Communication | Pugnacious Priest's Warcraft Blog

Posts Tagged 'Communication'

That Old Familar Vent Channel.

Published August 19, 2010 Guild , World Of Warcraft 1 Comment
Tags: Communication, Guild, Vent

I recently found out that an old guild Vent had lapsed, I hadn’t logged into it for a while, I’ve used skype more lately or Msn voice or another vent then the old guild Vent. For a while it had been a place where the ex guildys could log in, and sometimes hear a familiar voice and catch up on what ever adventures we had been up to – playing wow or not.

That I hadn’t logged in for so long was testament to how much it had lapsed – and yes it needed people to keep paying for it to stay up, and I had paid for 2 months – but had forgotten how long ago that was, it’s no ones fault, just wasn’t being used enough for people to care – myself included.

The vent had been rented out to new people – and it was a tad upsetting to see all the channels gone.

My own private channel that I had named “The Charlatans” gone…

I logged in expecting to see remnants of in-guild jokes, and channels named after people, for people, private channels and the standard raiding & pvp channels . I ended up in a lobby. I always meant to screen shot our Vent channels, and write a post about it, because you can tell a lot about a guilds personality and structure by their vent channels. Their interests, how social they are, what other games they play ect.

I had recently added Non Elitist Raiding Diary to my reading list, and read their post Voip Culture and agree completely that how your vent is set up can affect guild interactions and how bonds are formed with people on there. Topics she covers like , like how many channels there are, how many are passworded and people who use binds all add up to a Voip culture that can affect “the way your Guild glues together’

In contrast to the guild I am in now – the old one was very chatty. Or maybe it was me that was chatty, but every day before raid or in raid channel until raid started someone was always talking, and I miss the epic conversations.

I find it eerie now to be sitting in a raiding channel waiting for the raid to start, and there be silence, or even when one person speaks something as simple as Hi Guys – be lucky to get one response, but different guilds have different cultures, and some work better different ways, and not everyone wants to talk to people. I like talking. I like communicating. I am quiter now then I probably have ever been.

I’ve been in guilds where people weren’t ‘allowed’ in vent unless it was raid time and ones where there was someone pretty much someone online 24/7 -where friends and raiders from other guilds were welcome

But things that None Elitist Raider’s blog post made me consider about exclusivity was that even in our chatty guild, when Aion came out the people playing Aion sat in that channel as an exclusive club, probably making the people who weren’t playing it feel a little excluded, and I realise that even when I sat my own private channel talking to someone in my last raiding guild after raid, was probably not conductive to keeping conversation open.

I could you tell you but then I’d have to gank you.

Published October 17, 2008 Gaming , World Of Warcraft 4 Comments
Tags: Communication, Warcraft

A GM asked in Guild chat over the weekend pre patch “How do I get people to read Boss Strats?” just after asking the question ” What do you mean that Talent points are getting reset next week?

My point is: He was trying to encourage people to do some non compulsory – non enforcable homework on a game. Yet had not been keeping up todate with the information that there was a total game mechanic alteration to occur in days.

I’m an information Junkie. I love my Rss. It lets me read, and flick through information which may or may not be , Entertaining, Informatative, thoughful, In my google reader I can Star things, and that lets me go back over them. I check my Realm forums, Guild relations, as well as Peek at Blog Azeroth, and if My guild has an active forum I am also a Lurker there, some of that takes time, Sometimes its information overload. There are only so many entries I want to read about Blizzcon, or Beta, or how to do an instance,

But thats me, and I would say alot of bloggers would have a Rss set up of some type – we write because we communicate, and communicate means reading as well as writing, its also Knowledge, and searching for knowlede and I believe ” Knowledge is as the quote goes.. Power.” Its control, its the ability to judge, and decide, and be aware of things rather then being blindsided, and even Googling good for geriatrics: study The Article quotes Garry Small
“Internet searching engages complicated brain activity, which may help exercise and improve brain function.” *

Google is Omnipotent

What got most of us into blogging was either a history of blogging about something.. or we read other Wow blogs. Hence searching for information and or entertainment. I googled something about Macros I think, and found one blog, and that lead me to other blogs, and then to a community, and so on.

When you play a game of solitaire – or chess, the rules don’t change, you can customise the board colours, or the peices, but you don’t need to read patch notes to learn new rules. A MMORPG is fluid, and evolving, new features, rules, classes, storylines. To get the most out of WOW you need to do more then click buttons. You need to understand a great many things. You need to learn, collect knowledge, or at least know where to get that from, even as basic as a city Guard for directions

If not for bloggers, and Wow Insider or other of the various Wow gossip sites ( with varying degrees of authenticity, and reliable, non gold smamming content) , would someone who only checked their update screen when they log in, or the news on the screen when your application loads up information be keep up todate enough?

No. Obviously not.

I checked the Warcraft news listings, which the average joe or jane are exposed to and they include, in no particular order – Arena, Screenshots, Blizzcon, Contests, Manga art, Wotlk Comics, Halloween contests, and there on October 15th the day of the Patch is links to 3.0.2 Patch information – Bit late for that,..

I think most of Blizzards sucessful communication about changes is done mainly through social networking – Forums( eg bloggers)The social Networking aspect reaches more people, and more people effectively. So how does the average Joe and Jane find out about these things? If not for someone telling them The information is out there. Google is your friend. The Wow main site, is an excellent number to have, an RSS feed to everything is like having your own personal cranial uplink to an information net. ( Can you tell I read Sci Fic?)

When I brought up my excitement in guild chat, about alot of the changes comming soon, I was greeted with a HUH? – I gave them a brief rundown, and those interested went looking for information.. ( they don’t know about my blog. Shhhhh)

I think there would be alot of players who don’t have the patchnotes bookmarked on their browser , or an RSS feed, or read any regular publication or notice as to the changes in game.

but the flipside is, are we who know insane? or have too much time? Does there need to be the discussion and speculation on the information those in the know do? Is there too much information – reliable and not. I’m not always reliable. I’m not a blue.

Would logging into to find massive changes with no prior knowledge to the changes make your gaming experience better or worse?

For me – I would get upset that I wasn’t informed

What would improve communication to the average player? – What would make them want to learn more? – I don’t know. If I knew that you wouldnt need to poke them to read boss strats.

I propose a notice board outside each major cities Bank – with clickable notes, and reminders to check out the wow website, and upcomming things like patches and shutdowns. Its like clicking on the wanted adds for quests. Its fun! – and interactive, and most importantly its in your face. I have a RSS Habit, which at worse case prompts me to look for more information elsewhere. I have a online new reading habit. ect ect ect.

Keeping informed is a habit – and depending on the degree you do it, ( and the hours you have) the easier it is to keep that habit, the better informed players will be.

* I tried looking at the Pych Journals orginal source, and there is only a abstract available online.