Starting over ... again.

I've written and re-written this post a dozen times and can't seem to get it as I wish but it's for certain a key moment in my little WAR world and I really want to both share and chronicle it. 

Let's start with the obvious. Guilds in WAR are much more than the glorified chat channel that they are in many other games. There are a lot of really key gameplay elements that come from guilds, not just fluff items like cloaks but important things that make the game richer, easier to travel etc. The guild recall scrolls that let you warp to directly to your city are a god send as anyone who has them will tell you. For crafters like me there's NPCs in the guild only area with items that can only be bought from them and the list of items gets better depending on the level of your guild. There's guild banners, which are customizable AoE buff machines that are a huge, huge boon in both RvR and PvE. With 1.2 there's more fluff to be had as well, uniquely colored mounts and as well as better mounts with increased speed, reduced dismounting etc.

All of this stuff takes a lot of effort to gain.  I have triends in very small guilds who though they've been around since launch (six months ago) are barely level 10. As far as I know, no one has yet reached the maximum guild rank 40 on my server. Leveling a guild takes people and a lot of time, it's something you gain as a collective effort of all your friends as they go about their WAR lives. 

Up until last night I belonged to a wonderful heavy 100% RP guild. We were guild level 22, I joined up in October before we'd gotten basic cloaks. I was there doing flips of joy when we unlocked the teleport scrolls, I went out and did PQs like a maniac the night we were a sliver from 20 and the fully unlocked cloaks. We were one of the top 20 guilds on Phoenix Throne. Really, for a heavy RP guild to be in the top 20 of one of the most populated servers in WAR? That is really, really freaking awesome and I was really proud of it.

A few nights ago though we all learned that both our guild leaders were quitting WAR. That enough would be a sad day for any guild but totally understandable. We all know I've had my issues with the game and I don't begrudge anyone leaving. The sticker though was that they had also decided to disband the guild. Fifty or so active players were all freaking floored. We asked, we begged and then we pleaded for the next few days for leadership to simply pass the guild and let us keep going. We netted however, absolutely no response accept for another officer who was their friend and leaving as well coming onto the forums to say basically "We never liked you anyway, screw off." Guild drama, even when you're in a mature, grown up guild I suppose you can't ever avoid it can you? People do the wierdest, stupidest things under the anomity of the internet. 

Once the preverbial shit hit the fan we all accepted that we were going to lose the guild, that six months of the collective effort of probably at least 100 people was going down the drain because ... someone decided to send it there. I'm really not clear, it's nothing I would ever, ever do my online friends so I really can't understand it. I've certainly passed on my number of guilds and fansite in my gaming life.

We scrambled and over the course of few days managed to come up with the RP basis of a new guild, reformed and restructured leadership, I created a website for us and last night formed Umbral Retribution on the Phoenix Throne server.  The guild was only two hours old and we had 30 members, all of them active mains. The guild was six hours old and we had seven applications on our forums from prior members of the old guild who wished to come back under new leadership and from people who had never joined but always wished to prompted by the new change to move on from their own stagnant alliances. 

Our alliance, Black Blood Pact, has been so incredably stellar through all this. From the moment the disband was announced we have been flooded with offers of welcoming members into their guilds, offers of a CSR ticket blitz to attempt to get guid leadership transfered to one of us, to alts to help level up our new guild, to gold and items to make up for all that mysterious disappear from our vault. They started the vote to kick the old guild from the alliance as soon as we announced we were just going to bite the bullet and leave and they are eagerly awaiting our new guild reaching level 6 to reinvite us. Really ... I have just been totally blown away by the friendliness and helpfulness of our server. And I'm going to get mushy and say that I heart Phoneix Throne. Yes, even you Syp. I heart a dwarf.

Goodbye Arha Khaladh. You were flat out the most active RP guild I've had the joy of taking part in throughout my years of gaming.

Hello Umbral Retribution, may you eclipse the levels of awesome and show me what creative, mature, adults can rock out.

... I was going to compare the numbers of guild xp there and say how much was left to go... but it's just too painful. You all do the math.