Epilogue
(June 2008 - July 2008)
"Well, theres the problem with MMO development in a nutshell. Unless you can guarantee [World of Warcraft] like success, the investors are not going to be interested."
-SioBabble, MMORPG.com User
"As a customer I don't have to know how to make a better game than you. I just need to know where the cancel button is."
-Unknown
Following my decision to kick out all the members of the guild, things did not go quite as I had hoped. In the previous chapter I told you of how I wished that everyone would go their own seperate ways so that they would evertually join new guilds which would be better suited for them. Sadly, some members were too stubborn to see the wisdom of this.
I'm not going to say who and I'm not going to give the name of this group, but one of the former guild members started his own guild and invited all the other former Golden Shields members to join it. Some did not join but many did. This guild is currently suffering a slow and painful death, the same fate I wanted to save the Golden Shields from. You see, the problem with inheriting all of the Golden Shields former members is that you also inherit all of the Golden Shields former problems. These problems are now killing this new group.
Boredom was the first problem to strike. It took some time before it did though. At first they were all quite excited to have a "new" guild and a new leader. Their forums quickly became active as members returned and picked up the same discussions from the Golden Shields forums right where they had left off when I closed those forums. They also had plenty of new things to talk about, like what a jerk I was for kicking them out of the Golden Shields (I don't hold it aginst you guys, I expected that response). But the excitement of having a "new" guild wore off quickly and bordom set in. Already their forums have dropped to no more than one or two posts a day, mostly asking why the guild is so dead.
This is the point where the new leader has to make a choice: give up and die or fight back.
If he chooses to fight back then hes going to discover the diversity problem. He can only cure the boredom problem by finding a new MMO to play. But he won't get anyone to agree on WHAT game they want to play, so he will hit a dead end. Then hes forced to make a tough decision: choose a game and alienate half of his guild or wait around for the guild to die of boredom?
I hate to say it, but I don't think he has the balls to alienate half of his guild. So he will choose to stall and try to hold things togeather as long as he can. If hes lucky he might last long enough to discover the "instigator" problem. And I'll be quite interested to see how he deals with that.
Meanwhile, what will the future hold for the Golden Shields? I fully intend to rebuild the guild someday. But each time I wonder when and where that rebuilding will take place my mind races with questions. This "diversity" problem was the most baffling dilemma I have ever faced as a guild leader. When I start again how do I recruit members who all have the same vision for the guild that I do? How do I keep a guild alive in the long run if more than half of my guild will be unable to agree on a new game when our current game becomes boring? Do I just say the hell with it and choose a new game myself knowing that half my members will leave the guild over it? How would I ever recruit enough people to survive that kind of turnover rate?
Of course the most important question of all: Which game do I play?
As a user on MMORPG.com recently pointed out, the problem with the gaming industry today is that everyone and their brother is trying to make the next WoW. You can't get any investors or a publisher unless you can convince them that your game will be the next WoW. The problem with WoW is that its a boring, linear, pointless, grind-fest with cartoon graphics. Its the modern version of Everquest. Back in my day we called Everquest "Evercamp" because it sucked so bad. I played Asheron's Call instead because it was a game that was willing to take a different path, give the players as much freedom as they could handle and then some. Now days you can't make a game like that. Either nobody will support you or if you try anyway you end up in debt when all the casual gamers ignore you to continue to play WoW. Your investors won't care that your game was innovative and had a loyal following. They will only care that after your game released WoW still had a 70% market share and you didn't even get past 2%!
As it stands, I'm not sure a decent MMO will ever see the light of day in the post-WoW gaming industry.
But if it does... The Golden Shields will be there.
