As a Warcraft player wrote late in the discussion, this months-old thread changes people: The Haunted House of Goldshire. No drama, no dirty deals, just some good old-fashioned speculation about a creepy house and its occupants. (Furl archive of first page)
Previously, on the guild drama stage — a drama subplot, in which I’m on the periph, requires some cleanup work, allowing a previously undetected guild insurgent cell to grab some political (read: loot) power. The insurgents are thanked for their time, they smile one of those crocodile smiles and mouth words like, “sure, anything for the guild”, and order is restored, albeit temporarily.
We would have allowed the insurgents to continue running the show for a time, but big problem: they were screwing up all over the place. Raid zones that were previously very much on farm status gave us headaches and only God knows where some of the 20-man loot went … other than the obvious … into their alt characters’ pockets, so to speak.
All of this came to a head one night in Blackwing Lair. We were fresh off a TERRIBLE Ahn’Qiraj 40 run that can only be described with two words: cluster and fuck. The insurgents had “refined” (their word) our boss strats to the point that they were unrecognizable, and each one had to be discussed ad nauseum like it was our first time. Why? WHY, you ask?? I couldn’t figure it out, other than maybe we were tired of winning. Or, just as likely, the fucks couldn’t remember the prior strats because they were just phoning in the raids.
Heh, that’s a pun, because some of them are on dialup. What professionals.
Anyways, Blackwing Lair. Razorgore. (Warcraft noobs: this is the opening battle of Blackwing Lair. Nothing gets done until you get past Razor. And, I do mean nothing as he’s right at the entrance.) Again, they had a new plan to replace an age-old guild strat. Which failed. And failed. And failed. After that much fuckiness, we should have deleted our characters in shame.
The guildleader (Puppet #2) and head raidleader (Puppet #1) pulled the plug on the “Razorgore Incident”, thanked the insurgents for their time (nicely, but in no uncertain terms), and delayed the BWL clear for a couple of days — THIS TIME, with the proper personnel at the lead, we hoped. Guild life moved on.
Changing directions a bit … have you noticed that the most popular time to remove one’s characters from a guild is approximately 5 o’clock in the morning? Y’know, when no one else is online? I’ll assume this is so a big speech isn’t necessary, thereby avoiding any pesky followup questions. This has become so popular that I’m almost tempted to log on at 5:00 am and watch the changing guild tags in Ironforge.
6:00 am of a new week … birds are singing, the sun is shining, and word spreads on the guild message boards that the two head insurgents have left the guild. “Good” thinks me. Have a nice life. Away from me. Although my official response was something like, “People move on. Ain’t no big deal.” I might have added something like “good luck to them”, but that seems like a stretch for me. At any rate, I didn’t have a problem with it. Until I saw their guild applications.
Old EverQuest trick: always follow rival guilds’ application forums. Depending on your guild’s policy, you’re either going to kick out any guildies app’ing elsewhere or, at the very least, you’ll keep an eye on them. It’s just like business — employees seeking employment elsewhere need to be dealt with. Lame ducks are prone to wreaking havoc.
To be fair, the insurgents app’d to the rival guild after they guildremoved from us. That’s proper protocol and we’re all fine with that. Ripping our guild a new asshole in their apps, however, would not be considered proper protocol. Both apps read almost the same: we suck, we can’t kill jack or shit, we’re downsizing, we’re going backwards, we are falling apart, they practically HAD to leave our guild to save their characters from certain annihilation.
Ok, now I have a big problem with them. I’ll allow that us sucking could be a point of argument, but the other allegations are completely false: not downsizing, not going backwards, not falling apart, we killed jack, we killed shit. We had the “Razorgore Incident”, which was troubling, but I will add IT WAS BECAUSE OF THOSE TWO running the show. Hey. I didn’t see that little tidbit in their apps.
Returning to calm, as we’re a class guild, the guildmates are ordered not to respond on the rival guild’s forums, we’re forbidden from discussing this on the Warcraft realm forums and from sending the two fucktards tells. Privately, it’s another matter entirely, we can all speak plainly.
The guild immediately divides into two camps: the insurgent asslickers and those that have a problem with two jackasses trashing us to another guild. This might seem odd to you that there were guildmates who would lick their asses. It was odd to me as well. Seems like this sort of thing should unite a guild, rather than divide it.
Just so you understand, here’s some sample asslicking: “They did so much for the guild. Their apps don’t sound that terrible to me. I can’t believe you guys are so mean to them.” The asslicking continued on Vent when they’d ask us to stop making fun because of hurt feelings. (Fuck? I care? No, I do not. But I did cut down on the mockery, for the sake of tranquility.)
The only thing I could ever figure out was that because our guild is a class guild, the officers had shielded the members from the shenanigans, so much so that all they ever saw were the crocodile smiles and the nice “anything for the guild” words. Because, that’s exactly how the opposing camps lined up: officers, raid leaders, senior members on the one side; regular, newer members, and recruits on the other.
That’s another reason why I hate people: Some are so blind that they’ll lick asses, then call me out for not doing the same.
Nonetheless, we all agreed to disagree. I’m still not sure why some think trashing a former guild to boost one’s own appearance is acceptable, but I decided to let it go and considered that topic, much like religion and politics, off limits. I would find other comedic material to entertain the Ventrilo audience.
No one felt much like flying/swimming/running all the way to Onyxia’s Lair and we had a few newer folks that needed their upgraded books/spells from ye olde Ahn’Qiraj 20 … enter this week’s first 20-man run on the off-raid day. And queue the drama waiting in the wings.
Tomorrow … the conclusion, I think, because the week isn’t over yet.
I’m not kidding. I’m so tired of people and their baggage, I’d really like to order all my Warcraft guildmates out of the guild and I’ll just run around collecting flowers and ore and checking my game mail for sales. “Fuck all of you, get out.” I only hesitate because I know some of them won’t get out and there we’ll be, all ten of us, sitting in guildchat, staring at one another.
Let’s back up. Few weeks ago, there’s this HUGE drama problem in the guild. I’m involved peripherally. And it’s big as it involves an officer and real lives and … let’s leave it at that. (Remember, I said I was involved peripherally, so don’t send emails asking what the hell I fucked up this time. On the periph, that’s me. I was catching fallout though, hence my problem.)
The drama news broke and the guild started creaking at the seams. The guildleader (aka Puppet #2) asked me what I thought should be done about this little mess to ensure guild tranquility and, after about two minutes consideration, I ordered the assassination of one of the directly involved parties. (I mean an assassination in the guild sense … your basic /gkick.) Instead of accepting their fate gracefully, the newly unguilded started raising a ruckus … they’re gonna bring down this guild, there’ll be nothing but ashes in a few days, we’ll all be sorry, also, Foton is a prick. Whatever. Move along, asshole.
Frankly, it was largely a business equation. I weighed the guild-worth of the involved players and who could continue to work together amicably, and they were odd man out. I mean CMON, I’m not gonna boot a priest, I’m not an idiot in matters of the guild.
(Repeating a lesson from weeks prior: Do NOT fuck, or fuck with, the guild priests. Too much fallout.)
Ok. That was a few weeks ago and we fast forward to this week … The guild is recovering nicely from that little mess, although, I’m still pissed off that we had to deal with all of it. Bright side, I’m mighty proud of myself for ordering the assassination and seeing it done before my very eyes. (Power, she be intoxicating.)
In the midst of all the drama, a tiny sliver of guild powerbrokers was trying to grab some political muscle, with some minor success I will add. In hindsight, I didn’t really notice at first because I was occupied with cleanup duty, shoring up the ranks, farming raid loot so everyone’s getting paid. Y’know, doing my game job? But, live and learn, baby. Live and learn.
Once order was restored, the powerbrokers were pushed back and rebuffed. In plain language, they were trying to wrestle control of the raids, DKP and loot distribution, (the lifeblood of an endgame guild), and after a few missteps with raiding and loot distribution, they were told to back off. Their services in this regard would no longer be required, but thank you for stepping up.
They seemed fine with this. Which should have been my first clue that they really weren’t fine with this.
What should have been my second clue? You’ll have to find out tomorrow — I’ve finished my coffee.