Unreal Realities

A few nights ago, whilst in ICC10, there was quite a lot of chitchat happening in the general channel, most probably because of the god-awful lag we were all suffering through. As I often do, I found myself shift + clicking to have a look at what guilds were talking, and there was several familiar names such as <Red Sun>, <Vitare>, <Obsolete> and <Schism>, among a few others that I can’t recall. One of the comments was that all of the “nub guilds” should leave so that the “real raiders” could do the content easily. Shift + Click. Ah yes, that guild (no, I wont mention which one, not Obsolete though). From there the conversation deteriorated into racial slurs, my “’hoods” tougher than yours and, eventually, rape jokes. Shift + Click. Shift + Click. Shift + Click. Hold on, what? <Unreal Realities>? One of our guild members had made a particularly tasteless comment, which had them quickly demoted to the think about it, or, asshat rank.

This had me wondering about what people think about you, personally, when they see what lies between the brackets after they shift + click your name, and what’s led to that reputation. At Unreal Realities, we strongly push for all of our guild members to be as polite as possible when PuGing and that they refrain as much as possible from getting into petty general or trade chat squabbles. Baring that in mind, we are a mature guild and don’t necessarily have a problem with “adult” language and the like, simply trying not to create a bad name for ourselves, preferring to let our playing talk for us. This is not the case for many guilds that are out there and, depending on the specific guild, my general feeling can go from excitement knowing that the players from that guild are good; to anxiousness at how pushy and unhelpful they are likely to be to; and finally, to dread at how much I expect them to be an elitist or an asshat (or both!). All of this based on previous experiences with their guild members, either in chat or a raiding environment.

Whilst some guilds are particularly proud of their bad reputation (such as <Snitch> who happily wore their title as ninja’s), I wonder what the opinions of the officers and leaders of these guilds are? Do they really like the idea that whenever they group with someone who has previous experience with their guild members that they are instantly under careful watch? It really does just come down to whether people would rather play with good players, or good people, which is a real shame. At the end of the patching cycle, everyone will eventually out gear the old content when the next expansion hits, everyone will be levelling from level eighty, but your reputation and that of your guilds will still follow you.

Give me a good person over a good player any day.