Last week I joined a guild after running with a fellow DK.
After spending some time in the guild it did seem pretty helpful so I invited
Azmim to join as well. I’m a big fan of giving folks the benefit of the doubt,
but as I’m finding, if you want anything done right, do it yourself…
For the most part over the last week the guild I’d joined
was pretty quiet. Very few members were logged on, and those that were had the
nose to the grind stone. As I was following suit I didn’t think much of this.
Geistig went from 62 to 65 over the course of the week. I halted leveling over
the weekend and as promised helped Azmim. While my goal of the weekend was to
help Azmim and mine while we quested, Azmim wanted to reach level 35 (which
she’d been working on over the course of the week) so that she could boost her
professions to the Artisan level.
Over the course of the weekend I began to have nagging
doubts about membership in the guild. I noticed that of the Death Knights on
last weekend, those that logged on this weekend were still on Hellfire Plateau.
Evidently they were working on obtaining the weapon Hellreaver that drops in the
Hellfire Citadel. Since they’ve chosen single wield this made sense. I had moved
on to Nagrand in an effort to complete quests that could complete solo, but
would offer significantly greater experience points and hence help me level
more swiftly. I’d also worked hard enough on leveling over the course of the
week that I felt taking a break to help out Azmim would be a fun and guilt free
experience.
On Saturday before helping Azmim I was asked if I’d like to
join in on an all guild Hellfire Citadel run. I agreed and was summoned to
Hellfire Citadel. It seemed like it would be an opportunity to meet a high
level member of the guild and to help out some guildies. While we cleared the
instance while only suffering the loss of two of us to the Dragon’s fire at the
end of the instance, there seemed to be some things about the run that did not
sit right with me.
First off, we had 3 Death Knights, but a Mage was acting as
the tank. Yes the Mage had almost hit level 80, but it still seemed odd. First
a DK should have been the designated tank or have the DK’s switch off as tank
from one boss to the next through the instance (if nothing else for practice).
I’d thought about mentioning this several times, but I’d decided to just ride
out the instance to see just what was happening. Second, even though the Mage
is almost at the current level cap it still seemed odd that the other DK’s did
not try to take aggro off the Mage. Granted it’s hard to get aggro after the
Mage has made the pull especially when the Mage’s DPS is higher. If nothing
else it’s just good practice to try to stand between the mobs and the cloth
wearing classes if you’re covered in plate armor.
The two accompanying DK’s were disappointed that Hellreaver did not drop. One of
the DK’s became pretty vocal about it, even threatening to stab the other DK. I
could understand being angry if another player gets the item you’re both hoping
for, but what exactly is the point of threatening someone over a weapon that
didn’t drop? The cranky DK wasn’t even asked to take his tirade out of guild
chat, and for the most part the party even used guild chat as opposed to party
chat throughout the course of the instance, so everyone had a chance to read
everything.
I also noticed that Azmim was for the most part ignored by
the rest of the guild and that there were no other players at her level logging
on. I was kind of disappointed by this because I’d hoped that I’d found a guild
that Azmim could participate in as well. Also I hoped that Azmim be able to
partner up with other players when I was offline.
Pretty much the last straw for me came later when new
members to the guild were promoted a rank above mine. Honestly I’m positive
that this was just an oversight as the promoting office had over promoted and
then demoted the new members in the same session. I know you’re thinking ‘hell
hath no fury’, right? Well you know I was actually more disappointed than
anything else. To me this was an example of a social guild that’s just run with
minimal rules and without a lot of oversight. To me it just seemed very
unprofessional.
I’d like to think that guilds should be helpful to their members.
I’d also like to think that guilds should be objective and consistent in
rewarding its members. I’d also like to think that guilds would be willing to
step in to let players know when their behavior is disrespectful and or just makes
them look like a jackass. Also even lower level players that are new to the
guild shouldn’t be ignored. To me, a guild is more than just a separate bank
and another chat channel to spam. I’d like to see a guild that’s helpful to all
of its members, with players who are serious about playing the game, and who
like to have fun with other players. I’m pretty sure that all of these players
on the Uldum server are already in a good guild, but I’m willing to go out on a
limb and start a new guild anyway.
At least until I can
convince myself to leave Uldum, I’m going to try to play on the server and hope
that there are other players that see things the same way I do. Azmim and I
dropped the guild last night and picked up a guild charter. I was not
confidently recruiting last night as I was still processing the day’s events. I’m
just left under the impression that to be a member of the kind of guild I’d
like to be in, I’d have to help it get started.
I’m sure there are guilds out there with the same ideas that
I have, but I haven’t really run into them on my server yet. At least I haven’t
run into guilds with active players. I know they exist on other servers and it
would be nice to see them on Uldum as well. I’ve been reluctant to leave Uldum
as my highest level character is based there and I have real life friends who
play there. But since I’m so far behind my friends, even before the new
expansion, I’ve been playing mostly alone. This has given me a pretty good
opportunity to get to know the Uldum player base. I know there are fun players
there and that these players are overshadowed by the more annoying ones, I’d
just like to spend more time around those players. Well fingers crossed. And
for anyone playing on Uldum looking for a guild to call home, send me a tell.
