Perhaps some alliances also need to understand this and try to accommodate it by changing their approach.
No-one can make a decision for either and its their choice what they do. Having the discussion here might enable people to decide to do something about it. Either way guilds and alliances now need to confront if they need to change or become more positive about defining themselves. On this point I disagree with Aran quite profoundly but this is because in the game I have quite a different philosophy.
For me the idea that people in an alliance and guild all have similar outlooks is idealistic in the extreme. There is a danger for me that this view will gloss over differences and fail to recognise that people want different things from the game. Idealistic views of the game also gloss over differences within guilds and across alliances and risk failing to recognise when people are moving through the game towards this endgame as it where. When people express differences they then have to be controlled in some way and difference is not easily tolerated because the ideals can be threatened by disagreements. Wyst displays that idealism in his post above by for example characterising alliances as being for this or that player, I would like to say directly that that kind of idealism simply glosses over differences and fails to recognise that people are moving on very quickly. Sorry but that is my opinion.
Idealism has a big strength however precisely because it ignores those differences. It is however not the kind of way I like to interact with my peers because it stifles rather than encourages debate on sensitive issues.
Croms model (and I think the NFD model) is very pragmatic. Differences are expected and encouraged, people are expected to be independent and self sufficient and when they achieve that they tend to help each other out without question. People are told to get on with what they want, they are told to play how they like and there can be vigorous discussion about different styles of play but ultimately every guild is their own domain and they can decide how they wish to play. The philosophy is that you stand alone first then we stand together. Weak players and dependency for example are not tolerated very easily - they usually get ignored and quite rightly (and no weak does not = casual btw).
I have played under both models and I prefer the latter simply because I don't have to worry so much about saying exactly what I think in the way I think it (remember my classic MT's in NE alliance
). But that is a personal thing. Anyway these are just general observations as you can see I have a very personal view of the differences between the two Alliances and people will no doubt disagree with me but that is fine. What I do think is that it is up to those Alliances to look very closely at what they are doing.Finally - no matter what people say about being negative. Things are not good at the moment in this realm. We can either decide to look with a tear in our eyes to the past or get our fingers out and change things. I do not think a realm wide approach is the way to do it rather I belive in promoting a hard core of people united with one aim and many different approaches to kicking the living shit out of Albion.
Now let us see if alliances can really perform their function. What matters now is whether or not those alliances can adapt or not. Changes are coming where will we all be in 6 months time?
