If you’ve ever done any kind of online gaming, you should be familiar with the concept of a guild. You can’t play an MMO without running into one, after all. A guild provides a group of players at the ready to join with you, and engage in a variety of tasks and activities.
However, what is a guild beyond a recruitment ground for a raid? What is the glue that can hold that band of adventurers together?
Let’s Talk About Me…
I consider myself to be a part of a guild. Our current Skype group alias is “Voice Actors Anonymous”, although we’ve gone through a slew of titles ranging from “The Box Cutters” to “Syndicate Shenanigans.”. No matter the name, the group has largely remained the same twenty-odd individuals.
We all met through written role play – like Dungeons and Dragons, except instead of playing on a board we played with verbs. From there, we discovered our love of gaming and we each brought the others into different folds.
It all begin with a Steam sale. After our wallets felt the pain, we all come out of it with Star Wars: Battlefront II. Eager to engage in some relaxing shoot outs and space battles, we jumped on a server and proceeded to open a can to a great new phenomenon.
This soon spilled into other games. A few of us evolved into ArmA II, where we all relax with some military shenanigans. We have a four person foothold in The Old Republic, which provides us with our science fiction fix and lightsaber love. Mabinogi gives the majority of our ‘guild’ a never-ending second life. Payday 2 serves as another gateway into sticky situations – who else can you trust to rob a bank with you than your best bros from the internet?
Just chilling under enemy fire. The usual.
Why Guilds Matter
I could keep listing the games, but the point needs to be made that having a solid group of friends to constantly game with makes a difference in gaming. You have everything you need at all times, whether it be someone to help pass the time in conversation to someone you can trust to cover your buttocks as you rush into enemy fire.
Now, I know many people just use guilds to have access to solid players or to qualify for raids. I myself can’t help but view my guild as nothing less than my friends.
How does your guild handle the social aspect of life?
