I had originally planned to write about all kinds of productive stuff, like the guides I've been putting together for raids or my recently discovered love for my Warlock or something else that is good, but the last week has been just difficult in game. And I should probably not post this but I keep going over it in my head so I don't want to sit on it and hope that writing about it in public will help me sort it out.
This kind of emotion only comes up when we talk about our Guilds of course, and that's what I'm going on about. Our raids are doing well and I'm very happy with them. I love my raid team, I love the people who show up week after week, we have a great time talking and killing bosses, Tuesday and Wednesday nights are fantastic. But then, the guild just dies.
Most of the rest of the week, barely anyone logs in and there is little of that banter and friendship that I crave in the game.
Part of the problem is that a few members are just in the guild to raid - that is, they have their other guilds and log out on Wednesday and I don't see them again until the next week. Part of the problem is that we don't really have socials in the guild - we formed it as a small core of raiders and we never really expanded beyond it as we knew that we couldn't offer more to people so we never tried.
But whatever the problem actually is, I wind up logging in more often now than last year due to having a baby which has curtailed my social-out-of-house-time quite a bit, and I kind of want to hang out with friends when I'm online. I crave that social aspect of the game that bigger guilds have with a lot of socials and people online all the time.
I know that our current guild can't support that. Thistle, our GM, and I are running the whole show, and have no support from other officers (not that there are other officers), so we can't really do much more than really focus on the raids and then we're done.
Sometimes I do wish I could take a step back, and just be Paladin number 27B5 in a large raid or guild and not worry about building teams, planning progression and so forth, and enjoy my time with a larger community - but there is no way I can justify leaving my current guild. I have worked super hard to keep it together, and progressing, and I don't want to give up on it.
On the other hand, I don't think I'm getting what I want out of the game socially in my guild. I've thought about moving an alt into another guild or something but I do have this crazy voice in my head that freaks out when I'm not playing in my guild or contributing Guild-XP.
And on some crazy seventh hand (we're up to that many caveats and options by now) I am deeply, deeply in love with the end-game - whether Arena or Raiding, and when I'm on an alt and play it for any amount of time (say, 2 hours) I immediately start working to accumulate honor and justice without even realizing it.
I've talked to a couple of people, and what I hear is that if you're not already in a friendly, social, large guild that has an end-game segment within it, it's super-hard to get in, and most other folks are in non-social, small raiding guilds. So I don't know if the WoW I used to know where lots of friends were in guilds, we raided and did stuff together all the time, and really saw each-other more often we saw our RL friends.
So I don't know what to do, really. Except not log in during non-raid-nights and do something else instead, or find another game to play on those nights, because I really crave gaming and socializing at the same time and I really, really miss it in WoW these days.
I like the new look. As for the "guild is so empty" syndrome, I definitely feel you. I've had a few folks openly admit to me that they don't like this tier of raiding and are really only playing for the guild. I realized I was part of the problem - not logging in on off-nights and playing other-server alts. I've made a concerted effort to be online a lot more and it seems to be helping. In your case, it sounds like you are already doing that and it wouldn't necessarily help. I almost worry that there is something wrong with this expansion, because I didn't see this in Wrath at all! Some people are leveling alts, but the interest in many cases just isn't there outside of raid times and I'm not sure why. I wish I had a better answer for you. :( It was easier in RP guilds where the purpose WAS largely to socialize!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Vid. I kind of hated the old look. I'm not the biggest fan of this either, but it's worlds better at least.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm glad I'm not alone in this feeling of guild malaise - that sounds pretty brutal, where people are only logging in to keep raids going. I actually quite like the 3 raids, I enjoy hopping around them, the different style settings are good and offer a variety that's refreshing.
Idunno. This expansion definitely feels a lot weirder than the last one. Maybe we just need a new continent every time. :-/
I'm crossing my fingers for GOATS IN SPACE for the next one. Hopefully we find out in October. :D
Wow, I totally know what you mean about guild emptiness. I log a lot of time on alts grinding away at guild XP, and most often I'm almost completely alone. I just figure it goes with being a small raiding guild (and of folks with families and demanding RL commitments too) - we don't really bring in more people than we can take to raids, so we don't have the drama of folks sitting on the sidelines and missing out on the action, but it means there just aren't a lot of folks around just being social, either.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I can really think of for more socializing (other than joining a larger guild with alt, which you already problematized for good reasons) is a joint chat channel for your guild and out-of-guild friends. Like those folks you have that have characters in other guilds but raid in yours - you could maintain a line of communication with them when they're on other characters during the rest of the week. Not that chat channels are without their flaws (or drama), and it's certainly not the same as being able to pull up the guild frame and see where folks are, their alt's level, and enjoying that achievement spam. But it might help with the empty feelings. :)
Hi there! I followed a link here via your comment on Vidyala's blog. I saw that you've rolled on alt on Argent Dawn-US, so I'd like to extend an offer of housing your AD toon in my guild, Scions of the Horde. The Scions have been a RP guild since vanilla, but we expanded to raiding 10 mans before Wrath came out. Because we RP, raid and socialize OOC, and have people who play at all hours, we rarely feel empty.
ReplyDeleteI don't have my own blog up and running yet, but my guild's site is WoW-Scions.com .
Please contact Bimini there if you're interested. Thanks!
That's a good idea, Lal, and something I've thought about often! It might be a good idea to do so with the two guilds we often "cross-pollinate" with so that we can all draw from there to help with dungeons, PvP, raids, etc.
ReplyDeleteBimini - thanks so much, that sounds like a really generous offer - next time I get a chance to play on AD, I'll send you a whisper. :-)
Ohmigosh! I had no idea until revisiting this blog just now that you're the same Saif who wrote Entombed. That's so awesome! IN reply to your in-game note, I would be most honored to have a recognized writer in my guild, even just as an alt. I was just thinking how much I'd like to focus on getting more writer-type people into the guild to help inspire our RP.
ReplyDeletePlease visit my guild's site at http://trollpact.4.forumer.com/
and register using the name of the toon with which you'd like to join. I will then send you our guild application. It's only a few questions, and I would skip it entirely in your case; but I am not the GL and must still follow due process. I look forward to speaking with you in the future!
For the Horde! *tusky grins*
This is Bimini, by the way. ;)
ReplyDelete