This month my World of Warcraft guild turns three years old. I have to be honest — I had no freaking idea what I was getting into when I created the guild. I had never really played an MMO before, never been in a guild before, but I had heard rumors that people needed to group up to do things later in the game, and it seemed like a good idea.
And this is going to sound cliche, but it actually did change my life. Being a guild leader has made me be brave, it’s made me appreciate making tough decisions, how to get along better with people, how to believe in me and convince others to believe in themselves. I don’t do things by half-measures, and I’m a control freak. I hand picked everyone in the guild, and I spend absurd amounts of time pondering policies and social constructs. And I won’t lie — I chuckle when I think that I, weird Canadian IT chick, can tell a group of grown people to be on time, where to stand, when they’ve been ‘bad’, and so on.
I’ve met some awesome people too. Really, it’s all about the people. They started out as abstract Internet figures, and some of them have turned into concrete friends, the kind that know secrets and make me laugh and have seen me drunk. I adore some of these people, and thinking of having to go through my week without hearing from them makes me sad.
I mean, some days I want to kill everyone. “Why are you asking me this? Why do I care? What the hell is going on?” Sometimes I take a step back and kind of get concerned that I’ve poured so much care and attention and work and effort into this ephemeral thing that will disappear all day, as guilds do. One day I’ll wake up and the friends I’ve made won’t be there, no one cares about my leadership ideas, and I’ll have to figure out something else. I guess until then, we all just keep rolling along.
(Writing this reminded me of what one of my guildies would likely say: “Less QQ, more killing shit.”)
