I've been in the Outlands (expansion TBC) about a day now. I'm as disoriented and giddy as my first days in WoW, which is nice to feel again, frankly. Yeah, Saami cried a bit as she handed over her Blue Dragonscale chest and pants to a vendor for gold, and then donned the GREEN DROPS that gave her a +200 armor boost even before the rugged armor kits went on. =sigh= Molten what? But this post isn't about how GREENS are the new BLUE.
Yesterday evening Via, Nemi, Cela, Bany, and Hallgrima did my our first five-man instance in Ramparts. I think two of the five were level 61s, the rest 60s. No one had gone very far into this instance before. Cela had a bit of experience, but not much. It was a lot of fun and it took us a torturous three hours to reach the end boss in what is basically the Deadmines of the new world, and we didn't get the last guy. I think we're going back today. I'm going to grind to 61 before then I hope.
But, as I pondered over coffee this morning, I found myself pondering two things. One was how much fun it was, fun of a sort that had become less comon for me in the old game. The other was how the instance was different from other old game instance experiences, both five man Strath runs and forty-man Molten Core runs. It is this latter I wish to comment on, although I think it is largely also the main elment underlying the first observation.
Here's the bottom line on my thinking; I'll cut to the chase. In the old game, I usually played on a team with a large proportion of people who knew the instance. The person running the raid or instance group, the "leader," was either good or bad, but very knowledgeable about terrain and mobs. The "bad" leader just didn't manage the run well: didn't wait for mana replenishment, didn't communicate expectations or plans, didn't know how other player classes play and so couldn't offer advice to folks new to the instance, etc. Most of the instances and raids had very, very, routine approaches to the task. It didn't matter who the leader was, everyone with experience in the instance/raid knew that, e.g., at Baron we stand in a semi-circle of subgroups. So as a result, the same knowledge routines can become, did become, a bit stifling and well, boring.
Yesterday we didn't know what lay ahead. We didn't know the types of mobs, where they all were, what would likely pull what. As a result, we started out with some wipes. But, we went to school on them. We stopped and discussed. I, for one, scrolled the combat log (some good intell there). Almost all of us have several high level toons and thus know other player classes and could PROBLEM-SOLVE in the instance AS A GROUP. I could remind the hunter that the hunter radar lets know what's ahead, but then also realized I could use eye of Kilrogg to see the layout. We found out the dogs were couldn't be enslaved and for some reason quickly sniffed out our stealthed rogue, but with the final boss, Hallgrima realized she could enslave one felhound to set it upon the other (actually turned out to make a huge difference). The fun of the instance was kicking around some ideas and then trying 'em out; regrouping, tweaking, and trying again. By god that was fun!
Now what Via will want me to add, and what I want to also ponder here, is that at the end, though we didn't get the last boss, we all felt great. Someone said, "This was a great run," and I said to the group, on vent, "Now THAT was a guild run!" There were many amens. Yes, there was a tangible difference in the problem solving and general vibe because we were all friends, core members of the same guild, and to my point, together we knew more than anyone knew separately and we were all okay with that. So even when Cela had to step out and Cyrinic stepped in in her place, it was still warm and friendly, still problem solving and discussing, still fun.
This morning I started to think about leadership again. Was there a leader in the guild run I've just described. Well up to the point where her knowledge ran out, Cela was all business. And it was okay, but I was chaffing a little at being so firmly directed. But once her instance-specific leverage disappeared, there was no single leader. It was very collegial. Everyone looked after each other and everyone was able to put his/her ideas on the table for discussion and legitimate consideration. It was closer to the sort of leadership I expect to see in a CoP approach to leadership than in a classic biz. school notion of leadership.
There's a lot here I'm still thinking about, but this was group co-construction of knowledge, knowledge sharing, and shared leadership. How can we, and can we, keep it that way if it relies a lot on the fact that we lacked sufficient knowledge to accomplish that task under one person's expertise? On the 10th run will the magic be gone?
This is, of course, the driving anxiety of MMO game devs. Players consume content and if the unknown is the fun, the consumption of content is the fun drain. Random thought at the end... back to the Outland for some real FUN.
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ps
I'm experiencing the same sort of fun in the bloodelf (hereafter, blelf) and draenei noobie lands. New content, new quests, new toon talents. The unknown. Not quite as much fun yet cause I'm not in a party most of the time, and cause quests really don't need much group support at the early stages. But fun, nonetheless...
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