Wednesday, May 28, 2008

A Guildie Problem

Hopefully this one will appeal to both my RL and my WoW readers.. I need some advice!

Our guild's Main Tank at the moment is a Paladin. He's a pretty good guy, though he does get a little overly stressed at us DPS with regard to when we should start DPS-ing on occasion. We have mostly worked through that.. he made a macro that he uses to tell us when he thinks he's built up enough initial threat. Sometimes he forgets to use it.. but this is beside the point, and not the problem.

The problem is his girlfriend. Her raiding main is a resto shaman.. and she's not bad, so far as I can tell. She's usually not assigned to heal my group, so I don't know for sure. That's not the problem either. The problem is her attitude. Because her boyfriend is pretty vital to the guild, she seems to think that she can act however she wants and get away with it. And so far she's been right. She has learned how excited the boys get when the girls talk about sexual things and takes full advantage of that just about every time she is online. The rest of us girls in the guild are guilty of that from time to time as well, but we stick more to innuendo, rather than bald in-your-face statements. She doesn't seem to get that.

As an example.. the last time she was online, two of the other girls in the guild were talking about other characters they have, one named Bambi, one named Kandi. The guys were like, wtf, you guys have characters with stripper names? And she turned it into a discussion about herself, and how if she was a stripper she'd wear a mask so nobody would know who it was up there stripping. There was a joke made about mexican wrestling masks, and she was like yeah, but I'm french and scottish, which means I have the right to have sex and stay drunk, oh and us scots can't wear panties under our kilts. One of the guys said that girls shouldn't wear panties, and she says, I didn't for like two years, but now I think they're fun.

At that point I'm like, ok, I have had enough of this. So I say something like, I think that's enough, thank you. And she fired right back at me about the one (ONE) time I was involved in that sort of a discussion.

Now, I am not the only one that's tired of her. Not just the sexual guild chat, but her prima donna attitude. Everything has to be about her all the time. And nobody can talk to her boyfriend in guild chat without her chiming in on it either. I feel bad for the poor guy. Before she joined the guild, I had no problem with him at all. He gave me some really good tips on how to tank with my pally. But once she joined, he stopped being so cool.. except when she's not around.

Anyway, we dragged the guild master back online at this point. We have talked to him already about her and the way she acts, but he never seems to be online when it happens. And he has defended her on each occasion. This time he talked to her on vent, and she said oh, sorry sorry, but I just thought that because of that one other time, she shouldn't have a problem with me talking like that, we're all adults here, blah blah blah. So again she is off the hook, and we're the ones getting talked to like we're in the wrong for overreacting.

So what do you all think? Should we continue to put up with her BS and hope she goes away, or should we take the initiative and leave ourselves? A couple of the people who don't like her have 70's in a raiding guild on another server.. not quite as progressed as we are, but pretty close. They have said that we're welcome to transfer over and join it if we want to. It's getting more and more tempting too. The only thing holding me back right now is how much I like my guild master. He's been a wonderful friend to me for pretty much the whole two years I've been playing the game, and I would hate to leave him behind. I have the feeling that it would seriously damage our friendship if I left. I could be wrong, but I am pretty resistant to finding out, if I can avoid it. What would YOU do in my shoes?

4 fellow footsteps:

Anonymous said...

I've been there. I know the feeling well where a significant other of a main player within the guild doesn't recognize their boundaries. You have 3 options, near as I can tell.
1.) Have a heart to heart with her. Let her know that you're not the only person that's feeling this way and it's not appreciated. She'll either recognize this and cease and desist her actions or get all pissed off. This will bring on option 2.
2.) Have the same heart to heart with the GL and/or her boyfriend. One of them has to do something about it. If none of this works?
3.) Transfer. I've had to resort to this unfortunate measure more times than I care to count because the IQ level of my guild (and, seemingly as a result, my entire realm) seemed to drop by a large amount that was too great to deal with.

Just remember: It's your money and your play time. If you're not enjoying it, move on to where you will enjoy it.

Honors Code said...

Not volenteering myself (cause I'm takent) but there are a ton of tanks out there looking for good guilds to be a part of.

No one toon is more important than the guild.

Bibble said...

They would be willing to listen to how you feel, but I doubt they will change. I was in a similar situation as yours (adored by guild leader, but the raid leader's girlfriend was annoying, and acted as if she was more important than anyone else).

The guild leader had a discussion with her and she toned it down for about a week or so and then went back to her old habits.

I ended up abandoning my main (at the time) and started playing a 70 I had on another server. I found a great guild and couldn't be happier.

What I've found in this game is that you cannot change others or expect them to change because this is their virtual identity and playstyle.

Your best bet is to either find a way to deal with it (set on ignore? don't read her guildchat text?) and move on, or transfer. You have to do what you can to make you and your friends happy. If someone's guildchat is THAT upsetting to you, and the guild leader is not in the position to /gkick this person, well, what can you do?

Best of luck!

Anonymous said...

It sounds like the issue is with just one person. You can place them on /ignore and no longer deal with them. Since the conversations seem to be in public guild chat areas you then face the annoyance of watching half-conversations scroll by. If the guild leader isn't around to see what is happening maybe you should send them some examples. Perhaps the answer is that everyone watch what they say so that the few (one, I guess) don't take it as an opportunity to go overboard. In the end if you don't feel comfortable where you are and don't think it will change it is probably a cue to move on.