Guildmates, love 'em or hate 'em

Recently, I left my guild.

There was no conflict, there was no bitterness; I just needed a guild with active players. I was an officer in a guild founded and run by my sisters-in-law, whom I have nothing but good things to say about. Other than they're inactive as fuck (sorry guys).

However, joining a new guild is like finding a new job. The first rule is don't quit your current one till you find a new one. So, I went guild hunting. There are many ways to do this. Look on the forums for your respective MMO to see who's recruiting. Some MMOs, like WoW, have sites entirely dedicated to people looking for guilds. A more laid back approach is to seek out guilds in game, either by soliciting yourself (r5 Warrior Looking For Guild!) or looking for people who are actively recruiting (Wicked Tough Fighters [WTF] is now recruiting! PvP/PvE/AB/HM/Vanq/Kurz/1.5 mil fac, pst!).

I took the latter approach.

However, when I look for a guild, I have more questions for the recruiter than they do for me. How big is your guild? How big is your alliance? Do you PvP? What kind of PvP? Does your GvG team have spots open, or do you have multiple GvG teams? Do you run dungeons? Do you vanquish? Do you use voice chat? Do you have a website? How active are you? What's your officer to member ratio? (That last one is a biggie, imo)

So, after some searching, I found a Kurzick guild that was recruiting. After finding out there were almost no requirements to join, other than not being a tool, I hit the guy with my list of questions. Most were answered to my satisfaction, but I had one last demand: Lemme see your cape. Capes are make or break. I much prefer tabards ala WoW, but capes are neat in their own way. However, they can be gaudy and ostentatious, so as a result I end up being picky about them. The cape wasn't all that, but the recruiter struck me being a solid guy. So, I went ahead and joined up.

It's been a while since I logged on to an active Ventrillo server. And I can't remember why I missed it. People talking over each other, feedback, audio loops, and my mic shutting off every 15 minutes. But I still missed it.

Anyways, as complicated as joining a guild may or may not be, actually integrating into one is a different story. There are two types of guild mates; the ones that treat you like family simply because you're guildies, and the ones who treat like a stranger who isn't welcome in their house. All the people I met fell into the first category. Score.

Even better still, my new guild is the head of the alliance, meaning my guild leader is also alliance leader. Double Score. We ended up teaming right after I joined. He started out treating me like any other noob, which I didn't mind really. I provoked this by admitting I didn't have any good ranger builds for my NPC hero. As a result, he ended up explaining a lot of things I already knew, but in a way that I didn't care or feel like I was being talked down too.

Sarutobi is doing the Asuran quests in EotN, which from what I hear, are the most annoying of the three racial factions. My GL agreed with this sentiment, and showed me a different route to take to get to Gadd's Encampment, entirely avoiding the Shards of Orr. After we reached our destination, he stayed on to help with the quest, Finding Gadd. Is so doing, we ended up fighting a lot of dinosaurs. On the way to Gadd's Encampment, he gave me a rundown on the different dinosaurs:

GL: "Raptors are assassins, which makes them nasty, but manageable, don't get mobbed. Angorodons are necros with nasty degen and lifesteal, be careful. Tyrannuses are warriors, and hit hard as hell. Triceratops... Just don't fuck with them, they're bad news."

So, after completing most of the first quest, we come upon a trio of Ceratadons, milling around. I suggest we attack, and while the GL mulls over it, I blitz them. He runs in after me, and we end up almost wiping after killing two of the three (it was just us and six heroes). While we rez the fallen...:

GL: "Who's bright idea was it to attack?"
Me: "Yours."
GL: "Um, no?"
Me: "Uh, yeah? You were totally like 'I've seen Jurassic Park! These guys ain't shit! All they do is get sick and die! Let's take these bastiches!' and I was all like, 'Uh, ok' and them you died."

The GL ended up laughing his ass off, and tells me that I'll fit in just fine with his guild.

The good news didn't end there. The next day, I ended up scrimmaging with a guildie who shared my same affinity for FoW farming. After a few battles, I looked in the vent channel to find out five other had joined us in the Fow Farming (solo) channel, and realized that all five were in the same GH as us, deciding who as going to fight who with what build. I'm glad to see so many players chomping at the bit for PvP, and I'm really looking forward to helping in the organization of a GvG team or two.