Tuesday was an O.K. day. We were short a couple of major players and hopped into second wing anyway. Galakras and Iron Juggernaut went down quickly as normal. As I was tanking this night however, we had to pick a third tank who hadn't tanked the fight before to help finish Dark Shamans. We got close but never got them down.
Wednesday was not a great Raid night. Once again a few people didn't make it leaving use with just ten peeps. We decided to push third wing anyway and never got past Malkorak. The biggest problem is the other times we have fought him we have had 14-15 people, and with just ten we didn't have the coverage on the room we were used to. Mechanics just killed us when people missed the purple circles or we didn't move quickly enough. I look forward to shrugging this week off and moving forward.
Now, World of Warcraft is about the dramatic. We follow story lines, and immersed in the lore whether we pay attention to it or not, and everything we do has a consequence somewhere down the line withing the the story arc. All the characters we run into seem to be having minor emergencies which means the characters we interact with tend to be very dramatic as well.
But you, yes you, the player.... you are not that dramatic. Most of the scenes with your characters show them calmly watching what is going on around you. Your not overly verbal, and you don't tend to jump around and freak out just because an angry dragon is smashing through a wall.
So why would you fill guild chat with drama?
The easy answer is that we are not our characters. Guild chat is the one place where we get to be actual people who can talk to our guild mates and connect on a level that goes above a video game if we so choose to. The obvious exception of course is a RP guild. (RP realms don't actually equal RP all that often.) The problem with this is sometimes people over share, or try to over connect, or flat out decide to troll everyone in sight. This creates drama.
Before you start talking in guild, or even in trade for that matter you should consider the impact of your words when you allow people into your life. Are you saying something that is not going to project the image of you that you want people to see? Is what your saying meant to stir up a fight? Is it lewd, sweary, or in any way offensive? When all people get of you is some typing and a virtual figure this matters.
The best way to build guild drama is to not care about any of these things. When you come off as abrupt or mean it can bring a guild down. People do not want to hang out in a cesspool of negativity with a few notable exceptions. When you create guild drama it effects everyone in the guild to at least a small degree. I can be in how they feel to be part of the guild, to how other people treat them when they see our guild tag above their heads. If the realm has a negative view of your guild from what one or two yahoos say in guild chat, then it effects every single person.
People also say things to get a specific re-action in guild. If you enter guild chat talking about causing physical harm to yourself or others sometimes people don't know how to react. I would wager normally when someone does this it's because they want attention and for some people negative attention is better then no attention. In this case no one is sure whether to take the speaker seriously or not, and in a MMO we are very limited on our ability to react to such things from our side of the keyboard. If we don't know anything other then an avatar and fake name, there is no recourse your guild mates can take if they do thing you are serious. At best we can put in a ticket to Blizzard and hope that they are willing to call people like the cops etc... to check things out. I'm not sure Blizzard would be likely to do this as well, because they take legal responsibility for releasing someones contact information for what might just be someone crying for attention.
In short if you having a rough time in your life or situation, don't pull the guild into it. If it becomes a problem we will have to cut you loose, and I would hate to cut off the sense of community from someone who may benefit from it in a positive manner. I would love to have a happy place for you to come, chat and interact if you life otherwise sucks, so you can have some happiness in your life.
The guild is a place that should be kept drama free... please do your part to help make it so.
Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye
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