I have to warn you: this blog post talks about feelings...but since they are my feelings about RoM, I think it counts. :)
I left my guild, Medieval.
When I first joined Medi over a year ago, I wondered about all those players who hopped from one guild to another. I thought to myself, "I would never leave my guild. I am loyal."
Then about two weeks ago, a different voice came up in my head. It said, "You should leave your guild." The other voice countered, "You can't leave Medi. It's YOUR guild. You are loyal."
This back and forth in my head went on for many days. I actually started avoiding playing Spiral because I didn't want to be in Medi guild chat. When I did log on, I tried to keep my mouth shut about some of the changes that were going on, but anyone who knows me, knows that I'm not good at that.
The issues weren't that big, weren't really intense issues, but I just kept getting this feeling that Medi was moving in a direction that I didn't want to go. The voices kept arguing in my head.
Then on Friday night, the second voice changed its mind. It said, "You need to leave this guild. It's time."
I trust myself. It's taken a long time to get that way because I still feel that I am somewhat impulsive in ways that I shouldn't be. But it felt right to think about leaving Medi, even though it hurt. It felt like I was graduating high school or leaving a bad boyfriend. We'd had some good times, but it was time to move on. I wanted to look back fondly on that time in Medi, not be regretful and angry.
So with a heavy heart, I clicked on "Leave Guild". It asked if I was sure. Oh, the hesitation! But I clicked "Yes" and heaved a big sigh.
I left Spiral crafting in Varanas and went to my sister's for the weekend. Had a blast with her but on the hour-long drive home, I couldn't stop thinking about what I was going to say to my guild leader -- former guild leader -- and to my two best friends in Medi, D & T. I wrote letters in my head as I drove.
When I arrived back at the game, I realized what a silly thing it was to leave Spiral AFK. My guildies -- former guildies -- had been pm-ing me all day, thinking I was ignoring them! I went to the mailbox, read 3 lovely letters from my leader, D and T, and then responded as honestly as I could.
My time with Medi was fun, exciting, heart-warming and educational all at once. Everyone has said that I can come back anytime...but for now, I know I need to be away for a bit.
I don't really want to go into it too much more, cuz I already feel this post is waaaaaay too maudlin, but I wanted to write it anyway to hopefully spark thoughts in peoples' minds: what does your guild mean to you? Are they family? Are they co-workers? Is it just a place to go for features such as libraries and sieges?
Think about it. RoM is more than a game, it's a community. What role are you playing in this world?
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Great post - over on Reni, I recently left the guild I was in and helped found a new one. We're pretty small at the moment, and haven't been recruiting, but we're almost to level 5 and are going to have to expand in order to make getting a Castle a reasonable prospect. Complicating things a little bit more is that in the guild, we're all long-time RL friends who went to college together, so bringing in "outsiders" is something we're all questioning, even though it seems to be the only option...and on top of all THAT, we're also guys in our 30s with careers and kids, so we're not exactly hardcore players, so we've got all these things to think about when bringing in more members
ReplyDeleteHaving a guild is more complicated than it seems, isn't it, Matt? I wish you luck!
ReplyDeleteThanks! It'd be easy to just open the doors to anyone/everyone, but I'd rather build a smaller group of core players and before turning it into a free-for-all...and we'll be level 5 when the servers come back up tomorrow AM, I contrib'd about 6k worth of mats today!
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