[Mangler] Non toxic hard core guild?

It worked out awesome. I wasn't embarrassed to sport my guild name and if I remember correctly, when I was a part of the guild and we were moving into PoT, we had no issues with the guilds ahead of us blocking content. I recall there being some fairly cordial relations between Acoma and even the guilds who's reps weren't that great, because they respected us.

I think something like that gets based upon a pattern of behavior. Is it a guildie who's always been very respectful and this seems out of character or is it someone who has been accused of this and several other things while in the guild?

Hi Sturn,

Did you play under a different name? I don't remember a Sturn. I just learned of Brad McQuaid's passing and was feeling a bit nostalgic. As a therapeutic way of processing that information I thought I'd respond to this post that I googled looking to see if anyone from Stromm was still around. Rather than debate anyone's point, I'll explain a bit about Final Door...

I didn't start the guild with any real life friends. It began with three people that I met on Luclin Server. We started fresh on Stromm and started our own little guild mainly to communicate. I did some raid leading on Luclin, so I took the Guild Leader position and realized if we wanted to move through content then we needed more people. So, how to create a guild? Every guild that I had joined was primarily focused upon how geared/experienced your character was. Personality was usually secondary, tertiary, or not even a factor. What if both were equally important? Actually, what if it was more important that you were fun to play with?

So, I started recruiting and it took a very loooooooong time. I played a warrior and grouped with a lot of different people. If they were fun and played decent, then I asked them to join. Also, this was the last time I really enjoyed Everquest (more on this later). Once we got to about twenty or so people, then we established rules for new members, which factored in mainly personality and not what class you were. Now, this is not to say that we were trying to create a hive mind. Just people that wanted a bit of escapism and weren't psychopaths. Eventually we had a community of over a hundred people that wanted the same things. The size was needed due to raids being 72 people I think it was? Man, that reminds of Plane of Earth. What a nightmare that was....ugh.

Well, so far this probably sounds pretty normal. Heck, you might even be in a guild right now that has the same ideology. So, what made our guild fairly decent that someone mentioned us on a post fourteen years later? Well, first and foremost it was the community of people that we built. Perhaps it was lightning in a bottle as well. A perfect combination of people too, maybe. Well, it was also our leadership. And not just myself either.

Here is the thing, Sturn. I did not have fun in Everquest after my first month on Stromm. In fact, I was absolutely miserable and stressed out leading that guild. Why? Because it wasn't about me. It was about providing entertainment for over a hundred people and the crushing responsibility of it. I took nothing extra. I spent all my time ensuring that Final Door was free of anyone that didn't want to be there and that other people didn't have to deal with guild vs. guild drama. There were a few moments that were enjoyable, but that was mainly when everyone was happy because we had beaten some boss in EQ.

How to deal with toxicity? Zero tolerance. I didn't like booting people out of the guild. Heck, it broke my heart and made me feel terrible sometimes, but it was necessary for the greater good - in order to provide entertainment to people. People are not entertained when they log on and there is massive problems and uncertainty. Generally, people log on and want to escape.

We never wasted anyone's time. I was the first one in zone. Researched every fight. Made sure we always started and ended our raid times promptly. We set a schedule and did not make it mandatory because you know what? People will show up anyway because they want to! If they don't want to, then do you really want them there not having fun? Again, providing entertainment to people.

So, how do you deal with other people in and out of guild? Treat someone you meet for the first time as if they are the most important person in the world, because chances are that is how they view themselves. Once you start to communicate then you can walk back from that initial ideology and start to form a relationship.

I engaged with other guilds and with people in our guild the same way I engage with people in real life. There is no difference to me. I know there is another person on the other end of that screen and chances are they were playing the game for the same reasons. Yes, for fun, but also MMOs tend to attract those that are, to varying degrees, escaping reality. Whether it is because they are socially isolated, disabled, can't deal with reality, etc. However, if their fun was messing up someone else's fun in or out of the guild? They were gone for both parties mutual benefit. They could find an environment where they could thrive and ours could continue on.

Did we lose skilled players? Yup. However, in the long term it benefited us, because people would join us because they realized they were going to be entertained in a non-toxic environment. Recruitment was never an issue. There is no shortage of good people, which I believe most people are.

Well, eventually I couldn't take it anymore and left just before Plane of Time, which was the only zone I really wanted to see. I'd say we were at our apex at that point. I only vaguely know what happened afterwards, but all things end don't they?

- Acoma

Certified non-toxic and BPA free (bad players' attitude).

The selos thread with Ice-T on fires of heaven was the pinnacle of toxic and very funny laugh.

i find it funny that Innate is leading this.

I remember on Phinny him getting a weeks suspension for training Entendre in Akheva.

I kind of "come and go" on these forums so just saw this reply. No, my name on Stromm was not "Sturn". I played a Bst who's name now escapes me. I joined your guild about the time you guys were keying up for Luclin raiding. I stayed until about the time that EQ2 dropped. I feel kind of sad that you didn't get much enjoyment from that time. Hopefully you can take some solace in the fact that you did an excellent job of providing a home for people like me that wanted to see the raiding side of EQ without having to deal with the typical drama. I still remember when we accepted a top frog cleric into the guild named "Flipt". He had been with several other top guilds up to that time before coming to us. I still remember to this day the offhand remark he made to me at one of his first raids with us about how "we were the most disciplined guild he'd ever been in". I remember him being pretty impressed with us which impressed me at the time as he'd been with all the other top guilds. Anyways I hope all is well and I want you to know that I regret ever leaving EQ and Final Door when I did as I was never able to recapture that gaming experience again with EQ or any other game.

You could argue that people who continue to follow the "toxic" leaders are not better than those they purport not to be...

Honestly, I used to be in all those "hardcore" "toxic" guilds because that's all you could be in if you wanted to raid, but now you don't have to be. There are 10+ guilds clearing the content on Mangler you could join. If you CHOOSE to stay in those toxic guilds its because you are in fact toxic yourself.

The best thing about AoC's is that I never have to guild with people like THAT ever again.

Oh this was a necro, oh well, my point stands...