The problem with a "zerg" guild, and the challenge before us

[Videri]

The problem people talk about is that it is impossible to contest another guild if their numbers are sufficiently greater. However, that is not the true problem. If that were the only problem, the obvious solution would be to recruit enough members to beat them. That might be difficult, but it could be done.

For a game to be fun, one must have permission to do one's best. In EQ, that means recruit as many players as you can, bring as many of your members as you can to raids and PvP, gear your members as well as you can, and use every tactic you can to win (without getting banned). Only if we all do our best will we know who played best that round and thus deserved to win.

You can't fault a guild for trying their best to win, so you can't fault a guild's leaders for recruiting. So what's the problem?

The true zerg problem arises when players are given the overwhelming impression that they must join a particular guild to enjoy the game. This, of course, would lead to a vast majority of players joining that guild, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy and preventing other guilds from successfully competing.

Several members of Holocaust have claimed they are the only guild getting major raid targets on Red99. These players are trying to create that self-fulfilling prophecy and prevent competition. This type of statement is detrimental to the server. In other words, that's bad!!

Other players on the server are afraid of this happening because they want to be able to try their best and have a chance to win in PvE and thereby earn the right to down PvP targets. As a result of this fear, they protest the zerg guild.

This leads to a meta-battle in which the zerg guild tries to show they are the only choice and other guilds try to present themselves as good or even better choices for moral reasons.

So what do we do? As for me, the only defense I know is to show new and current players the fun we are having; and to show them how exciting the server would be if there were more competition between guilds - competition in which both sides have a fighting chance and no one can be completely sure who will win.

The rest of us must out-recruit <Holocaust>, then out-play them. It will be a great challenge and therefore worth doing. Let's do this.

I welcome any other thoughts and perspectives on this matter.