Yes totally!
I remember the days of some of my guilds Kael Drakkal events I led. We would enter the zone, and before heading out to one of the spots in the place to set up we would go:
"36-Raid, inbound to Tormax, camp check!"
Then we would do a check to see if any of the raid spots were taken, and *gasp* actually have to negotiate with other real live people! Or choose our backup event site - usually ToFS cause' it was close. Most of the time we had to wait a bit while some other group finished up, so we would grind for loot in the bank/central area while they made their way out.
I did like hearing the solo-kiters complain when we brought our 36 person raid through Dulak/Nadox though, but hey we helped some healers get their Temp quest done quickly so....
-We had to make adjustments though to our plans based on other players activities.
-We had to keep good relations with other guilds so that they would give us lane choice when there was a competition for a spot.
-We often combined groups with other people in the zone to share the camp.
-Due to these good relations, off-raid schedule 'Ubers' would often come along to help us out looking for some fun to do. Their PoFire level egos matched their gear for sure, but they taught us a bunch about things so I made sure we treated them with respect and thanked them for helping, which led to more opportunities later.
If I log into EQ today there are still people around on my old server that remember me. I had such a good rep I was guaranteed help for any reasonable request and I never had to buy gear off the AH I could loan it off people I knew and I would give it back when I was done with it.
*Stands amazed at the value of good social skills and building that thing we used to call 'your name'.*
In a weird way even the Uber guilds had to worry about their rep too, they really needed new members because the content required so many good people to do well. If your were elitist jerk, it would be hell if you could get anyone to join you, our in most cases you would only attract more jerks, to your guild.
The only trouble we got into was when our guild had 'raid guild appreciation days' and handed out very potent beer to the raiders camped outside places like PoV while they were setting up...hehe. But we only did it to the jerks, much to the anger of the raid leaders. ^.-
/raidchannel "Nobody drink the f-ing beer they are handing out! Who is their guild leader!"
(I would feign 'oh sorry I didn't know' in my best family guild style. It was all in fun though, and the good guilds actually laughed about it.)
Ah, good times.
All this led to your guild rep being very important and the actions of your members being important too. No one wanted to be 'blacklisted' for being jerks, and I did /gkick people for being bad to other people and tarnishing our name....man, how far we have come from those days....
Damn you, WoW. *shakes fist*
Instancing took a lot of this social interaction away. You don't have to be a good-boy anymore to get a shot at some nice gear, nor does your rep mean anything either. This is where I feel WoW lets bad players advance where in another world they would not.
Now lets see, what are MMOs supposed to be about anyways?
((Oh and we did this all without Vent....ya' lazy bums!))
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