Greed before need.

Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games (MMMORPGs), even sans any character roleplaying, make for interesting windows into how people think and how they relate to one another. These massive online worlds, where players forge cliques and miniature communities, are ripe for studying, as any quick Google search will show. Specifically, one can even hunt for papers on World of Warcraft (WoW).

While I haven’t done enough exploring to see if someone in, say, a psychology program has thoroughly observed a growing player base (ala a WoW guild) from inception to present over the course of WoW’s history, I myself have noticed some interested trends, both from the perspective inside a guild as well as without.

In WoW, characters can choose two primary professions, which fall into two categories: crafting professions are those in which the character makes something tangible for other characters to use, while collecting professions allow the character to gather some type of resource, which can then be sold or used by those with the aforementioned crafting professions.

Perhaps simply because the game was new to so many, players generally opted to learn a crafting profession, as well as that profession’s collecting compliment (ie leatherworkers would learn skinning, blacksmiths would learn mining, etc). Interestingly, even in the same guild, players would learn the same crafting professions as others, even though a far more efficient system would be for most players to take two collecting professions, and pass off the collected materials to designated crafters, who could in turn become highly accomplished crafters and make the best items in the game as soon as possible, and give those items back to the collectors. In this way, everyone would benefit.

Strangely, players opted for the less sensical route, and everyone wanted to be a crafter. The result was that there were never enough materials to go around, such that people’s crafting professions would level very slowly, taking them longer to reach the point where they could craft the best items available.

Those people who did take two crafting professions realized that selling the materials gathered would net them decent income. However, while they did make money on selling their materials, they were also willing to pass these materials to their friends such that their friends could raise their crafter skill quicker and make better items. Yet, this too has significantly changed.

These days, perhaps in part because crafted items are not as good as those one can find in dangerous parts of the world, it is almost expected to find characters who do no crafting at all, and sell all their wares in the in-game auction house. More importantly, these characters are not inclined to send any of their resources to fellow guild-members who are crafters, even if those crafting professions, like engineering for hunters, are practically necessary to maximize class efficiency.

This greed scenario is noticeable throughout the game. When “rare” items drop, the game prompts players to “roll” on the item such that there is a fair chance for every player in a group to get the item. These days, there are two types of rolls: greed rolls, and need rolls. If anyone in the group makes a need roll for an item, it immediately wins out over a greed roll. In this way, the person with the highest need rolls wins the item. If no one makes a need roll, the individual who had the highest greed roll wins the item. This method is ideal, since it ensures that people who cannot benefit directly from possessing an item do not win the item. Naturally, however, this assumes that people who cannot use certain items do not make need rolls on them.

Unfortunately, players in the end-game, who regularly have amazing equipment, refuse to make greed rolls on green item (the lowest rarity of “good” items in the game). The apparent reason for this is that these people assume everyone has better-than-green items to begin with, and as such, no one will benefit directly from winning such an item aside from selling it. Common sense would suggest that a greed roll would be just as effective, and in the off-chance that a green item would benefit someone directly, they have the option of making a need roll to secure the item for themselves. Alas, a common philosophy among end-game players is that everyone should make a need roll on green items such that no one “accidentally” makes a need roll when everyone else makes a greed roll. The premise alone is purely one of greed, with no security for fresh end-game players who may not yet have equipment better than green ones.

The above scenario was exemplified in an instance I ran just the other night, wherein I was in a group of people with almost no green items on them. I was kind enough to roll greed on a pair of gloves significantly better than those I wore, because I knew they were “categorized” as rogue gear (I was playing a druid). Though the gloves would have benefited me just as much (I specced feral), I didn’t want to stir things up unnecessarily. Later, a green item dropped that was significantly better than what I was using. Not only could no one in the group benefit from the item, but no one could even use the item had they wanted to. Yet, everyone rolled need, and when I asked if I could have the item since I actually did need it, as it was a significant upgrade for me (and much worse than what anyone else had), I was told I could buy it from the winner.

This type of situation is, sadly, becoming the norm, and stresses why playing with guild members who know how they should play within a common group is better than playing with “pubbies”, who subscribe to rather poor policies. Money, far more than before, is prized greater these days than passing items to friends, materials, etc.