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Regarding World of Warcraft (WoW), would-be Chief Social Engineer Tobold recently exclaimed:

Now maybe Blizzard *wants* PvP to be the most popular activity in WoW. Having a strong PvP in WoW diminishes the competitive advantage of upcoming MMORPGs, which are mostly PvP-centric. And the earlier PvP weakness of WoW clashed somewhat with the lore of Warcraft as a series of RTS games. And maybe Blizzard *wants* WoW to be strong in solo PvE gameplay, because that certainly helped their sales. But as Chief Social Engineer I can’t help but notice that there are problems with how WoW develops towards solo and competitive gameplay, and away from cooperative gameplay: it diminishes social contacts in the game, and that has a strong influence on churn rate and longevity.

I see a number of problems with Tobold’s thoughts here, despite the fact that I know Tobold’s heart is in the right place; there seems to be a strange misinterpretation of Blizzard’s actions wherein observers are lead to believe that Blizzard wants to take away from cooperative PvE gameplay, and instead focus on solo PvE and PvP.

WoW gamers and industry observers both, need to understand that longevity varies per player. Very casual gamers, for example, can spend years leveling a toon to the level cap, whereas hardcore gamers can reach a raiding-ready status in a mere couple weeks. For some, only a few raid encounters are yet unachievable, but by the time Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK) is within arm’s reach, they will have already exhausted most end-game raid opportunities. This is the problem with the current MMORPG formula, and why Blizzard feels forced to cater to end-game raiders, as it’s these hardcore players who will leave the game if there’s nothing left for them to do. Daily quests, aesthetic “improvements” like rare mounts, and similar additions to WoW are helping Blizzard maintain its subscription-base among players who are already raiding the Sunwell on the Public Test Realm (PTR), but even these opportunities are often not enough to keep a hardcore player from paying $15 per month to maintain an account.

Enter the PvP system, which follows from the trend of first-person shooters (FPS) in that it manages to focus a player’s energies in a medium that doesn’t require much continued development. Three of the four Battlegrounds (BGs) have been around since instanced PvP was introduced, and though some have been changed in minor ways, they’re effectively the same, and the only content improvements have been in the way PvP gear is obtained. The point is, it’s PvP that manages to distract non-end-game players from reaching the level cap quickly, and it’s PvP that manages to tie up end-game raiders before the next big raid/expansion is released. So, it’s no surprise that Blizzard has placed a fair amount of focus on PvP, be that in Arenas, BGs, or even world-PvP.

The interpretation of this focus as a way for Blizzard to detract from group PvE opportunities is unfounded, however. If anything, the fact that raiders will have access to PvP gear as well as PvE gear by way of badges exemplifies Blizzard’s continued enforcement of the raiding tier: players who are swallowing PvE content faster than Blizzard can produce it. So too has Blizzard illustrated its backing of group PvE by introducing Heroic dungeons, and removing attunements and reputation requirements to enter these dungeons. Even looking at the basic quests offered in Outland by the Burning Crusade expansion, we can see that Blizzard has included a much larger percentage of quests from the get-go that require multiple characters to complete. If anything, Blizzard has inserted incentives and opportunities for characters to group together in a very well-defined manner, despite the continued advances Blizzard has made with PvP.

Perhaps some players are keyed in on PvP-oriented changes because that’s been WoW’s weakest element upon release. Remember that back in 2004, there were no BGs, and killing enemy-faction NPCs earned one “negative” honour. These elements made PvP rather uninteresting, especially when compared to statements Blizzard made years ago claiming that things such as siege weapons would be available for players, much in the way that Warhammer Online currently advertises “realm versus realm”, or “large-scale” PvP.

It’s no surprise that much of WoW’s success is because of how easy it is to level a character, in that it does not require a group. No doubt, Blizzard will continue to make this option available in WotLK, but remember that the best gear is still only obtainable by way of grouping, as even PvP grinding limits one’s options to PvP-oriented equipment.

The real issue of more casual players not having access to end-game content is because many people, especially late-comers to level 70, are limited to what their guilds are capable of offering. That is to say, guild alliances are not as ubiquitous as they should be, in great part because the current guild system is implemented rather poorly. In reality, the formation of a guild should have a purpose other than raiding or socialization, and these two elements should be fostered by other means. For instance, I ought to have an easy way to communicate with my friend’s guild in order to group with them, without having to first leave my own guild. The mere fact that guilds can create chat channels for shared use with other guilds doesn’t mean that this is clear to the average player, or even that such methods are acceptable among the current WoW player-base. In short, large guilds are generally developed to foster a given element in the game, and in the practical sense, this means raiding.

A better implementation of the guild system would be to delineate the concept of a “guild” with that of a single, unifying entity. Guilds should be little more than clubs, members of which should be free to join more than one. For example, if a guild is formed with the express purpose of raiding, a member of a pure roleplaying-oriented guild should be able to join and communicate with both of them through their respective chat channels. In this manner, I can have a guild just for my friends, where we socialize and even have a common banner, but I can also have my character in an end-game raiding guild because my friends may not have those same aspirations.

De-centralizing guild membership would greatly foster more communication among players, and make available to them opportunities that they might otherwise not have access to. If a given guild wants to foster priority over other guilds for its respective members, they are free to do so by controlling their membership pool with traditional methods of application and acceptance, but the possibility for guild members to communicate openly with other guilds will create an evolving guild system. For example, rather than the common theme of a new guild leader leaving their small guild to raid with someone else, the guild leader can continue to be available to his new family and still be a member of an established raiding guild until his own guild is ready to attempt end-game challenges.

While Tobold is correct in pointing out Blizzard’s poor looking-for-group system as a contributing factor to poor group organization, the real problem is not PvP or solo-PvE, but in the way Blizzard has put together the foundation for player communication and socialization: the guilds. Fixing the one-guild-per-toon problem wouldn’t even be difficult, since the core methods of communication would still be the same. We just need to open up who we can talk to, and the rest follows.

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