Breakfast topic: Guild drama
by Jennie Lees 
Apr 11th 2006 at 6:58AM
The phrase "guild drama" is one that crops up a lot in WoW; the necessary consequence of a large
group of individuals all working towards a few common goals seems to be tension, strife and disagreement. From
personality clashes to mergers and alliances, you need to deal with a lot of other people's business to get far in the
endgame. Even if you choose to bypass raiding and focus on your PvP, more politics come into play over rank and
honour.I've had a pretty easy time of it so far -- my guild is reasonably small, so we're part of a larger alliance which is working out well for now. However, I'm well aware that the inevitable will happen; one day someone's goals will change, and the peace will shatter. Guild drama can't be avoided -- in fact, some guilds like to wear past problems like badges of honour on their sleeves, showing the world that they can stick together through thick and thin. Others stay mostly drama-free, through choice or design, but delve into even the quietest guilds and you may find more than you bargained for.
Do you prefer life with the added complications of guild politics, or have you given up on the drama and gone for a quieter life elsewhere?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Guilds, Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
crsh Apr 11th 2006 9:09AM
Well, your timing with this topic is spot on.
I joined a raiding guild on my server just 10 days ago, giving me the opportunity to experience MC, Ony, and BWL for the first time; I've been having a blast, thought the people in the guild were friendly, mature, helpful, and dedicated.
Last night, after the Ony raid and before the MC bit, about half of our best raiders (the ones with the most experience and all decked in epic gear) pulled a cheap mutiny; seems like this was premeditated, but nobody saw it coming it seems. So you had a bunch of players standing by Ony's corpse, a mage tried to blow all her remaining DKPs (300ish) on a DPS sword, everybody was "WTF?", and then shit hit the fan; basically, as it stands right now, we can no longer raid on a daily basis until we figure out how to get more people with proper level and experience, these guys shut us down by leaving and all going to the same other guild.
Drama, eh ;)
Aaron Apr 11th 2006 9:19AM
If you want to keep playing at level 60 guild politics are going to be a part of your life. While I have heard of pick up groups for Molten Core, I doubt they have much success.
Besides haveing great guild officers, the size of the guild is a major factor. Everything seems to be ok up to a certain size. I think 70 or 80 is about right. That way you can have a few events per day for different time zones and still fill them.
Bloodfeast Island Man Apr 11th 2006 11:07AM
Well, the "politics" and inherent drama depend on the guild. I'm a co-leader of Bloodbath and Beyond on Garona. We have, at last count, 150 or so unique members. Guild drama does crop up occasionally over raids and the like, but tends to work itself out. We sorta follow a non-standard guild model - we're all casual players. We define ourselves by our inactivity and our general habit of spending time in guild chat while putzing around Azeroth. Sure, we run raids and dungeons and such sometimes, but we're just playing the game to play. No power-levelling, no "ult1m4t3 pwn4g3", no Barrens chat. Just having fun, and generally shunning and ostracizing those who get so into the game that they get emotional about it. We had one guy who, I'll freely admit knew how to play, but he was just so very... excitable. "Let's run ZF!" "Hey everybody get into WSG!" "My 60 NE Alt would pwn you" would spam our channel when he was on. So, rather than invite him into the core of our group, functionally selling out to be "ph34rd", we muted him, and he quit. We get a lot of punk kids who have the same mentality, but think that a guild is just there to provide monteary support. This one, at level 16, was begging us for 80 gold to buy some mediocre dagger at AH, saying he "needed" it. I started to explain the difference between "need" and "want" when he exclaimed "Don't even start with that". You can guess how that ended. I think that drama is inevitable, because unless you know everyone in the guild, you can't predict how someone will behave in the guild environment. Attitudes conflict, egos swell. I can say, fairly confidently that what your guild's goals are, though, attract a particular kind of person, and some people are predisposed to drama and angst.
Brian Arnold Apr 11th 2006 11:14AM
In the 14 months that I've been playing, I've been in several guilds. It seems like a lot of the ones that help you grow have people who eventually hit 60 and then quit, moving to a raiding guild, or some huge dramabomb hits.
I just recently joined a guild that's a lot like what the prior poster described. We're a mature casual guild that's doing some raiding but for the most part we just hang out and talk and help each other out and have fun. It's a blast. We have our own Vent server and have karaoke nights and such, and yet with being silly, we still do things like BRD/BRS/Strath/Scholo/ZG and are slowly working our way to MC without worrying too much. It's great.
joey Apr 11th 2006 11:37AM
In my experience the #1 thing that will ruin any guild is when an officer or leader invites an alleged ditzy type "girl" into the guild just becuase they like them.
Usually said girl is incapable of doing anything themselves, needs constant help to get anything done, and likes to cause issues with firtatious behavior. Inevetably ends up getting loot that she doesn't deserve because of the sex appeal rather than hard work. Which then pisses everyone off.
I've seen this happen in quite a few guilds in my days since EQ1. Sad that geeks just can't resist temptation. Even if the "girl" they like might really be a hairy 300lb male with glasses. lol.
jer Apr 11th 2006 11:50AM
The default "guild" image is leroy jenkins eh? heh.
Tazrach Apr 11th 2006 1:52PM
From the comments on here it seems like the casual mature guild that can raid is a growing trend. My guild has been steadily progressing through ZG (only Panther has yet to be killed). We make use of the raid timers and space out our rading so wives/husbands/girlfriends/boyfriends dont get too upset and we can still go to work and contribute the next day.
It is a ton more satisfying than entering a 100% raiding guild filled with hyperactive twitch gamers with social skills severly impaired by the ritalin withdrawls. Where is the challenge in joining a guild with no more "firsts" left.