Issues within the guild

Several problems have arisen within the guild recently. Such problems are an inevitable occurrence of having 150-200 members in the same guild, where constant interactions occur. Normally, the issues are between different members of the guild and are easily sorted out by myself or a Junior Leader, but recently more serious conflict has arisen between myself and a certain guild member - ReyRey. Most of you are already aware of the details of the situation, so I will not recount it here, but you are more then welcome to ask myself, or ReyRey. The conflict divided the guild, and this is not acceptable. It takes just one member to do it, but then people begin taking sides and squabbling with each other when they would otherwise get on fine. Unfortunately it has reached a stage where I have to step in actively, as I cannot sit by and watch it happen - which I really don't have the time to do at the moment. ReyRey has been kicked, and banned from the guild and the forum as I cannot allow her negative impact upon the guild to continue. I will keep this as brief as is possible, but it will inevitably be a long post.

As you will know, I do like to joke around and provoke some light hearted banter in the guild, and I'm under the impression that other countries are also aware of the notion of banter which originally started in the UK. Almost all people understand what these jokes are about - to lighten the atmosphere, to develop people's quick wit and their sense of humour, and to harden people against taking offence to trivial things. Unfortunately, a small minority have an ego/personality which means they can't take even basic jokes. I will not deny that I push the boundaries a bit, as I do in every area of my life, but none of my jokes are ever malicious or carry even a trace of meanness within them. Sure, some truly cruel and harsh humour exists in the world such as that of Frankie Boyle, or sometimes Jimmy Carr, which a few people can handle, but I draw my own line well before that - for the exact reason that I know such jokes have a high risk of actually offending people. None of my jokes come even close to this. If people want to sit around sullen-faced, taking everything seriously and telling the occasional lame Christmas cracker joke that's designed not to be offensive in the slightest to anyone, and play MapleStory as if it's their job or schoolwork... this guild really isn't for you. Humour and being jokingly offensive are strongly linked. I hate to make an analogy to, and quote from, a movie but it's the best I can think of at 6am. "To conquer fear, you must become fear." ~ The Dark Knight. If you cannot develop the skill of taking a joke, and throwing something equally funny yet never malicious or hurtful back, resulting in a metaphoric "touché sir!" then you're not going to get far in life, you're going to have very few friends, and a lot of people won't want to be around you. Generally these are people with big egos, arrogance, radical thoughts, and a greatly over-estimated sense of self-importance, and there will always be the 1 in 100 who will be like this.

I have to highlight that you are free to leave the guild if you don't enjoy it. In fact, if you don't enjoy it - you should leave, because you really won't have a good time in the guild, and at the end of the day that's what Solace is for: having a great time, and getting along with guild members in a humour-filled environment. But please, if you end up making the decision to leave,then leave; don't play mind-games with the guild members forcing them to take sides by playing the threat/sympathy card by saying "fine then I'll leave ... I'm gonna leave ..." etc. etc. I have no objections to you leaving the guild, as long as you do it in a civilized manner without leaving a nasty aftertaste with guild members. At times, some people do forget that MapleStory is a game, and as such should be entertaining. When something is no longer enjoyable, you should stop playing it, or take a break until you will find it enjoyable again. Similarly, if you feel you aren't getting along with me, you shouldn't leave the guild and find another one. I will not be going anywhere, and I will always be the bedrock of the Solace guild - it's inevitable. So if you have your doubts, or feel that you're suppressing some inner dislike of me, you should consider whether it's better for you to stay or leave in the long run. I cannot please everyone - nobody can. I will not change myself to please you either. At the end of the day, you get what you see with me. I will joke, and I will be quite childish at times, but I will never pretend to be someone that I'm not. I always give people a fair chance to see if their positive traits can outweigh their negative ones, but sometimes this is sadly not the case.

Finally, I need to offer more information about myself, and my outlook on the guild so that you can understand me, even if afterwards you decide you disagree and which to leave - it will be an educated decision on your part. On rare occasions, some people will say "If you can't stick by your own rules, don't make them". The rules are made for the people they will apply to, and for certain reasons, to achieve certain goals. Without rules, an institution, or guild, will be chaos. The guild rules do apply to everyone, but I also have the discretion to bend them occasionally. I am in a position to do this, and I know when and why I can stretch the rules. If I knew you for several years, and believed you were in a similar position to do this, then I would allow you to as well, but I haven't, so I won't. You're also more than welcome to spend a few hundred million mesos, and many many hours of effort creating your own guild and forum and keeping it organised, well managed, and efficiently run if you wish to have the discretion of being a guild leader. But otherwise I ask you not to question my discretion as guild leader. I know what I'm doing and from experience I know that I'm right at least 95% of the time, and I can recognise when I'm not. I'm also a good listener and always account for the views of other people before making a decision one way or the other. A leader always has discretion. In fact, they wouldn't be a leader without it. If a parent tells his family not to ever go into a machine room in their house, he does it for a reason. The father may well go into the machine room, where dangerous equipment is, to make some repairs or check the machines, and he will be fine if he knows what he's doing. If the rest of the family go in, without the knowledge that he has, thinking they can deal with a problem on their own - they may well end up with one less arm than they had before going into the room. You may have seen Limeyy or Mistborn online at some point. He normally plays with me, but isn't playing maple at the moment. I can afford him all the Maple discretion I want - I've known him for 10 years and I know his positives and his negatives, and what he's capable of. He's smart, capable, and talented, though I would never say it to his face, and I'm sure he wouldn't do the same for me. I'm doing a Law degree at the University of Southampton, and perhaps a Masters/Doctorate at Cambridge. Limeyy does Civil Engineering at the same university. I'm 18, almost 19. He's 20. I'm a very thoughtful person, and I have had more experience of the dark side of the world than you can possibly imagine, and could quite truthfully say that I've been to living hell and back, more than once. I won't trouble you with the details, but I will ask you to trust my word and my judgment. I am aware of every action which I take, and the likely consequences, and I would go so far as to say that I am naturally a very intelligent person. I spend most of my time joking around, but I also know when to be serious, and bring gravitas, authority, and sound judgment to the table when it is required. Ultimately, I view life as a game, which perhaps explains my humorous side. I don't equate growing up with wearing a suit and putting on a façade of seriousness and false maturity at all times. I don't believe in God. I see no purpose to life other than to enjoy it while we have it, and at the end when the life timer stops ticking, nothing will matter anyway. Sure, this is dark stuff, but it's necessary for you to understand me if you're going to disagree or agree with me.

To reiterate, I hope after this you will be able to place your trust in me as your guild leader, if you haven't done so already. If you still disagree with who I am and the decisions I take, then you're free to leave in a civilized manner, and I will respect you and your decision to leave. What I cannot stand for is causing a childish manipulative scene in public to the distress of guild members. Private messaging systems are on the forum and in the game, so there is no excuse for this. I realise that this has been an extremely long and serious post, but I have kept it as short as I can whilst covering the necessary issues which have arisen and I sincerely hope I have made where I stand on the situation clear enough.

Thanks, Duncan.

At first I would like to say it's is pretty LONG!
But okayy, I understand it now.
I was doing this too last night, with Jewniversal and xSubZero, we were talking very sexcist and stuff and we saw that ReyRey didn't like it. I apologised for it but she kept being negative and stuff. So I don't mind you kicking her. She was nice and stuff but she sometimes gave us, the GUYS who talk a bit sexcist, a negative impact by being so negative about it and talling us to shut up and stuff.
I could see and I think more people could see that we had fun.
The first thing that is important in a guild is that the members have fun with each other, that's why the people like a guild that much.
Other stuff come afterwards.

I guess I understand. I have no desire to leave because I clash with you and others sometimes, in fact if I didn't clash with people at all then no compromise/understanding would be made. 'you are closer if making up happens sooner than later after an argument.
Although I did stress a point of jokes going too far I can't exactly go forcing change on people either, that'd make me as bad as any retarded worker on a power trip (like the girl supervisor I have asking for a backhand).

I know Rey did take the offence a bit much and I did advise to ignore her but I can't do anything once you've had final say, a suggestion would be if we have another girl in the guild who does not like being made susceptible to sexist jokes then we at least tone it down a bit publicly and private chat her about it so we don't implicate we're alienating her.

A reason as to the first paragraph is I don't want to have to leave, or be kicked. As you know I'm at work all the time, I may not grindexpstacknoobing(Derp Zero, derp ;D) I like to socialise on it and you know it's rare to find fairly mature people my age on this game and I'd rather not miss that, I don't want to step down either as I like contributing in ways not constrained to character level.
In future if disputes like ones have happened lately on the forum I'll be removing them and sending a PM instead.

I think i've covered everything..I'm still half awake LOL

Good statement there Korae.
It is still a kids game and u'll find mature people only at pretty high lvls.
So you can better have fun with those kids then going into a high lvl guild where everything is the same in real-life.
Games are meant for relaxing and nothing more.

It's unfortunate but I understand. The community was negatively affected by this all. Although there is a sour feeling of: "you did it because it's your guild", I see your point and I agree. She wasn't able to handle the jokes well, and although that itself isn't her fault entirely, she could have looked for different ways of solving this, other than the random insults and cussing, together with the dramatic inciting of other members. The first time I spoke with her she told me something personal, and I believe it may explain her self-conscienceness.

So in short: It is sad, since I liked her, but probably for the best.

Walzy<3

i understand your decisions and didnt even know this was happening. i understand what you mean when you banter walzy and its just we never take it offensive bcos we do it so often in our everyday life. but i never take someones jokes too seriously as i know in the end of the day we are all a team, were all in this together.<3

*from the n0obie girl* xD

Korae wrote:

I may not grindexpstacknoobing(Derp Zero, derp ;D)

Ouch ;P

I didn't read the whole thing cos it kinda dragged on, but kicking her was a bit harsh :S
Yeah she can be a bit moody and all but shes still a good person to have in the guild¬¬

xZeroTrace wrote:

Ouch ;P

I didn't read the whole thing cos it kinda dragged on, but kicking her was a bit harsh :S
Yeah she can be a bit moody and all but shes still a good person to have in the guild¬¬

Sorry but I have to disagree - she acted very nastily and started dividing the guild in a malicious way. Perhaps you didn't see it, but she was most certainly not a good person to have in the guild. Kicking her wasn't harsh at all, in fact it was better for her as well as the guild - she can go find another guild that can put up with her attitude and baby tantrums.

im not sure what happened but your judgement is most important you know whats best :]

She already has, she occasionally offers me to join and says only 2 people including me are actually nice in this guild, then again that's because we stuck up for her. She automatically hated everyone against her, even ones who wouldn't get involved in said drama.

I'll have to agree with Korae, as i'm not the type of person to hate anyone, i just ignored her whining and her opinions on certain people and how our guild sucks. I had an o.k relationship with her as we have the same native tongue (I'm part Swedish, part Finnish). So i came to understand the reason for her constant whining. But she did overreact and did insult people with such ignorant blabber on her being the victim.

not to be an ass but we could've tried to give her a warning, nevertheless i think Walzy's decision was very neutral and a sign on good leadership.

Since i was also one of her friends, i also have occasionally gotten invites to join her guild/whatever. But don't worry, i'll stay in Solace and you'll get plenty of my dark drunken humor.

omg really. wow. but we naturally dont get involved anyways she cant hate us for not choosing sides. the situation sounds really immature on her side but i may be wrong as i do not know what truly happened but im sure she will be missed :]

Korae wrote:

She already has, she occasionally offers me to join and says only 2 people including me are actually nice in this guild, then again that's because we stuck up for her. She automatically hated everyone against her, even ones who wouldn't get involved in said drama.

Who does she find nice then, besides you?

I think Hime or badenglish, I don't remember. Her warnings actually came from me, I told her to try and ignore it otherwise she'd leave or be kicked.

Korae wrote:

I think Hime or badenglish, I don't remember. Her warnings actually came from me, I told her to try and ignore it otherwise she'd leave or be kicked.

good call korae. you did warn her and she refused to listen.

deniselx wrote:

Korae wrote:

I think Hime or badenglish, I don't remember. Her warnings actually came from me, I told her to try and ignore it otherwise she'd leave or be kicked.

good call korae. you did warn her and she refused to listen.

I used to be a guild leader myself so I've had much worse than this LOL.

Try having someone besmirch you on megaphones as a hacker/scammer/-insertname- for 4 months in a row along with whispers from said person, random people and close-knit drama and siding with people you've never spoken to in game before xD Wonderland Online was a total bitchfest

some people are so immature! what do they really gain out of all this? its a game. its suppose to be for everyones fun and leisure and everyone just uses it to have a bitchfest. so silly. if i was in walzy shoes i wud have done the same for obvious reasons.

We have got to remember that this games main audience is like for teenagers =P Dey have dem crazy hormones goin on =D

But in all honesty, this is the internet, online gaming attracts people who are less "socialisable" than others and so cause they don't get a chance to bitch in real life they do it on the internet where they think they are safe (they arent tho, i know of people who have been tracked down somehow, its quite weird stuff) =D

Nemokins wrote:

Dey have dem crazy hormones goin on =D

they think they are safe (they arent tho, i know of people who have been tracked down somehow, its quite weird stuff) =D

LOL the hormones are just going and that is SCARY that people actually track you down. some fbi crap

I love this guild , it's the best for me in maplestory world :d

haha. agreee! undress xD

smurfke wrote:

I love this guild , it's the best for me in maplestory world :d

so true...

Best guild i have ever had

it even has a forum so nice =D

Truealldat! <3