Guild Drama

Hell is other people. Be warned, this is a little ranty.  And by little, I mean it’s just a rant.

I “run” a fleet (guild) in Star Trek Online.  I use the quotes because, for the most part, we’re a pretty laid back group. We don’t organize raids (not that you really can in STO) and we don’t have but occasional planned events. For the most part, we all just group up together when we’re online and work together on building the fleet’s starbase (we’ve finally made it pretty close to Tier 4. Shipyard is upgrading now and the other two will be ready to go soonish, but that’s another topic).

Last night, we had one of our irregular meetings. We, me and the other officer, had decided to make a few minor structural changes to the fleet to account for the fact that Romulans will be joining Federation fleets when the expansion launches in a month. We basically just adjusted the fleet RP to add a Romulan squadron, and therefore shuffled everyone else into either a Starfleet squadron or a new elite squadron.

During the discussion while explaining this, someone asked something about how they would RP (roleplay) this change if you’re characters RP story didn’t have you as part of the Fleet. This concept boggles my mind, and admittedly, I was pretty dismissive with the answer. I simply said that everyone needs to RP being part of the fleet. Because, to me, it makes no sense to do anything else. If you’re part of a fleet, if you’re going to RP, you should take that into account.

You would have thought I had opened up the gates of hell or kicked a puppy or something. People threw a hissy fit at the mere suggestion that their RP not be neatly wrapped up into one single, linear chain of events. One, the other officer, whined about how she had already had to completely destroy her character when she became XO because she “was just suddenly in this position” instead of having a long drawn out story where she rose through the ranks to assume that position.

And by people, I of course mean 3 people. Out of 11 present (half dozen more not present). We wasted 30min trying to unruffle some feathers of these three who took it as sacrilegious that we would even suggest this. To them, apparently, there is a single over arching story that the fleet is embarking on. They run these elaborate RP story events that evolve and develop characters and all play into each other.

Nothing against RPing but damn. I ran an RP guild in SWG for several years. We would get together most every Sunday, and RP a guild event. This story would be interconnected with the previous Sunday events. But when the meeting ended, people returned to doing their own thing. Some people would host their own RP events on different days. People would attend. They may incorporate past events into the event but only to such an extent as it made sense. If the Sunday event had the guild ending the session on Kashyyyk and intending to pick up on Kashyyyk the next week, if someone did an event in between, no one expected them to confine it on Kashyyyk or even take that event into account.

These three really enjoy their style of RP where there is only one consistent stream of events going on. That’s fine. A few other people occasionally participate with them and, to a lesser degree, run their own personal RP along those stories. But the problem I had, that I wanted to address, was that it’s incredibly exclusionary.

They claim anyone can join in and they’ll try and catch newbies up. But that’s the problem. The need to be caught up. If you need a 15min info dump just to participate in an event, its no fun. We can’t do whole fleet RP events because this group has their independent story that they won’t deviate from. And sometimes, that story has them not being a part of the fleet, meaning they can’t even participate.

A few months ago, after one of our meetings, I tried to start some quick and random RP. I did things like I had in the SWG days, setting up a scenario for people to participate in and RP within. The core RPers, refused to participate because the “Fleet was at DS9 right now”. The only people who were aware of this fact were the small few who had been RPing that way. Not the vast majority of the rest of us.

It’s this kind of attitude that turns people off to RPing. Hell, I really enjoy RP. I did it on a PVP server in SWG. I’ve run pen and paper RPG’s for several years now. But they’ve turned me off to participating. It’s to much work and it’s to constraining. They complain no one RP’s or participates in their events but this is the exact reason why.

It’s all made worse by my intolerance for guild drama at this point. Years ago, I tried to be super active in heading off drama and trying to ease tempers and work out conflicts. I just don’t care anymore. Two of the three people who were complaining last night, including the officer, are just so damn touchy.

A few months ago I raised the idea of merging our small fleet with another. I had sought out some other groups and sent out some feelers. You would have thought I had told them I was disbanding the fleet the next day. All I did was bring the topic up for discussion. The first response was “maybe”. Then one person decided it was the worst idea ever and suddenly the fact that I’m still wanting to discuss it, meant I was preparing to disband the fleet. They threatened to quit over the whole issue.

All for wanting to talk about something. At that point, I decided not to bother trying to be diplomatic with them anymore. One guy is always complaining about everything in game. Every time I log in, he has a new ship that sucks. It’s so annoying. So I stopped trying to help him outfit his ship because he’ll never be happy.

If it were that simple, I wouldn’t care. But one of the people in this complainer group is the only other officer. At one point, I had considered promoting her to the top fleet rank, so that we’re equal in rank as well as duties but I don’t trust her enough. The way she reacts to things, I wouldn’t be surprised to find myself demoted or booted from the fleet the next time she gets mad at something ridiculous.

I can’t get rid of having to deal with her without causing more drama by removing her as an officer or from the fleet.  And I don’t really want to do that. When she’s not complaining, she is a good fleet mate. All of them are. I just don’t have the patience to care if they’re upset. They should be adults and this should be a fun game.

Fortunately, none of them know my real name (as far as I’m aware) so shouldn’t read this. Otherwise I’d have an earful next time I log in. I may still. Most times, when we end a conversation, the next time I log in they’ve gotten themselves riled up about it again, making assumptions about what I mean to do or mean to say and we have to start over.

Rant off.