The former Torrent Knights, about to kill Chel’Drak
One unfortunate side to MMO gaming is the fact that eventually, everyone moves on. Whether you are a life-time MMO player or not, it’s very rare you’ll see people play the same game for more then a few years. The games evolve, the people change, and we all wander that path and head different places. Over my years of gaming (5 now) I’ve met some fantastic people. Those who have become my closest friends and who I talk to on the phone as well as in game. People who I send Christmas cards to and who I would have never met were it not for the online community that I’d found. The above screen shot is my former guild, Torrent Knights. Towards the end, I felt that the guild was headed towards self destruction, they’d been asking folks to leave who simply could not attend a certain amount of raids due to real life issues. I don’t typically last long in guilds, and especially not raiding guilds, but TK was different. They were a close bunch of people who I felt very comfortable around. It was not just raiding (though it eventually turned to that) but felt like home.
With the onset of Vanguard the core of the guild left. What was once a some what hard core raiding guild degraded into something far more casual where now perhaps 4-5 people hang out while crafting or working on forgotten quests (myself included). I won’t forget those I’ve met though, or the stories we shared. Is it silly to think of this virtual world in such a sentimental manor? Of course not. Online or not, the emotions and feelings you can discover are not any less valid then a real life friendship (at least in my eyes – granted I’m exceptionally emotional, so I can be completely wrong here).
So where do I go from here? Do I attempt to find yet another new home or do I wander around Norrath on my own and form new friendships and do those dreaded pick up groups (yes yes, I know not ALL pick up groups are bad). It took me almost a year to find TK and settle in there. I’m not looking forward to searching for another home. I’ve got my small level 9 crafting guild with my alts, but the level 70’s still sport the TK tag for now. I do miss raiding on occasion, and there are still a few raiding guilds on LDL. Just not sure if any interest me, or if any are recruiting the classes that I play. I think it’s a shame that a new MMO came out (beta in a box at that) and my entire guild fell apart. The leadership and officers also went about it in a pretty crappy way. One day TK was raiding fine, and two weeks later they were completely done. Such is the way of MMO’s I suppose.
On a side note – there are plenty of guilds who are thriving and doing just fine since Vanguard has released, and in the 20-29 channel it’s been teaming with people who have moved to EQII due to the issues they’ve had with Vanguard. I think half of my sentimental feelings about the loss of TK is simply because I’m watching the other raid guilds move on and do content that we’d never finished off.
Well, far be it from me to comment on whether men or women feel the pang of lost guildmates and online friends more keenly, but I will say I certainly can relate to your situation. For me, above all, community is important. When I log into the game I immediatly look for online friends to chat with and just say hi. I rarely do a lot with more than a handful of people, but if one of them disappears it sometimes is tough to find a true replacement and I’m not talking about the class they play.
Maybe it is just something with women but I know what you are talking about. I started out on a different server than I am now due to my hubby wanting to switch. He quit the game and I am all alone. I have yet to find a guild that I feel as comfortable with as the first guild I was in or as many friends as the first server I am on. I think back and miss those people and all the good times we had.
As far as other games I miss people from SWG that I met. It was my first mmo. I still talk to about 4 people from that game and we are going to play some upcoming games together but the friends you meet and hang out with everyday in game are just as real as the ones you meet outside of game. /sigh