Friendships Don’t Matter in Games

I’ve been playing this one mobile MMORPG for a while. I’m a big MMORPG fan, and this one is actually one that I liked for a while. The game mechanics were simple, and of course, it was one of those freemium type games.

I jumped from guild to guild as I grew in strength, until I ended up in a guild that wanted to rank up well. Seeing my chance, I said a small goodbye to another guild, and went into a highly active one. It was a rough ride for a while; imagine newbies trying to fight the top rank guilds already, trying to be different in strategy. Of course, we were on a losing streak on a while, and that created so much stress on the guild leader, that eventually it started creating rifts between the members. He had a history for focusing more on wins than anything else, which cost him his last guild. And when we noticed it happening again, a member and I approached him about it to talk about it and get the issue settled.

He freaks out instead. I get angry and leave.

I end up on a slightly more casual yet top ranked guild. For a couple of days I was able to relax a bit, learning that this guild has been friends for a while amid not all members being in it (10 people only), and they have their stuff together. I actually liked being there, until another old member called me back to help out in a new guild.

Turns out, this new guild is a top ranking one as well, and they’d merged with the old one I was in. The guild seemed rather nice, though rather strict with strategy. I was still fine with that. The old guild leader was there too, but as a sub leader. I decided to keep my options open and give them a try.

The stress builds up again, this time with just him; everyone else was just fine. One night, we end up arguing over him overreacting to being ignored. I told him to relax, he gets angry and ignores me, to the point of letting me die in the battle field. That was enough for me to quit.

I talked to the other leader, and he pointed out the problem exactly: he didn’t know how to take criticisms well, and when a woman tells a man he’s wrong, he takes it either the right way, or the wrong way. This guy took the wrong way. It was definitely a mistake to come back to the ‘merged’ guild.

I went back to my casual guild, and they welcomed me back with open arms. It’s been a couple of days with them since then, and I’ve been able to actually finish quests, play other games, and not worry about anything too much — even tough matches are a breeze, because they have their game together.

It amazes me to think that friendship, albeit over the internet, reverberates very strongly, even in gaming. If you’re all a bunch of people who just work fluidly together, you don’t have to be friends; you just have to be professional about it. Putting your feelings in your work would mean that you’d be friends with them. My husband put it into perspective: these strangers that you meet online aren’t necessarily your friends instantaneously.

Funnily enough, this casual guild seems well put together — they respect each other, talk to each other about game stuff, never raise too personal questions, and play well. I don’t really see a need for me to suggest anything. I even enjoyed discussing game stuff with them, as they seemed to know a lot about what they were doing. But they never really socialized with me, or anyone else; what’s personal was personal, and the game was just a game.

On the other hand, my old guild was all about talking and making friends, but no one knew what to do, and those who did were always screaming at each other on what to do in the middle of the battle, causing us to lose. I would keep quiet and do my job, but I’d already be dead at that point, because they failed to focus on the plan. And we’d end up playing the blame game, re-strategize, and try it again. We’d win some days, we’d lose most days. I’ve ended up arguing with some members or even screamed at the entire guild for acting like a bunch of children.

Playing a game is pretty much like a job — keep it away from your personal life. You don’t want to put your friendships on these kinds of things — it’s going to affect them, someday. You’d be surprised at how some relationships end with a simple Super Smash Brothers match, or how siblings stop talking after losing a CoD match. Like driving, online gaming makes you show your true face, hiding under a false bravado that no one can touch you, and you can say and do whatever you want.

Just play the damn game, and get out. In the end, it’s just a game.