TDH Part 5: I Farm or Family Dies

As we last left our story, Two Dollar Horde had experienced its first brush with guild drama. We lost a few people, but as always seems to happen, a new batch of leaders step up to fill the void as the old ones depart. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please check the first few "TDH" articles posted previously.

Lonk quickly emerged as a guild leader, setting up a website and getting some guild rules in place. I had still been rolling with an "everyone can invite" policy until Lonk set me straight. Our objectives were different now: The policy intended to promote rapid growth for its own sake was actually *preventing* us from growing.

Several people somehow got invited into the guild without really being able to type in coherent English. There has been a rumor circulating the Warcraft communities for a while about so called "Chinese Gold Farmers" who actually get paid to gather in-game currency. Whenever people go overboard with "China will economically defeat us" doom & gloom forecasts it helps me to remember that it is indeed cost effective to pay groups of people to mine pretend gold. This implies a certain extreme disparity in standard of living, but I digress. The running gag was to say "I farm gold or my family dies". I'd love some external verification that these companies actually exist.

One person I even remember booting specifically. I logged on and got greeted with private messages that one of my guild members had stolen a piece of in-game gear from another player. The person insisted in horrible English that it had been a mistake, with the justification being that they had "wanted it". They said right after "please believe me". So, I said "I do believe that you wanted the item, and what you did was inappropriate" and promptly kicked them.

At any rate, there was some internal speculation that the non English speakers were in fact gold farmers using our guild name as cover. I confronted one of them, but they didn't appear to understand what I was saying. In the end, I realized that we had an organization starting to form that some members really valued and respected. The time was over for open recruiting. Lonk delicately raised the point by saying "Why the f&@%^ does everyone have invite privileges?" Point taken. I consolidated invite ability to a select group of guild officers.

A little before the previous drama had died down, we began some limited raiding activities as a guild. We had been invited by another guild, Deadbanger's Ball and their friends in Poison Arrow to raid Molten Core. Molten Core required a group of 40 people to run effectively. Early on we had about 20 or so from Poison Arrow and another 10 each from TDH and DBB.

We were just starting to get a taste of what organizational work was required to run a raid. We also had taken our first steps to becoming a more "professional" outfit: Don't let everyone who applies into your guild! Strange how the recruiting strategy that had worked when the guild had nothing to offer but a social space failed so thoroughly once we did have something to offer, by way of raids and PvP reputation. Next time: The extra drama that I promised you last week.