Community Immersion

I write a lot about the great community in the guild but it’s easy for me to feel that way when I’m slap-bang right in the middle of all the social action. I’m in the main raid team, I’m in constant communication with the officers, I’m on mumble most days and I have plenty spare time to play the game.

Ofcourse, the guild was set up by myself and I have pretty much single-handedly orchestrated it’s overall development with delivery of the right people in the right roles who love the guild enough to put in the effort to take us to where we are today. It’s easy for me to relay my feelings of community spirit when I notice that community spirit as much as anyone around the guild.

We have a solid leadership team in place who have proven to me that they have the ability and drive to push the guild to reach our goals. It must be remembered that there are many types of people around the guild who neither notice this community spirit nor make any attempt to take part in it.

If we try to painstakingly categorise people into groups then it becomes an experiment I am not comfortable about doing, however a broad analysis of 3 types of community awareness can be observed:-

Total community immersion
Partial community awareness
Complete community indifference

Without even beginning to think about percentages regarding these perceived brackets I would assume that only a small minority actually become actively involved in the community within the guild. I would although stress that a vast majority are at least very aware that the guild possesses such a close family friendship within but many have been unable to become comfortably involved to the degree that they really feel part of it all.

There are a small number who play the game with social blinkers on and that’s ok. We don’t have a problem with players who find the social interaction taxing but we ideally want to encourage these people to get involved more.

The players who know all about what fun we have as a guild but feel a little left out maybe because of exclusion from the raid team or because real life prevents regular guild activities etc. it’s ok to just join in whenever you can manage, especially on mumble where snap decisions can be made:-

Lets go blast through Mogu’Shan Vaults!
Lets do ‘Champions of the Thunder King’
Who wants to do Raid Finder?
Who’s up for a heroic scenario coz I need to Valor cap etc

These are all good reasons to join mumble and get in the thick of it. If you would like to really join in with the guild then that could be a good starting point.

Doing that can even put you in the ‘shop window’ if you’re a skilful player. Spyrot, Wenya or myself could spot your potential and ask you to come try raiding.

At the end of the day, some folks are just happy playing their own game in the guild, never pushing to really connect for many different reasons and we must respect that. It’s your game, you pay the subscription so enjoy it your way. But just be aware that there is a good community spirit there if you wanna be a part of it. If more people push in then I will increase the size of our mumble server, easy!

/Salute