How does the "power"of e-reputation effect you in WvW? Are you famous or infamous?
MMO’s since their creation have always been very political in nature…and we all know that most MMO’s require you to be in a guild to succeed. However…what sacrifices do you make to be a member in that guild for WvW?
I compare being in “most” guilds to the equivalent of running for political office. You want to be everyone’s friend and no one’s enemy. And as long as you have a group think mentality and do not express opinions that might contradict those in leadership roles OR their friends outside the guild…then you will be fine.
Shouldn’t your E-Reputation be ok as long as you dont violate ANET’s policies?
E-Reputation is different from violating ANET’s acceptable behavior policies…some people believe that most WvW guilds tolerance level is in line with that of ANET’s policies. This is simply a farce…I have never cursed, called someone a name, spammed guild chat (I don’t even type in guild chat), griefed, etc (basically anything that could be reported)…However due to the attention that my posts bring me inside and outside the game it’s impacted the way I play the game greatly.
How does someone succeed once infamous/blacklisted?
Strong support. My friends that have played MMO’s with me going on almost 8 years now and they understand the kind of attention my personality brings…and will be my voice in commanding WvW zergs for me when we know certain guilds will discredit me the second they see my name in the chat window.
Is E-Reputation more important than skill level?
YES!!! Throughout my MMO experiences I’ve seen many guilds take less skilled players and gear them out simply because they are willing to play the game by that guilds undefined social rules. Take this example for instance….lets say you are a less skilled player that isn’t very well known and a guild accepts you….regardless of your skill level all the members will accept you as long as you don’t bring too much attention to yourself. Now lets say on the other hand you are very skilled but also infamous…and join a guild…if even ONE member doesn’t like you….you are permanently banned from that guild.
Can players reputations outside of the guild affect you…once you are in a WvW guild?
Yes. Recently a GM invited me to his WvW guild because he had seen me lead and thought I had performed well with his guild. The next day a “famous” player on that server who wasn’t even in the guild attacked me on the forums…and did I counter with the same fictitious slander he used on me? No. I simply posted screen shots from his own website (a website that has my own videos posted on it) in his own words (that were posted PRIOR to us winning) that completely discredited everything he and his supporters had to say about him supporting our server more than I have. Did my guild rush to my defense once the facts were on the table? No. They sided with the guy’s “opinionated” statements and an officer threatened to kick me from the guild for posting screen shots of the guys own words from his own website. So I left the guild….and they started stalking me in chat channels…and I’m not talking about just one member….several of them swarmed into areas where it was blatantly obvious what they were doing. And I finally asked their GM straight up “You say that person was correct and I was wrong. How so?” his exact response was “Because he’s the reason my officer came to this server.” They didn’t even read the thread…they just automatically took the side of the other player due to his E-Reputation.
Does E-Reputation matter if you are a good leader?
E-Reputation is ALL that matters when leading! I remember a specific example on Blackgate where I had lead a raid and cleared 3 maps and was working on the 4th…and a guy….we’ll call him CoaCoa (close enough) to hide his identity….came into the map and half of our team started following him because they said he was “more well known and had bought a commander icon”. So I backed off and stopped leading….not only did Coacoa lead the entire zerg to their death at the garrison…but Dragonbrand took back most of the map after that so Coacoa logged off out of frustration. So I started leading again and we got the map to 90% completion after 45mins then Coacoa logged back in (probably because he was notified of the progress I had made) to lead his minions and did so poorly Dragonbrand took back 100% of the map and started advancing on other maps.
Will you change your behavior to fit a guilds mold?
Not in this life time. I could never stream line my personality to that of a sheep or bow down to a hierarchy that I not only know is wrong…but also have proof that they are wrong. If I think someone is better skilled or more efficient at playing the game I’m not going to drop following that person because someone who wanted to spend 100g on a pretty blue icon above their name logs on.
Name: “Kaide” (Kaine is just the account name)
(edited by Kaine.3501)