I experienced my first guild breakup last week. I logged into World of Warcraft after having been offline for several days, and what I found was quite a surprise: guild membership had been slashed by half; guild chatter was abuzz with stories of backstabbings, betrayals, and emotional outbursts; and there was talk of new “splinter guilds” being created from the remains of the old guild.

I can’t say it affected me or my Warcraft gaming much; I enjoyed interacting with the other members of my guild but have always considered such interaction a side-benefit of the game rather than a core feature. It was interesting to see how seriously the guild breakup was taken by some people, however; particularly those who spent a lot of time online and who clearly saw the guild as a major real-life social outlet.

All in all, an interesting experience–and I must confess, a mildly amusing one; I wish I had been on the guild’s teamspeak voice-chat server when the Big Blowup went down. I felt a little bad that the guild breakup affected me so little, but I just can’t really bring myself to take the game seriously enough to feel bad or hurt about it. I’ve joined a new guild created by refugees from the old one and am plugging away happily doing quests, exploring dungeons, and killing monsters… and wondering how long before this guild, too, goes the way of all guilds.

by