I’ll try to make this quick, but I won’t promise anything…

A group of us moved from Silvermoon to Lightninghoof to give us a change of pace. On Silvermoon, our levels were so spread apart, that it was hard to do anything together except chat. So… we decided it was time to move and that we’d implement a little think called a weekly level cap. Every week we were “allowed” to get one level. I think Tuesday night at 6PM the level cap was moved to the next level.

This idea wasn’t a new one I’m sure, but it REALLY rocked for the group of players that joined us. It was a chance for us to have a life outside the game, but know that when we came back, we’d have a chance to play together. It was a respect thing that kept each of us from breaking the level. I remember breaking it on accident once and I felt like shit. (I was the Guild Leader.) That night, I didn’t get to go grouping with them because I felt it wasn’t fair for those that did stick to it.

We were level 40 something when two friends decided to join us on the server. They were excited about having people to play with and agreed to follow the one “rule” of the guild. They quickly leveled and caught up with us. (see where this is going?) Once they got to our level, the one that was a great friend of mine sent me a tell asking if he and his friend could break the cap. I requested that they please stick with it because it was something we were all doing. His response was “Don’t give me an ultimatum! Fine we’ll follow it.” I was taken aback from his response, but was happy he agreed to follow the one rule of the guild. It was basically the sole foundation of the guild.

A week later my computer crapped out on me. I was gone for a few days due to it and when I came back, I saw that he and his friend were above the level cap. When I logged on, I got this overly nice greeting from my friend asking how I was. I sent him a tell asking what had happened and why he was above the cap. He told me that since I wasn’t online, he asked one of the officers (one out of the 5 or 6 of them) if he could go past it because it really hurt his “enjoyment of the game.” The officer said he didn’t see a problem with it and so my friend took it upon himself to do what he wanted too. (My friend had my cell number preprogrammed into his phone and called me weekly.) When I asked him why he didn’t call me he informed me that he knew I was having a tough week and didn’t want to bother me with it. (Basically he KNEW I’d shoot it down and ask him not too so he went around me.)

I got him and his friend on TS and started talking to them. I told my friend that I was pretty disappointed of the way that he went down and I didn’t think it was fair to the rest of us they they break the rule. I asked if they would consider dropping out of the guild or stop playing their chars until we caught up with them. This set him off. He immediately started yelling at me in TS and took his char out of the guild. He then logged on all his alts and removed them too.

The other guy said that he understood and was sorry it happened.

From that point on our friendship was in the shitter. He started going to each guild member trying to get them on his side trying to convince them that I was the one in the wrong. It got so bad. I decided to hold a guild meeting to discuss the situation and explain why it happened. I was going to let the rest of the guild decide what should happen since it was obvious that my friend wanted back into the guild. When I called the meeting, my friend’s friend asked me if they were invited to the meeting. I said that I didn’t think it would be appropriate at that point in time.

My friend took that to be even a bigger slap in the face.

Since his wife’s character was still in the guild, he logged her on to sit in on the meeting. He logged on his char and showed up where we were meeting saying “If anyone has a question they’d like to ask me about what happened please feel free to ask. I’m right here.”

It was an overall shitty experience. All of that to say, it was a dick waving contest and he didn’t like the fact that I held some “power” over him. He felt I was making the guild more important than our friendship. That wasn’t the case at all, but it was pointless to argue with him about it since he had taken it so hard.

A month or two later, I called him up to talk to him about it. I wanted to try to smooth things over between us. I told him that I was sorry for the way it happened and that if I had a chance to do it over again, I’d have acted differently. He then said, “I wouldn’t have. I’d have done the same thing I did before.” I knew then that it was pointless trying to salvage the friendship.

Wow, guts spilled eh? I’ve mostly gotten over it. I can’t believe a fucking game got between us like that. Oh, and the guild voted to keep them out until the level cap was their level again.

Ah, memories!

KK

I know a person I really like in RL, but who drives me nuts in games. I flat-out refuse to do most things with him online. He just becomes someone I don’t like when he gets competitive, and I realized that if I hung around with him when he was like that, we wouldn’t be friends for long!

The devs actions remind me once again why I love to hate MMOs. The idea of playing with friends rocks(!), until you actually start playing with them raggamuffins.

I have actually lost a close RL friend due to a disagreement in WoW. But that wasn’t what this post was about was it…

*crawls back in corner*

KK