So we finally managed to get a whopping five guildies online simultaneously over the weekend. Yeah, five. We’re up to six active players. Yes, Dear Reader, that is a big deal.
Vyc, Paeya, and Jaz made their way back into the fold to join Eck, Cheesi, and me. We goofed off in guild chat, shared what knowledge we had with one another to try to get up to speed on the changes that have happened in-game (Vyc and Paeya haven’t been around since TBC, so I’m sure this is overwhelming for them), and immediately rediscovered the chemistry that made our old guild work so well to begin with…back before the raiding, drama, and general nonsense that causes people to quit altogether.
It’s back to the basics, really. We all have a lot to learn (and we’re learning it mostly from Eck, at the moment). These, however, are some of the smartest and most capable players with whom I have ever played. They’re not afraid to do a little homework to figure out what they need to know to get what they want from the game.
We’re sticking to our “no commitment” mantra and I couldn’t be happier about that. That’s not to say that we won’t ever raid or PvP as a guild, but the point is that the expectations aren’t there. That makes a huge difference for people who have families, jobs, and other responsibilities that place demands on our time and energy. When WoW becomes a task on our list that we need to check off, that’s when the grown-ups get burnt out. At least that’s what happened to me.
So, for now, it’s all about fun. Sooner rather than later, I’m sure we’ll all be at max level and we’ll get ourselves into a heroic or a raid and see what kind of trouble we can cause, but maintaining the “we’re busy people and this is supposed to be fun” mindset is the key, I think, to making this work.
We really want this to work.
We’re all over the country and we’ve never met in real life, but we consider ourselves friends. After we all stopped playing, we hardly communicated except to check on one another via Facebook if we noticed that somebody was sick or going through something tough. This guild reunion is an opportunity to get back to interacting regularly and, once in a while, accomplishing something…even if that something is as silly as killing a digital dragon or helping to get digital materials together to make somebody a digital motorcycle/helmet/sword/whatever.
It’s just as important to a relationship to share the mundane and unimportant moments of our lives as it is to provide a shoulder for the hard times. As ridiculous as it seems, it doesn’t make it any less true that WoW facilitates that kind of interaction and, subsequently, truly and legitimately facilitates real friendships.
We’re starting over, and this game is fun again.
Aggro Junkie 