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Hello Rawrcast readers and listeners.  My apologies go out to all of you since this is my first column in two weeks.  I have been swamped with work and family and was unable to find the time to sit down and write.  Today, however, I am back at it.  My life has slowed down and that means more columns to come.

Today, I am leaving my normal topic of leveling and addressing something that I have been dealing with in my game play; guild drama.  Stomp has always said to her listeners and to her friends that this is your $15.00 a month and you have to be happy with what you are doing in game.  Well, I have experienced a few different types of guild drama and I thought I would take a moment to enlighten the readers.

One of the worst things to happen in guilds and in WOW at large is the development of guild cliques.  It is like high school all over again, where the cool, in-people get the runs and the uncool people are left in the cold. I was never in the geek, nerd group in high school, but at the same time I was never part of the in-crowd.  I knew them and called a few friends thanks to years of baseball, football, and other sports, but my friends and I were more the middle group.

Well that is also how I play WOW.  I play to entertain myself and as long as I am having fun, then I am happy.  I love interacting with my guild in and out of raids and I thrive on the playful banter and insults that fly on vent.  I love helping out the lower level toons that need assistance from time to time.  I also just like being there as a guild member.  I guess it comes from years of team sports, but I like being part of a team.  This is fun for me.

But, recently I transferred a toon over to a new faction and server and discovered that my toon was not part of the in-crowd.  This toon is a newer level 80 so it is not as geared as many in the guild, but that is no reason for the disrespect.  What happened was that the people who are raiding have their own little clique.  They are the in-crowd and I am an outsider.  So, when the guild messages fly that they are looking for dps or just getting interest levels for runs, I am ignored.

I won’t lie here, it pisses me off.  I have no problem being told that I am not geared well enough or I don’t do enough dps, but for me to offer up my services in chat only to be ignored!  Ouch.  It has happened dozens of times and I do not like it.  No one should like it and I hate to give everyone the bad news, you’re really not cool or powerful or funny or special because you are one of the raiders in a guild.  Get over yourself and have the common courtesy to send messages telling people that you already have a group or you need someone more experienced.

The key however to judging a guild is not by its members, but by its leadership.  All groups, families, companies, etc. have some bad apples. And in this case, the leaders have, without me ever saying anything, attempted to get me worked into some runs.  It is the guild leadership that really sets the example.  Just like in a good company or a team, the leader needs to be out there and showing the qualities that make it great, whether it is a company, team or just a WOW guild.

Let me diverge for a second and give you an example of great leadership from Sunday’s football games.  I am a huge football fan.  Sunday is for football (after church if we did not go on Saturday).  But, I could care less what the Detroit Lions do on a Sunday.  Yet, I listened in with keen interest when the coach of the Lions, after getting their first win after 19 losses, he had a different take on the game.  They had not won since December of 2007.  That is an ouch!  The win was not the end of it though.  They could have celebrated getting King Kong off their backs and hit the bars or having a nice dinner.  Instead, he told them to take a knee, have the team post game prayer and then to go back out there onto the field and thank the fans for their devotion.  It wasn’t him or his team that he was thinking of, it was the fans who make this team great.

Well in a WOW guild it is the leaders of the guild that make it great.  I am still not one of the in-people, and I may not ever be one since I am late to the guild, but the leaders have gone out of their way to try and make sure I am included, not excluded.  Hats off to both of you and you know who you are!

My other guild experience is sort of the same.  I was part of a group to leave one server to join another guild so we could really have a raiding guild.  We were the officers and regular raiders who were leaving.  Well, that experience did not work out and the other guild was filled with problems, so we broke off to form our own guild again.  Nice and simple.

Well, it turns out that many of these people who I have been raiding with for 6 months were really more in it for themselves.  If they or a relative, friend, etc. had an alt, well it would get it leveled as fast as possible and into rotation.  I on the other hand had leveled the aforementioned 80 Hunter and was told that I had to stick with my DK.

They could play what toon they want, what role they want, whenever they want, but me, no so much.  The reason they always gave was that my DK was geared and we needed to get Badges of Triumph.  Well, I love my DK, but wanted to play my hunter.  DK’s in my opinion get boring (Haf don’t kick me off the podcast for this statement) and I wanted something different.  I was told no and I was not the only one that was being neglected or pushed to the side.

Then I discovered another, what in my opinion was an insult, issue with the guild bank.  I was part of the guild at large who were unable to make full access of the guild bank tabs.   I am a founding member of this guild and I was an officer in our previous guild, yet I was limited to getting things out of one tab from the guild bank.  Hello, I put hundreds of gold and dozens of pieces of crap into that guild bank, but I cannot get what I need, when I need it.  Rude!

I have never ninja’ed stuff and I only took things that I needed.  I have never taken anything out to sell.  I have never abused my guild bank rights.  Well, there was that one time that I threw in like 140 wool and silk bandages when I was leveling up my first aid hoping that someone might want them.  But, when it was being discussed in vent I took full responsibility.  In other words I should never have been on the outs for this.  It is in my opinion disrespectful, but I am not someone who makes waves so on I went.

Well, I am still part of the guild in name only and I have not played that toon in 2 months.  I miss the people, but not the lack of respect. They were a great group of people who taught me a lot about the game and I thank them for that.  But how you treat your members is a sign of what kind of guild leader you really are.

So, why am I kew kewing it here in my column.  My intent is to educate.  My stories are just 2 of the many millions in the game, but if my stories can help formal and informal guild leaders to lead better than I am all for it.  Will some people just say that I am bitching and moaning?  Yes.  Could I have handled it better by addressing the issue?  Yes.  But, it is my opinion that I shouldn’t have to.

It is the guild leaders to recognize the problems in the guild and to address them.  Cliques are not good for high school and they are not good for WOW.  If you see them happening, go out of your way to address it.  Try to include the newer toons when possible and don’t isolate members because they are not in your normal group of friends.

Now, go and tell your guild leaders that Inquisitor has been Kew Kewing!