The search for a guild in ArcheAge has been daunting. I’m going to try and write this without mentioning names but rather situations and my thoughts on them.
First off most of you know by now that I’ve run a guild for the last 4 years over in Vindictus. My guild went through periods of growth and the pains of having a large guild was always something I said I never wanted again. So when me and my guildies set out to find a guild home in ArcheAge, we looked for something that was similar to our own guild – a tight knit family, that wanted to have fun “together”. We held off from immediately joining a guild so we could see how things worked out. As it turns out finding a good guild is probably one of the toughest tasks in ArcheAge.
We went through a lot to get “comfortable” and these are my stories.
The names of guilds have been altered to reflect my experience with them.
Unholy – I was attracted to this guild because of a player that I found interesting. We did a few missions together and when she asked me to join I was so sick of being alone I said yes. First things first I didn’t love the name, but I did like her so I went with it. I told her the same thing that I always tell my guildies, “every guild is not for everyone”, and that if I didn’t end up liking this I may leave. She agreed and for the next two days I was a guild member. Long story short in those two days, they decided to change the guild name and then completely changed the guild focus to be a LGBT guild without telling me. Personally I could care less what your sexual preferences are, )especially in a game) but don’t just throw a label on me without some sort of consent. It also didn’t help that I found out about this change in focus by reading Faction chat. Sigh, I put in my notice and left.
Flawed – The next one I chose based on the name and the fact that I always saw its members around and hung out with a few of them. I had no real issues with them…until there was a shake up with leadership. I was “cool” with one of the admins so when I saw her leave the guild I was immediately concerned. Then two more admins dropped off within minutes. Ranks amongst players began shifting en mass, massive demotions. Questions about what was going on were met with “oh nothing, its fine” from the remaining guild administration. So I asked my friend what happened to make her leave. She told me that the guild was no longer helping the new players. I literally couldn’t believe that at all and needed to know more. I asked…low and behold it was true. Every single word. The guild leader stated in chat, “all efforts are shifting to crafting for level 50 players.” At this time I was level 20ish so hearing this was completely demotivating. When I asked a few more qualifying questions such as “what about the lower players, will we get help if we need it?” and was responded to privately with “no, we’re going to focus on only level 50s.”, I decided to move out.
Frenemy – This guild lasted about 1 week in total. It was a subset of the players from guild #2. This was the guild that let me and my crew get jumped, didn’t care and then decided 2 days later proposed a merger with the scrubs that ganked us. Moving on…
Nonchalant – Nothing really bad about this guild other than we just didn’t fit in. The people were nice enough, but they were just a little too nonchalant about caring for trade packs. What I mean by that is the ideal that seems to resonate with folks was, “it doesn’t matter who turns the pack in as long as someone does” even if its a red…This lack of concern wasn’t really up my alley especially back then when I was building up towards my own goals and didn’t have a lot of gold to toss around.
Home – It took a lot of searching among the medium/small guilds to make me realize in ArcheAge at that point, I wanted something bigger. From the moment I spoke with their leader before I ever joined, I felt at home. This was one of the largest guilds on the server, their guild leader whispered me on chat for almost an hour. I asked literally a bazillion questions about their style, management, guild routines and player base. I didn’t want to make a mistake (again) especially not with Auroria around the corner, I wanted to be sure.
We took the plunge and decided to go ahead and interview. Honestly this might sound a little silly but the selling point for me was definitely the interview. Our interviewer was first rate genuine kind of guy and immediately set us at ease with his warmth, personality and knowledge of the guild. As a respecter of a good process. I have got to commend the recruiting staff and really all of the admins. They accommodated our request for a group interview and didn’t let it deter from the quality of the interview nor the assessment of us as candidates. Immediately we felt at home. They pounded the guilds “family-focus” into us right from the beginning stating the various members real life situations including a new mom or a stay at home father of 3. This let me know that the admins knew their players as well as let me know the guild was family friendly, it set the tone for my entire experience with them “(guild-) family first”. And honestly we never really deviated from that feeling. It was really a guild family.
Here is where I picked up on the power of the zerg. I initially thought it was a corny over exaggeration spewed by guild haters about our guild. But soon I learned that the zerg was real 🙂 The zerg, as defined by me, is a mass of entities moving in harmony to achieve a goal. Whether it was turning in “everyone’s” packs, stomping on the enemy or taking down the Kraken, mission after mission the zerg succeeded in all of its efforts. There has not been a single time we were defeated. There was no guild drama, we were family, all focused on getting things done but having an great time doing it, achieving in all aspects of the game – not just a few.
This guild has been without a doubt the best thing that happened to me in my ArcheAge experience. I am very happy to be a part of it.
Heres to the Zerg!
Trixologist Talks (mirror) 