Inspiring Loyalty

It has been a while since I have written, I apologize for this. It has been rather hektic on both World of Warcraft and personal front. As a tide of big news, The Increment decided and followed up on changing realms, due to the lack of quality new recruits to strengthen our ranks, to allow us to press deeper into the ICC hard modes. We are now residing on Neptulon, much to my disappointment since it is a PvP server and all who knows me, I am not big on those. However, it has been a week now and live has continued fairly normally, though a time of mourning for many of us because we also consequently lost several old members of the guild of which, some, have been in the guild for a very long time.

The reason I picked this curious title for my next article was because during this change, decided to try my alt in a Neptulonian PvP guild, just to see how it is like and maybe get some quality PvP. It took me one whole day to find I did not like the guild and left – sent on my way by the GM’s grand statements about loyalty among members.

Loyalty, as in, honor and dedication to someone? Loyalty is inspired by respect, and respect in turn, must be earned. If it was taken for granted, you never really had it. So what is it within us that inspires respect and loyalty to a guild? Depends on the person, what each individual plays for but I’m pretty certain most people who actually play World of Warcraft value simple and common themes like dignity, honor, decency, humor, good manners and mature behavior. To judge a guild, you need to judge its character, which is made up from the personas who inhabit it.

This is where the danger lies; it is a common misconception for guild masters that people whom they invite, need to show and up hold standards, including loyalty and self-sacrificial ideals to be accepted as members of the community. However, in many minds, this only goes one way and often leads to conflicts when new members find they do not enjoy themselves. Most of the time, these can be settled amicably, in civilized manner but with millions of subscribers, you can count on finding few rotten apples in there. I personally experienced this not too long, when I specifically applied and even transferred realms to join a guild I perceived to be a good one. After a couple of months though, I quit, firmly but still politely informing them that it was not the kind of guild I was looking for and since, as long as I stayed on that server, met with a lot of hostility, even if I as much as passed them on the streets of Dalaran.

That is not the hallmark of a guild that inspires my loyalty and respect. A guild that expects us to sacrifice our evenings, join and give our full support, needs to return the favor. It is never a privilege to be a part of the community, as long as the relationship is only exploitive. For this reason, there are very few guilds, truly, who thrive whether they are big or small for running such a group is a challenge that requires a lot of talent from its leaders.

Any fool can put together a guild and invite anything from a dozen to several hundred players. It takes an exceptional individual to successfully make that guild thrive.

Some have been curious as to why, after only having been in this guild, The Increment, respectively for only such a short period of time, was I willing to spend the trouble and currency to change servers. The answer is simple: they have inspired my loyalty.