The first guild I joined was by accident, I had no idea that people actually grouped together to help each other. I was running around Kharonos probably killing boars, when I got a random invite and accidentally pressed yes. This is about as much as I remember of this guild. My wife on the other hand found some very helpful people whilst trying to solo Chok'sul. In vanilla WoW it was not unusual to encounter group quests and for the unsuspecting, soloing these Elites was not really an option. This band of intrepid adventurers took my wife under their tutelage and later would join a guild with them. The guild leader was a teenager from Manchester who spent more time talking than playing and in particular would prey on female characters in game. In my opinion this is a dangerous ploy in a role playing game were the sex of the character was no guarantee of the sex of the player. In this case he latched onto 3 female Night Elves and was shocked to find that two the Night Elves were in fact married to each other. The guild was <Insert Guild Here> which I later joined because they all seemed to be having a lot of fun, more than I was having. My wife and I would eventually meet up for a meal with 5 members of this guild and forge a long lasting relationship with two of them.
One day I logged onto the game and found that all 5 members that we had met with were no longer in the guild or as it appeared on the Realm. After several hours of distraught searching, we found out via email that they had all taken free realm transfer to a new server. I remember at the time feeling a strange form of abandonment. My wife and I did not not want to follow our friends onto another realm if they were in fact trying to get away from us. We did in the end move to the new server but the free realm transfer was now closed and at £10 per character I felt quite aggrieved.
Guilds came and went and it all came right when I joined a guild called "Ctrl-Alt-Elite". This was the first time I felt at home in a guild. In time I would get to know or at least speak to nearly every member of the Guild. The timing was perfect, Blizzard had introduced 5 man Heroics and removed the atunement to enter Karazhan. The guild would come together for my first taste of Raiding and it was new, exciting and very tough. The bond would of course not last forever. The Guild Leader took some time out and a new Guild Leader took over. The guild leadership was changed at this point and my wife and I both ended up as Officers. This for me was the most exciting time in WoW.
After Karazhan there was a little design flaw for the small guilds who could only just manage to muster 10 people on Raid, the next 2 Raids were 25 Man only Gruul's Lair and Serpentshrine Cavern. As a guild we never quite made the journey to Zul'Aman mostly due to the shortage of gear by missing 2 raids.
Around this time the previous Guild Leader returned, and demanded to re-instated as the Guild Leader. This created friction, because everybody was happy with our new Guild Leader. Once re-instated as Guild Leader, he embarked on reign of terror. Attempting to crush everybody who opposed him and generally treating the Guild as his own personal fiefdom to do as he pleased with.
After a few weeks of this behaviour I /gquit and removed all my characters one after another. I said nothing of my reasons, I just knew I needed to get out. I was soon followed by my wife and few others. None of it was planned but just to give a placeholder and a place to meet we set up a guild, barking for signatures in Stormwing and Goldshire. Within a week we had been joined by 75% of the old guild. We never actively sort out any of our former guildies, it all happened by whispers.
The only thing I disliked about the new Guild was the Guildname, "Once More With Feeling". I might be a Buffy fan but this is the award winning episode that I could never bring myself to watch. I am not a fan of musicals and the idea of load of actors suddenly thinking they can sing , was too much to bear. The Guild name was of course a good rallying cry after a Raid wipe.
The guild would eventually witness the Real Life split up of two officers and coupled with the low number of online members in an evening would eventually lead to the demise of the Guild.
I joined a Raiding Guild and was amazed to be part of a guild with 30 active people every night all wanting to take part in Raids and rapid Turkey shoot Heroics. I discovered the advantages of a Guild that Raids with Ventrillo or Mumble and how much more organised the raids could be. The one thing I never got used too was the vile and puerile language, much of it homophobic or misogynistic. It comes to something when you want to report members of your own guild.
I am now in the guild "Knights of Ni", it is a safe place to be, the people are nice and nobody bothers you. I have been in the Guild for around 2 Years now, and I have one faithful friend who has lasted through 3 of the Guilds that I have been associated. We are are older players who help each other along and sometimes we even talk to each other. I have occasionally raided with the Knights but I can safely say that I have never been an active member of the Guild. I have already lost too many good friends in this game and am getting too old to make new ones. Most of contacts in game via my wife and since she left the game I just keep my head down and get on with playing my solo game in a large MMO. It is safe to say that the Knights have never got the best out me.
Anyway I would like to say a big thank you to all the absent friends I have made and lost on the way, I would like to name them personally but I can't remember most of their names.
I find most of the guildies are of a simalar mind, content in a guild which is friendly and you don't get annoyed all the time by idiots. Long may it last, and roll on content patches so I have an excuse to come play with you all again.
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