Raiders belong to groups called guilds that organize around different gameplay priorities.
Players belong to guilds for many different reasons. For elite players, guilds function much like employers, providing rules and structure to organize large performances. When many players work together to defeat large-scale challenges, it is called a raid. Not all raids require the sophisticated planning and support that top guilds can provide, but the most difficult do. Some guilds who specialize in raiding manage multiple teams that regularly work together. The raiding teams will often be organized where the very best players are concentrated in a core team, while less experienced or skilled players are relegated to 2nd or 3rd teams. Resources are funneled into core teams at the expense of other teams in most guilds.
Exoteric and Esoteric Knowledge
All guilds in the World of Warcraft share certain information publicly through direct gameplay mechanisms. Who is in a guild, what kind of character roles they play, what equipment they are wearing, and where the characters are at any given time is easily discovered by any curious player. This non-secret information is a type of exoteric knowledge about the group. Many guilds also maintain public profiles and post videos of their exploits, or other content related to their gameplay.
When new content is released in the World of Warcraft, top raiding guilds race each other to complete its challenges. This race for achievements is a special form of raiding called progression raiding. Progression raiding guilds often develop strategies and techniques that speed up their progress. These secrets are a type of esoteric knowledge and are protected by oaths of secrecy, obfuscation, and even sometimes legally binding non-disclosure agreements.
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