Behind the Curtain: Guilds and conflict resolution
by Craig Withers 
Apr 26th 2009 at 8:00PM
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Culture, Guilds, Opinion, Behind the Curtain
Obviously, lots of players takes guild recruitment seriously, as they should. But how seriously do we take guild drama?Assuming it's not directly affecting us, most of us love guild drama and revel in other players' dysfunction. I haven't checked the numbers – I'm too lazy – but it really wouldn't surprise me if Guildwatch was one of the more popular columns over on WoW Insider. I know it's one of my favourites.
I like to think that I'm a fairly decent bloke – I try not to laugh at other people's misfortunes, and I don't like to rub a person's nose in their own failings, but God help me, I can't get enough of Guildwatch.
How far would you go to forestall the breakup of your guild? At the end of the day, if your guild leader decides to hit the big /gdisband button, it's not like you can physically stop them, short of some questionable activities you'd find difficult explaining to the police.
So, how do you prevent the break up of a guild? Do you even try? Do players spend as much time fighting to keep their guild together as they do trying to put it together in the first place? How many of us practices conflict resolution within our guilds?
A lot of guild drama gets blown out of proportion and tends to fizzle away to nothing once people take a breath and get over their first reactions. That's not always the case though and some drama actually has some weight behind it. Drama that is justified won't fizzle out, can't be ignored until it goes away, and has a tendency to just keep growing.
For example, a player finding out that his/her partner is cheating on them with an officer in the guild isn't likely to directly affect much of the rest of the guild. Finding out that said partner was getting loot from that officer instead of more deserving players is a different kettle of fish. An officer or guild leader who's occasionally short with people is one thing; targeting someone specific for bullying is something else entirely. A guild where only some people feel like raiding is cool, one where non-raiders are treated like second-class citizens less so.
My question is not so much about how to go about dealing with drama or avoiding it. Avoiding it isn't always possible, sadly – there's always going to be people who do thrive on drama, who search it out and actively precipitate it. Dealing with drama is much the same as dealing with any other kind of interpersonal problem – there are few hard and fast rules to it. Some problems can be dealt with out in the open, others are better kept behind closed doors.
I've yet to quit a guild for drama reasons, even though I've seen my fair share. I've seen a guild where the leadership was shared by a couple nearly fall apart when they broke up acrimoniously; I've seen another go though four separate leaders in the space of a year as it underwent the painful transition from a laid-back casual guild to one of the premier raiding guilds on the server. I left the last guild, as I said, not because of drama, but simply because the climate didn't suit me.
I'm getting a little off-topic though. I said my point was about how hard we fight to keep our guilds together. How hard people fight, if they do fight at all is going to be hard to predict – different types of people react differently to the same situations, and few of us react exactly the way we think we will. Maybe your gamer type will help you predict that, maybe not.
A quick Google search for things like 'MMO conflict resolution' and 'guild drama solutions' didn't really turn up anything appropriate. What they do turn up is plenty of examples of guild drama exploding in people's faces, but that's only to be expected.
The sad truth here is that not everyone will be in your guild for the same reason that you are. Most people will be, regardless of that reason being loot and PvE progression, socializing, RPing or PvPing, but there's always going to be a few who buck the trend. These are the players who will either up and leave at the first sign of trouble, or decide that the first bit of drama is their cue to stage a coup and/or walkout. Watch them carefully – if they're the former, they'll have a tendency to try and re-apply a couple of months later if you and the rest of your guild manage to work things out. If they're the latter, they may do the same, except this time there's a chance they'll bring a few faces back with them. It'll be up to you to decide if you let them back in or not.
What about the rest of us though? Those of us who enjoy, care about and even (whisper) love our guilds? Going back to an earlier point, it's hard to predict how you'll react in a given situation. Suggesting that we should all just sit back and take an unbiased view of the situation and react accordingly is easier said than done.
Have you found yourself caught up in drama that threatened the continued existence of your guild? How did you and your guildies react? How much of a fight did you put up, or did you think it best to leave and start over? Hit the comments below to share your stories with us, and brighten up our weekend.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ghen said on 8:28PM 4-26-2009
Humor the populace, and talk seriously one on one with everyone involved with the drama. This is the best way to resolve it as a guild leader. You can't make people agree, but you can make them less angry. Always keep a level head and don't joke around with people in these one on one chats. keep it very serious, show them you are concerned about their feelings. If all goes well they will either be cordial in public or someone will depart the guild on amicable terms.
Meanwhile, keep the rest of the guild happy and switch the subject. Let people know that you're on the case and handling everything so they don't have to. If they ask about details tell them honestly and privately without adding any bias. They will find out eventually if they're asking now.
Reply
Ghen said on 8:29PM 4-26-2009
and I love guildwatch too :P
Kaamos said on 9:02PM 4-26-2009
When my guild(s) stop raiding seriously, as in, not even progressively wiping- I pick up and leave.
But I just recently decided to quit them all together, call it a resolution.
It does kinda show how much I fail at it considering this post is on an MMO news site :P
But apparently I dont have anything else to read atm, so enjoy it Massively.com
I have been playing mmo's for almost 9 years.
Reply
Russell Clarke said on 4:02AM 4-27-2009
People need to remember it's only a game. If you take it too seriously, you're always going to end up blowing a fuse. Perhaps a good life lesson there too?
Reply
Vulturion said on 7:09AM 4-27-2009
I don't take MMOs the appropriate level of 'seriously' required to fit into guilds - specifically I only want to do stuff I actually WANT to do when I'm playing a game - so I stopped joining guilds a long time ago.
The only guilds I belong to - and am interested in - are solo ones or duo guilds with my brother.
With a few exceptions of course, I wouldn't say it is dramas particularly that have driven me away though; it's simply that no matter how pleasant the company, I don't spend my gaming time unfunly.
Reply
Thimlee said on 9:17PM 4-27-2009
We ran our raid guild as a 4-way balance of power amongst 4 officers. We had binds on vent to just talk amongst the 4 of us and always presented a united front on any topic; which quiets down a lot of questioning of leadership decisions, particularly loot & raidspot decisions.
It also helped to have a wealth of talent to draw from where you have around 120% of the population online that you actually need to raid, this encourages people to correctly execute fight mechanics because you have no qualms about subbing them.
Assigning spots based on player ability; not gear, seniority, friendships, synergy, or any other BS ppl may think is important. You should pick the player for his results, not who's playing him.
After picking the best players then everything is usually rainbows and sunshine and you'll just get the usual whines about loot and occasionally reiterate that not everyone can get every piece of gear the first time it drops.
We also didn't allow meters to be posted during a raid except when we asked for them and usually that was for a death recap to see what happened to someone (usually a tank). That cuts out a lot of egos and helps people focus more on killing the boss than ZOMG NUMBERS.
The only bit of drama we ran across was a few members got offended by some guys saying "n*gga" over vent in conversation; because they listened to a Flo-Rida album and thus now think they're from the streets instead of living in their parent's suburban home etc. and they wanted to blow it up on the forums to oust our guild as "racist". We made a couple posts in the thread about a scheduled cross burning etc. and locked out our members from responding and went on with our business as usual.
Pointing out how ridiculous the situation is, combined with some comments about internet white knighthood, followed by a return to normalcy is the antidote to drama.
Reply
Tikonov said on 6:37PM 7-09-2009
I quit WoW just before frozen throne ( try it :P ), but was in one of the top raiding guilds on teh server and we never ran into any dramatical personal problems at all, due to the fact that none of us were ever even interacting on that level - Raids were a totally hush affair, lucky if someone said something once in 20 mins over vent ( in the end most people stopped using it all together ).
Everyone knew exactly what/when/how to do whatever required of them, raids arent exactly designed to be unique experiences - just play the numbers:)
Just dont join a guild with people playing WoW for social reasons - oddly enough i find playing with people that dont speak the same language as each other works out the best, shure it was lonely with hours of quiet in SwP but people rarely messed up and half the raid wouldnt have been able to insult the others even if they cared too :)
I guess that might seem like it defys the point in playing WoW at all, but lets face it - the majority of high end players are able to play the dps/tank/heal role perfectly in any raid and are only limited by the fact they can only really play as one character at once, i know it sounds bigheaded but theirs plenty of times i wished their was just 24 other mes in the guild then everything would always go fine:)
Always tempted to go back to wow for lich king but the thought of endless hours spent getting incrementaly better gear over and over forever is depressing, i quit with my 'best' char (pally) having full bt/hs/swp tank/dps/heal gear to the point where their was nothing in SwP that i actually needed to loot, guess its all worthless scrap now :)
- David Armitage
Reply
nitznits said on 6:30AM 7-21-2009
It is very hard to manage relationship conflict due to lack of knowledge, conversational skills and immatureness. All these things are necessary for relationship conflict management. We have to take care of all the little things which will turn in to most aggressive talks and conflicts and finally results in to breakup and divorce. When your spouse gets angry then you have to remain calm so that your partner forced to think that you still love and want him. And always remain try to be decent during conversation whether your are fighting or discussing something. And give chance to your partner to express his/her needs and desires from you. It will generate a trustworthy bond between both of the partners.
http://www.marriage-counselors.net/couples-problems/Marriage-Relationship-Conflict-Management.htm
Reply
nitznits said on 6:27AM 7-21-2009
It is very hard to manage relationship conflict due to lack of knowledge, conversational skills and immatureness. All these things are necessary for relationship conflict management. We have to take care of all the little things which will turn in to most aggressive talks and conflicts and finally results in to breakup and divorce. When your spouse gets angry then you have to remain calm so that your partner forced to think that you still love and want him. And always remain try to be decent during conversation whether your are fighting or discussing something. And give chance to your partner to express his/her needs and desires from you. It will generate a trustworthy bond between both of the partners.
http://www.marriage-counselors.net/couples-problems/Marriage-Relationship-Conflict-Management.htm
Reply