The World Once Lived (Part II)

So I got guilded. I had this extra line under my name that said <Tempést>. A guild brings a sense of belonging and for me I immediately told the Guild Manager (GM) that I wanted to help the guild achieve its goals. That would have sounded retarded as I was L44 and the rest had cleared MC, BWL and had hit Nax or were doing PVP.

I didn’t know how I got in until much later when I was told Joel’s cousin had asked to bring me onboard. The grind continued to L70 and in between I saw others running TBC instances and then Karazhan. To get all the preraid gear I needed, I did heroic mech EVERY night for the shield, sword, chest, ranged weapon, etc.

Just as I was ready for raid. Ready to FINALLY be part of the guild’s setup, Tempést fell apart. You see, a guild injects an insane amount of human emotions and reactions into the game. Politics form, favouritism and splinter sections form quickly. There were basically 3 camps, the ang mohs, the pinoys and the rest. Now the ang mohs are nice people. They are accommodating, friendly, but not insanely skilled. The pinoys were insanely skilled and friendly on the outside. But I soon came to know that they had a SHIT LOAD of politics going on. A doesn’t like B, so A gathers his friends and boycotts whatever B is doing. A also doesn’t like C and B hates C as well, so they grudgingly gang up and irritate C. While that happens, A and B find ways to silently cause trouble for each other’s camps. All in the same guild.

On top of that, my GM was (maybe still is) a psycho. It’s a she and she “mind-f***s” people causing further division and political mayhem.

/sigh

You can imagine how shocked I was when I became more involved and thus was shown privy into the darker side of the guild.

So finally, it snapped.

The pinoys left and the guild felt friendlier. But we lost a good 20 players and had trouble filling for content. On top of that, the psycho GM stopped turning up for raids. But being the **t** she was, she promoted me to officer and main tank before she disappeared.

A small recap, this officer and new main tank had never raided anything past the first 5 bosses in Karazhan (which is blindfolded easy mode).

Worst of all, people started asking me if raids were going to happen and (wtf) my plans for the guild. (“Er, hi, you guys have been in this guild for a year longer than I have been”) It got to a point I told myself I had to pull the shit together and get things started. Get people moving, get raids flowing and get some killin’.

This is where my raiding life began (and the real one stopped).

First raid as leader, I brought the guild into Maulgar and at that point in time. Maulgar was a hard ass boss. Only about 4 guilds on my server could down him. And here we are. I’m an ass at details. I like to micro-manage every single thing and keep a close watch (I come from a RTS background) on, well, everything.

So before we tried the boss, I literrally gave as complete instructions I could, going down the line with what each class was expected to do, positioning (this is what makes it hard formerly), roles, etc.

Downed him in 2 tries and the guild got high. And so we rolled on.

And the psycho appeared again. And this time she went beyond her normal boundaries of insanity. She began to start fights in the officer chat channel. She was Adelwine and “was” is the right word cause she’s gone and rightly so. She tried holding the guild ransom by removing all officer rights. Then she disappeared leaving our hands tied.

“Adelwine, WTF were you trying to do to us when we finally got your butt cleaned and the guild moving.”

So unanimously, all officers and the guild left her. Tempest became Genesis. Adelwine logged in to find herself the only one left in the guild. She left her character soon after. IMHO, she needs to think about what she had done.

Genesis began like a machine. We tore through new content, toppling bosses and progressing really fast. We soon matched the pinoys who left and started earlier than us. But all good things come to an end. School exam came and we lost half the guild. We stalled.

Stalling is a big no-no in raiding. Raiders live and breathe on new content. The moment it is abruptly halted, they begin looking elsewhere to quench their never ending lust for new blood. The first stall caused 3 months of damage. Guildies took turns to have breaks and we had massive problems trying to move the guild. But we toiled on and pushed through a few more.

Jan ’08 came and I had to stop raiding due to my grandmother being in the advanced stages of cancer. “F*** la Dave. Now our healers are back and you go. Who is going to raid lead and main tank?” I had no choice. It was a move that would later cause massive problems to Genesis.

I left my main tanking and raid leading roles to two different players hailing from America. They were enthuiastic at first. But when the pressure came, they started to whittle. Now you would think that a game (read again, the word is GAME) would not create any pressure of such measure. But yet again, you’re dealing with people. In every raid, you are commanding 24 others besides you and they have to perform to perfection for everyone to progress. One idiot arises and 24 gets stopped. If you don’t kill off that idiot fast, the rest will soon take the path of retardation. Sounds elitiest, but ask every seasoned raider in WoW and they’ll tell you the same.

When I got back to raiding some where around March, half the guild was changed. My old core I worked with had left the server and I found more than half our raiders incompetent. Loyalty was my downfall. As an officer, I stayed on to try repair the damage. So the two leading Americans left and formed their own guild.

This guild drama is getting tiresome ain’t it?

Fast forward, Aug ’08. Genesis hit its first anniversary as a guild. We did well overall but were more or less a spent force. At this time, we decided after much discussion to merge with Merveilles to hit the final raids of the game. The massive manpower issue both guild had were solved. I found really competent players to play with and we blasted through BT / MH.

There’s no happy ending. WoTLK was on the horizon and people start slackening in their desire to play at high levels. Some started going down the aforementioned path of retardation.

At this point, after being a leading member of all three guilds and finding out what an online guild experience was like, I hung up my shield and mace. Rode my bear mount to the very spot I started off as L1 and bidded goodbye to…

The world I once lived in.

(It was a blast but after 2 years in the game, it was time to move on. There are people who deserve special mention but that’ll be for Part III)