The Art of Diplomacy II
I suck at writing titles, and I think it shows in how easily I can meander out of one intended topic and come into another. The idea behind the Art of Diplomacy is a description of so of my experiences on the Internet in negotiating my identity in a group. Currently, that discussion is focused on the World of Warcraft and the guilds that I have participated in.
The World of Warcraft is generally built as a game that is to indulge the ego of the user. This is done through the acquisition of cool looking gear, acquiring titles, completing quests, and gaining a name in community. There are some other uncommon routes for the player to have a satisfying experience, including beating up those statistically weaker than you or flaming over the forums. During my first foray into the World of Warcraft, my personal vice was socializing. I liked the idea of having power and notoriety. Being able to rise in the ranks of a guild and to have a large base of contacts with which to play with or simply to chat with while doing monotonous things like hunting for crafting materials or fishing.
When I got back to university after my summer months working, I had the fortune to be saddled with my two good chums that I bunked with the previous year. They too had ended severed their ties with their previous communities and we all agreed to join one of the servers that had opened so that we could play together. I played a warrior, as I always did, Ryan played a destructive spellcaster, and Scott played a heavily armoured healer. We were a good team, though I often felt like the baby in the group because I never developed a true expertise in gameplay. (There were several instances of Ryan hollering down the hall for me to “Take the ****ing loot.” because I was hesitating in taking a sword that was clearly designed for my character type.)
We ended up joining a “villain guild”. Because good and evil was a relatively objective concept between the two major factions of the game, it was often assumed that players were acting for mostly the right reasons when they were out adventuring. However, some people would like to roleplaying themselves as being ‘evil’, inasmuch that their motives were less wholesome and their backgrounds even more so. Though the name escapes me, this “villain guild” wasn’t made up of antisocial players- quite the opposite in fact. This was a highly socialable guild with aspirations to enter the endgame scene eventuall and unlike in the previous guild, there wasn’t that much of a power level different between myself and the guild master, so I quickly became friends with him.
As it always seems to be the case, come the summer months and the guild was starting to run down. The guild master was getting busy with real life matters and needed someone to take over. Since I was a keener, played a lot, was nice to everyone, and had garnered a great deal of trust from the master, there was little doubt who his successor would be. I was king for a day
Of course, despite all my keener attitude and aspirations, the problem was that again I didn’t have the experience necessary to lead a guild. I became extremely evident that being a guild leader was real work. That’s right. Having taken up the position simply by charisma, I was completely unprepared for the stuff that our previous guildmaster had been dealing with for the past 8 months or more. Furthermore, the senior members of the guild, including my roommates looked to other guilds for their endgame groups, leaving me to deal with a legion of abscent and billigerant newbies. I continued playing for a few more weeks, getting to such a state when playing a warrior that sections that demanded a group to come with you became soloable. After clearing out this supposedly unbeatable dungeon I gave my wealth to one of my roommates. Deleted my characters and ended my subscription.
I had gotten used to the formula of the game. I would get strong, join a guild, play with them and love every minute of it. Summer would come around and real life would pretty well kill my social gaming. I was fed up. And so for 3 months I was off of the game, cold turkey.
In the end however, 3 months was just enough to shake out the doubt and cobwebs. Early August I got the bug again, and resubscribed. Things would be different though. For the majority of my playtime prior to that summer, I had played human characters, all of whom went by the name “Moraz”. When I unsubscribed I declared to myself that “Moraz was dead.” When I resubscribed in August, it was half true.
“Moraz” was now undead.
