So, a few days ago, the folks of Makaisson began their journey to Burlok. We now have many of our guilds rebuilt, and are slowly regaining our sense of place.
It has been strange to see so many people online at once, and being able to get into scenarios for the first time in a month has been a pleasant change for me. But things are far from perfect, and in many ways I am missing Makaisson.
Myself, I have been suffering from a sort of culture-shock. Gone is the idea that the Order faction should work together, and play nicely. Burlok seems to be a hive of ninja-looting, and other anti-social activities. People routinely abuse eachother. And I’m not talking about the faceless unguilded, but members of supposedly the leading guilds.
So far I have had cause to contact five different guildmasters over their member’s ninjalooting antics. A couple have reacted in the way I would hope, and I thank them for that. The others have acted as if I was the source of the problem, or at best an inconvenient timesink.
Yesterday, for example, we were in a warband fighting the forces of destruction in High Pass. The Devastator Steadcaps (a very rare drop needed for the t3 RvR armour set) for the Ironbreaker class dropped, and three people “needed them”. Two Ironbreakers and a Shadow Warrior, and the Shadow Warrior won. I pointed this out in the warband chat, and the Shadow Warrior immediately logged off.
Now so far this is fairly normal. Any game has players who take advantage of others. What upset me is what came next.
The Shadow Warrior was in one of Burlok’s larger guilds so I contacted another member to try to get in touch with his leader. Meanwhile, his guildmate in the warband started attacking me. “Osgard stop crying! It’s just a pixel!” Aye indeed, pixels that his guildmate thought were worth stealing. BTW, saying that something shouldn’t matter because it’s a pixel is a bloody stupid argument in an MMORPG.
On Makaisson, a ninja-looter would have been roundly condemned by the whole band, but on Burlok his guildmates were prepared to defend his behaviour. And almost everyone else in the warband stayed quiet.
The guild leader I spoke to seemed rather more interested in making me go away than looking after the reputation of his guild. After I had asked him to make sure the boots were given to the right person, he stopped responding to any further communication. Eventually the Shadow Warrior stated that his guild had decided they did not need the Devastator boots (Do they have a standing order to ninja all Devastator gear, I wonder?), and he would give them up. Seeing a thief trying to characterise being forced to return his spoils as generosity is always somewhat sickening. The highest rolling Ironbreaker was finally given the boots, and thanked me for my efforts, so it ended correctly, at least.
I have screenshots and names, but that’s not what this is about. There is little to be gained in trying to shame the shameless. I’m used to viewing members of Order all as part of one big team, and it has been a shock to my system to see people willing to openly defend ninja-needing, and outright disrespect of the rest of the faction. If it’s like that on an RP server, I shudder to think what things must be like elsewhere.
I won’t stop calling people out for it, even if it does mean that certain guilds despise me. They don’t have the right to steal from the rest of us, no matter how elite they think their guilds are. Do they really care so little for their reputations?
Many of the Makaissonians I know are pining for home. I had, until recently, been opposed to creating a Makaisson guild alliance, as I had felt it would be better for us to integrate into our new server. Now I am beginning to feel that we might be better off banding together for our own safety and sanity.
Almost everything I’m not enjoying about WAR at the moment is a result of player behaviour, rather than anything wrong with the game itself. Perhaps I’m getting old, and I’m too out of touch with how people think these days to carry on playing MMO. Maybe I just need to find more nice people on Burlok so I can avoid ending up in PUGs with thieving scoundrels and their enablers.
Naming isn’t about shaming it’s about warning decent players of who to /kick from their bands. I’d like to know the whole goddam guild name.
However, i dont think “burlok” is the problem. Makaisson didnt have this problem simply because the population was low enough that all the players above T1 were tight enough to seriously exclude any troublemakers. Burlok suffers from an increased ability to blend into the background and annonymously be a twunt, Mak woulda been the same with enough players. Naming (with screenies ofc) is our best defence and is pretty much just the equivalent of letting your guildies , friendlist and alliance know who to avoid. Im confident there are a majority of Burlokians who agree. Heck we ARE Burlokians.
Mebbe its time to start a shame thread on the forums – with screenshots. It worked, to a degree, on my old WoW server.
Well done on the result, BTW.
I hope it wasn’t anyone from our guild! I’d boot ’em!
Don’t worry Arbitrary. Your guildmembers have , without exception, been lovely!
Malk, a shame thread would be deleted by the mods in minutes. They are very rarely worth the trouble they cause.
Hi, found my way here, interesting post. I am a destruction player on burlok since pre release.
Aye as above, its not a problem with the server so much as with the population
Back at the start it was very common for people to need everything, it got to the point where many players would roll need simply to beat the needers, then hand it over to the correct person
Now that you cant need an item you cant use in a scenario, it seems to of died down a lot.
Almost all warbands i have been in have not had any problems, and the occasional troublemaker gets a swift kick.
If you do find it is a problem however, toggling on the option in the group window that disables the need button for those who cant use it is a good way of preventing such problems.
Aye, Elaissa, I agree with what you say. The problems I have had have been when I’ve not been the warband leader, and the leader has not turned need on use on. That may sometimes be because the tick box sometimes went wrong and couldn’t be ticked. That’s fixed now, thankfully.
Thanks for dropping by!