I Am The Master

Previously … a pair of guild jackasses fail to seize lasting political power and leave the guild. Their applications to a new guild contain some harsh shit-talking, prompting a rather canine-like response in our more submissive members — namely, asslicking. I use the absurdity of the shit-talk for new comedy material in guildchat and Ventrilo, for which I am labeled an ungrateful prick … and worse. Ok, ya, guilty, however, in my defense, what I left unsaid was … power-hungry, self-serving loot whores and good riddance. Although I am saying that here and now.

(If you’re just joining the story, don’t spoil the ending for yourself: Read Part I and Part II first.)

We scheduled Ahn’Qiraj 20 for the first off-raid night of the week purposely. The guild alts and recruits needed some of the upgraded books/spells in the zone and also, there’s nothing quite like free loot to shut people up when guildchat has become a bitchfest. To prove we were serious about shutting people up with free loot, the head raidleader volunteered to run the shindig, which is usually beneath him, but this was all about restoring the guild to order.

As I recall, the hunters and priests made out like bandits, and you know me, anytime I can please the raid priests, I’m all for it. (“Here’s some free loot, please don’t burn out.”) We had just swept through four of the bosses, including the big boy of the zone, and were clearing back to finish a couple of crap bosses when the raid paused momentarily while the head raidleader (aka Puppet #1) stopped to deal with guild shit.

You can always tell when an officer or raidleader is getting tell-bombed with guild shit — they’ll pause mid-sentence, stand right in the path of patrols and become unresponsive to text chat.

We cleared the patrols and waited. This is what we heard the raidleader say on Vent: Oh I don’t fucking believe this. This is what we saw the raidleader type in guildchat: You know what you did. This is what we saw next: Warrior28 has been removed from the guild. This is what I said on Ventrilo: Heh, what was that all about?

Here’s the deal. Raidleader got a tip that Warrior28 had applied to the same guild as the two jackasses who ripped our guild a new asshole. (“Oh I don’t fucking believe this.”) Raidleader alt-tabbed out to check that guild’s forums and confirmed that Warrior28 had indeed applied over there, and for extra fun, had listed the two jackasses as references. (Some guilds have an application that is eerily similar to a job application, which is really stupid in my opinion, but that’s material for another day.) Raidleader informed Warrior28 that he was about to get a boot to the curb. Warrior28, at that moment sitting outside THEIR raid zone with OUR guild tag, expressed surprise and asked why. (“You know what you did.”) Raidleader explained in a tell that Warrior28 had been busted. (“Warrior28 has been removed from the guild.”) And that’s what that was all about.

Raidleader had had about enough of the whole mess at this point and just unloaded in Vent … kinda like “f this, f’ing f’ers, f’ing do everything, f’ing never enough, f’ing loot whores, f’ing f that, if you f’ing think f’ing us is f’ing ok, then go f elsewhere, f’ing dirty *word I can’t even abbreviate on a family blog*, you get the idea. It was really quite spectacular. A few of us joined in, the asslickers did some licking, but eventually everyone calmed down and the raid went forward. Warrior28 had terrible attendance and was hugely negative DKP, so in the grand scheme of things, wasn’t a big deal in and of itself.

After a few minutes, we noticed that one of the rogues had gone linkdead. Hmm, thought we, could that be one of those on-purpose linkdeads? He never returned, we replaced him for the last fight and the night ended without further incident.

The next morning, I logged on early, 6:00 am-ish, to check raid supplies and equipment for that night’s raid. The lone guildmate online at the time told me that Linkdead-Rogue had just logged on a few minutes prior and had removed himself from the guild, along with all of his alt characters. There’s that damn 5:00 am guildremoval shit again. (why?? why??) I speculated to my guildmate that maybe Linkdead-Rogue was one of the asslickers and couldn’t stand that some of us refused to lick ass. Who knows.

I logged and sat to camp the guild message boards for a few minutes before work to see if this latest drama would begin. It did. Linkdead-Rogue posted that he left the guild because he sold his account and, as of that day, was turning over control to the new account owner. He added that it wouldn’t be fair to us to leave his characters in the guild when he wasn’t the owner anymore. Gee … ya think? Of course, that’s the least of the fairness issues involved, but whatever. Fucker had just gone on a DKP spending spree the week before too.

Immediately, some of us doubted his story. The timing, it was too coincidental. And no one admits to selling their account, ESPECIALLY to their guildmates. Selling one’s account is the biggest shame move of all — people don’t admit to that.

We arrived at raid time, with the usual flurry of raid prep: the invites, the waitlist, the flying, the summoning, the zoning, the buffing, the standing around waiting for that one asshole to /afk out of the PVP battleground, etc.

One of our mages announced in Vent that Linkdead-Rogue has just applied to the same guild as the two jackasses. (The mage had learned to watch rival guilds’ application forums from me. Aww, I’m so proud of him. He’ll make a fine game hag yet.) We alt-tabbed out to go read his application. One of our slower guildmates asked, “so then he didn’t sell his account?” Gee … ya think?

After some bitching and some mockery, the raid commenced … the bosses died, the loot flowed … the raid ended. If memory serves, and this was just two days ago, it was about halfway through the raid when I hatched my plan to deal with Linkdead-Rogue.

I know that we were ordered not to publically comment or take action on all the shit this week, but what can I say? I’m disobedient. I’m also a master at guerilla gaming tactics. I am the fucking guerilla master, have no doubt.

The next day, at the gaming witching hour (which we now know is between 5:00 and 6:00 am), I created a new persona. Let’s say I named him Koop, but I didn’t so don’t try googling that and thinking you found me. I gave Koop a fresh gmail account and registered a Koop account on the rival guild’s message boards. Koop made a screenshot of our own message boards, specifically the post where Linkdead-Rogue made his fond IGE/ebay/Player Auctions farewell. Koop carefully cropped out any identifying information of who screenshot the post (fucking. guerilla. master.) and uploaded same to one of those free image upload sites. Then, Koop posted the screenshot link on the rival guild’s forums as a reply to Linkdead-Rogue’s app and added some pithy commentary because I wanted to make the read worthwhile, but I kept it subtle and somewhat light-hearted. Y’know, just an FYI kind of thing, we’re all friends here.

The trap detonated within the hour and BOOM, just like that, Linkdead-Rogue’s application was killed. Oh sure, Linkdead-Rogue tried to explain himself, he even tried to drag the two jackasses into it with him, claiming they could vouch for him (I enjoyed that part immensely), but really, what could he say? He’d been caught, in either a lie or as a sold account, neither of which is any good. (Hint: His only option now is to server transfer. Au Revoir, asshole. Have a nice life.)

That night, a few of the guildmates had noticed that “Koop” had effectively killed Linkdead-Rogue’s app and asked in guild if anyone knew who Koop was. Fucker was obviously a guildmate, he had screenshots from the members-only boards, fercrissakes.

Raidleader (aka Puppet #1) sent me a tell, “heh”. He knew. He knows I’m the fucking guerilla master and he knows what I’m capable of. And now you do too.

So. That’s how my week went. And yours?

17 thoughts on “I Am The Master

  1. I have to bow to the master here. I really hate it when people lie about reasons for leaving a guild. Guild hopping in WoW is like an epidemic and maybe you’re the cure.

  2. Excellent read, Foton. Guild drama is *so* entertaining when it isn’t your guild… hehe.

    Why is it that people just can’t tell the truth when quitting a guild? Ok, you don’t have to be a jerk about it… but ‘I don’t care for guild policy regarding how recent situations were handled. I feel I should look for a guild that does things more in accord with the way I would do things.’

    Regarding the shame factor of admitting to selling an account….

    One Sat morning we had a particularly clueless 60 mage join our guild. He was all about going to fight the Horde (yeah, we’re not a pvp guild. We’re also on an RP server…). Ok fine. But…he didn’t know where to find them….didn’t know how to get to the horde cities. He blithely states, in guild chat, that he’d just BOUGHT that account.

    Oi vey.

    After pointing him to BG’s, he came back later, again with the ‘let’s go kill Horde’ and I explained to him, that we weren’t a PvP guild. That a few guys in the guild do pvp, but our focus was on pve, and light RP. ‘Perhaps you might consider looking for a guild whose goals include pvp.’

    “CluelessAccountBuyingMage has left the guild”

    *snicker* Didn’t even have to wait for an officer with /gkick ability to log on.

  3. How is it possible that given all the possible variable (ages, cultures, etc) that every guild is exactly the f’ing same? That’s got to call for some sort of reevaluation of the principles of physical science.

    You almost inspire me to write about my own guild but I have a history of getting busted by crazy people who aren’t even supposed to be able to use the internarts, so maybe that’s not such a good idea.

    Regarding selling/buying accounts: Our guild got an application from a warrior whose name sounded oh-so-familiar but neither me nor my husband could figure out why. Interesting. The raid leader informs the officer corp that he openly admitted it being a bought account but that he hoped we wouldn’t hold it against him. Finally it dawned on us, it was an “alt” of a jacktard in our old guild. Being the kind-hearted group of people we are, we give the poor lad chance….he was 4 times the warrior the jacktard ever thought about being. Jacktard should have paid HIM to play the account.

  4. Thanks for the schedenfraude. I love the tales of backstage guild manipulation, but surely not from any sense of familiarity. Why, that would be cruel.

  5. Nice story, all that. So forgive me if I’m behind the Foton times, but does no one from your guild know who you are either? I know in the past you’ve talked about guildmates kidding you about blogging while you’re supposed to be playing, or some sort. Does nobody on your whole server read any WoW/MMO blogs? It seems to me the incestuous blogosphere would eventually lead them here and you’d be outed.

    Just saying that I’m surprised you post things that are supposed to be a secret from your guild. How deep do the layers of deception go?

  6. The still waters run deep, indeed. Very few in the guild know about afkgamer.com. It’s a running bit with us, actually: “Alt-tabbing to read the web while we wait” “whatcha you gonna read?” /tell player afkgamer.com. “hahaha”

    Most stories I hold for a few weeks so that almost everyone would have forgotten by the time I publish. All this did happen just this week, but as Gesikah pointed out above, it’s the same all over. Odds are, something very similar has happened this week on at least a couple of Warcraft servers. Good for me, because that would be another round of drama to deal with.

    As an aside, there’s been 2 or 3 readers that correctly guessed my server, 1 that correctly guessed the guild too, but they were very generous with respecting my privacy. I like to game in peace, and, with impunity.

  7. *bows to the sensei* loved the story. Is it wrong that i hope your guild falls apart because it would be a great story? =) jk.

  8. one comment from me, on my server it is actually pretty common for some of the “top” people to sell their characters once they quit.
    Prices have been as high as 2k$ (though that was a full tier 2 warrior with TF back in the day when only about 40 guilds cleared bwl worldwide).

    While i would never recruit someone who has bought an account i have never had hard feelings for those who sold and will gladly take them again in whatever game we play next.

  9. /bow
    That was fantastic man, a nice little reminder of when I was in my 30’s and my guild (which a 60 had wiggled me into despite it being an endgame raid guild) was undergoing a loooot of bullshit. Fond memories, nice read.

  10. The theme from mortal combat comes on, the words ‘finish him’ echo through your mind, what do you do?

    You pull the king of all combos and take that sucker down, nice work Foton. =D

  11. Well can’t wait to read about when this guild finally implodes. I have yet to meet a raiding guild that has survived more than a few months acting like yours.

  12. did something similar, though im no “guerilla master” just posted with my own name on my former guilds forum when some fucktards obviously lied about their age and all kinda shit… called my self “Bullshit Policeofficer” … love the rank taking game…

    but well “DEATH TO ALL FUCKTARDS”
    and I feel with ya… on RC like 90% of the players has switched guild at least 5 times …

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