MMO Guilds

I have played more than a few MMORPGs in my day. One universal truth of the genre is that at some point in the game you will need a larger group to accomplish something. As picking up random people is rarely a recipie for success, this will lead you to join a guild. A "guild" might gi by another name is one game or another, but the idea is the same, a group of people with goals helping one another in said goals. Raiding usually being one of the biggest aspects of a guild. However, there are many other reason you might be in or even form a guild. Questing, group finding, trade skills, company, etc.

However not all guilds are created equal. Goods ones deal with an even hand. Bad ones generally work by having "haves" and "have nots". It should be noted. that you might be a member of a guild only to find out that the goals of the guild and yours do not line up. Some games have ways to research guilds, some do not. Here I want to talk about my worst, and best experiences with guilds.

My worst guild experience was with the first guild I was ever a part of, in the first MMORPG I ever played. The game was Everquest, the guild went by "Free Norrath". I joined because several real life friends I was playing with joined. This guild talked a lot about working together, and being more of a family than a guild. That should have been a warning sign to me, but I was new to this and maybe a little naive. Frequently there was talk of doing big events, such as raiding, and these would generally not happen. If you went on their forum to ask about what happened, you would be told "you shouldn't be complaining, we are not a serious raiding guild". Which is fine, but when you schedule and event, it is reasonable for members to expect it too happen. There was also a lot of members that expected people to drop everything to help them, but would never return such favors. Also, voicing any dissenting opinion was meet with harsh reprisals This included most of the officers. This left a very bad taste in my mouth. I eventually found a good guild by the name of "La Catena". It ended poorly, but that is a story for another day.

The best guild experience I ever had happened on World of Warcraft. It was guild named "Red Ribbon Army", which I joined only because of liking the Dragon Ball reference they were making. When I joined, I joined only to have one character with the tag on them, mostly for my own amusement. I soon found that they were all very nice people. Almost all willing to work toward goals, and have a good conversation while doing it. Events that were scheduled always happened, in one form or another. If something did get canceled it would be made known in advance. You could voice your thoughts without fear of anyone trying to stump it out. Easily the best guild I ever spent time in. It is a shame that this guild came to an end. Not because of drama in game, or real life tragedy. No it came to end due Blizzard, and their apathy toward making worthwhile content. While I don't really miss World of Warcraft, I do miss the people of the "Red Ribbon Army".

There are many other guilds I have been a member of, even a few I have been an officer in. No need to go into all of them. At the moment I am without an MMO to play, and not really looking to find one. If I do, I hope to find another good group, but that is hard.