Primal sigh

[Arakni Spellweaver]

This is slightly tradeskill related and mostly not... I'm not sure really that anyone would really care but I have to vent somewhere and I think at least one other person here has gone through this so if nothing else, it helps to know that people understand.

I left my guild yesterday ... no meltdown, no huge blowout, more of a whimper than a bang sort of thing. I'd been a member of my guild since 2001 and had been an officer almost as long. We started out as a small family guild, but as so many of them do, we evolved over time into a raiding guild. This would be no problem, except that of course this attracted people who were in it for the loot only, wanted the quickest route to their epic (most raiding guilds on my server won't do epics anymore), the quickest route to learning how to raid, and used the guild to gain these things then moved onto bigger and better pastures as soon as they could.

I know these things happen, I know that this is the normal evolution of things, but it still bums me out. We weren't even a very *good* raiding guild. I hate raiding, but I'm not sure if I *really* hate raiding, because I've never been on one that worked well - that started on time, that didn't get wiped at least once, that didn't cause me to have a bad evening. We went from having people that thought it was cool that I was a tradeskiller to people who said things like, "UR dum, every1 nos ts arent worth ne thing". People only really needed me around to guild alts - I was too low for anything at 47, and the longest time from login til a tell to "pls guild my alt" was a record 10 minutes. I won't even get into the drama that would unfold every two weeks or so ...

I knew it was time to leave when I was happier running around /anon with guild chat turned off. RL called then anyways so I quit, figuring I'd never be back to EQ so it didn't matter anyways.

Unfortunately for me, I live in the north and don't like winter sports, so I'm back playing EQ . I played on my alt server for a week or so, then decided to log Arakni back in just for kicks. I looked around my guild, looked at who was in it, realized that just about all of the people I liked had long since left, looked at the behavior of who was left and decided I didn't want to be associated with any of this anymore. So, I deguilded her and all of my alts.

So now it is time for a fresh start. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but I'm pretty darn sure that I'm going to be unguilded for quite awhile. And I am ok with that... I'm just sad because I miss what the guild was, what it could have been, and most of all, the feeling of friendship and camraderie that we used to have.

Even more than that I think I just miss the people I liked, most of whom have long since server moved or quit the game.

Anyways thanks for listening. I'll go back to lurking now.

[eniamn]

hehe come to luclin. new peeps to see. i love my guild. all close and no drama. eq is for relaxing. eq should not give me an anurism. its good that you realizaed your weren't having fun. i wish you look in your guild hunt.

[Sanna]

/vote Tarew Marr. We need to start a branch of "Sanctus Lumen, the Stable Guild for Unstable People" there. ^_^



many /hugs for what you've been through. I generally try to avoid statements like 'i know what you're going through', but the guild that I started EQ to join was a family-raiding guild that died first in a huge bang in August, then in a painful whimper in December. Losing what you know always hurts.


Just as a random observation... the tradeskill community seems to have less conflicts than any other form of organization in EQ... or am I just seeing selectively and being too general and too kind?

-- Sanna

[Silverfish]

Don't Despair

I understand how you feel. My guild has changed significantly as well, as all guilds do. Fortunately for me, my guild changed in a way I enjoy, but it's not what it used to be, and it's nowhere near as tradeskill- or family-oriented as it was. Be patient, and try joining some of the "new guild" shouts. You probably won't like most of the guilds you join, but you'll meet a lot of people and very possibly build a group of friends to rival what you had.

Silverfish

[Dunthor Warsmith]

Guild change is painful, but it seems inevitable. My guild has gone through a lot of bad times and fundamental membership shifts, and its been quite saddening process to witness. It seems inevitable that EQ guilds will morph and mutate as time passes, and its unforunate that your once-family guild became a creature that was more of a burden/attacking creature toward you than the home it once was. Despite the many twists and turns my guild's been through, we've never gone down that particular evil road, for me at least, and I truly hope we never do. I'd say that's probably the hardest person-guild conflict to realistically overcome and mend

Originally posted by Sanna
Just as a random observation... the tradeskill community seems to have less conflicts than any other form of organization in EQ... or am I just seeing selectively and being too general and too kind?

From what I've heard about "Denmother's Children" early on Stromm, miscellaneous encounters of my own, and other fun stories, I'm guessing its more that the "good" aspects of the tradeskill community are far louder than the negatives, at least in the circles many of the EQTCMB (& unrelated channel) people frequent, but that there are still a plethora of conflicting drama-producing people ready to strike when the opportunity presents itself. I'll grant that it seems to be a rather unique setup, where the "good" is generally louder than the "negative", though.