Trust

A message from Zug

I've been throwing a word around a lot the past day or so because of current events. I wanted to take a second to just type something up in hopes to convey how important the concept is to me, when running our guild.

Epic loot, PvE accomplishments, and contribution points aside, a guild is only as good as its membership. Different guilds operate different ways, but in our guild, we are striving to build a solid team. A team solid enough to accomplish any goal we set for ourselves. In order to do this, I am constantly working at maintaining and building trust between everyone in the guild, myself included.

In WoW, all of the hardest encounters in this or any game simply cannot be defeated without teamwork. This is true in PvP, as well; ultimately the group with the better teamwork will prevail. Good teamwork doesn't just form up over night. It comes with experience, and practice. The longer you play with people, the better you get to know them, and their abilities. You learn what they are capable of, and willing to do.

Over time, this teamwork builds trust. I know that when I'm in a group with Fiona or Crazyhowie, I can trust them to heal me when I'm hurt. They can trust that I'm always keeping an eye on them, ready to run to help turn mobs off of them in case they have aggro they can't handle. Amabel can trust me in that she knows I won't do uber shanking damage and make her lose aggro off a mob. All of this goes without saying, from playing together as a group countless times through countless instances.

A quote from a game designer friend of mine, John Wick, If you trust the men around you, if you know they'd do anything for you, you know in your heart that you'd do anything for them. That is what gives men the strength to do the kinds of things we hear form the war stories.

This concept exists in real life,' especially the military. It's called morale. Morale is affected by countless things, but at the base of it, it's about trust. If the morale of your troops is low, they won't fight as well as they can. If you don't trust your leader, you will hesitate when orders are given. If you don't trust the group you are with, you won't fight for a common goal, only to save yourself, weakening the team.

Think of trust as an investment. The more trust you give, the more trust you get. There's a reason why we say, Ask not what The Collective can do for you, but what you can do for The Collective. If we can trust you to be able to take care of yourself, we know that if you ask for help in the future, it's because you truly need' it, and not because you just want' it.

In further examples, the whole phenomenon of alerting people of ninjalooters is entirely based on trust. Why group with someone who has a record of being untrustworthy?

Some guilds or players are KoS. It's ironic because you can look at it one of two ways. You know you can't trust them to leave you alone. You can trust them to try to kill you as hard as possible. =P

My point is this: Do what you can to help build trust. Think of the trust within our guild as a fire. We want our fire to be as large as possible, ever growing. The more trust you contribute, the bigger the fire gets, and the better we are all off.