Our FYNG: Love Edition event is all about love, friendship and gaming. We therefore spoke to a guild leader from WoW about her family guild, which also meets again and again in real life.
Interpersonal affection can take many forms. In gaming, it expresses itself through couples who get to know each other online or through deep friendships that last for years.
MMORPG guilds are the perfect places for such friendships to form. Many of us can safely attest that we have met good friends through games. This is also the case with a guild leader from WoW.
In an interview, she told us how she came to lead a guild of 71 members and also about the real-life meetings her guild hosts annually.
The way to your own guild: “You were always labeled as the new one”
MeinMMO: Hi, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers? Who are you and what are you doing?
Michelle: Hey! My name is Michelle – Mimi for short – 25 years old and freelance outside the online world in the field of financial advice. Ingame you can find me under the name Peristax or alternatively with the Battletag Perista#2418.
MeinMMO: Tell us more about your relationship to WoW: When did you start playing the game?
Michelle: I started back in 2016 at the end of the Warlords of Draenor addon. Because my mother also played WoW, I wanted to check it out and joined the same guild as her. WoW fascinated me very quickly, since my best friend had started again after a long break.
The guild in which I started playing showed me that the WoW community also had family players with whom you can quickly make friends. Even today I’m still very good friends with many of them privately, although the guild unfortunately dissolved without further ado. The friendships are one of the most serious reasons why I still stayed with WoW today.
MeinMMO: How did it come about that you became a guild leader?
Michelle: Unfortunately, the guild I started in disbanded almost 1.5 years later. We then tried to rebuild the guild. However, the conditions on the server were not particularly good at the time. There were just not enough new players on the server.
Because of that, some of us started playing together on other servers. That’s how I met my current partner. We then continued to play in other guilds, but noticed again and again that you were always labeled as “the new one” and that nobody was really integrated into existing groups.
You then continued with random people and got really upset when things didn’t work out the way you wanted. At some point I was fed up and decided to found a guild again, in which there is no direct formation of small groups, in which people know each other and you can just have fun playing the game together, even if “new ones” come along. That’s how we founded the Shadow Warriors on Eredar back then – under which you can still find us today.
“What cannot be clarified online will be clarified at the guild meeting over a beer”
MeinMMO: What do you enjoy most about the role?
Michelle: The most fun is simply making progress together with my Pappenheimers. The boys and girls get me down from my relatively stressful everyday life. You learn so much about people, make friends and keep getting to know new people.
Of course, not everything is always perfect, especially when there are so many gamers in one place, there is potential for disputes from time to time. But I think that’s exactly what defines us – we’re a chaotic bunch who can stick together in the right situations. That’s exactly what I tell applicants in interviews.
MeinMMO: How much work do you have as a WoW guild leader?
Michelle: Most would think it would be a lot of work. But it really isn’t that bad. I have good “officers” at my side who relieve me of some tasks and support me.
For our fellow players, you are another contact point for problems and questions. Otherwise, I’m available for our guild members in the discord in the evenings and I organize our raids, event evenings like Twinkraids or M+ evenings and I take care of recruiting new members.
MeinMMO: What skills do you think a good guild leader should have?
Michelle: Definitely a good knowledge of human nature – that helps me a lot to judge whether an applicant fits my group or whether I’m just causing unrest in the group. Of course, this is never a 100% guarantee, but this way you can save yourself a lot of discussion and trouble in advance.
Otherwise, a certain organizational ability, for events ingame or offline – like our guild meeting. If you want that as a guild, of course. You should also deal with conflicts and problems and be able to get rid of them.
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MeinMMO: Guild drama is a problem that probably every MMORPG player has faced at some point. How do you deal with problems in your guild?
Michelle: When we first started there were often problems – one of the reasons was that we accepted every new player who wanted to join us. At the time we had different drama every few days. However, we quickly learned from that and even kicked out players who didn’t know how to behave. Insults and personal hostilities are not acceptable at all and have no place with us.
Since we’ve been conducting face-to-face Discord interviews with every new applicant and introducing probationary periods, we’ve almost completely eradicated these dramas. Sometimes there are still small discussions. We address them very promptly and talk to those affected and find a solution.
The fact that almost all guild members have already met privately and in “real life” also makes it easier for us here. That’s why we follow the philosophy “What can’t be clarified online will be clarified at the guild meeting over a beer”
Guild meeting in real life: “We have people who live across Germany and Switzerland”
MeinMMO: You mentioned your guild meetings above. What exactly can our readers imagine?
Michelle: Once a year we hold a big guild meeting in the middle of Germany. I’ve been looking for group houses for this over the past few years, mostly with the girls from our group, and we’ve written dozens of emails asking for occupancy. In the first year we had some planning difficulties due to Corona – but we found a way there too.
We have people who live across Germany and Switzerland. Our members are scattered from Kiel to Zurich via Hamburg, Trier and Dresden to the heart of Bavaria. In order to make it fair for all members, we are looking for a place that is right in the middle and is therefore easy to reach for everyone.
Of course, everyone who belongs to our guild and who wants to meet with all of us can be there. This year we spend 4 days (Thursday to Sunday) near Frankfurt and look forward to grilling with the people again and having a beer or a wine and having fun.
MeinMMO: Tell us about your favorite experiences from such an RL meeting. What did you remember most?
Michelle: The first guild meeting in the founding year of the guild was incredibly funny. Gamers know the situation – you just know the voices and the names over the Discord and then you see them all in one heap in real life. The voices and faces never match the first time, which resulted in very funny constellations.
The first evening has always been the absolute killer, we laugh, drink, dance, bawl around together until we drop dead tired at some point late in the night. Some miss half the day on the first morning sleeping off their high. The funniest photos are taken when the bunch of men crawl into Woodie’s bed in the morning to cuddle.
MeinMMO: In your opinion, what are the most important things that hold a guild together over many years?
Michelle: Above all, the personal relationships of the people are important, they have to enjoy playing with each other. It also strengthens the sense of belonging. Apart from guild meetings, people from the guild often come home and spend a weekend with us in our guest room.
Joint activities also keep people together. Even if we don’t feel like we have any more content in WoW, we can meet up on Friday evenings in the Discord, with the camera on and a good drink with us. One or the other has already fallen off a chair in front of the camera. This happens even in the best of families.
And last but not least, the guild always lives on one thing – its members. We’re always expanding our guild with new people who want to join our madhouse. With our colorful mix of ages and our diverse personalities, we distinguish ourselves as a guild.
We want to keep the old spirit and feel of WoW in our guild by having a community that plays with each other and not against each other. Exactly what makes an MMORPG.
MeinMMO: Do you have any final words for our readers?
Michelle: First of all, thanks to everyone who has read this far. If someone now says “Hey, awesome! I’ve been looking for something like this for ages” and would like to take a look at the whole thing, please contact me on Battle.net or ingame.
But be careful, the bazingas fly deep in the thunder dome – you must be at least as crazy as we are and be able to counter with stupid jokes. Because our boys can do that quite well sometimes. It’s like an initiation ritual.
We would like to thank Michelle for the interview and wish her and her guild lots of fun, both in WoW and in real life.
Do you have exciting stories of your own that you would like to tell? Or do you know someone who would be suitable for an interview? Send us your suggestions to [email protected].
Do you know your guildies from MMORPGs or other online games in real life? Tell us about your meetings in the comments.