Sunday, July 13, 2008

Thoughts about guild mums

Are you a guild mum? If you are, do you always enjoy the role or do you sometimes want to get out of it since it’s become a burden?

A lot of questions came into my head as I just spotted a new blog, named no less than Guild Mum. (A blog which seems promising – I’ll definitely keep an eye on it and hope you keep posting, so no offense about this post!).

The blog author Sephrenia is a mum in RL and says she’s taken it into the game. She spends more time in the game chatting than playing, and all of her guild seems to confide things to her. She obviously enjoys this role and has even taken upon herself to try to contact personally every guild member at least once a week to catch up on how they’re feeling, if they need help with anything, how their RL is”

First of all I must say that I really think what Sephrenia’s doing is awesome. I think all guilds could benefit from this kind of people and roles. It’s so easy to focus on appointing class leaders, raid leaders and other officers, forgetting about who will make sure that people actually enjoy the game, that they’re comfortable within the guild, that the glue that holds the guild together is strong. It doesn’t matter if your guild is about raiding, levelling, pvping ore roleplaying, mums are always in need.

But… (yes, of course there’s a “but” coming, you were just waiting for it).

What makes me a bit worried is that you only hear about guild mums (this isn’t the first one I hear about). I’ve so far never ever heard about a male player describing himself as a “guild dad”, talking about how he’s performing the kind of work Sephrenia does.

I can’t help worrying that some female players are assigned this kind of role, more or less against their will. You bring patterns from RL into the game (it IS quite common that women are the ones in family who keep in touch and nourish the social network of the family) rather than grabbing the opportunity to explore other sides of yourself.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing to see some loving, tendering guild fathers who care about the social atmosphere in the guild, while some hardcore female players plan for the next raid?

About myself, being a mother in RL, I really try to avoid slipping into a “mum” roll in the guild. Yes, I guess I’m quite social and I do chat and get to know people quite a deal. But I’d never ever take upon me the role of actually mothering people within the guild. Not even the teenagers, which would be quite easy to do since my own children are in that age.

I want to be a player just like anyone else - a raider and a mage, exploring and enjoying the game. Not a mum - in another environment than usual, but still put on doing mum duties.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was the guild mum in my old guild, and I kind of enjoyed it to be honest! It was very different to being a RL mum as my oldest is just turning 3 next week, so maybe I'd have felt differently if my boys, and I, were older...

I definitely seem to have a lot of people who answer things I say in gchat with "Yes Mum!"... so I guess it's just part of my personality, and why wouldn't I wasnt it to show through huh? ;)

Ya know, I never thought of you as a mum - I just assumed that you were 20something and free of the whole 'responsibility' thing that comes with being a parent lol :) Hope that doesn't come across in a bad way somehow- it's not meant that way at all!

Anonymous said...

Yay! I'm happy to hear that I'm NOT appearing like a mother in my blog. Obviously I've succeeded in my mission to investigate and express other sides of myself in my blog- Enjoying the freedom that blogging as well as WoW actually offer us.

Maybe it's something that comes with age, this urge to be something else but "mum".

Anonymous said...

Heh, we did have a guild dad(!) in my old guild. Don't know how he got the role, since he's not a dad irl, but people spoke with him in that way.
He made the guild a warmer place.

But Im not sure - perhaps we had more than one guild dad.
Everyone can't have same dad(/mentor?), heh.

Anonymous said...

Hey Larísa, I wouldn't categorise myself as a guild Dad.
1) I am not really in a guild.
2) I am never around enough to be a good Dad (mmm actually that sounds pretty sterotypical dad).

But that said. in the last guild I as really in, I did put my own progression behind to help the up and coming toons. Occasionally I would see they were off on the 40 man raid, and I was running the latest gaggle through the 50's instances.. but it was all good.

Ans I guess being the RL dad of a 2 yo, I have a great deal of patience, and can cope with baby steps - particularly from puggers that join our group, who obviously have a good attitude, but maybe not the skill or confidence... actually spent a kara recently encouraging such a player through.

I think I might have scared them a little when I said at Aran (to the whole group) You dying is ok, You killing us due to flamewreath is not ok.

Afterwards the pugger was so proud that they didn't move during flame wreath... I don't think they were a kid, just an adult nervously doing their 1st Kara run.

Anonymous said...

Im not the "Guild Mom" by any means. I guess I once was when I was leading my own guild, but its one of the big reasons I put that behind me. The title of my blog and/or the screen name I use is simply because I need a modifier in the name. I could have called myself simply Altoholic but I don't think it sounded as approachable. I do enjoy helping my fellow peers, but its not my "job" anymore. But props to those who pull it off and still enjoy it!