Shenanigans Inc is different. It is different for me because I was one of the founders, yes, but it is a good deal more than that. Shenanigans Inc represents what I believe a guild should be, and all too often isn't. It is more than a group of friends, more than a raid team, more than a shared bank full of stuff. We share the same approach to gaming, a philosophy that guides our behavior and makes us capable of doing what we want to do. The guild is a resource, and a tool, and a mechanism for growth.
How Shenanigans Came to Be
The end of Wrath was bittersweet for me. I was member of a floundering guild that didn't believe in me, but at the same time, I was working to become a better player than ever before, and I had met with some truly extraordinary people. I spent months in an otherwise poisonous environment. Raiding had stagnated -- the idea of progression was laughable, but what was worse was the shift in attitude. Long time guild members peeled off one by one, and the replacements -- when we could find them -- never quite fit right. Either they did not have the skill, or they did not mesh with the rest of the team. Cliques arose. Older members resented that the new recruits weren't up to scratch. New officers never found the gravitas they needed to command respect. It was a bitter atmosphere, and more and more people became angry with the situation.
But no one ever addressed that anger. We were silent raiders. The turmoil was always there, boiling just under the surface. The tension was palpable, laughter was foreign, and there was hardly any effort at communication for fear of unintentionally piercing the bubble. It made playing well difficult, but it made improvement impossible. How could we change what we were doing if we couldn't talk about it? How could we talk about it if we feared it would make it worse?
It was a relief to be free of it. For too long, the idea of leaving the guild was out of the question, because it meant abandoning the friends we had made there, but it also meant agreeing to quit. I do not like admitting defeat. I have always believed that good intentions can overcome the worst of situations. I still believe that. But now I know that in order to do overcome these trials, everyone has to be willing to work on the problem.
Starting Fresh
I was lucky to find four other people who shared my beliefs. Cataclysm was an opportunity for us -- to start fresh, to ride a narrative of success.
But creating a guild was not enough. A guild tag is not enough to create a community. I knew -- we all knew -- that to stay together we had to stand for something. We wanted to make sure that all of the past drama never affected our success. We wanted to be able to react when something did go wrong, and make sure that we never made any new guildies as unhappy as we had been.
It started with an e-mail. A note between the five of us, and idea of the kind of guild we wanted to be a part of. Everyone had ideas. We created a shared document that we could all edit, and the idea took on a life of its own. We spent a month writing what would become our guild charter.
We started by talking about the kind of community we wanted. We debated how we would ensure that our members adhered to our vision, how we could institutionalize community. We decided that too many problems traced back to a lack of understanding, of communication. We didn't want to wait for things to fix themselves, we wanted actively seek out answers. For us, participation would be mandatory.
We had stars in our eyes, but we were not naive. We know that people are imperfect, and that they mess up. No guild is without its drama. But we believe that a heartfelt apology can bridge that gap, that we can choose to work together, and not allow pettiness to rule us.
It was a remarkable document. It grew from abstract ramblings to a binding code. We worked on it in spurts, both alone and together. We made notes in the margins, and talked about why we wanted something to be the way it was. We learned how to argue with civility, how to disagree with an idea and not a person, how to demonstrate our logic and concede to a better argument. In writing our charter, we proved that the kind of guild we wanted to be a part of was possible.
I was very proud of the final draft, which I really should call the "current" draft, as I know we could easily amend and add to it as our guild matures. You can read it here, on our website. We want our guild to be the best that it can be, and we won't allow pride to stand in the way of a better idea.
Living the Dream
Idealism is too exhausting to maintain every day. Nothing is ever perfect and shiny forever. But as I reflect on the past two months, I am incredibly proud to report that the system works.
We raid three nights a week, and I am always excited to sign on and raid. We write strategies on our forums before we tackle a boss, and the next day we debate how we should change the strategy that didn't work. I write about how terrible I am at keeping up Improved Soul Fire, and coordinate when I need to change specs to cover different raid buffs. I read funny comics and beg people to help me with fishing achievements.
Best of all, our evaluations were not a pipe dream. All ten raiders have their own threads, and there is not a single person who has failed to be honest about their own shortcomings. I have seen support and improvement come from these threads. I have been criticized and praised, and I have tried to do the same for other raiders, trying to make sure people know they are appreciated, and figure out what I can do to help someone become a better player, just like I am trying to be.
Every morning, one of our raiders posts the logs from the previous night. It is a jumping off point for the discussion. It is exhilarating to see when our members rank top paress on World of Logs, and puts a microscope over every mistake and gap. We talk about our ideas while they are still fresh in our mind, and research what else we can do. It saves time when we next show up to raid. We never fail to discuss something we did wrong. We always do it better the next time.
There are many days when I am unhappy with my raid or with parts of my guild. I spend hours thinking about what things make me mad, that I would change if I could -- with our raid strategy, with the way I interact with another person. But what makes this situation different is that this reflection is never self serving. I am expected to talk about my concerns -- not for some arbitrary purpose of the naive, but so that we can fix the problem.
Why It Works
A few days ago, I had a bad raid night. Someone said something that I thought was offensive, and I got so angry that I signed off. My raid team was incredibly upset with me, and I was upset with them. It was a bad night for everyone involved.
It made me re-examine why I wanted to be a member of Shenanigans Inc. I want to be a member of a guild where I am happy. Where I have fun. Where we kill bosses. It sounds so easy, but we all know that it absolutely is not. The perfect guild does not exist. If I joined another guild, sooner or later they would disappoint me too.
But if I stayed with Shenanigans, I could talk about what made me unhappy. My guildmates could try to make me feel better. We could change....together. I got angry because I thought they weren't practicing the kind of atmosphere we wanted to play in. But by signing off, I had violated the far more serious tenet that the only way to make a situation better was to talk about the solution.
I was overcome with shame at the way I had behaved, and later with guilt for ruining an opportunity for progression. I took the time and apologized to each member of the team individually. My friends accepted me back with open arms. It was much, much more than I deserved for behaving so badly, and I commend their compassion. In doing so, they proved that they were more committed to the ideals of our guild than I had been. I am humbled that this episode has not shaken their faith in our capacity to stay true.
Our next raid night, we killed Nefarian for the first time. It was incredibly satisfying to reap the reward after all of the work that went into it. All twelve kills were accomplished with the same ten people. No one person had given less than any other. Everyone had contributed something. It was a victory that was shared in a very profound way -- personal, and poignant.
I don't think that this will be the end of all guild drama. I don't think that the ten of us will raid together forever, or that we will be empowered by this to blaze through heroic modes, or even that this next raid week will be very different. I am going to have to work hard to regain that lost trust. But I believe more strongly than ever that everyone is capable of working together. That you can choose to make it right, to have fun.
There are a lot of reasons you love your guild. You love it for those indescribable moments of joy when someone makes a really great joke in vent. You love it for the pride you have when you kill a dragon. Invisible links binding you to people you haven't really met, but nonetheless have your back. I think that everyone secretly believes that their guild is the best, and they want everyone to know how special they are. They just can't find the words.
I don't have the words either, but this much I know is true: Shenanigans Inc is the best guild for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment