Quote:Original post by DrjonesDW3d - A mother of 3 who works in IT and does a fenominal job raising her kids. How many of you had parents that would build rockets with you in the back yard and make sure all your homework was done and checked?
I am a mother of three...
Just a second... I am searching for my "EASY" button.
That was easy.
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I think this type of thing is pretty common, as far as end-game raiding goes. It takes these types of things to be "first". I've never understood what the significance of "first" is, and frankly, if I'm going to be PAYING every month to PLAY a GAME I personally want to make sure that, while playing it, I am having FUN. But fun is relative, and, apparently, to some people this type of "dedication" is "fun" to them. I won't make any judgments against people who think like this--I've talked to some of them (well, perhaps not those who play to this extreme, but close to it) and they don't appear to be any more "looserly" than anyone else who plays the game.
I find guild politics to be very interesting. I had only been in 2 during my WoW career--one was hardcore, and the other was one where we tried to balance hardcore and casual, by getting things done but not demanding anything of our members. I left the hardcore one because, from my perspective, most of the people in it were unfeeling droids. I didn't find the hours spent in a virtual world with unfeeling droids to be much fun.
The second guild was infinitely better, but also required, somewhat ironically, much more time and care. Most of this time was spent out of the actual game. Balancing the hardcore and casual needs of a guild is very, very hard. This is why most "hardcore" guilds take a totalitarian approach to leadership--if you don't meet the demands of the guild, you're out on your ass with no apologies. It's easy, and keeps things moving. Unfortunately, this results in a very high turn over rate and, in some cases, a guild actually has to move servers to find a new pool of raiders.
Balancing the hardcore and casual needs worked for a while--just over a year--because almost everyone in the guild became each others friends. Not everyone, but most people could overlook their differences thanks to their friendships. We even had a few meet ups in real life, which was pretty cool, because there were actually way fewer "virgins in the basement" than you might have first assumed when you thought of an end-game guild. People coming from all over the continent to meet strangers was really good for the guild, and definitely strengthened bonds.
Running the guild was still hard, however, and long story short this wonderful guild no longer exists in it's original form. I'm still good friends with a lot of my former guild mates, and to my knowledge no one is really drastically offended by anyone, but nonetheless the guild somewhat imploded on itself. I think, had the expansion been released earlier, things wouldn't have been as bad. A lot of people were getting bored with the game, and I think, in a way, that became an excuse to create drama. But I'm not really sure, because I stopped playing in August to pursue that fabled "real life".
Anyway, it's all very fascinating to me. Today Blizzard announced that they have 8 million World of Warcraft subscribers worldwide. That's a lot of people to join in a very short amount of time. I hope more research is done on the sociology and psychology of MMORPG's in the future... I think it's pretty important, with that many people participating.
This is totally possible. Let's say they're high school kids and have 7 hours of school per day. If they were college kids, they would have less hours and be able to skip them, so for "extreme" case we'll stick to high school. 7 hours of school + 8 hours of sleep + 8 hours of WoW = 23 hours Leaves them a whole extra hour to watch porn, or eat. Or maybe take a shower (thye don't have to do it daily), or even god forbid: Do homework.
Quote:Original post by DrjonesDW3d The people you find in (successful) guilds like this aren't the kind of people that you think they would be. They are much closer to the personality types that you associate with entrepreneurs and ivy league students.
I call shenanigans.
I must also agree. Now, I acknowledge that I have no clue what it's like to be an ivy league student or an entrepreneur, but, for the sake of humanity, I hope that anyone that is capable of doing even half of the amazing things DrjonesDW3d cites in his post are doing something much, much, MUCH more productive.
If the most intelligent people have really given up on the world and decided to just play WoW the rest of their life, why do I even bother to continue living on this doomed planet? Oh! The horrors and confusion of being inferior.
I really don't want this to become a flame war. I find myself baffled by the draw of this game and how it holds millions of people in thrall.
I look at the case in point of a mom who is "phenomenal" at motherhood but still plays 7-8 hours a day. Knowing the sheer volume of tasks required to keep a home and children running smoothly, I want to know how she does it. Is that her only other activity besides motherhood? Are all of her kids in school? Supposedly this particular one also works. Even if it's part time, she's accounted for 12+ hours a day of things not motherhood. When does she do the dishes and the laundry and help with homework and pay the bills and interact with her spouse and pick up toys and grocery shop and on and on and on? Does she only sleep and hour a night?
I know first hand that even a 1-2 hours a day of WoW leaves many things undone or pushed to the back burner, and when equating that to successful people, they are often the hardest hit since success is often measured by accomplishments. Someone who is successful in a guild must also have been or still is accomplishing things in other areas. How do they find the time to play 7-8 hours a week and have any satisfaction from outside accomplishments? Or do other areas become meaningless while the game is forefront?
I think what I'm seeing more than anything is that the game takes advantage of the things we are taught in our daily life experiences. Namely:
1)Everyone should set goals and reach them. This concept is great for things with tangible returns. If the game paid as much as Tiger Woods gets paid, Dave could play 12 hours a day and I wouldn't care. The only tangible returns (other than the ebay market) only fulfill the gamer's sense that he/she is doing something in keeping with what they have always been taught.
2)Be a good team member. Again, excellent for many situations, but how does one choose the teams they ally with? Is that BYU student and husband being a team member in his home with his spouse? Would his wife agree that he is as well? That one is particularly difficult for me to wrap my brain around. I understand the rigors of getting an education, being married and living up to the principles and teachings of Mormonism. Is he living on student loans in order to have the time to fulfill other resposibilities and game 7-8 hours a day? If he also works full time, is his schooling suffering?
Anyway- I'm not trying to cause trouble. I am trying to figure out at what point the psyche changes and WoW 40 hours or more a week becomes not just acceptable, but necessary. I can't see anything but addiction. It has been so long that anyone has had to creatively entertain themselves, no one knows how anymore. As a result, games and movies and TV shows will get more and more intense and intricate to feed the entertainment addiction.
"Hello all you boys and girls,I'd like to take you to the inside world.It's quite an irregular place to be,but never fear, you're safe with me.. . . Well maybe.(for I am the Frizzlefry)"
Despite their 124 registered users, I'm inclined to believe that this guild is just the work of some 13 year old looking for a few hours to kill.
Infact, I question whether this was even worth posting here. As I've personally stumbled across dozens of sick things people have said or purposed, but most these people are losers, so I disregard them.
Anyways...
A GIRL IN HTE GUILD? ZOMG, NASTY NASTY!!1 I AINT PLAYIN WITH NO GIRLS IN THE GUILD, I NOT JOIN!~
What would many outsiders, looking at this community, say about people who go home and spend their spare time creating video games?
I'd wager that "Young unemployed virgins living in their parent's basement" might come to their minds.
We laugh at someone spending 8 hour a day playing WoW but for many ambitious independent game projects that actually succeed the time committment is in that ballpark -> and those teams get our utmost respect.
Now we'd, of course, argue how useful the skills we learn are and how we're actually creating something with our time, much like a WoW player will argue how they've become effective managers or work better in a team. If we both enjoy what we do with our spare time, what does it matter?
As for "achievement" the success of a hardcore MMO guild comes from organizing and coordinating a group of people to efficently work together to achieve objectives of increasing difficulty. Whether you recognize it or not, the feeling of accomplishment is no less real than successfully organizing and coordinating a group of peple to efficiently work together to create a game.
Quote:Original post by DrjonesDW3d - A 28 yr old investor who is currently 'semi-retired' in Argentina
Fairly off topic, but I know of some 'investors' who are 'semi-retired' in Argentina, and they are not there primarily for the sun, but for the extradition laws.
Quote:Original post by linternet If we both enjoy what we do with our spare time, what does it matter?
I think this is the point people are questioning. How does anyone have that much "spare" time?
"Hello all you boys and girls,I'd like to take you to the inside world.It's quite an irregular place to be,but never fear, you're safe with me.. . . Well maybe.(for I am the Frizzlefry)"
I think you can learn a great deal from anything--including WoW. Whether that is limited to team-work or expands to something more political I suppose depends on the player and the guild. However, I doubt that all that much is learned from a "shut up and do as your told" type of leadership that I have seen in some of the more hardcore, or, in other words, "successful", guilds.
I also think it's very important to have a hobby. Some of the greatest advancements have been made from people who are very addicted to their work. I do, however, doubt what will be made of people who's time is spent playing a video game which, as has been pointed out, will be obsolete in a few years. You may learn things playing WoW, just as you may learn things developing games. With an uneducated guess, however, I'd assume that you'd learn more developing a game than you would playing a game.
In any case, I don't think becoming obsessed with anything is healthy. I may go through periods of "addictive-development" with a programming project, but it doesn't last for months--rarely even for weeks. That said, my head is never on the chopping block if the projects fail. If you were to keep up 8 hours a day or face a punishment of some sort, I think you would be more inclined to keep going regardless of whether you wanted to or not. The sad thing is that, in the long term, the real-life punishment is probably going to be much more severe and much harder to undo.
All of this is completely speculative, but it doesn't seem all that extreme to me.
