The guild I am a part of is about 6 years old and we’ve survived drama that would put even some high fantasy novels to shame. Out of all the stories I could tell you, my personal favorite is that of the “Great War of 2016”. I’ll try to keep it brief enough to fit in one post. To give an overview, this is a multi guild conflict that lasted 8 months and originated from a dispute over a grind spot. The game it took place in was Black Desert Online (our guild is new to Warcraft and spans multiple games).
The year was 2016 and our guild, Exusia was an ambitious PvP guild aspiring to be rank 1 in the server. We were making steady progress which largely involved completing 5 guild missions on a daily basis in order to boost our guild’s level. At that time our officers were doing an excellent job carrying out their responsibilities and assignments. So one day, I personally thanked them and temporarily relieved them of their primary duties to give them some well-earned rest.
As a result, they planned to do some personal grinding at an extremely coveted and highly toxic zone the community dubbed “Pirate Island”. [Background Info: This zone was seen as the most lucrative grind spot largely due to streamers and prominent players propagating outdated information. Recently released areas were very sparse and few players even attempted to explore areas in subsequent expansions. This contributed greatly to Pirate Island’s being extremely crowded.] The officers decided to make a guild event centered on grinding there and took numerous players with them. I wished them well and continued to handle guild duties until it was time for me to log off and go to work.
Later that night as my shift was nearing its end, I received numerous messages from the officers saying that one of our own members had gone berserk and was killing “everyone” and they were considering kicking him out the guild, but wanted me to be intervene first and pass judgement.
Upon arriving home, I set up a judicial meeting in discord concerning this issue. Those present were my second in command, 2 officers (Shikoto and Purplesage), and the offender (Tenryuji). I listened carefully to both sides of the story. What transpired was that our guild had multiple parties grinding various rotations. The officers were in a party of their own which also included non-guild members. Tenryuji was without a party and asked to join the officers, they refused to let him in which caused him to flag up and kill the non-guild members in their party and take their mobs.
After hearing everything, I asked Tenryuji why he did it. He replied saying that he did it due to being bored. I then told him that such thinking is dangerous and that is the kind of thought process that school shooters have. I also added that we couldn’t care less about the non-members he killed, but that by doing so he was indirectly grieving the officers, his fellow comrades by reducing their efficiency and to not let that happen again.
Upon that, I dismissed Tenryuji and the officers rejoiced in my rebuking him. I then turned to the officers and said that this entire issue would not have happened if they would have simply removed the non-guild members from the party and added Tenryuji. Purplesage immediately lashed out and asked: “Are you saying I’m not allowed to group up with non-guild members!?” I replied: “No, but don’t make it a habit. You as officers set the example for our guild. If the members see you doing so, they will follow and our guild will eventually become divided allowing other guilds to begin having political leverage over us.”
After hearing this, Purplesage immediately left the guild. Shikoto and my second in command then began to argue with me stating that Purplesage was one of our strongest members and I let him leave. I replied by stating that he was not very useful as an officer if he couldn’t comply with protocol. For the next 3 hours we argued into the night of Christmas Eve. Neither side would yield and a mutual agreement could not be met. We then decided to involve a third party to mediate the dispute. Fortunately, I was able to choose, but my top pick (a veteran player who previously served by my side in leading the original Exusia in DCUO) was not available.
I then chose Darkness another longtime member whom I purchased the game for. She had been with us in all 3 iterations of our guild and her loyalty was without question. In hindsight though, I deeply regret putting her on the spot like I did as she was friends with both the officers and myself. Upon being thrust in the middle of the heated debate she quickly responded to the issue by saying that we were both right (presumably out of fear for upsetting either party). With that, Shikoto and my second in command felt justified in their opposition to me and things continued to worsen. The debate had devolved into a shouting match and rather than give into anger, I adjourned the meeting so that we could all cool down and revisit the matter after we’ve had some time to come to our senses.
The next day, I went to see Star Wars The Force Awakens as every decent establishment was closed on Christmas day. Upon returning, I found that a third of our members had left the guild including all of the officers. My second in command and Shikoto had told the other officers their side of the story and made me out to be a fascist tyrant that had become corrupt with power. They then formed a guild called Reprobates (later Parliament) and we went to war!
(I thought I would finish this in one post, but I’ll have to continue the rest of this epic saga another time.)
To be continued in part 2…