I've been thinking a lot lately about the pro-social aspects of Wow; being someone who actually likes solo play (I like to do a lot of wandering around and exploring on my own as an herbalist) I am learning how well the game has been designed to depend on cooperation and collaboration. I wonder if this environment is what leads to such helpful behavior?
In the last couple of days, I was helped in a class quest (Druid getting bear shape-shifting abilities) by another Druid just slightly above me in level (who had already done so). The player walked me through the whole process. In response to my thanks the player said - "That's what its all about, isn't it?" In return, he asked that I help someone in the same way.
I also just got invited to a joined a guild that very deliberately fosters an environment of respect, sharing, and collaboration. I watched one person get booted from the guild for too much cursing (so there are strong group norms), and I was helped by another through the process of using an auction house for the first time to buy better armor. (I am still somewhat mystified by weaponry tho - perhaps it is my 60's pacifist nature that is raising my unconscious resistance to learning).
I was then inspired to go on a quest with someone else who was about half my level. The quest (relics of awakening) is a somewhat difficult one, with high experience points (over 800), but the monsters are only 8-10 which isn't a problem for me at 12 but would have been for my partner at 6. I led the first half of the trip, serving mostly as healer so Ii could practice healing and he could practice fighting (although I would pitch in if it looked like my partner needed help, or if he was getting ganged up on.) I'm proud to say he only died once (and I died once when I got ganged up on by the 10 and several 9's). We found the first two quest items. Then he led the second half of the trip, and we found the last two quest items (meanwhile, he leveled up and got half-way through the next level). The whole experience was very satisfying.
Less satisfying was my first guild run, but only because I spent most of my time in a daze trying to keep up. The lead player was very helpful, but also pretty busy, and my role was just to watch. As the very lowest level player in the game by a longshot (the leader said, Perrenelle is just too little, she'll get eaten up), I had to watch from under a protection spell, but I wasn't ever sure I understood what I was watching, and I am sure that I wouldn't know how to do it myself after the lesson. I did get to watch how a close-up fighter teams with a more ranged fighter with a pet, and that was helpful.
I'm glad to read about your experience with Relics of the Wakening. It's a good quest to understand, because I'm convinced that it's the one the WoW developers put into the elf noobyland to force folks to group, and understand group dynamics. Read about it on thottbot, you'll read people talking about how it should be an elite quest - those are folks who are trying to solo it, rather than sticking a toe into the "group waters" and asking for help.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, my experience with Relics was different, because I ran it as a noob in Blackhand. One of the fascinating things to see, when I ran it again a week ago as slipperypeet, on Khaz Modan, was to see how the age of the server changed the experience. Blackhand had such a higher average level of player (almost no new subscribers going into the realm when I went in) that the noob land was almost empty, and getting someone to run Relics with me was difficult. On Khaz, with all the new players, the cave was like a convention center the night I went in - there were players everywhere, and it looked like a slaughterhouse. You didn't have to fight your way in or out, because there were functionally about 20 of us thinning out the mobs simultaneously. The difficulty I saw in Blackhand just wasn't there - or maybe it was the intervening two months?
Fascinating.