OK. That was harsh.

If I hadn't been playing online games and trying to keep a guild working in eq2 (yeah, I know, evil game, shouldn't play), and just having much of it blow up in my face last night, I might be in a better mood.

The worst part was I was given no good solution.

The long back story. Two coworkers and I decided to play the game. Casually. 1-2 hours a night. Occasionally more. We thought it'd be fun to form a guild with likeminded people. That worked for... 3 weeks. Then half the people who we thought were likeminded were not. In particular, they did not approve of the 'leadership' of the guild. Whatever the hell that means. Granted, the leader, my coworker, was not a perfect player. So, a bunch of people we played with regularly left.

We move on. Meet new people. Bring them in. Things seem to be going well. We're playing, having fun, spending what time we wanted to on it. Then a few of the 'officers' of the guild approach us about not spending enough time on the guild. They wanted more organization. We organized. We formed a few raids. Thought we were keeping people happy.

Wrong.

Coworker got an email from one of the players who really didnt have anything else going on in his life. 35, mostly unemployed (he worked seasonally from 10am-2pm). I don't know if or what money he had. But, he spent a lot of time playing. This guy said that either coworker stepped down and put him in his stead or he was leaving.

I logged in Sunday morning to put my character into 'vendor' mode, while I did things in real life. In the short time I was online, all of a sudden I see a whole bunch of 'I'm quitting because we don't like the leadership' followed by just about everyone else in the guild saying that if person X leaves, they are leaving. Yay.

Comes down to my having to demote coworker until the rest of the guild gets online to talk from leader. Guild talk ensues that night. Basically, it boils down to some of coworker's flaws - he has a tendency to play too late and fall asleep at the keyboard, and that he's not on enough for people to get to know him, if you call 4+ hours a night too little (I was a lot less, 3 hours twice a week, usually, and one weekend session). And then there was the personality clash. Constantly-playing guy and coworker saw eye-to-eye on nothing. Constantly-playing guy talked behind coworker's back.

End result. Of the 25 or so players who played somewhat regularly (say once a week or so), they pretty much all left because coworker was an obstinate ass about things, wasn't hearing what was being said, and thinking everyone was out to get him. Yeah, "democracy" is a popularity contest.

I really didn't want to be a part of it. I liked playing. I wasn't so big on leading (a defacto position, because I was there at the beginning). A guild made it easier to find people to play with, at times.

So, I then got to have coworker call me at 11:30 last night and talk for almost an hour about what was going on. Plus he was crying. I decided I was done with the game. I don't care anymore. It was more stress, a time sink, and more effort than it was worth. I mean, if you have to blow off real life friends, which I was being pressured to do, for a lousy game, its not worth it.

And the sad thing is, I saw both sides. I saw the people with too much time, and too little social lives beginning to dominate a casual guild. I saw a person have his ego destroy a group of people because he couldn't accept that he was not the chosen leader. And all along the way was paved with selfishness over a stupid game.

I'm saving this so that if I ever decide again to try an MMORPG, why I shouldn't. My next game: probably the sims2, offline.