Dating Other Guilds

I’m going to devote this blogrant to whining about my relationship . . . with my guild. But first, just because this throwback turn-of-the-century style editorial rocked my socks, here’s a tale about a worse relationship: Roman Polanski’s.

So anyway, my guild doesn’t understand me and I want to start dating other guilds. Most of the guildies I really liked have either transferred or quit the game, or plan to soon. In their place are a bunch of wannabe leaders who all seem to follow the same pattern of appearing, dispensing tons of unwanted advice gleaned from hours of website-studying, then getting keylogged and (if I’m lucky) vanishing for good. And while the guildchat assaults by that girl who took over her ex’s account and likes to spam “/lick” emotes and that drunken pinhead in Oklahoma who likes to fill the text window with all caps discussions about whether everyone likes and/or misses him have dwindled a bit, what’s left isn’t really encouraging. At one time, we could talk about news, politics, history and science, music and movies, and video games. Now, it’s mainly guys doing locker room talk and spamming catchphrases like “that’s what she said!” like demented robo-parrots with short-circuiting motherboards.

There are occasional bright spots on the horizon. Last night a female guildie led a 10 raid, I overcame my disgust for 10s just to see how she’d do, and she turned out to do an awesome job, quick and businesslike and minus the thirty minutes of trash talking and in-depth gear discussions pertaining to three people in the raid between pulls and similar BS.

But last night I got my 4/5 T9 (with the trophies), and I didn’t even boast. Or even tell anyone. Or even go out to attack things to see if I noticed an improvement. I logged and worked on my hunter, who is going to be one of my emissaries to other servers as I search for a better guild in a month or so.

(Because, you know, there’s a new raid in the next patch, and I still have 2000 dkp points.)

I did go to Orgimmar to jewel-encrust my new outfit, where I got all kinds of rude emotes from some rogue from the formerly-number-one guild who was almost as geared, and some encouragement from some toon with a scientology-jargon name.

Welcome to the top of the meritocracy. You worked hard, and here’s your reward: disdain, guild drama and alienation from your less-elite buddies as well as your alleged peers. If anything, WoW has made me more liberal, because most of my libertarian leanings seem to have washed away with trade chat. A meritocracy is a world where your friends either can’t keep up or have already accelerated past, and your peers all want to stick a knife in your back, and paramount in everyone’s mind is “this isn’t fair, I want more stuff!” And you’re never really free to run as fast as you actually can, due to all kinds of interdependency concerns, and the old crabs-climbing-over-each-other-in-a-bucket, the-tallest-flowers-get picked-first, whatever-metaphor-you-like, situation where your victory just inspires people to top that, until you’re locked in a virtual rat race that nobody can ever win.

However, I’m still insane enough to think I can find The Right Virtual Environment For Me. A bunch of people who do raids, not necessarily every night, but regularly, and well. Somewhere between maniacally pushing progression to “within minutes of release” and half-pugged, listless backhands at months-old content. A place where there are people at approximately my level of skill and commitment, and if they have abrasive personalities, they keep them under wraps until they log out. And, at the risk of sounding like the blue state elitist I am, if this group doesn’t feature a bunch of provincial rednecks whining about gay people or being dumbfounded when females lead raids or play tanks (see my current guild), I’ll be really happy.

(To be honest, and without revealing more subtext than I intend, the gay joking in my guild is usually benign, consisting of straight guys kidding each other about “dude, you left your pants at my house again” as if they were part of, um, a circle of gay guys who are all doing each other. Due to my San Franciscan ear for jargon, I believe some of the guys really are enjoying this particular fantasy from a gay and closeted perspective, and it’s pretty apparent that some of the other guys would need a couple of sensitivity-training anvils dropped on their heads before realizing that hating on the gays is not a natural and universal thing (which is why I get a kick out of the closet cases’ pretend-flirting with them). Plus, there are a few gaymers who are out to me, but not to the general public. And further, I roll my eyes more at the antics of straight guildies who feel the need to broadcast their heterosexuality with every sentence, which is sort of common in virtual reality, for noobs anyway. Still, I’ve got these persistent fantasies about guilds that aren’t dominated by sexually unsatisfied loudmouths – because sex is a wonderful thing when shared with people you want to have sex with, but when it’s nonconsensual, it’s creepy and gross and illegal (see Polanski link above). I can dream.)

So anyway, I have a vague idea of what I want. Now as far as finding it . . .

There is guild recruitment. This is sort of like looking for a job, complete with interviews and resumes. It takes place either in the official forums or on websites that seem like they’re never updated.

There is sub rosa recruiting, which is done through facebook and similar networks. I’ve looked into that a little, but couldn’t find many 1st-gen friends who are playing at the level where I want to be. I frequently run into “ooooh, there’s whatshername that I used to hang out with back when” on the internet and discovered they play WoW. In fact, that’s the dilemma I faced when starting – begin fresh in a place where nobody knows me, or get carried by friends (and alienating some friends by choosing others) so that I totally miss that “learning at my own pace” experience. I chose the first and succeeded with flying colors – I’m no longer in the top 10 geared on my server, but I’m still sort of near the top, and achieved that without using the /lick emote even once. I’m on a backwater server in a guild hovering somewhere around rank 4200, but even given that, I’ve gone farther than a lot of players. That should account for something, especially once Blizzard starts handing out bonuses to guilds with members who accomplish things.

There is the practice of just appearing on a server and socializing. This is what I’m probably aiming for, with my hunter going out to scout new places before I invest in transferring more of my toons there.

And there’s option (d) – just be a casual player for a while, and maybe get back to work writing, or find something RL productive to do. I’m giving this one some serious consideration too, which is probably why I haven’t dived into joining a new guild and agreeing to be in my chair clicking and typing at designated times. Especially given the fact Blizzard has given us more options for moving around and changing sides.

Anyway, when the expansion comes out, I hope to have found a solid crew of people who don’t get on my nerves to play it with, and I’ll keep updating my progress in that regard.