Behavior in raids – initiation rites

The first part of this series of post covered the forming of groups; both the actual raid as well as smaller groups within the raid group itself. Now that the existence of the groups is established it follows to look a little closer on some of the initiation rites I have encountered will exploring Azeroth in the World of Warcraft.

First of all the game itself has several such rites included as part of the game. It can be quests related to your class or challenges to gaining access to certain places. Most of these can be completed alone, but sometimes you need the help of a group to be able to complete such missions in the game. These are all part of your characters story and progression in the game, and they have often given me some extra satisfaction to complete. Especially the ones that in themselves can be shown off as ‘proof of skill’.

Once we leave the game world we enter into the second arena for such initiation rites. Here we find rites from game play abilities to social compatibility. From my experience the game play rites exist in two variations; those you need to go through BEFORE you gain acceptance into a group and those you face AFTER. Both have their own pro’s and con’s and can be used to test players in different ways. In short both are a kind of ‘show us what you got’, but either you are performing to gain entry or you perform to avoid getting thrown out. As the game plays out today BEFORE is mostly related to gaining access to raiding communities and AFTER to keeping your spot as part of the active raiding group.

Social rites come in many forms and may not always be obvious or even consciously enforced, but in general they are relevant for conforming with your fellow raiders. From having similar interests, same type of humor or having a similar cultural background. As mentioned earlier a silent raid seems more likely to ‘suffer’ more when ‘the going gets tough’, and even if verbal abuse might work as a tool for the leadership to keep people in order it rarely helps the raids ability to perform to have one or more individuals harassing other raid members. In short what it comes down to is if ‘the others’ feel that you fit in, and as part of deciding there are multiple different rites of initiation coming from individuals, groups or ‘clicks’. All which brings us to the next part; once you are part of ‘the tribe’ you will be ‘assimilated’.