World Class Guild: Death & Taxes

Death and Taxes was formed in the closed beta of World of Warcraft in early 2004, and since that time they’ve become famous for their well-documented, video-captured world-first victories over some of the most advanced raid bosses in the game. Their own website has become an active community of over 15,000 members where players from around the world hope to learn from their adventures.

Unlike most guilds, DnT has no Guild Master—they are run by a council of five officers. We met with Blackened, one of their officers, to talk about his thoughts on the future of MMORPGs and the challenges of running one of the most intense raiding environments in WoW.

PlayerVox: Is raiding enough to hold a guild together long term?

Blackened: I think that raiding can be enough to hold a guild together so long as the game that the guild is playing isn’t broken/tedious to the point where people quit or stop showing up. We’ve had some people quit in the past because the game just wasn’t fun for them anymore. And I can understand why, I think for the most part the only reason why we’ve withstood the test of time is because of the people that glue this guild together. It just wouldn’t be the same with out the kaleidoscope of personalities clashing with each other.

The atmosphere of our guild? Abrasive. One big happy family? Haha!

PlayerVox: What’s it like to be in a Death & Taxes raid?

Blackened: Being in a Death and Taxes raid can be a lot of things to a lot of people. All that I can say for sure is that you can expect a lot of laughs, a lot of yelling, and a lot of profanity or otherwise vulgar language

PlayerVox: How would you describe the atmosphere of the guild, and what would make someone an ideal recruit?

Blackened: The atmosphere of our guild? Abrasive. One big happy family? Haha! It can be a lot of things like I mentioned before, it’s hard to pin any one thing on it. To be an ideal recruit in DnT you have to be an exceptional player and be able to put up with all the crap that will get slung at you if you aren’t the exceptional player we thought you were

PlayerVox: What are the challenges of running a guild without a Guild Master, and would you recommend your leadership style to someone starting a guild today?

Blackened: In the past we’ve had some issues where officers have been indecisive, meaning that we kind of stagnated on an issue. If we had a traditional GM they could act as a means to tip the balance in one direction or the other. Other then that we’ve never really had any issues stemming from the fact that we have an irregular guild structure. As for advice to people looking to incorporate this type of guild structure into their guild: don’t. Don’t do it unless it’s done with a lot of people you trust. That’s one of the key reasons why we’ve been able to use this structure. Trust. We’ve all been playing together for over 2 years for the most part, some of us closer to 3.

PlayerVox: What are some of your most memorable achievements or experiences as a guild?

Blackened: For the most memorable moments are any of our numerous world-firsts or being wrecked by bugs in Naxxramas. We have a chip on our shoulders but we don’t mind where everyone else seems to. Being in the public eye for so long that there’s always someone waiting to take a shot at us but it’s alright. We like being the underdog

PlayerVox: Blizzard introduced a reduction in endgame raid headcount from 40 to 10-25 in Burning Crusade. How has this impacted D&T?

Blackened: When we first heard about this change we toyed with the idea of running 2 raid groups but that’s simply not feasible for anything remotely difficult. On the whole I’d say that the change had no real effect on the guild. The only thing that really had an effect on the guild would be the encounters themselves, we had 7-8 active raiding rogues at the end of Naxxramas, we have 2 now. I think that says something about the direction of the game at the moment.

PlayerVox: What do you wish MMORPGs did differently, and what are your hopes for the future of online gaming?

Blackened: I wish MMO’s we’re a little more complex, and had a little more depth character-wise. A lot of people in DnT are really looking forward to Warhammer: Age of Reckoning. The single thing that most people in DnT are looking forward to in WAR is the PvP. Dark Age of Camelot had incredible RvR and a lot of us would like to experience that again as it’s not present in WoW.

PlayerVox: What advice do you have for finding best players, and what do you do if you get people that start drama?

Try and do a little background on them and their old guild. Ask around, it can be very difficult to trace players history now though because of the shorter time it takes to transfer servers again though. You can also talk to them on Ventrilo, Teamspeak, AIM, or MSN. Just try to get to know them a little bit so you can get a feel for their attitude. If they transfer over and start drama you can do 1 of two things. The first being kicking them from your guild and the second being just not inviting them to raids. I prefer to kick people personally.

PlayerVox: What wisdom can you share with someone starting a guild today?

Blackened: To anyone trying to create a guild now, the best advice I can give you is to surround yourself with the best players possible that don’t cause any serious issues/drama. Be 100% committed to whatever it is that you do and always try to get better as a player.

WAR’s Richard Duffek Talks About PvP and RvR

Richard Duffek joined Mythic Entertainment (now EA Mythic) as the Community Coordinator for Warhammer: Age of Reckoning in 2005. In this interview, Richard temporarily sheds his Asbestos Armor of Community Building +50 to talk to PlayerVox about MMORPG design — especially the challenges of PvP and RvR (realm versus realm) conflict.

PlayerVox: What’s the biggest problem in the current MMORPG landscape; and what can designers do to fix this?

Richard Duffek: I think the biggest problem facing the MMORPG genre right now is actually the perception that WoW has created. So many people out there, fans and developers alike, feel that for a game to succeed now it has to do as well as WoW. I spend a lot of time reading various forums around the web and I see it everywhere I go: "How can [Game X] beat WoW?" or "Is [Game Y] the WoW killer?" Why exactly does a game have to beat or kill WoW to be successful? And then the Devs of various companies buy into this mind set. They feel like they either need to have enough subscribers as WoW to be considered a success, or they just want the number of subscribers that WoW has because they want that kind of income. In my opinion a lot of them have forgotten the most important thing; they’re making a game, just make it fun. You don’t need nearly the number of subscribers that WoW has to be successful, but you DO have to make a fun game.

PlayerVox: Why is fantasy such an overwhelmingly dominant genre for MMORPGs, and do you think the market will diversify any time soon?

Most of the games lately that have PvP in them seem like they were designed as PvE games and then PvP was tacked on as an afterthought, or as a result of too many players complaining about it not being included. Richard Duffek: In my opinion fantasy is so market dominating because it’s the safe genre, for both devs and fans. As a player, with fantasy you know what to expect. There will be swords and axes and spells. There will be Goblins and Orcs and Elves and Dwarves usually. Every game throws a minor twist in here and there, but for the most part it generally boils down to the same thing. And for that reason, you’re comfortable there. When you pick up a fantasy themed game off the shelf in your local store, you know what to expect for the most part. A lot of the same things make the genre as appealing to devs as it is to players. They know the players know what to expect from the genre. They know there are certain expectations in place already from their future player base. Those expectations are fairly old and set in stone; it’s easy to meet them.

Science fiction, for example, on the other hand has no such set-in-stone familiarities. It is a wide open, unexplored territory, where few are brave enough to boldly go. So many people expect so many different things from a Sci-Fi title that no matter what you do, a large number of people are going to be let down. If it’s a land-based game they want space flight. If it’s space flight, they want land-based. If you try to do both, it never works out well. One side or the other always ends up lacking. And then you get into the issue of planet types, races, technology, tribbles, etc. There are so many unknown variables out there that for most devs it isn’t worth the risk in comparison to the safety they know in fantasy.

Of course my answer to question one plays into this as well… How many Sci-Fi games do you think we’d see in development right now if Blizzard had gone with World of Starcraft instead of World of Warcraft?

PlayerVox: PVP-heavy MMORPGs have been (or become) the niche players. Is there a large enough market to support a PVP-heavy MMORPG?

Richard Duffek: That entirely depends on your definition of PvP-heavy. I definitely feel that there is a large enough market for a PvP-heavy game using a system like Warhammer does for example; a game where you have both PvE and PvP and they’re integrated well. Most of the games lately that have PvP in them seem like they were designed as PvE games and then PvP was tacked on as an afterthought, or as a result of too many players complaining about it not being included. In my opinion a game can definitely be considered PvP-heavy without that being the only goal of the game, without it being done in a Free-For-All (FFA) manner.

If by PvP-heavy you are indeed referring to a FFA based game, then unfortunately I have to say that they are indeed, and will continue to be, a niche market game. Take me for example, and I don’t believe I’m alone in this opinion by far, I love to PvP… But I’m not always in the mood to PvP. Some times I just want to go solo for a while, or knock out some quests, harvest some materials for crafting, etc. At those times, PvP is the furthest from my mind and the last thing I want is to be ganked. The threat of getting jumped by another PvPer definitely enhances those actions for some people, but I definitely feel that they are a minority. In my opinion most people out there want a definite separation between PvE and PvP.

Any and all employment bias aside, DAoC was my first real love as an MMO because it did such a great job in that aspect. When I wanted to PvP I went out to the Frontiers. When I wasn’t in the mood for PvP I didn’t, and I didn’t have to worry that I would get jumped. While out in the Frontiers you had that "could get jumped at any point" feeling that kept it exciting and fun.

PlayerVox: How do see the interaction between PVE and PVP elements in a game? In other words, how do you see the outcomes of PVP victories impacting the PVE aspects, and vice versa?

Richard Duffek: I definitely feel that is an area that can really be improved upon in the MMORPG genre. I touched on it briefly above. I think in order for a PvP-heavy game to be successful those two aspects need to be integrated a lot better than they have been in the past. But on that same note, they need to be kept separate as well, if that makes any sense.

I think Warhammer will be making large strides in this direction. With the underlying design plan of the game being that "War is everywhere", even when you’re participating in PvE, you feel like you are helping advance the overall PvP effort. If you so choose, you can play the game completely in either PvE or PvP and never worry about the other aspect. But if you take that route, you’re going to miss out on a lot of great content.

In too many games you have to PvE just to be able to effectively PvP, or PvP to get really nice rewards to improve your PvE abilities. In my opinion this is the result of too many devs deciding to make one type of game or the other primarily and tacking the rest onto the end. More people who are making a game, which contains both PvE and PvP, need to get it into their heads that they don’t HAVE to make a great PvP game or HAVE to make a great PvE game. They always seem to focus on one side, which neglects the other.

PlayerVox: Do you feel that players who are mostly interested in the exploration/PVE aspects of a game will be alienated by games with a strong PVP theme?

Richard Duffek: Not if there is adequate separation as mentioned above. As long as they don’t have to fear getting jumped all the time, players will definitely enjoy a game with a strong PvP theme. Of course this is all assuming that there is a PvE based reason for them to play the game. A game like Shadowbane obviously had a heavy PvP theme, and therefore definitely drew the PvP fans. It didn’t however really offer anything to the exploration/PvE minded players, therefore it didn’t attract many. A game like old school Ultima Online did have that draw though. People who had no interest in PvP played the game because of the PvE and exploration it offered, even with the risk of getting ganked.

UO is also a great example of how important that separation is for those types of players. Look how many people jumped ship to the PvE only side once they were given the opportunity. Even though the game had a very heavy PvP theme, they were playing the game for other reasons. Granted I don’t think that would work nearly as well in current times. There are too many other heavy PvE themed games out there for people to play as opposed to trying to PvE on a FFA PvP based game.

PlayerVox: How do you balance making PVP victories meaningful–i.e., provide significant incentive for conflict and victory–while at the same time encouraging the losing side to stick with the game?

Richard Duffek: That’s a tough one. A lot of people out there just aren’t willing to play the underdog role, and as soon as they find themselves in that predicament, they will quickly jump ship to a winning side. In order to make it work, I think you need safeguards in place to prevent one side from completely locking down their opponent. NPC allies that grow in strength over time would be one example, effective population bonuses to under populated sides is another. The key word there obviously is ‘effective’.

PlayerVox: What’s your view on class/skill balance? Is paper-rock-scissors and "the uberclass" the inevitable destiny of any MMORPG?

Richard Duffek: There are a couple problems and misconceptions with balance as far as it relates to a MMORPG. First and foremost, a lot of players out there seem to have this idea that balance is some hard, etched in stone objective, and if the Devs would just do X, Y and Z the game would be balanced. Balance in an MMO is a LOT more fluid than that. Anything you do to one class has a ripple effect through many of the others, and in some cases through the entire game. It isn’t so much like trying to carve a statue out of granite as it is trying to carve one out of water.

The other big problem that exists in the MMORPG community, in regards to balance, is the "me too!" attitude. Any time one class gets any sort of boost, regardless of how underpowered they were before the boost; there is a large portion of the community who starts yelling that their class needs something new now too. It doesn’t matter if they were the most overpowered class in the game; they feel like they deserve something new any time someone else does.

PlayerVox: Beyond being a chat channel for organizing activities, do you believe there’s an opportunity for guilds/clans to become a more vital part of gameplay?

Richard Duffek: Definitely. I think several recent games have taken the first steps in that direction even. Games that allow the guild to level up as a separate entity, taking the individual achievements of its members into account is absolutely a step in that direction. These are only the first small steps, and I feel that this is one of the big areas left for MMORPGs to evolve or grow over time. Guilds have definitely grown and evolved over the years. There are guilds out there that have been around five, seven, even ten plus years. It isn’t just a group of people who tend to group together in a game and like having that shared chat channel anymore. These are online communities that move from game to game together, have gatherings and meet up in real life, etc. I would be honestly shocked if I didn’t see guilds become a more vital part of the MMORPG design in the coming years.