Guild Life Part 1, The Fall of Honor

I've been meaning to tell this story for a while now. Writing about it, I can finally cleanse my soul.

Way back in the Spring of 2005, I was a young Dwarf. The game was new, it was fresh, everyone was excited to play. While slugging my way through Dun Morogh, I made a friend. The next day, said friend started a Guild and invited me. We were your standard group of newbies, just having fun in this new world.

Several days later, the Guild Master joined up with another Guild to be with friends, and invited me along for the ride. I was Ralken of Bound by Honor. I even had a GUILD TABARD. Back in those days, that was a pretty big deal.

BBH was an adults-only Guild. We were a mature, friendly, welcoming place. We helped each other out. We cheered each other on. When our first member reached Level 60, it wasn't just a personal accomplishment, we all shared his joy.

We were a family.

In those early months, I tried other servers, I tried Horde, but I could not stand to be away from my Guild. There was so much insanity flying around chat back then, it was nice to have a quiet home where I could be myself and enjoy conversing with my fellow players.

We knew how to have fun. We would have races and holiday parties. One night, when all the boys were PVPing at Southshore, the girls decided it would be a great prank to change the Guild Tabard to pink with teddy bears. Oh yeah, that was a blast.

I'm not exaggerating when I say I feel we had some of the best players on the server. We had the best Paladins and Priests I've ever seen, even to this day. I learned everything I know about playing a Hunter from my "elders." Knowledge I have passed on to other players over the years. I loved rolling in and smashing Scholomance, Stratholme and Blackrock Spire. I felt I had beaten the game when we took out Araj and his goons with 8 players.

As an adult Guild, we were not big raiders. We had jobs, we had families. We did what we could, when we could. In time, we graduated to running Molten Core Fridays and Saturdays, co-raiding with another Guild. It was good, it was fun.

Many developed a taste for more.

To make things easier, we merged with that second (and later a third) guild. Of course, as with all Guilds, drama ensued. The "top raiders" wanted more progression, better loot faster. The core of BBH was not down with this. Arguments were had, friends were lost, feelings were hurt. It was decided that the raiders could keep the name "Bound by Honor" and all the respect that came with it. The rest of us, most of the BBH originals, including the Guild Leader and most officers left to form Awaken.

Awaken was all the fun of BBH without the stress of raiding.

Awaken was a solid guild. It started growing. And growing. AND GROWING. In time, we surpassed 500 members, including alts. Now, there is a "glitch" in the system that causes major issues when a Guild surpasses 500 members. It's kind of hard to plan a raid when you can't even tell who's online. Well, we had a second Guild sitting around that noone was using. Shortly after the split, BBH imploded, leaving the original GL's bank alt as the only member. It was decided to split into a "Raiding Guild" and an "Alt Guild." A joint chat channel was set up and we functioned as two halves of a whole.

As a non-raider at the time, I remained in Awaken. As a long-time member, I was given the seniority of joining BBH, but I stayed where I belonged.

Some time later, shortly before the launch of Burning Crusade, my account was stolen. I lost everything. A week later, I had a mailbox full of Hellfire Greens and Gold. Mind you, BC Greens were a substantial upgrade over Old-World gear, and worth a significant amount of Gold at the time. Even though I only played a couple days a week, I was still a member of the BBH family. We leave no man behind.

Burning Crusade carried on. The most motivated among us reached 70 quickly. Karazhan runs were started, with a little success. Prince was downed a couple times. Some wanted to move on to Gruul, but we weren't ready. Of course, just try to stop the stupid from trying. Yup, more drama. Raid attendance was down, Kara runs were less and less successful.

There was an increasing number of members who grew frustrated. All the casuals were holding them back. Over a holiday weekend, when the Guild Leader was away, they staged a coup. They started kicking people, telling them BBH was becoming a full-time raiding guild. They invited all their big-time raiding friends. Of course, I have no idea what they hoped to accomplish. Once the Guild Leader logged on, they were all booted, regardless of Officer status.

The damage, however, was done. The Guild was in shambles. Many disgruntled members had already moved on. Awaken was merged back into BBH and we tried to carry on. We started having fun again for the first time in ages. However, the GL's heart just wasn't in it anymore. She wanted to continue with the game, but BBH was not the place to do it. After 3 years of playing Mom to a bunch of adults, she wanted to start playing for herself. She transferred off server, leaving the Guild in the hands of other long-time members.

I turned down an Officer spot. With my extremely limited schedule at the time, I felt I could not put in the time that would be required of an Officer. In retrospect, that was a bad decision.

To be continued in Part 2 here.