I was the leader of what amounted to a third tier guild on Veeshan. On that server, there was basically FoH, there was the comedy train zerg guild that tried to overtake them constantly (Celestial Tomb), and then there were a lot of other guilds. FOH had some serious dicks in their ranks, but they would never steam roll you if you were lined up to take a shot on a mob. In fact, most people had a really good relationship with Furor on the server, because if there was one public service he provided, it was buttfucking Celestial Tomb when they relentlessly zerg steamrolled other guild's raids or ragefire runs. I had the privilege of seeing a few early Fires runs first hand and we adopted some of the methods to our much smaller and more casual guild, which made us get a lot of shit done with three groups that many of our supposed betters struggled with to do with full on zerg. Skill DID matter, even if it was three to four attentive poop sockers directing the casuals around. While I can't speak for every officer I had, we had a hard rule against cheating (I had Dev friends from Outriders of Karana days) and I booted the one and only person I caught cheating. I also booted people for being dicks to other guilds during XP time. I won't say Veeshan was a utopia (I created some drama bombs myself), but it was (outside of early Celestial Tomb crap) a pretty civil place to play. As long as you were respectful and reasonable, even a small casual guild like mine got a fair shake from every non CT guild on the server, even FoH. PoP killed us, ultimately, because the casuals could not handle the zerg up and the hard core people wanted to advance, so that was it for us. I retired from the guild, did a brief stint with a second tier guild as a favor to their GL and retired after three Quarm kills. I should have just retired before that, but I don't regret my brief stint in CoE.
From an outsider perspective (and talking to other leaders who had also seen/been with them under Furor's tenure) they were skilled guys. Sure they had Devs in their ranks and had a head start on everyone, but the level of discipline and execution that lets a guild blow past trash and do real work on figuring out boss encounters was just so much better in their group, which is why they ruled the roost in Veeshan for as long as they did. The community and respect is why we still talk about this game more than WoW to this day. I might have cut it as one of them, but the reality is while I might have had the skill and drive to lead a guild, I don't think I had the shear rage driven impulse to make it long term in that group. There were a LOT of good players who just did not have the time and will on the server who were likely in the same boat. Some of them also made their own small guilds and found their niche (Legion and early Cestus Dei spring to mind) as well. But to but it with FOH you had to be GOOD, you had to have the time, and you had to have the pure willpower to be pushing the envelope. Lots of people have one of those, some have two, but not very many have all three. And I say this as someone who STILL has people who hate me in real life over shit I had to do as a GL of my tiny guild back in the day.
~Phaz aka Jice Virago of Veeshan
Feels, man. So much nostalgia.
