Guild Love

I think I mention my guild reasonably often on this blog, even if the last time I penned a dedicated love letter to it was two years ago now.

Like most things, it has its ups and downs (drama happens sometimes, there's just no way to avoid it where human beings are involved), and I have my own ups and downs with it - for example there have been periods when members that I personally found pretty annoying have been very vocal in chat and on Discord, making me want to be around less in order not to have to deal with them. On the whole though, things have been good.

There have been practical limitations to my involvement though: I'm a bit of an introvert and after coming home from a long and tiring day at work, my capacity to socialise has often been limited. I never really got it when people logged onto voice chat just to "hang out" as opposed to joining specifically to listen to instructions during an operation for example.

Needless to say, that has really changed during the last couple of weeks. Working from home every day and only having Mr Commando to interact with, even I look forward to talking to someone else in the evening, so I find myself logging in just to see who else is on.

Chat tends to be lively, and as unfortunate as it is, the fact that guildies all over Europe are suddenly stuck at home for the same reasons and are having similar experiences gives everyone a shared subject to talk about. (And of course there's always the "whose government is the worst at handling the crisis" competition.)

While more introverted people like me might feel encouraged to log on more often to get a small dose of socialisation, the same actually applies to the extroverts right now, as they suddenly don't have anyone to hang out with other than their online friends, now that their various movie nights, parties and sports events are cancelled. (It makes us feel so loved!)

It's a great time to get to know everyone better, as people are more likely to stay online that bit longer in the evening and are more willing to share a little about their lives. I also find myself much more willing to run content that I may not actually need or even be hugely interested in myself, just to help someone else out or simply to feel like I'm doing something with other people. It's comforting and actually reminds me of my younger days, when I was a much more active guildie in the games I used to play since I was a student and had oodles of free time.

Here's to all the guilds keeping us company!