Monthly Archives: June 2006

Carved Out of Wood

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Previously … I blew up a dying guild alliance with an offhand remark and so began the race to complete content before our former allies.

We avidly recruited, shoring up holes in our raid roster. We added a fourth raiding night. We raided well beyond our abilities at times. A green/blue equipped guild raiding Onyxia with only 28 players is .. not easy. We persevered. We failed. We won. We looted. We sharded.

The race to finish Molten Core content and move into Blackwing Lair was back and forth for a few weeks. Ultimately, they won that battle. They downed Ragnaros first.

They played around with Razorgore for two weeks while we earned our chops on Rag. TwatGuild decided to take (yet another) two week break from raiding to let their people … I dunno, rest or something, rather than have Razorgore rip apart their guild as he’s done to many others before.

From time to time, our guild has suggested raiding breaks, but I, personally, am very anti-raid breaks. Rust never sleeps, yanno. And good thing we didn’t. We downed Razorgore while they were vacationing in Upper Blackrock Spire or somewhere, who knows.

Let the Living Well begin! We dropped Vaelastrasz the next week, and the other BWL bosses in rapid succession. They’re back to messing around with the drakes, last I heard, after TwatGuild Rebuild #5.

While we were gloating in /gu and Ventrilo the other week, it got me to thinking: what a difference a year can make. Then, we were an allied little raiding guild, dependent in many ways on our allies and they on us. Now, we are the smallest endgame raiding guild on our server, still just a bunch of scrubs, only mere weeks behind the top dogs. That could change in Naxxlerammahamma — we’ll see.

We built this guild on next to nothing: a few warriors worth a shit, a core of superlative healers, a raid leader that would not (and still does not) ever give up and a roster of 50-ish determined, dedicated raiders. We are carved out of wood.

One of the pitfalls in running an endgame guild is redoing old content for newer members. To a certain extent, it must be done. Too much of it, and the veterans (read: The Equipment) burn out or look for greener pastures. How to remain accessible to new applicants, yet not backslide into a farm team for another endgame guild. That old chestnut.

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Wads of Cookie Dough

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It was a little more than a year ago that the gaming buds and I turned around in World of Warcraft, and there was nowhere left to go.

So, we did what many have done and many will do … we looked into the raiding guilds. It was an easy thing to do, back then, there was only two on our server — both lousy with players on our /ignore lists. (To be fair, we were on their /ignore lists as well.) At any rate, that was a no-way/no-how type situation.

Instead, we found a little raiding guild that was just beginning to work through the Molten Core content with an allied little raiding guild. And it was good. For about a month.

Fast forward about a month and we finally make the call, privately with our clique-ish selves: wtf, our little raiding guild is just a bunch of twats. And I mean that in every sense of the word.

Simultaneously, our little raiding guild alliance had some tension going down … minor power struggles, if you will, similar to sibling rivalry: every little thing has to be split exactly down the center or there’s drama bullshit.

Add our growing dissatisfaction with close twat contact every night to tense interguild relations and the sum was … we started spending most of our off-raid game time with the allied guild. A week or two passed, and we approached the allied little raiding guild about jumping ship. They agreed on the condition that we discuss it fully with the twats.

We discussed, they weren’t happy. We discussed more, they grudgingly agreed to be adult about it. Or maybe it was the adults agreed to it. (I think the latter.)

Cue the best guild goodbye I have ever pulled off — the best part, I typed this, coincidentally, just as they had invited a new warrior into the guild: /gu Alright, that’s it for us. You’ve been great. We’re headed to AlliedLittleGuild. Goodnight everybody and see you in MC tomorrow!

We all /gquit simultaneously and accepted the new tag. Showmanship. We hit that high note and walked off.

There was a few more weeks of tension between the two little raiding guilds and then, one night in Molten Core, I single-handedly blew the alliance into bits. Actually, I didn’t mean to blow it up … let’s just say that I stirred the pot a little and it blew.

Briefly, the twats were fucking around with the DKP system, to their benefit of course. They asked a select few if we minded. (Do ya MIND??) Fuck ya, we mind. Stop fucking around with the DKP system, they were told, in no uncertain terms. They did anyways. So, on that one night in Molten Core, I made an offhand remark — something like: don’t bother spending DKP on that stuff, we can farm it for free on our own like TwatGuild does.

Well, apparently, AlliedLittleGuild was largely unaware of the twat shenanigans and all Hell broketh loose. In Ventrilo. It was loud. Even I was surprised by the reaction.

The next day, the two guildleaders decided to part ways and that was that.

We went through a rough period where some of our guys went to TwatGuild and some of theirs (non-twats, thankyouverymuch) joined us. Also, people were kinda ticked off at me for a few days. Understood. I behaved myself for a good month after that — cleaned up the language, kept my boots shined, tabard tucked in, all that.

After the shakeout, we entered the Industrial Age and began to raid in earnest. They, who were once our allies, were now our arch rivals. And y’know how they say the best revenge is living well? We were determined to live well.

Tomorrow … the gripping conclusion and a comparison of our applicant requirements then and now. (Yes, this whole story has a point.)