4.40. Last of the Brohicans

Omaric's final post to the Descendants of Draenor
guild forums.

The Softening

Herp Derp was gone. I'd had high hopes that they'd change their tune, that at least one of them would show a shred of decency by standing in defiance of their team's decision to split from DoD. Loot is what matters most, more than any sort of human decency one might be compelled to demonstrate during a guild division on moral grounds. After all, why does it matter how we treat each other in a virtual gaming world, if we'll never end up having to account for our behavior? If this was really about raid size preference, they could've walked away the day Azeroth cracked open.

The wound closed up. Those who remained could focus undeterred on the road ahead, hoping to get significant work done in 25-Man heroics...preferably, before the release of Firelands. I wasn't pleased with the outcome of the Herp Derp ordeal, but was relieved that it was over.

Of course, it wasn't.

---

Omaric was an old-schooler. He didn't have the tenure of folks like Klocker and Neps and Blain, but coming in at the tail end of The Burning Crusade still granted him the gift of sight, to see WoW as it had once been, in its raw, most unforgiving form. When raiding in WoW was an exclusive experience, where any instance you stepped into demanded discipline, patience, coordination, and skill. When you relied on your guild for progression, and there was no contingency plan for gearing. Omaric never got the opportunity to drag his bloodied knuckles with us through magma-drenched depths, insect infested catacombs, or a floating necropolis whose arachnid trash squashed you like a bug. But he still got a small taste of what it was like. Enough of a taste enough to grant him perspective. Or so I thought.

Omaric had no problem gaining ground in Descendants of Draenor. He planted his foot firmly into Wrath's progression and kept it there, dividing his time between the 25-Man and his 10-Man membership in Eh Team. And when Cheeseus' curtain call came at the end of Ulduar, Omaric teamed with Bretthew to lead the 25-Man progression team through both Tournament of Champions and Icecrown Citadel. No easy task, especially considering the opinionated crew we brought to the plate. Omaric came away from that experience with a new respect for players like Cheeseus and Blain, Leading players is hard.

Leading people is hard.

When the Eh Team bomb dropped, Omaric was in the middle of blast. Having been a raid leader, I assumed he'd take ownership, make a call, shut it down, loop me in...something. Every single player in that group lost credibility with me in an instant. I vowed never to put them in charge of anything ever again. Recent events, however, caused me to reconsider the loot collusion story, as well as the major players involved.

Pawns on the Board

Omaric was one of the deniers, thrown under the proverbial bus during Bheer's grand confession. I'd known Bheer longer than Omaric, and simply defaulted to trusting him. This was a mistake. Over the last few months, I gained a profoundly new perspective of Bheer. For someone perceptibly distraught at playing a part in sweeping collusion under the rug, Bheer demonstrated little remorse in pilfering the guild vault or indulging in self-righteous statements like demanding I be the one to apologize. He was also quick to finger Crasian as the core conspirator, even though I knew the truth (and got a confession of my own). A moral compass spinning out of control, coupled with an apparent vendetta for Crasian, made little sense -- unless, of course, one might consider an alternative motive: revenge.

Bheer had a problem fitting in. He demonstrated it in the awkwardness of his constant gem cutting between pulls, long after raiders like Kelden had blown their stack in annoyance. But Bheer's struggle to find a place among the group went much deeper than Ekasa's lisp or Sentra's douchebaggery or Divinepants' all talk/no play attitude -- his vulnerability stemmed from a deep-seated lack of self-esteem, a reason many of us turn to video games in the first place, free from judging eyes and cruel words at the sight of us.

When I met Bheer face-to-face, witnessing his girth with my own eyes, my suspicions were confirmed. People were cruel. I didn't have to ask if he'd been bullied as a kid. It's common sense. What isn't necessarily common sense is how the effects of bullying manifest in you as an adult. A lack of trust in others. The inability to open up about problems, out of fear of ridicule. Doing whatever you can to ensure you are included in the group, desperately avoiding being cast out, being alone. No wonder Bheer approved of my "guaranteed raid spots for Elites" rule in Wrath, then masked his disgust for the change in that same rule under the pretenses of "loyalty". No wonder he went with Drecca in Herp Derp, where his spot was guaranteed and safe. To Bheer, I was just another bully, just another person in his life telling him his place in DoD was in jeopardy. His spot was never in jeopardy, but the horse blinders of his bullying years narrowed his focus to the most important issue: removing threats to exclusion.

The dysfunctional relationship between Crasian and Bheer made more sense every moment I reconsidered the story. I knew they didn't get along. But Crasian was popular, well-liked, and one of the best-geared, best-played DKs on Deathwing-US during Wrath. And, being roommates with Bretthew strengthened that popularity within DoD's circles. What kinds of conversations did Crasian and Bretthew have about Bheer behind his back? A kind of paranoid insecurity must have set in. As Crasian's popularity increased, Bheer's place in Eh Team grew more tenuous. The constant clash for melee dps loot added to the strain. Then, Crasian threatened to re-assemble Eh Team, sans Bheer. This devastated him, causing Bheer to grow so averse to the thought of Crasian, he couldn't even bring himself to read a private message from the guy.

He'd be willing to be do anything to be rid of Crasian. Perhaps, even, to embellish the collusion story and pin it on Crasian.

When viewed through this new lens, the yarn of Eh Team's collusion seemed far less hyperbolic. Did it happen? Yes. Was it wrong? Absolutely. Was it borne of malice intent on wreaking havoc within the very fabric of the guild, the goal of which was to pull DoD apart, strand by strand?

Probably not.

But blowing it out of proportion seemed the most logical way to inspire me into kicking Crasian out the door. In this new light, Bheer seemed no better than Crasian. In the end, they were both loot whores. The difference was that Bheer was smart enough to get to me first, "helping" me remove the necessary pawns from the board.

Helping Friends

Eh Team's habits were nothing more than typical gamer malfeasance. But of course, all of this perception came long after Omaric's promotion to ranged DPS officer. That happened at the start of Cataclysm, while the blood of Eh Team's betrayal was still fresh on Omaric's hands. I had no choice. Better to have a proven raid leader in charge of the masses, than to have an amateur lead them over a cliff. Omaric's position was structured so he couldn't take advantage of the guild, even if he wanted to. Now, after seeing Bheer's story from a different angle, I had renewed faith that Omaric wanted the best for DoD.

Until I found out about his alt.

By day, Omaric played the elemental shaman Zuzax, but by night, he was moonlighting as a death knight named Raradina, helping a group of friends with various 10-Man raid achievements, acting as a filler when needed.

You get one guess as to which 10-Man guild he just happened to choose to help.

It wasn't enough that Omaric was helping them on the side, he had to physically move his alt from DoD into their guild in order to ensure they had enough players present to qualify for guild raiding achievements. I'll admit I wasn't pleased with his choices, but just as it was with Riskers, I had no business telling him who he could or couldn't play with.

I could, however, remind him of the dual-guilding policy, in place well before he ever set foot in DoD.

"Other players are dual-guilding, so this is really kind of a double-standard, Hanzo," Omaric's voice was thick with disgust.

"If they are, I don't know about it. As soon as I do, I remove them."

"Well, you know about Insayno's two characters in Quit Your Job. Why aren't you kicking him out?"

"We're not in competition with them. We're not a PvP guild. This is something I've stated since the very beginning. The hard feelings come about when people put alts in guilds that compete with us. Lots of people have come to me over the years to ask if they can have an alt in a friend's guild. I'm not heartless. I take these situations on a case-by-case basis. But the general rule of thumb is, you don't do it if they are the competition."

"So I'm being punished for choosing to play with my friends..."

They're not our friends. They're the competition. Get some ethics.

Before I could respond, Ventrilo exploded with the sound of Blain's voice.

"Just MAKE a DECISION. SERIOUSLY. Ok? This has gone on long enough. We were finally able to put Herp Derp behind us, and now you are just DRAGGING IT BACK IN."

Wide eyed, I shut my mouth, just to see how far he'd take it. God knows how long this had been pent up.

"I don't really care what you want to do, Omaric. Play with Drecca, stay in DoD...do whatever you want. But MAKE a DECISION. Sick and tired of all these distractions. It accomplishes NOTHING. If you don't like Hanzo's rules, leave. But don't waste our time with this."

The rest of the officers and I sat quiet a moment while the dust settled from Blain's mini-explosion.

"Alright, well. I guess that settles that. Thanks...for everything...I guess!" Omaric tried to stay chipper after the Blainslamming.

Pfft. He got off easy.

---

Omaric didn't quit the guild right away. He lingered in the roster well into the evening, struggling with the decision. Perhaps he was trying to convince ex-Eh Team members to go with him; perhaps they were trying to convince him to change his mind. Whatever the case, my pitch was done: Stay with DoD and be a part of one of the last few guilds on the server focusing on 25-Man content, or take the easy way out, with a handful of players that epitomized everything wrong with the gamer stereotype.

He was gone by the morning, marking the end of the third exodus of DoD.

4.3. The Karma Initiative

Kaleu, DoD's hunter officer during Vanilla,
stands atop the bank for an evening pic,
Orgrimmar

A Most Appropriate Phobia

Waiting solved nothing. The greatest of intentions weren't enough of a guarantee that Blizzard would backpedal on their 10/25 decision as readily as they had with Real ID. I posted what I could, trying to keep my emotions in check, providing a rational explanation as to why dolling out the same rewards for two different levels of difficulty completely undermined the entire raid game, then put it behind me.

Next came the hard part: finding ways to keep from hemorrhaging players.

I rewound the tape of our events and deeds, back to the very beginning, to see what it might reveal. We'd done things well in Wrath of the Lich King, perhaps buried somewhere in the recesses of my extraordinarily selective memory, a hint existed -- something to strengthen the bonds of the guild. When the tape of the mind came to a stop, I had just come face-to-face with one of my newest guildies.

---

"The infamous Kaleu!"

He gave a firm handshake while shielding his eyes from the sun. Behind him stood the Anaheim Convention Center, a grand building of never-ending glass. I twisted my neck to the side to take in the enormous banner draped above us: BlizzCon.

"Kerulak, right?"

"Kerulak, Hanzo, Shawn...whatever gets the job done."

He was a bit shorter than I, perhaps 5'9" or 5'10", but like nearly every person on the planet, had me beat in the weight dept. As the expression goes, I'm 140lbs soaking wet; any and all attempts to increase the load are met with abject failure. The side-effects of a gaming lifestyle are rarely observed when I enter the room, but I expect that I intimidate very few people as a result. When your qualifying metric is could he take me a fight?, you quickly learn your place -- and it isn't often at the front of the line.

"Are there any others?"

"I believe Kadrok said he'd be here as well. We'll keep a look out for him."

Kaleu came along as part of the package deal that was The Final Cut. Weeks earlier, one of Kaleu's partners-in-crime, a fellow by the name of Darange, emailed me. They had the 40-Man flu, they needed their drugs. At best, they were 12-15 strong. They were considering a merge with another top notch raiding guild, to push them over the hump and get into Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, etc. The meeting of the minds discussed everything from loot rules and ranks to guild ideologies. Both parties agreed to the terms and, with a virtual handshake, we absorbed The Final Cut. Part of those terms dictated a few promotions, and Kaleu was my new Hunter officer as a result.

We wandered through the convention center, meandering towards the massive lab of computers to the right of the entrance. The darkened room was easy on gamer eyes. Above us hung enormous posters from the roof, decorated with Blizzard's various franchisees. Podiums of artwork, books, and unrelated merchandise were a formidable distraction, but Kaleu and I would not be deterred. There was plenty of time for those trivialities; we were on a mission. We navigated through the crowd, circling around to the back of the computer lab. The entrance was roped off, a line of nerds quickly forming that wrapped around the lab's perimeter.

"God, where does this thing even start?"

"I see it now, back this way," Kaleu motioned to the side of the room back near the entrance. All other BlizzCon festivities would come later. For now, the #1 priority was to get our hands on a playable demo of the Blood Elf starting area in The Burning Crusade. It would be more than a year before we would see the next expansion.

We found the tail and joined the line, while I waited for the paranoia to set in.

BlizzCon: great for cosplayers, bad
for people with Cosplayophobia
(Source: Blizzcon.com)

Panic at the BlizzCon

The line moved slowly, so Kaleu and I got to know one another. He'd been a long time gamer, had known a good chunk of the folks in The Final Cut from before World of Warcraft, formed in a little game known as Star Wars Galaxies. He described the game as being innovative for its time, relying on customer created content. The casuals of the SWG crowd grew irritated at this design, and more vocal in their outrage. A patch eventually came to appease those casuals, but change was significant; the magic was gone. TFC exited. Kaleu also confirmed my suspicions as to the origin of their guild name: the Pink Floyd album that marked the end of Roger Waters' overzealous grip over the band's direction. Every song, every lyric, even the album's art bore Waters' name -- two years later, he walked away, leaving the band he created to fend for themselves.

"It's sort of a Catch 22 with the community aspect of running a guild. You want them to be on the forums, talking, chatting, but nobody wants to do that. They just want to play. The players you need the most participation from...those are the ones least likely to show up."

I agreed, commenting on the sad state of our guild's out-of-game activity, "Our forums could use a little stickiness."

"Forum involvement isn't going to make good players. It builds community, but it's not necessary."

We know what makes good players. Keep the tape rolling. What was it that he said about community?

"I've seen all kinds of gimmicks, too. Things like a certain amount of required reading over x amount of time. If you don't keep it up, you lose your posting privileges, and those are tied to your ability to sign up for guild events."

You’re already doing that now. Keep it rolling.

"Most of the time, people just post shit. Trying to sift through that is a pain in the ass. So when quality posts finally show up, they're buried in a mess, and..." Kaleu added with a sigh, "you have a handful of people with all this knowledge, but you don't know who they are. Nobody has a reason to contribute."

Lovely.

Kaleu gave a single chuckle, arms folded across his chest, "Yeah, I don't envy you at all. Trying to come up with solutions is a full time job."

We inched towards the front of the line, and watched a Blizzard employee routing eight more players to machines. I glanced at the floor a moment, contemplating Kaleu's thoughts on community building, and caught a glimpse of fuzzy white feet. Behind us stood a female cosplayer, armored completely in The Earthfury. It was an impressive representation of its virtual counterpart, immaculately detailed from horns to hooves. Hooves. I glanced up at her face, obscured by paint and a prosthetic bovine snout.

First came the beads of sweat, that sudden coolness that rushes over you as hysteria sets in. Next was the rapid pounding from deep in the chest, the twitching of muscles as they tense for flight. I couldn't explain it, yet there it was, just as it had been my entire life: the irrational fear of being around adults in costumes and face paint. I was the missing verse in an Alanis Morissette song.

"Nice!" Kaleu said, glancing over his shoulder.

"Thanks!" came her reply.

...and just like that, the panic was gone. I stared back at Kaleu, stunned by the sudden absence of anxiety. He gave me a puzzled look.

"...what?"

An early design of Stack Overflow
(Source: StackOverflow.com)

The Gamification

I snapped out of the trip down mammary lane and focused on my monitor, while Kaleu's words faded away. Builds Community. No Reason to Contribute. Full-time job. How could I increase the guild's involvement on our forums? A better question: what was the right kind of involvement? And how could I do it without increasing my administrative load? Mangetsu had the right idea with his recent forum topic, U RAFF U RUSE, DoD version, a game encouraging the guild to withstand his 4chan-esque sense of humor, with the losers posting their own comedy in return. It was a self perpetuating machine of contribution, the likes of which couldn't compare to any other thread the DoD forums had seen since creation. His forum game knew no ranks or titles. Present or past guildies, elites, raiders, officers and n00bs, they all participated. How could I build on that? The mechanism eluded me until I zeroed in on the website staring back from the monitor.

Stack Overflow was now two years old. I scrolled down the list of programming questions on the homepage. "Why doesn't SetInterval work properly in JavaScript?" "OnMouseDown vs. OnMouseClick problems." "Can't align my image correctly within an embedded div...help!" Next to each question, numbers marked how many times each question had been viewed, how many answers had been offered up, and whether or not an official answer had been deemed 'correct'. It was a surprisingly addictive experiment fashioned to solve programming problems...and it was working. Complete strangers were coming together for a common good, and no money changed hands. Instead, answers buried in the minds of geeks around the globe came forth by challenging each other to rack up reputation points, like a Counter-Strike squad member racking up kills.

It was no surprise to me that this game-like website came from the mind of a gamer who once set his computer up in my home for a LAN party. If you get the chance, be sure to ask him about the guinea pig cage.

That gamer mentality. What better way to draw out the introverted hacker than by the lure of badges and awards? Those reputation points were like a trail of breadcrumbs leading to a trap, and programmers slowly emerged from their digital caves, expertly exchanging their knowledge for a rolling score. The real power of the system came from how these anonymous peers evaluated each other, decentralizing its own governance. The highest quality questions and answers floated to the top in a flurry of votes, as these nerds battled each other for supremacy of their trade. The result: a self-moderated community producing exceptional content as a result of their primal instincts to climb a virtual ladder.

That was it: the ladder. Stack Overflow's scoreboard was front-and-center. Where was ours?

I scoured the interwebs looking for such a thing, if it existed. My search ended on a page within the phpBB support forums; a plugin called "Karma MOD". It worked like this: users would be granted the option of issuing virtual points to one another, assigning comments for their reasoning. I began to see examples in my mind, "Great strategy guide!", "Thanks for filling in on last night's raid", and "Appreciate the help on adjusting my healing spec."

I read on. Karma could also be taken away, inspiring thoughts of long-term veterans assisting in the education of the newer recruits -- subtle hints to point new people in the right direction, keeping them from flying those red flags. The self-moderating capabilities of this tool appeared to have far reaching effects.

How exactly Karma would play into the grand scheme of my guild's administration in Cataclysm I wasn't quite sure...but I suspected it was a step in the right direction. I cracked open the phpBB code, reviewed the docs, and began to implement.