Hello Guild Drama, my old friend …

I recently logged into my guild’s forums after a hiatus and what did I find? Guild Drama. Lots of it, actually. One topic in particular caught my attention. Most of this particular drama stemmed from emotional rants of people jumping on one word or one sentence of someone’s post and ignoring the overall point the OP was trying to get across. I typically do not post these type of things but this incident has me befuddled, surprised and a little grumpy.

One member has a hard time getting groups in guild and lists 5 reasons he thinks it may be the case, all of which in my eyes are valid and reasonable. One of those 5 reasons is people being in a “clique”. Over the course of the discussion, members of guild “cliques” enter into the fray and change the tone dramatically. The OP was just asking for advice on how to get more groups and help from the guild, but in my eyes not speaking disparagingly about groups of friends within the guild. I saw no finger pointing or blaming of specific people taking place. He even asked others not to get angry. He said he wanted civility. Unfortunately, it did not turn out that way. 4 pages of people jumping all over each other for a variety of reasons. Wow.

Now, with getting into too much detail, I will say that some of the OP’s reasoning for not getting groups were what I would consider unreasonable. Others have his same “issues” and are either content to solo, suck it up and make something happen with PUGs or quit the game. But the overall point the OP made is something that I can relate to and I feel is worth discussing. Truth is, when I was playing more regularly I actually stopped asking for help in guild chat all together. It was just too rare of an occurrence for me to get any guild group that I would go straight to level chat to find my help. I am very aware of the specific reasons why getting groups was difficult for me, the main one being my starting play time of 9pm MST. Others are typically already into the evening’s activities by that point.  And I suppose that is the difference between the OP and myself : I expect all this challenge in finding a group. It sucks, no doubt, but I still expect it. It was the same reason I stopped expecting to be slotted from standby on a raid. It just never really materialized. *Exception*

But I guess I am just not sure why various people have become so overly sensitive to being in a clique (aka group of friends) that responses to what I thought was a fairly non-threatening question came off so heated. OK, so you play with the same people every night, great for you! Your reasons for not assisting are valid – you are already busy doing something in a group! However, this does not change the fact that there are people around who genuinely need help and would prefer to find a guild group instead of taking the chance of having a 1:45 hour Scion run. And trying to find that guild group can be painstaking at times. Is it your personal problem? No! Do you need to drop everything and help a complete stranger? No! Maybe the initial post was not directed at you or your team. Maybe it was directed at people like me. Or someone else entirely. Consider it something just to be aware of, even if you never do anything about it. Perhaps you will be in a position to assist some night, great! It is all just part of being in a guild. 

Of coursecasual players cannot expect to be geared or have all their Masters like others who play nightly and with a steady group. That would be ridiculous. But I do think it would be great if there was a little more guildy assistance now and then. In all honesty, the issue really does exist.

 

Disclaimer: Everyone still appears friendly with each other in the guild – this incident doesn’t represents a major fracture. Really, this is a typical forum spat within a typical guild who have normal people playing a game that forces human interaction. It is nothing new or unique and this kind of discussion keeps cycling back around all the time. I personally just needed to vent since this is an issue I too have dealt with on and off, and in more than 1 guild I should add. I am also quite cognisant that I have made a lot of assumptions here. Frankly, I do not know if there was some direct incident, comment or conversation that prompted the post. There very well could have been. But still, the vitriol and venom expressed recently really makes me scratch my head. I have to think there must be something else going on because frankly I just didn’t think it was called for.

~ by Shmooove on August 13, 2009.