I was thinking about breakups the other day, and I think there are three common ways that a relationship can end:
- Anger and hurtful words. The classic “bad” breakup where bridges are burned and feelings are hurt.
- Shock, sorrow and loss. The typical breakupee who didn’t see it coming, and you never realize what you had until it’s gone.
- Relieved that it’s over. Typically the breakuper, who’s been done with the relationship for a while.
I suppose there is the theoretical amicable breakup, the mutual party of ways and staying friends. I’ve surely never had a relationship end this way. I’ve been dumped, and I’ve done the dumping, but I’ve never even seen a mutual split. I’m sure this does happen, but let’s face it. When someone tells you that it was a mutual breakup – you know it’s really not. You know they got dumped.
When the Aussies split off of my old guild, everyone pretended that it was a mutual parting of ways, and we’re all old friends who will become older friends. It’s a nice thing to say, for both parties, to save face. But in actuality, behind the closed doors of officer chat and officer forums, it was a clear case of #1.
A lot of people who left to join the Aussies in the Drop Bear Clan left alts in the old guild so they could still hang out with their friends. This was an established practice in the guild, which emphasized friends & family first.
Now the rumormill is abuzz that the old guild is planning to /gkick all the Drop Bear Clan alts. Feelings are hurt and people just don’t understand.
Honestly, if you put your Frostheim goggles on, it’s just silly to expect the guild leaders to be happy with dozens of defectors leaving for greener pastures but leaving some alt behind to hang with them and run heroics. Especially not when there is still seething bad blood about the split. Sure, most people were kept out of the loop and didn’t know about the big fights and hard words – they thought it was a happy parting and all would remain friends, but even still…
When someone tells you it was a mutual breakup, you have to assume that it was not.
Because it never is.
Wise frost is wise.
Agreed… all breakups are hard:( As one of the defectors, i know that i had (have) nothing but good thoughts for the old guild… but once the talk started again about /gkicking alts, i had to split. It is better to leave on my own terms then to log into a toon and find out i am no longer in that guild.
either way… it is done:D and now we can move on and build:D
Amicable break ups still hurt; you just acknowledge that the pain is mutual and give it some time.
HA! You called Frost “wise”.
Good times.
Oh, and well said, Frost. Well said.
Hrist, you should hear some of the crap getting flung around the forums over there… apparently I’m an asshole. who knew?
I personally take it very personally when people leave the guild im council in, we have been around since day1 and were like a family, If someone leaves without a good reason (im quitting wow becuase RL is more important now) it gets to me alot! i mean why would you leave what is pretty much your extended family EVEN if pastures are greener!? dont get me wrong, people come and go, its not these guys that upset me, its the ones who have been through the same ups and downs…..then decide for some reason they need to jump ship! Then again ive only ever been in one guild, so maby how people take it depends on their own experiences with guilds?
You sound like a philosopher.
#1 I really don’t think there is as much of a “blood bath” as there could have been. Sure people are hurt that their friends left the guild. In return, some people will try to play victim to deflect responsibility for hurting their friends. I do know that there are a lot of mature, thoughtful people involved, who can take the good with the bad and move on without doing more damage.
#2 Many of the remaining guildies, myself included, were taken by surprise at logging in to a much smaller guild with so little warning. I know it will take me some time to sort out just how I feel about it all.
#3 The speed with which people left showed they were ready to be done with this relationship. I might fault the manner in which they approached it, but I can’t deny their right to choose for themselves, or that there were some sound reasons for their choice, but neither do I absolve them of the consequences.
You said that leaving alts in the guild was an established practice, when in fact the posted app policy has stated for three years that joining was all-or-nothing. To my knowledge there has only ever been one exception, and had anyone given indication of their intention to app to a different guild they could have been made aware of this and taken it into consideration when making their choices.
Finally, there are plenty of people who are maintaining friendships across the guilds including, I hope, myself. I see no reason that can’t continue, and hope very much that it does.
Neven, no one actually called you an asshole (well, at least not on that thread), they said you were being a jackass. Unfortunately, while I agreed with many of the things you were saying, I think you, too, were ‘poking the bear.’
Though, and sorry to hijack your post Frost, it leaves me wondering, having only been in one guild. Is it common for the officers to discuss everything behind closed doors, only to bring it before the masses after they have a unified or semi-unified front… or do some guilds actually just treat officers only as final arbitrators, and air everything publically?
The idea of being left wondering, as one of the unwashed masses, if anything is happening, only able to build a vague picture of what is going on by rumors… then finding out that apparently this discussion is being debated to death by those that are ‘better than’ really bothers me. Especially since what it ends up doing is, once finally ‘opened’ to the masses, the officers are talked out, and really don’t want to hear any more, when this is the first time the masses get to voice an opinion.
Bah, I’m an unhappy bear.
Yeah, a philosopher of science!!!
Off the top of my head I can think of 5 people that left and had alts stay in the guild, which is a hefty percentage considering how few left until the split. Thus standard practice.
Jeez guys, its only a game.
Sorry, but these sort of things drive me mad.
Not really, it’s a game, but it is also a social gathering place and a community. Thus there is a human aspect to it beyond the fact that it is a game. This is both the blessing and the curse of MMOs.
Five, that many? Who am I missing?
The family which is “guild” is far more than a group of people sharing a common goal to rid azeroth of evil. It developes to a structure in which each and every member has pride.
If a member leaves, (for whatever reason) it cuts.
yes there will be mixed feelings on both sides (and suspected name and or realm changes).
but everyone on both sides must move on. There are no bad decisions a person makes, as long as they make thoes decisions for themselves.
My wife and I have been playing for 4 years and have seen many guilds (including a few of our own) colapse, implode, evaporate. but we still keep on playing.
let people think what they want.. you will not be able to stop that, nor should you.
its all about what you think of you.
enough ranting from the 40yo+ sector.
(*shakes waking stick* Dag nabbit, you young wippersnappers, and all your fandangled doohickies)
May All your hits be crits.
Actually never mind. I wasn’t thinking that you don’t generally name people on this blog without some sort of prior consent, so don’t answer that.
*arth logs on today, reads guild message*
“I’m no one’s friend here. I just hate you guys less than the other asshats in WoW.”
- our guild leader
The first thing I thought of was Hrist. Then I read this article and kinda chuckled. I think when the relationship is founded on mutual hatred mixed with grudging tolerance, there’s no drama that can be had because you can’t go from “liking” to “not liking.” You’re already bordering on the latter, so any breakup falls under Frost’s category #3 for both parties.
Well i have had a mutual break up so i must be one of the few me and my misses had tests done when we were both younger and found out we could have kids together and we both realy want to have our own kids after lengthy discussions and lots of thought on the matter we decided to split but stay friends. I dont see her that often anymore but we did all get to together just before christmas to catch and talk about the old days with friends. As for guilds i left my orginal guild on here due to the lack of players and we were not recruiting any new ones but i think my biggest decession was that being a aussie my time difference of 12 hours really hurts and i seemed to be missing alot of the dungeons. I ended up playing with a pug group just about every night until i notice another player i had seen alot on around my times and got to speaking and eventually join his guild as the times suited me better. I still play with my old guild and make bags and do enchants because the guys/gals are great people and i love there company so i think you can still do both as long as everyone knows were you stand .
So, any hunter related news today? WHU has inspired me to play mine a bit more, an ALT… named ALTIX.
In all seriousness, the “old guild” in question here has a long history and many of the folks in it know each other outside if WoW. The last few months been painful to say the least. I think a lot of chilling out needs to be done. Beer anyone?
I kinda look at it like my cellphone. Raiders in my guild are like speed dial numbers. They are the most imporant numbers in my phone, and the only ones I really pay attention to when it comes time to *pew pew*.
Alts are like all the other damn numbers in my phone. I dont delete them just incase someone comes up with a cool text message they have to send me, aka pics of Denise Richards. I keep their numbers in just for communication.
BTW i’m not new to the site, read for a long time and just registerd. So if my posts are strange, thats cuz i’m strange, I’m an Orc Hunter.
I guess what I’m trying to say, is dont delete the alts from your phone, that are no longer best friends. You never know when Denise will get a new bikini.
As having moved around between guilds from, levelling to, fun, to raiding, to casual raiding, guild break ups are never easy.
btw I’m a Mortal Wombat from Khaz’goroth Sever.
For someone who lives in Australia, it is very hard to actually know your Guild buddies in real life as our guild lives all over the country. The thing is, if you are not having fun in the game it is time to move on. As simple as that, I have been in bloodbath implosions of guilds and have now found one with a seemingly stable and fun group of people. If there are guild rules set up, that EVERYONE has access to then there is no need to complain.
My two cents
If I cared more about which guild I was in, I might get mad
I think we have all had friends who have moved.
when you leave a guild its kinda like moving, you try to stay intouch but cant always. so you make new friends in new guilds and they fill the void of the friends who moved on to what they think will be better guilds or easy run. as a assist. gm it was hard for me to move to another guild ,i almoast retired my hunter because of the guild failing . then a friend told me hes been in a dozen diffrent guilds on toons hes made over sevral servers so instead of leaving my hunter to die with the guild i moved him, the fact of the matter is feelings in splits run over the friendships we made , ie why didnt they stay , why didnt they talk to me about what was happening, are questions we have along with some smack talkers who just want to be able to say they are leaders but in reality just want everything given to them and try to split guild up to start their own. so there will never be a clean breakup but you cant just sit your toon out to die because of someone else. you have to move foreward and keep doing what you have been help your guild to make it stronger and have fun this is a game to give us time out of the real life crap. the game gives us alot to think about , gear ,gems , weapons , will this give me better dps. it consumes us if we let it. change the alts to members if they dont get on the toon for a month kick them but be nice and tell them it was lack of toon use eather way just try to keep in touch and have fun
When 1 person breaks-up with another – you can probably try to classify the “kind of break-up”.
When a group of people split from a guild – I think trying to claim all the reasons were the same is not realistic. So it is inevitable that there will ot be a homogeneous attitude which follows — but then, there is rarely a homogeneous attitude within a guild, so between guilds it would seem even less likely.
For me, personally, I avoid trying to think guilds as some single entity, or expect a thoughts or feeling of an individual encompasses or reflects the entire guild.
I treat with people as individuals – they can do things which affect the collective guild, and they are part of it – but when it comes to relating to them, individuals are the only people I can actually talk to – because “Guilds” don’t have ears or minds, just members. (and I’ll refrain from saying that some guilds have bigger “members” than others … oops)
Myr: Sure, but you can never accurately predict what any person will do; however, a large enough group of people becomes predictable to a great deal of accuracy. If anything the analogy is more accurate to guilds than it is to any given couple.