A central aspect in most MMOs is the concept of guilds. Wikipedia states about online computer game guilds that “they organize group activities, regulate member behavior, exclude non-conforming individuals, and react as a group when member safety or some aspect of guild life is threatened”. While I’m considering delving deeper into all of these aspects in a coming essay, for now I’m going to linger on the situation where a player is transitioning between guilds.
If you are guildless, joining a guild is a piece of cake. Assuming you aren’t lying about your gear, experience or online times, you are free to do whatever you want and no one will think less of you.
If you are already in a guild, things become harder. Leaving a guild in which you aren’t really friends with anyone isn’t hard, and then your situation is the same as for a guildless person. If you, however, are member of a guild in which you have friends who like and rely on you, is infinitely harder.
There are many reasons why you would like to move from one guild to another. Easier access to gear upgrades, friends in another guild wanting you to join the, a bigger challenge playing-wise, an argument in your old guild… as I said, there are many reasons. Analysing the ethics of such motivations is tricky. Analysing the way in which it is done is hard, but somewhat easier and more tangible.
Leaving a guild in which you have a good standing can, as I stated before, be hard. People will ask you why and what you are going to do next. If you left the guild because you didn’t like it there and wanted to play guildless for a while, or just didn’t like it there and wanted to maybe apply to join another guild, people will generally be reasonably understanding. If you didn’t like it you shouldn’t be there. Simple.
One thing that is quite common, however, is that you already know where you want to go. That you like it in your old guild, but that for some reason it is not number one on your list anymore. You might even have been offered a spot in another guild. Here is where it gets sticky.
Being offered a position in a guild isn’t wrong. A guild offering a position to a player that is already “taken” can be compared to someone making a pass at someone else’s boyfriend. Maybe it’s wrong, but it’s not the fault of the boyfriend or in this case, the player receiving the offer.
On the other hand, if the boyfriend actively tried to make the other person make the pass, to see if he could maybe get together with a “better” person, we’d think that was immoral. The analogue in a game would be for a person to contact a new guild while still being in one, with the intention of seeing if he’d get in before making his decision, or with the full intention of staying if he wasn’t accepted. This practice is also considered immoral by most players.
But how come? If you compare it with someone trying to replace his girlfriend, it makes sense. But another comparison which would be perfectly reasonable is that of looking for employment. It’s socially acceptable to be looking for a new job without quitting your old one. Why are the reactions to a person applying to a new guild while still being in his old one more like the reactions of a cheating boyfriend than that of a person changing jobs?
Only one reason springs to mind: it’s because of the relationships you have. In the example with the boyfriend, you are hurting a person. In the example of the job you are hurting a company, which might not even be very hurt if you are easily replaceable. If it’s a small company of friends it would be a much worse thing to do.
A guild is something in between. The “job” side of it is the raiding of dungeons, in which the players are needed to work together to achieve something. There is also, however, a “relationship” side. You have friendships in a guild, which can be pretty strong between people who have played together for months. Not as strong as a relationship between two people, perhaps, but still strong enough to hurt when people are left behind.
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