[Mud-Dev] Virtual Suicide (Was: Money supply in game economies)

[Dave Rickey]

-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com <Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com>

> Of course then you get onto the topic of 'uber' guilds when a subset
> of the population decide to play the game harder. Frankly I don't
> see the issue there as the only real objection seems to be that they
> monopolise epic encounters. If there are enough encounters though
> then its really a non-issue. The unity of purpose when working
> within one is actually pretty cool.

But "Uberguilds" are central to the whole thing.  It's the idea of
taking on gods and dragons (and getting the associated phat lewt) that
keeps you in, but in order to do so, you need to be part of a large
organization (much larger than would normally form in EQ otherwise).

These organizations are not particular cheery places, most of them are
*way* out on the entropy curve and would split, except that the
resultant organizations would not be "Planes Capable".  And the
"points system" many use to determine who gets the god loot encourages
you to go along on raids where you have no personal interest in the
result.

Social environments are defined by their challenges, in EQ the
defining social challenge at high level is managing the spawn of
god-loot.  Uberguilds are significant because they are the response of
the society to that challenge.  But once you have that organization,
maintaining it becomes its own challenge.  I'm not saying that the
high-level game in EQ is all about god-loot, simply that it is defined
by it.

Social motivations ultimately come down to the personal, people
participate in social organizations because they, personally, expect
to get something out of it.  Because humans are social creatures, that
organization process becomes a game unto itself.  But it needs the
defining challenge, the individual reward that the individual can not
secure by himself.

--Dave Rickey

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