are good for a given
type of monster.  You won't get far taking a team of mages in to
kill an AC Lugian - they are notoriously magic resistant.

Groups form and dissolve in a short time.  Constraints of time
zone, and demands coming from that ethereal realm known as 'Real
Life', result in players ungrouping at intervals.  Camelot groups
require realistically that each player can spare about an hour
minimum.  That's the time needed to get a group together, find
some juicy monsters, and get killing.  Whilst I didn't play
Everquest, I've read of groups that lasted DAYS.  Players would
join a group, play for 8 hours, book a slot for the next day, and
log off.  The reason is individual spawns took up to 30 minutes.
Granted, these are groups out hunting much-sought after Unique
items.  Still sounds like a vast amount of work though.

In game features like a Friends list help keep track of those
you've had fun grouping with.  It makes it easier to locate them
online and regroup.  But what about grouping on a longer basis
than 1 hour?

This is a common reason why people form and join Guilds.  All the
MMORPGs I have played have them.  With guildmates you can more
easily get a group together, socialise using guild chat, and
pursue guild-orientated interests.

It is also the highest form of organisation in a game.  So people
gravitate towards guilds that meet their own view of the game.
Roleplaying guilds for example value in-character behaviour which
enhances the atmosphere of the game.  Crafting guilds exist to
promote and develop those skills.  Most commonly though guilds are
ad-hoc collections of individuals, maybe real life friends, or
players who had fun grouping and decided to make the group into a
guild.

Guilds have a structure.  This is specified by the players, with
game code contributing by allowing the guild master to bestow
titles.  One of my Camelot characters has the title 'Craftsmaster'
having bashed out more weapons at the forge than other guild
fellows.  Other titles can have privileges attached, like the
ability to invite people into the guild (or boot them out!).
Beyond that, a guild can have no further organisation, or where a
guild is seen as a military force, an actual hierarchy with
officers.

The more members a guild attracts, more hierarchy it tends to
build.  This can cause friction within the guild as ambitious
players jockey for position.  It also causes faction and split.
Guilds seem to have a critical mass at which they will break up,
as I suppose with any organisation of independent people.

There are ways to keep a guild together.  Regular group hunts
retain the original group spirit.  New members are assisted with
money and items.  People stay together as on-line friends.

Other game mechanics are guild-oriented.  In Camelot a guild can
capture the keep of an enemy realm and erect their own flag, which
in addition boosts skills and stats of the guild members.

Camelot builds further on the guild concept with Alliances.  Once
allied to other guilds, members gain access to an even wider
audience (for chat, or to find players for a group when your
guildies are all asleep).  In the Camelot environment Alliances
are useful too for defending the realm.  It is easier to stage a
keep taking or defence when 300 people are available through chat.

Once you've been in a large guild within an alliance a while, it
seems that this is the best organisation possible ingame.  Some
guilds however have taken the concept to a further level.

The logic is simple. While a guild may be large, it also typically
has a wide range of players with different skill levels, so there
is little advantage to them regularly grouping.  The game code
ensures that a level 2 playing alongside a level 49 will get no
more experience than grouping with other level 2s.  The level 49
will get far less experience than hunting alone.  As such, even in
a big well-organised guild there are times when members must go
looking for non-guild members to hunt with.  This detracts from
the Important Task, which is to get levels as fast as possible,
so...

...the Zerg has arrived.  This is a guild (unique to Camelot)
formed with the aim of getting all members to high level asap, to
then steamroller over enemy areas. Game code allows it, and human
ingenuity devised it.  Usually a whole guild of people from one
server will simultaneously create new characters on a new server,
form their zerg guild, and begin levelling.

I watched the progress of a guild actually called Zerg over a two
day period this week.  I was soloing with a character who could
expect to gain a level a day.  So he moved from level 25 to 27.
In that same period, the members of Zerg went from 18 to 40.  You
stop levelling at 50.

There were between 20-odd and over 50 people in the guild at
varying times.  Therefore it won't be long before the guild
members hit the maximum level, and collectively head out to
terrorise enemy realms.

It's the ultimate in Achiever grouping.  The guildmembers go to a
known high-yield experience spot, monopolise the place and
relentlessly kill by sheer force of numbers.  When they have
outgrown it, they move to the next one.

It's also the opposite to the solo player mentality.  There have
been times when a perfectly pleasant day's soloing has been ruined
when a zerg rolls in and without so much as a by-your-leave, kills
everything in sight as soon as they spawn.

Zergs aside, it is nice though just to make a new character, and
without grouping, guilding, or allying, wander out into the wilds
and experience the game solo once more.  When the time comes to
dive back into the guild, I'll dig out my level 50 character and
get stuck in to keep taking, helping build guild events, chatting
to guildies.  Not just yet though.  There's another monster
waiting right over there.













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