Another person from my SWG guild has joined us in Lotro. Although not all have actually continued playing, that’s the 6th person from our old guild to follow us over. Each of these people have been admitted to our current kinship. In the kinship’s teamspeak server, we often out-number the original crew. It’s beginning to feel like we are slowly taking over the guild we joined.
It’s not that any of us are officers… we don’t get to decide rules or anything. But the topics of conversation and the mood of the kinship is influenced by the conversations we have with each other. For the veteran players, the game is stale, old, and far too much of a grind. For us the game is complicated, new and exciting. We’ve actually contemplated creating our own separate kinship. In fact, we did. But we only put our alts in it for now. It’s something to fall back on if our current kinship doesn’t work out.
Even if we are not officially a separate kinship, we clearly act like one. We group with each other and help each other out. We talk to each other about old times and send each other crafted goods. We are all so close-knit. We started playing this game at the same time, and we started playing our last MMO together at roughly the same time. By contrast, most of the other people in the kinship started playing Lotro two years ago.
Will we ever feel this closeness to the veteran players of our kinship? I don’t know… but I honestly doubt it.
Teamspeak? O.o
@Manorton
Teamspeak is a voice-chat program that operates outside of the game. Lotro does not have kinship-wide voice enabled, so it’s between teamspeak, ventrillo, or some sort of skype-based chat program.
I had a somewhat similar experience in LotRO. Our friend that started before the rest of us joined a kinship and got the rest of us in. Our little clique never got to know the others. Not that they’re bad people, we just preferred to stay in our own groups.
I think part of it is that we were also a lot older than they were. We’re in our 30s, they were talking about high school problems….
A problem I generally have with large guilds in MMOs is that no-one knows you. I was part of a very successful KS in LoTRO. The officers were all good folks and my alts could generally get help with random quests if I wanted it. I also got to see most of the Rift, just by filling in slots when they needed someone and I happened to be on.
However, I knew less than 10% of players in the KS. When my alts were leveling in higher level zones, it would happen not infrequently that I would end up in a PuG with folks from my KS. And if they didn’t happen to know me, it was as if I was any random idgit from the server.
Since then I have joined a KS with only 20 or so members. We won’t have a chance in hell of running the new 12 mans. But every single player that logs I know, and knows me. We are a group of friends with the same hobby. And that is fun.
Our Kinship in LOTRO are refugees from Tabula Rasa, we have held the core group of regular players from the one game to Lotro. We are also wonderfully closeknit and have a great time playing with each and we are on almost every night in varying levels of playtime.
We comprise really 3 kinships from Tabula Rasa and have melded into one big happy family.
Invictus CCLXXXVIII on Silverlode for the Win!
Our kinship, Casualties of War on Landroval has maybe 15 people in it but we all “know” each other for the most part. We run two static groups and then play casually off hours. It has worked better than I had ever imagined. I’ve never even been part of a static group that lasted this long. It’s good casual fun.
We formed it with only two people and their army of alts.
It can take a while for people to get to know each other and feel part of the same guild but it will happen with time. I had a similar experience with EQ2 – when I first joined New Dawn, folk knew each other and it took me a few weeks to really get to know them. But I did and I now I really love them all. Just a shame I can’t get them to try out new games with me :)
Oh I know what Teamspeak is. I have been around since the days of RogerWilco. The boggled nature was that your kin is still using TS when Vent is far superior both in sound quality and system recourses. That is all.
But thanks for taking time to clarify for those who do not know.
As for the rest of the article I know how you feel. I have several friends in different games as well. One thing to be mindful of while in your current kin is that yes, you all are friends and click, but please try to not be a clique. I have seen far to many guilds that try to merge in the past that just cant get past that. What often happens is massive amounts of silly drama and hurt feelings. So be careful how you and your friends play with your current kin.
One cool thing to do is try to pull them into conversations by being open and willing to listen to them. Some great keys. Have fun, MMO’s are as much about social as the challenge, and enjoy your friends. As for the current kin feeling burned out. . Well . . Let’s just say the One Kin To Rule them All competition has had a negative impact on a lot of us. OTG (1st on Gladden and second overall) is feeling the pain of us rushing to 60 with our alts. I am having trouble logging in right now and spend most time waiting for this weekends Aion beta. *shrugs* such is the way of mmo’s and ADD personailites I guess :)
The cliquish tendencies are there in every guild I’ve played with in WoW.
I’m sure the WoW players can relate; if you join a guild at random and don’t become an active member with them, you’ll quickly find that somehow there are a small group guild members who are always in the instances together.