FIELD OF HONOR – A World of Warcraft Guild; Friends in the Making

I started playing WoW in June of 2007. It was primarily because of buying a new laptop for my wife. (See World of Warcraft Addiction.)Burning Crusade had recently come out and there was a lot of hype about it. Everyone was excited. I had never played and actually had never talked to anyone that had. I just didn’t see the point of paying for a game and then re-paying every month to keep playing. The whole concept still baffles me a little and I wonder if I would do this with any other MMORPG.

When people are asked why they play WoW perhaps the most common answer is the social aspect. I have nothing to base this on, but after reading several articles, talking to people within the WoW community, reading blogs, etc. this answer seems to be a very common one. Initially I didn’t really see the attraction. For the most part, I am a very private person. I have only a handful of people in my life that I would call friends and only one in my life that I truly consider a friend. But I have to admit that I have gained a few social bonds within the WoW community that I enjoy. Those social bonds are found with the guild community.

As stated, my first couple of months was spent soloing because I hadn’t really gotten into the social aspect of the game. I ended up joining a guild somewhere near level 20. The guild was brand new and didn’t have many people, but there were a couple of cool guys in it. Unfortunately the guild started to stagnate quickly and eventually I left to find another guild that could help out and that I could join for instances. I eventually found a larger guild that had quite a mix of players. I was actually impressed with the guild because the guild leader was maybe 14 and acted a lot more mature than I would have expected from someone that age. But the majority of the guild was refusing to get Burning Crusade and I was quickly approaching level 58. Although I debated leaving the guild, even though I still wasn’t extremely social within that one, I eventually left when a friend of mine invited me to FIELD OF HONOR.

Granted I’ve only now been in three guilds, but I have to say this is the BEST GUILD EVER! When I first joined there were maybe 6 members that were level 70. I wasn’t level 70, but ended up being the 7th or 8th to reach that. Generally speaking we average 70 members at any given time. Granted nearly everyone has at least one alt and there’s a couple that have several. I’ve never done a count of how many actual players there are in the guild. But that doesn’t matter considering it’s the quality and not the quantity of the guild. Sure we have aspirations towards raiding someday, but we can always join up with other guilds to do that.

The best thing about this guild is that the “Founders” and “Officers” generally have online personalities that coincide with mine. What do I mean? They are all very willing and ready to help anyone in the guild and even others that aren’t. But they resent those that are looking for handouts. We often have people join the guild thinking that they can ask every level 70 to help them with every quest, every instance, gold, equipment, enchantments, etc. I once had someone who had been in the guild two days ask if anyone could enchant his weapon with fiery enchant. I told him I could, but he’d have to provide the mats. He expressed his disappointment and without a word ended up leaving the guild about five minutes later. We all got a pretty good laugh out of that one!

As odd as it sounds and even though this may come out as sentimental drivel, I feel I’ve made four really good friends on WoW through FIELD OF HONOR and good friends with the rest of them. Because of that I look forward to playing WoW even more than I normally would. The game really is designed for the social environment and the guild is perhaps the best way to do that. I give thanks to all those in FIELD OF HONOR that make WoW that much better!