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Everquest has groups or organizations called “guilds” that one can belong to that are organized and run by other players. Guilds work kind of like a “virtual fraternity” where members work their way up the hierarchy to a variety of positions such as guild officer, senior officer, and finally zone leaders (in terms of different time zones). Newer members are subjected to taking front line heat risking their character’s life with no reward in order for full fledged membership and acceptance into the guild. Everquest and most other MMOGs offer in-game mechanisms for specific types of social interaction. For example if people are in a guild they have a tag under their name that says the name of the guild. There are specific channels of communication set aside so that guild members are able to chat with each other exclusively preventing others nearby from seeing the text. This along with the fact that every guild has a “mantra” in which members must follow, gives players incentive to become guild members in order to feel a sense of belonging in the MMOG world. Guilds are managed by players; Leaders are the creators of the guild and officers help with organization of events as well as keep track of member information. The most complex social interactions of guilds that take place in MMOGs are called raids. A raid is an event where an average of 30-50 of the highest level guild members get together for the purpose of taking down one or two extraordinarily powerful monsters. Raids take an immense amount of planning by the leader and officers of the guild as each guild members' own individual strong points are outlined in order to efficiently strategize the battle tactics. Guild members also have to collaborate with the officers in order to figure out a proper time to begin the raid since they can take up to three or four hours to complete. Players use the basic cooperative techniques they learned while grouping and apply them to these raids. Successful raids are those that are organized, timely, and executed with little or no mistakes. In order for such a raid to take place, a strong leader is a necessity. When forming a guild, the guild leader as well as his or her officers will get a good sense of people management. It is not until a guild begins to raid however, that the guild leader develops true leadership skills. |
