This is How a Guild Dies (part 1)

So here’s the story how it happened. What seems like ages ago (2 years) I somehow stumbled upon the closed beta signups for a game, which was then called World of Warcraft. It’s still called that, but it was called that then too. I’m not sure why I’m surprised that I found it, considering I basically spend my free time pining outside of Blizzard executive’s houses hoping they’ll accidently shed whatever dark secrets they contain, but nonetheless I signed up for it (I believe it was because of Joshx0rfz). Then one day, before heading out for a raucous evening with the friends (poker and/or random nerdery), I posed the million dollar question, “Hey, did you want to play?”

She replied, “Nah, I’m watching TV…”

I shrugged and gave her a kiss, then it came, “…are there Paladins?”

“Y…yea…there are, why?”

It all became a haze after that moment, until returning from the aforementioned raucous nerdery a few hours later when I found her, sitting at the computer at the reigns of the most vicious of beasts, a level 6 human female paladin.

One thing led to another, through closed and open beta I played a human mage and then a dwarf hunter (thinking this the only way to get an arquebus, the most powerful of tools), while she remained steadfast in her female, blonde, paladin. Always the same hair choice, I began to notice while twitching. It was also at this fateful time that we decided to plop down our preciously earned silvers for some sort of “guild” thing. I didn’t really know what to expect, other then that she went to a freaking egyptian encyclopedia online to find a suitable name. Later we found that her efforts were worth it, coming across guilds like “Bovine University” full of tauren, and the “Flying Monkeys of Justice” full of absolutely no righteous monkeys that could fly, we began to look like the Harvard of World of Warcraft players.

Upon release of the game, and yet another female, blonde haired white skinned, human paladin (versus my now human warrior – pictured above), the guild was reformed exactly as it was in a mad rush of a week for fear that some devious mastermind would beat us to the 10 silver and form our exact guild name before us. This being before the player count had reached some 7 million, our fears may have been a bit exaggerated. I think that in the end I created the guild, logged into her character, while she was at school, that’s how afraid we were. Like we had the ark of the covenant of guild names, and the server was full of jeep driving nazis trying to steal it to their malicious guildmaster. Nonetheless the guild became intact, as it had been, in the official game (special edition for extra awesome pet bonuses) and we were set to go.

To our surprise and happiness, in both beta and release the guild picked up some steam, getting up to 15 to 20 players at some point. We had only ever thought it’d be a few of our “real life” friends and that is all, but we actually met a good number of awesome people through recruiting. The angle that she had created, of extreme focus on helping other players out, seemed to be very appealing. This all took place around the end of 2004, so let’s fast forward a few months to September 2005.

At some point around that time, it most likely went something like this: We both got home from our respective activities, me from work and her from school, and as usual immediately both log on to the game. A few minutes later, we’re disconnected, and I hear not the worst news of the year, but close: “The modem just reset…” It turned out it liked doing that, when any kind of internet load would be placed on it above idle chat programs, it would crash and reset. How are we supposed to live without high-speed, high-load internet?! We cried. A torrid love affair with my blog broke out as I wrote these words:

Maybe that’s just me, crying both happy and sad tears, that our precious love child has limited access to us now. Like two abusive parents who deep down love their child, yet are forced to view from a distance the leveling and acquiring of skills that their children go through under the care of others. I’m even beginning to miss linen. That most basic, and utterly demeaning acquisition of a tattered piece of cloth, the sweetest of which could be taken from the cold, twitching body of that bastard infidel Hogger. Weep for the linen. Weep for us.

I was speaking of the guild we’d created, well more she created, but it’s actually exactly how I imagine child-birth to be. My work had been done, having no further part in the laboring process I sat back and watched the spectacle, yet there was still a connection there like that of a father. Truly by that point I’d gone entirely mad. Preceeding that quote was my more insane take on the situation:

It has been almost a month since tiny, gnawing internet demon-angels began staging periodic, full scale assaults on our internet. These demons begin their quest every 20 minutes or so, raping and impaling our precious little bits of data as they attempt to leave or enter the land of Mo’dem. In a way, this land has become rather peaceful because of this, most of the residents have been exiled to the land simply known as “Lost Season 1 DVD Set”. These critters are awakened by any infrigments on the land of Mo’dem intended to provide fun and/or stimulus, most specifically Sights of Web or the infamous, bloodthirsty warlord who was born a fully aged god, rising from the tumultuous snows of a massive blizzard over the course of 9 years, known in human tongues simply as the ‘World of Warcraft’. OH, how the demons despise their harsh barbaric tormentor! They do claw him, they do bite at him, they do rend him limb from limb every 20 minutes! The weeping of farm-maidens can be heard in the distance.

Now let me tell you, the next part is the saddest of our story. If you have shed any tears by this point, you would do best to break and go watch some puppies frolock through a meadow. Unless it’s raining, then maybe just go play with some puppies. I will give you a days time to do so, then, when you’re done you can come back and finish. If you haven’t been crying, then you’re probably a heartless bastard, and should therefore go play with some puppies.