No Desire To Play…Why?

I’ve thought about not posting this. I have started and erased it. I have started and erased it again. But then I remembered something important. Something I’ve preached from the mountaintops in my 7 years of blogging and online diaries. This is MY blog. I alone pay for it and maintain it. It is MY outlet for anything and everything I want to let out. Be it happiness or sadness, joy or anger. It’s MINE. And I have an unequivocal right to speak freely on it.

I’ve recently had cause to become upset with my guild. This has never happened before. Seriously, in the 14 months I’ve been there…not once have I reached this level of anxiety. To the point that I haven’t even wanted to play. I hope you brought your coffee, this is going to get long.

When I first joined, and shortly after became an officer, I was impressed with how things were done. Ideas were brought up in officers chat, ALL the officers had a say in it. If it made it past that brainstorming session, it went to the forums for officers that might have missed it. If it passed that phase…(this is my favorite part) the MEMBERS got a say in the matter. It was a thing of beauty. After some time I was promoted again. To a rank 2 officer. Things were still moving along as usual for a while. Until eventually WE were discussing more amongst ourselves than with ALL of the officers. Some of it of course was necessary, but then it became things that once would have been discussed among all. Things still eventually got put to a forum vote for the other officers so, it evened out. Some issues never got past initial discussion, so I thought…meh, I’m thinking too much, this isn’t bad.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I resigned as an officer. I wanted my time to be just for play. So I’m a member like everyone else. I logged into the Forum recently, and see a rather big change made. I wrote briefly about it  in another post. I then voiced my dissenting opinion, and a few others did the same. Through the course of the day I checked back, and saw a new reply. So I go to look. And to my shock and utter dismay, those replies were deleted, and a message said they’d moved to another thread to be discussed there. Sounds reasonable right? Wrong. Those that wanted to discuss it had no access to the area it was moved to. Since there was no thread anywhere else pertaining to it. To me, I see an utter disrespect for the opinion of  members (these comments were later referred to as spamming and trolling). I hate censorship.

My opinion being…

If you want to have a guild for players that are under a certain level, and another for those interested in end game content, that’s fine. Great, Peachy! Run two guilds, enjoy it, revel in it. But don’t force members of the end game guild to separate their alts by requiring them to move them to your leveling guild or have them removed. Make it an option sure. But not a requirement. In my never so humble opinion, it is a turnoff to potential new members to not be able to have their alts in the same guild as their main. Thank GOD the alts I play are 70 and 63. But not everyone’s are, and they shouldn’t be required to split them up. You might as well say, hey, you have two kids, but one is too young, send him to live with a relative until he’s bigger. Ok, maybe that sounds a bit extreme, but you get the idea.

My other problem with this, is that it never came up for discussion with the members prior to being put into action. It was just boom…you must be level 58-60 and questing in outlands to be here, otherwise you have until XX date to move to the leveling guild, and when some of us spoke up…our thoughts were thrown away in the click of a button. As if they never existed. Finally, it does get brought up to a vote, and those of us that disagreed are accused of "spamming and trolling" the original thread.. I fail to see how a comment in disagreement, and a comment in disagreement with prior comment’s deletion = spamming and trolling myself.

This really sucks for me. I have loved my guild for 14 months. I would have felt better, had my expression of my thoughts, and those of others not been deleted, or called spamming/trolling. Thank GOD for blogging. I can at least vent my feelings, purge my thoughts, and NOONE can remove it or belittle my right to do so. After all a blog is like listening to the radio. And as George Carlin once said…

"If you don’t like what you’re hearing, reverend, there are two knobs on the radio. One changes the station. And the other turns it off."

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