Sometimes I wonder.

Sometimes I find myself wondering why it is I play World of Warcraft, or the role of guildmaster in Covenant. I have been in Covenant since it came into being a year and a half or so ago, and was an officer to begin with and now GM. I put a lot of my spare time and effort into running the guild, organising raids, helping with groups, running instances, or just talking to my friends and having a good time. I speak of course not just of myself, but of all of our officers, who all contribute lots of their free time to the guild and to the game as a whole.

Most of the time I love WoW, I have great fun chatting with people, meeting new friends, and playing the game, only recently I rediscovered the joys of healing with my priest, who has been shadow specc for the last 6 months, and have had endless fun, and wipes (apologies to everyone involved) relearning how to heal.

Then every once in a while someone will come along who makes me woner if it is all worth while, someone who no matter what you say or do, or how hard you try to help them, or make them feel at home, will find away to accuse people of something, or to see anger or hatred where none exists, or who will go out of their way to make those around them feel bad because they get some small piece of satisfaction from doing so. thankfully these occasions are rare, but it always makes me think "what's the point?" why should I bother trying to run raids and instances, talk to people who come to me for help, or make the effort to make as many people as I can happy and have fun in the game, when there is always someone willing to come along and do their best to undo it all?

Let me give you an example:

Many people have asked me recently why Lovestar left the guild, and in each case I have tried to explain as best I can why I feel it happened, as I was not online when it actually occurred. So here's the way I saw it:

Lovestar joined us a couple of weeks back and was immediately accepted into the guild, she talked to us on vent laughed and joked with us in guild chat, and generally made herself at home, I doubt anyone would have said a bad word about her. Whilst on Ventrilo one day talking, an ex-guild member logged on to talk to me, as I hadn't spoken to him in a while. He made a rude comment about her, having only heard her voice and she was very upset about it. I banned that ex-guild member from vent shortly afterwards and removed his forum priviledges. Actions I felt would ensure that the situation could not arise again. I later learned Lovestar was still unhappy about what happened, so I made the effort to talk to her again at some length, explaining what I had done and why, that I and the guild did not find those comments to be fair or appropriate and that it shouldn't happen again. I am assured everything is ok now, and that the problem is over. Fine...works for me.

A few days later, Asahina and I are sitting on vent at gone midnight (something officers often do, to ensure raids have gone smoothly and discuss guild issues), fiddling about with raid composition, Moving people into and out of raids, deciding on a good raid balance, and doing our best to include people who have missed previous raids. We moved Lovestar into the raid at one point, and then out again, as we realised Sajuuk had signed up to, and as yet hadn't been to any raids, whereas Lovestar had been to the last few. I also moved Arwan into a raid, then removed him so Haggy could attend (for the same reason). the next morning I was contacted by a couple of guildies telling me Lovestar was upset, I spoke to her, and discovered it was because she happened to be on the raid page at the time we moved her into the raid, and wasn't happy at being moved out again. I explained to her, dear readers, as I have just done to you, that this was part of balancing raids, and she had been skipped over for this one raid to allow someone else in who hadn't yet been to any. Again after a long discussion she seemed to accept what I was saying and so I logged off for lunch.

When I returned in the evening, I discovered Love had g-quit without a word to anyone, not even a goodbye to the guild of whom she had already become a part, and logged out. I assumed from talking to her, reading her Blog and hearing what other people had to say, that she had felt things were too much, and that she wanted to get away from wow and look more to her real life. It seems I was mistaken, I discovered today in a recruitment post by Mith, that Lovestar had replied suggesting there was more than met the eye to her leaving and that something more sinister was at work. This, quite frankly is utter nonesense. Infact I am sickened to the bone both by her attitude and what she said in her post. This guild has done nothing but its best for her, getting her equipped and including her in raids, all of us making her, as with every new member, feel as welcome as we can. There was no sinister undercurrent or hidden agenda, there was only a stark reality:

Lovestar people liked you, and they wanted to include you in their guild and in our raids. For whatever emotional reason, you found a way to sabotage every offort we made to help you with issues and to see secret agendas and attacks on your character where none existed. You pushed away every offer of help, and refused to take on board anything we said to you, and instead fixated on your own fantasy about people hating you, and the world being out to get you. None of which is true. I hope you go away from your experience with us, and take on board the fact that you need to seek professional help to deal with whatever issues you have, and whatever events underlie them. From what I have seen you are a good person whos whole outlook on the world has been badly distorted by events which are now long in the past. Whatever reason you feel you left, and whatever hidden agendas you think you saw, and whichever guildmembers you think secretly hated you or wanted to do you harm makes no difference, because the reality is you are simply wrong.

Now, had Lovestar just left, I would have been dissappointed that we couldn't make things more comfortable for her, and kept her as a member of the guild. But that isn't what she did, she felt it necessary to go onto a world forum, and in a thread totally unrelated to her leaving, post suggesting that we had all done something wrong to her, and that, was simply not true. It is these people who find it necessary to lash out at everyone because they are feeling low, who make me wonder wether its all worth while trying. If you are going down, don't try to drag as many people as you can down with you, it only reflects badly on you as a person and upsets those who are meant to be your friends.

Now having said all this, there are other times when I see things which make me remember how much I love playing WoW with my friends, and how sometimes its all worthwhile, like watching the guild pull together at all sorts of unholy hours to get Shillen his Kara key, or seeing people zipping about all over the game world farming bizarre materials so we can make res sets for boss encounters, or equip new guildies who could use an upgrade. These things are what make playing WoW worthwhile and fun, and the reason that despite those who would do their best to make things unpleasant, I keep coming back to play with my friends in Covenant.