Does (or Does Not?) Play Well With Others

A while back, I wrote about my first real guild – Lords of the Underworld – the guild, in fact, which I’m still in.  I’ve seen a few guilds come and go around me (R.I.P. Origins of Death, Hello Faded Divinity), but I’m still here in Lords.  Recently, I left Fallout and brought Arhys back to Lords as there was some tension that was being generated over multi-guilded players and the consideration they would receive versus those players who showed 100% dedication to Fallout, and as I stated before, Lords is my guild first.

So, Arhys is back in Lords.

Again – what’s in a Guild Name?  Speaking from the place, now, of being in multiple guilds, and being actively sought out by other guilds and declining, even though I ran with them, at the time, more than my actual guilds…  I can see how that Guild Name can cause tension.

I think a lot of people see the guild as more than just a group of players who come together for a common purpose.  They’re family, friends, and comrades-in-arms, all trying to have fun and play this game, we call World of Warcraft. 

But as you add more and more people to a group, common purpose evolves and sometimes things don’t always go smoothly.

Take Arhys’ departure from Fallout, for example.  I left because the Guild Master there came right out and said he wanted 100% dedication to his guild and that he was going to give priority to those who are 100% dedicated to Fallout. 

Is he wrong for doing that?  I don’t necessarily think so, since his primary concern as Guild Master should be Fallout.  He owes that to the members of Fallout, so to speak.

Did he wrong me by saying that?  I think he did to some degree.  When I joined Fallout, they were having trouble getting 10 people together for raiding, I was scheduling my day’s activities, including work, to make early raid times, and I was diligent in trying to make every raid I could, and in improving my playing ability and gear, for the success of OUR (Fallout‘s) raids.  To get told “your contribution isn’t enough anymore, since you’re starting to do things with Lords and that’s getting in the way of Fallout‘s activities, so you’re getting prioritized lower” is not something I wanted to stay for.  I felt that Fallout‘s stance was being changed, now that Fallout has enough people to run 10-man content without those of us from Lords, and they could force those of us splitting our commitments to choose, because they had enough new people to take our place, if we chose to leave rather than be ‘downgraded’.  At least, that’s what I gathered from it.

Part of the issue that led up to the split, also, was what characters were being committed to Fallout and their raids.  I’d gotten into the habit of offering up my healer, Taoren, for their raids, because we were sometimes short raid healers for the group, but he’s Lords not Fallout.  It didn’t matter before, though, since Lords wasn’t running anything independent of Fallout, but when that changed, Fallout didn’t have all of my characters available to them and the GM there was somewhat upset about that.  (I think what made things worse was that they weren’t able to bring in particular rogue who was also splitting his characters between the guilds – a Warrior in Fallout, and his Rogue in Lords, because we started running Icecrown Citadel in Lords and he was bringing the Rogue to the Lords raids.)

But was that the real cause of the tension and split between Lords and Fallout?  Before, we had been told “Lords is Fallout and Fallout is Lords.”

I think what really caused the issue was a change in common purpose in Lords.  I’m not saying this was “Lords’ fault” that things ended up the way they are, but it was the catalyst for the events which led to the inter-guild tension and Fallout‘s policy change and my subsequent departure because of it.

We, in Lords, evolved.  We decided, as a majority, that we wanted to raid.  We brought in some new talent to fill some gaps we had in our role pools – and some of these new players are much more focused on raid, driving us as a group to focus more.  We started running things regularly, committing ourselves to more than 2 days a week (Fallout‘s raiding schedule at the time) raiding, and saw success for it.  We lost a couple of our veteran non-raiders, as they felt they didn’t fit in with “the new Lords“.

Is it a bad thing that this all happened?  I’ll go out on a limb and say “No.” 

(Though I do wish we hadn’t lost two of our friends as guildies, but they’re still on the same server and are still friends…)

Why?

It’s not that running raids with Fallout wasn’t a good part of my experiences in WoW.  But right now, I have more people I would call ‘friends’ running with me.  A great friend of mine transferred to my server, and now, partly due his first (on my server) guild’s problems, he’s now raiding with me, and that’s a blast.  One of my other close friends gets to raid with us again, too, having been generally excluded from the Fallout raids since she never chose to move her character to that guild.  It’s really awesome having three close friends in the raid, instead of just one.

But, close friendships even cause problems in raids.

Why? 

Because as is human nature, I’m going to stand up for my friends first.  I’m going to try to rationalize why my friends deserve a spot in the more serious raid group, now that we’re trying to run two groups in one week.  Fortunately, there haven’t been too many times where this has been an issue, but we’re getting more people who want to raid in our guild, so it’s bound to get rockier in the future.

Despite that, I’m loyal to my friends first.  Those three that I run with will always get more from me than the other six.  Does that mean I won’t do anything for the other six?  No.  What it means is that given a choice when doing something mutually exclusive (such as giving a recommendation for a raid spot), a member of my “Three Amigos” will get my consideration before the other six.

Just like how the two couples within the other six people will give their significant other support over the others in the group first.  I expect that. It’s human nature.

Does that make them bad people?  Does that mean they don’t play well with others?

I don’t think so.

I would hope, though, that the good of the entire group and the good of my own personal relationships won’t be at odds.  So far, I’ve been lucky enough to say that it hasn’t been an issue.  Will it always stay that way?  Only time will tell.

But, to tell the truth, my friends will always come first.

Does that mean I don’t play well with others?

My 2 yen,

Akiosama

Rumors of My Death are Greatly Exaggerated… Except on Arhys!

Hello all,

For those that continue to look around here, as I can see there are a few still, I must thank you for taking time to look at this dusty ol’ place. Life has been busy, and I’ve been working and raiding so much that I haven’t taken time to write (or comment, either – I need to kick my shoes off and give Larisa a piece of my mind soon – I’m out of practice.)

I am going to try to get back to putting stuff on this page – so much interesting news is out there regarding WoW and the other things that I try to cram into my packed life.

But for a quick update:

• My mage finally hit 80.  Cherudim (Cairne – US) is now playing around with the big boys and girls, rockin’ Arcane and Frost specs and even sniffing around a little in ICC.  It’s nice to be able to just go out and blow stuff up without as much of the raid’s weight on your back, unlike healing and tanking.
• Saying that – Taoren, my original Shaman, is back and main again.  Running Resto and Elemental, he fixes stuff and breaks stuff, depending on the color of the name in the plate.  If it’s green or blue, it gets fixed.  If it’s red, it gets broken.  It’s been a fantastic run in ICC – we’re working on Wing 2, and we’re farming Wing 1 – and feeling ok doing it.
• Arhys, my Death Knight (the dead guy), is back from the dead and deader than ever, having tanked the first wing of ICC successfully.  Although he’s still undergeared, at least it’s been proven that he might have more than a snowball’s chance in Molten Core of tanking instances for the guild.
• Guilds have come, changed and gone recently.  Arhys is no longer part of Fallout, having rejoined his roots in Lords of the Underworld.   Lords of the Underworld has evolved and is now running regular 10-man content, including ICC, and are still pairing up with Fallout, currently, for 25-man content (currently ToC). 
• I also wish the best to the remnants of one of our orignal coalition guilds, Origins of Death, which, while the guild is no more, still remains the source of many of my friends on Cairne – US.  I have not gotten to run with many of my friends for a while, since we’re all doing guild-based activities, but it’s nice to say hi and chat from time to time when we’re not busy at the same time (which is rare).
• As mentioned above, Lords of the Underworld is now primarily a 10-man raiding guild.  Many thanks for making that possible must go out to our new raiding and upcoming members who are bolstering our numbers, providing for roles we were short on, and motivating us to push on in progression.  Thank you all!
• And last, many, many thanks must go out to those who have remained in Lords, working to better themselves in the quest for becoming strong enough to be a raiding guild.  My gratitude must go out to Thallya, Maupzor (aka Jonasventure), and Ebonaxe for their continued enthusiasm for the guild.  Further thanks must be given to our Guild Mistress, Bypolar (actually, our GM is Killerfrost, but that’s one of her characters, too), for trying to keep us all moving, and for having created a network on Cairne strong enough to help us evolve into a raiding guild.

I will continue to work on new material for this blog – I miss the expression dearly.  Expect to hear more about WoW, Lords of the Underworld, and other things new and interesting… (i.e. Final Fantasy XIII, Brandon Sanderson, and Brent Weeks, to name a scant few).

Hoping to be back and better than ever.

My 2 yen,

Akiosama