Hey guys and gals and nonbinary pals,
Long time lurker, first time poster here. What I have is a subjective question for one and all where I am very curious about the responses.
If you imagine a rather standard concept Alliance military Guild, blue tabards with golden lions, primary footmen with some auxiliary roles available, you get the gist. There have been a lot of these guilds around, some lasted for ages, some never took off.
In your mind, what makes an alliance military guild GOOD, additionally, what makes one bad?
I am speaking both in terms of being attractive/unattractive to join, as well as being fun/unfun for outsiders to interact with.
In my opinion, itâs when they cannot find a balance between low fantasy and high fantasy.
eg; Mages becoming exhausted after casting basic level spells like fireball, or that gnome-ish inventions arenât a thing, but on the flip side, spamming âbuzzboxesâ is ALWAYS a huge put off for me
Being a modern and anachronistic military simulator instead of a setting/time period appropriate take on the military is an instant turn off for me. Iâm not interested in Arma 3 with a Warcraft coat of paint.
Some military guilds apply real life logic (especially that one ran by the weekend warrior guy) when operating, which is nonsensical as there is no grounding in the setting for that.
There is a well defined set of ranks in the Alliance military and precious few actually use said hierarchy.
Whatâre some examples of this? WoW being such a diverse pot of medieval things, modern things, even futurisic sci-fi looking things, I tend to struggle a lot when it comes to really putting a finger on what IRL time period one should be inspired by.
Would love to hear some examples of unfitting real life logic being used, and what the better alternatives would be! Not doubting your point at all, just hungry for moar.
Although the setting at large is a diverse melting pot of various themes of fiction, the individual factions, organisations and themes among them seldom are. For example youâd be very hard pressed to sell a Night elf guild with a Sci-Fi technology basis. It feels out of place with them, whereas amidst gnomes (and moreover with mechagnomes and draenei) those themes are more in character.
While Warcraft tends to play fast and loose with which theme of fantasy and fiction any given story is going to focus around, you should be more focused trying to identify which theme fits with the story youâre currently making. Forcing it upon the wrong story feels out of place.
As for specific examples, Stormwind Infantry was famous for using real life modern squad tactics (despite enforcing a sword and shield toolkit) and spec ops themes, as well as the GM being exceptionally strict about formation drilling to the point that Arthedun was known for hopping on voice chat to personally yell at people for not executing a formation drill in real time with perfection.
Having completed my national service, I can tell you that every military guild takes it way too seriously. Army was 50% waiting around, 25% making stupid jokes because youâre still waiting around, and 25% actually doing something.
Ignoring talk about specific individuals,
how would we summarize this then?
Whatâs the ârightâ amount of formations and formation training or is that not really something that should even exist in a WoW Military guild?
And if not, how do military guilds kind of set themselves apart from any other group of people with weapons, if one still wishes to âportrayâ professional soldiers?
This depends entirely on what you are going for. If you are going ultra-low fantasy, then itâs worth remembering that soliders (man at arms) would just form ranks and march in lines
I mean so long as you donât pull a [name redacted] and supposedly chew out people OOC, surely itâs a matter of personal preference. I donât particularly have ill will against the guilds paying attention to minute details in this regard, again, provided they donât have a meltdown on voice when someone is a pixel out of formation.
That being said it isnât my cup of tea. I can get the idea behind a shield wall + riflemen as seen in the BfA opening cinematic, but thatâs about how much care Iâd pay to such.
The real answer is that there is no recipe for a âgoodâ military guild, or any guild for that matter - but there are ways to make them bad.
Keeping them in line with Warcraft is a good way to make them enjoyable, as obvious as it sounds. When people join a Warcraft-themed military guild - no matter what kind of military, be it knights, an order of rogues, spellcasters, so on - they want to roleplay a Warcraft-themed concept, not the Call of Duty Black Ops 1 campaign.
Iâd say the best measure of any guild - military or otherwise - is how they interact with strangers. Particularly how much pressure they apply to get someone to enlist and if they continue to interact with individuals who may be interested in engagement without actually joining.
An appreciation for the setting as a whole is also arguably a necessity. Individual characters having various degrees of contempt for their own factional allies makes sense to a degree, yet effectively and openly harassing night elves by calling them âknife earsâ and treating them with disdain the point of making Garithos look like a perfectly friendly bloke is very likely to result in the Allianceâs higher ups getting involved and stripping away the ranks and titles of the upper command.
It began as Red August, then it became Bloody August after all the war crime RP started, and then after the melt down it was immortalised as Mad August
