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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Have your guildies inspired you in real life?
by Josh Rose 
Nov 12th 2010 at 8:00AM
We all have people in our guilds who are better at WoW than we are. They have amazing reaction times, are great leaders, or put up amazing numbers on the damage or healing meters. But often we know little about the person behind the keyboard. Since my guild is full of mostly adults, we talk a lot about real life in guild chat and on our guild forums. Some of the stuff is merely about TV shows we are watching or books we are reading; seriously, we have a 15-page forum about MMA from all the UFC fans in our guild.
Occasionally, however, truly major life events are discussed, some of which are sad and some are inspiring. We have used the forums to say goodbye to a few members for reasons ranging from personal tragedy, to moving and changing jobs, to simply getting tired of the game.
Some of the stories inspired me to make changes in my own life. One of our guild members talked about his diet and how through exercise and cutting out some fast food, he has lost nearly 60 pounds. This caused me to start watching how much I was snacking during raids and got me back to the gym. Another guild member went back to college for his master's degree, and this led me to look into what it would cost for me to go back and get my culinary degree. Two of our guild members got engaged, and this led me to realize I had better start thinking about ring shopping before my girlfriend gets fed up with me.
Do you ever discuss important real-life events with members of your guild? Have any of their stories made you examine your own life? Have any of their advice or personal insights inspired you to make changes or tough choices in your life?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Szass Nov 12th 2010 8:30AM
It's kinda odd, and a little embarrassing at times.
But, it seems like everyone in my guild has an advanced degree.Even worse there are several teachers with master degree's. Of course I never knew this until recent months.
Wonder what they really think about my loud uneducated redneck self.
We also have several Soldiers (God Bless Them).
It does make you wonder if you have done enough for yourself and your life.
I'm not complaining. I have a good job and a good life, I went to the school of hard knocks.I am an accomplished Tool &Die maker for more than 20 years.
I am a little more careful of how I act in Vent though lately.
And anyone reading this, I WOULD NOT recommend the school of hard Knocks.Go get yourself a degree if you have the ability. My Knees are now shot.
Leroy Nov 12th 2010 9:44AM
Coming from someone who has done some Master's level work, my advice would be to be yourself. If you were friends with these guys before you knew what they did, then my guess is that they are a good group who educational background is, but rather what kind of person they are.
My father never went to college, but he is one of the best guys I know. I might know more about Plato and Aristotle, but he knows more about cars and mechanics. And our difference in education doesn't precludeus from having a lot in common.
Szass Nov 12th 2010 6:52PM
@Leroy
I hear ya Brother, I'm always myself.
That may just be part of the Problem !! LOL j/k
My guild is a great group.I really like those guys.
I was just a little surprised to find out the true caliber of some of the people I game with.
The Pirate Nov 12th 2010 8:33AM
Whoah. That guy with the beard in the top right side of the pic has some SERIOUS demon eyes.
The Pirate Nov 12th 2010 8:35AM
Come to think of it, so does that red haired girl on the left side. Freaky
Kurtis Nov 12th 2010 8:59AM
Yeah, I think they've only got one picture for "guild" now. "Hey, this article is guild-related; let's slap that BlizzCon meetup picture on it."
Sintraedrien Nov 12th 2010 11:37AM
Warlocks walk among us!
j/k ;)
Sintra E'Drien of the Ebon Blade, né Sindorei (still ravenously Worgen-curious)
Revrant Nov 12th 2010 8:37AM
Man, where did you guys find these guilds? Every guild I join is full of infantile loot obsessed raider pricks on my server, both sides even.
Darky Nov 12th 2010 8:47AM
Stop looking for a raiding guild that takes itself seriously, no offence intended. Yes you may not do content as quickly or at all but you will get a bunch of people who enjoy the game and treat it as just that, a game. I was making the same mistake, i just wanted a guild to get me into the hm content asap, but eventually i gave up and joined a social guild and now all my toons are on that guild and my main is a king slayer, which is good enough for me :).
I would like to note there ARE hardcore guilds out there with genuinely nice people but they are far harder to find and rely on luck and the GM.
Revrant Nov 12th 2010 8:49AM
I don't join hardcore raiding guilds for the reasons I stated, I mean where do you FIND social guilds?
I can't find any at all on Thrall, my server, I've been actively looking and all the posts and searches are for aspiring raid guilds or raid guilds, which thus far have a few nice people but mostly pricks.
Szass Nov 12th 2010 8:57AM
I've been playing with the same basic group of people since the end of Vanilla/beginning of BC. Even though the guild has changed names.( Our old GM just stopped logging in one day so we reformed.)
We are a casual raiding guild, and that has caused some churn over the years as we don't always get as far in the content as other guilds.(Our main 10 man is currently about 2/3 through the LK fight.) But we have a "let anyone who has the gear and wants to try can go" attitude. We use loot rules called "Share the love" which basically is need over greed and if you already got something on that run you go to the back of the line.
We have a had a little loot drama in the past but not too much. Some groups have splintered off and started their own guilds as well.Players come and players go and sometimes they come back.
That is why we call it "Vicious Cycle". Located on Undermine. If you are looking for a mostly adult, casual raid guild that raids evenings. Come check us out.
Otherwise there are good guilds out there.We almost never advertise in Trade, and most good guilds don't. We add members almost exclusively through people that PuG with us or heard about us and come ask to join.
Revrant Nov 12th 2010 9:02AM
That sounds like a nice guild.
Shame the other main I'm referring to is Alliance.
Kar Nov 12th 2010 9:09AM
I run a casual raiding guild on Lothar. Started it with a few RL friends of mine and started building relationships with people from the ground up. We are all pretty happy with progression even though we aren't all that competitive. But I think what makes us stick around is the people we get to know. Lots of people come though. Some stick around. But throughout it all we remain nice and cordial. In searching for the guild full of nice folks you can start by seeing how long they've been around.
Wow that was a bit rambling.
Revrant Nov 12th 2010 9:07AM
Lok'tar ogar!
Revrant Nov 12th 2010 9:25AM
Maybe a transfer is in order, one server I've always heard great things about from an Alliance perspective is Proudmoore, any posters from there?
Kurtis Nov 12th 2010 9:38AM
My main has been in four different guilds, on two different servers, in the last 10 months. One was awful, one was all right and two were incredible. Let me tell you - size of the guild, age of the guild, etc., has nothing to do with it. In order of my membership:
The smallest guild was okay. It was started by a friend, and I enjoyed it most of the time. We were all actively leveling, so there was usually somebody around to run dungeons with or help out with quests or professions. At its peak, we had around 100 members. The GM enforced free trade (tips strongly encouraged) among guild members; other than that, things were pretty relaxed. I'd probably have stayed in that guild except that the GM eventually got tired of it and disbanded the guild rather than pass it on to someone else. According to my friend list, he hasn't even logged into WoW in more than 2 months.
The largest guild was also the worst - we had over 500 members and almost no control. I joined this guild on the invitation of a friend - the GM of the former guild mentioned above. I left the guild about two weeks later, after a particularly disgusting episode in guild chat that made trade chat look tame by comparison and when it became apparent that the guild leadership either weren't going to do anything about it or were actively participating in it.
The next guild that I joined was awesome. We had lots of fun together. While he invited lots of people, the GM also kept a tight rein on funsuckers. I think the record was a person who joined and was kicked again within about 45 seconds. We had over 300 members, though there were a lot of alts in the guild so we typically only had 20-30 players online. The GM based guild ranks on level and behavior, so he pushed me to reach 80 so that I could reach officer level, then he pushed me to gear up so we could run heroics together. I was in this guild from my early 50's to level 80 and beyond. While the guild had a number of well-geared 80's, we never managed to put together any organized raids.
Insert break here - I did a realm-transfer because my brother-in-law and sister-in-law had a couple of 70's and 80's on another server and wanted me to join them. At the time, I had a couple of low-level toons on their server, but decided to bring over my main.
The guild that I'm in now is at least as good as the one I left during the realm transfer. My brother-in-law's raiding toon is also a member. Unlike my previous guilds, this one actually had an application process, not necessarily to vet raiding skills and experience so much as to act as a gatekeeper to keep out funsuckers. Only a small number of applicants are considered at any time, they are discussed in detail by the officers and go through a probationary period before full guild membership is granted. It's a medium-sized guild, with 300-some members, but it feels very friendly, almost like a family. They do have organized raids - including a number of players with Kingslayer - as well as pick-up dungeons and other fun events going on all the time.
So to sum up for the TL;DR, the best guilds that I've been a part of had some level of active GM/officer control. The worst one exhibited all of the problems you mentioned, and mostly for the exact same reason - the officers either didn't have control or wouldn't take control.
osprey0024 Nov 12th 2010 9:45AM
Check us out on Thrall. We have a good mix of casual members and raiders, most being casual. Our raiders enjoy the game and we discourage loot whores mainly because loot whores don't really like the EPGP system we use, and they eventually leave or get booted.
Blood-of-tyrants.guildlaunch.com
Note: We are primarily an adult guild with a lot of military members, so you have to be able to take a joke and some ragging on each other, as well as typical foul military mouths. We also have a number of couples in the guild.
SerenityNow Nov 12th 2010 2:30PM
@Revrant: I'd suggest watching while you're running random heroics (assuming you're an 80, if not do the same thing with regular random dungeons). If you end up in a group with 2 or 3 folks in the same guild on your server, and they seem pleasant and mature, ask them about joining their guild. They'll likely either point you to a website or at least be able to recommend a good guild to investigate. And don't be put off by a social guild requiring an app. Often that's just a way of seeing what kind of a player you are, and also detering the truely lazy.
I'm very lucky to belong to an amazing social guild, filled with really pleasant, fun, drama-aversed and mature players (unfortunately not on your server though - we're on Kirin Tor). Despite having a vibrant and fairly large roster, we don't really advertise. Yet we still get a steady trickle of cool new members, partially from RL referrals, but partially from people we bump into in random runs.
Relyimah Nov 12th 2010 8:43AM
When my ex-husband left me, one of the first people I talked to after it seemed my world was falling down was a guildie. He taught me the phrase, "Build a bridge and get over it." There are now three of us who are our own little support group who help each other through the harder moments of break-ups and their inevitable little potholes along the way.
Sleutel Nov 12th 2010 8:58AM
One of my best friends is my pocket healer, who I met in my first guild, even though we've never met. But the person who's probably most caused me to think about my own life is someone not from my guild, but from a forum I post on, where there's a massive thread for all of the people who play WoW to talk about it without bugging everyone else. :D I've talked about my friend here before--you see, Bill has Early Onset Alzheimer's Disease.
He started playing WoW as part of his therapy. Bill has good days and bad days--sometimes, he'll be able to quest or understand instructions easily; other times, he logs off or switches to just grinding out of frustration, and you have to rephrase things a few different ways to help him understand. But he never gives up--he just keeps pushing. He's told me that he has post-its all over his monitor with tips we've given him. Bill's goal was to get his main character to max level before Cata, and just recently he met that goal. You've never seen such a string of congratulations in our thread for someone dinging 80. :D
Alzheimer's, especially EOAD, is one of the scariest things I can imagine happening to me. Bill is my example for how to live with such a terrifying condition: he does it with grace, strength, and--above all--humor.