Do you wanna be in my gang, my gang, my gang?

My last post was pretty much three mini posts in one about events that have happened over the past few days on my numerous alts and one of the things mentioned was that of "Tardraid." Which is made of awesome. Now, over at Righteous Orbs, Tamarind raised an issue about Cliques in their post about Tardraid and how awesome it is.

Cliques pop up everywhere, just looking at the lecture I was just in about Fieldwork in Geography - You've got the "Blarckberry" crew, at the back, in their body warmers and messy hair. You've got the locals, who know each other from school down at the front, all in their "09 Leavers" hoodies. You've got the girls who make far too much of an effort just for a lecture and then those that make no effort what so ever. You've got the lonely people, sitting on their own and then you've got "the lads" sitting in the middle, messing around and not really listening (I'm one of those...).

So, it's just natural that they'd appear in Warcraft. It's not a bad thing, I remember back when we first started doing Naxx-25, when the roles of melee/tank/ranged/healer's where governed by the leaders. We all had our seperate channels. Absotanko, Absowhackit, Absohealo and I dont know the ranged one because back then I couldn't of cared. There was competition, banter of sorts in these channels - "Haha, I pwnd you on Patchwerk!" - "Yeah! I forgot to add poisons!" - "Nooob, least you did better than most of the ranged!" - "Yeah, the wankers." (Dramatised...just a little...)

There was also a channel, which a few of us, who knew the tactics pretty well and liked to have a chit-chat while they were explained - Absoalphawolves. We'd have a giggle in the channel, while the raid leader was explaining what people should be doing. It kept /ra clear of useless shit like; "I wish I was like Optimus Prime, that'd be awesome!" or "I wanna be known as Blackhawk" or just typing lyrics to songs we were listening to. It was a little clique, sort of and this became apparent when there was a little bit of loot drama.

An old rogue in the guild (who has since left) won an item over me. For myself, it was a massive upgrade, a 213 weapon going from a 200, crafted dagger. Back then, biggest upgrade you could get. I was, of course, annoyed. The melee had all congratulated me in our little channel, aswell as those in the Absoalphawolves. I was chuffed but no, I lost it. So, I was venting to my little "clique." I got over it and moved onto Kel'thuzad, where the whirling fist of death dropped. I was mutilate back then and the rogue that had won the dagger was combat, the only combat rogue in the guild. In absoalphawolves, I was told to roll on it - "Go combat, you might aswell, it's an awesome weapon." - "Yeah, and you'll really piss [X] off!" So I did and I won it.

That's a case of where cliques are bad, it was even commented on by the other rogue but I didn't feel bad at the time (I had a fucking chainsaw, how can you feel bad when you have a chainsaw!) but looking back on it, I feel guilty.

However, there are good cliques in WoW and Tardraid is definitly one of them. It's like greenpeace or Oxfam in clique-terms. A clique that helps people develop their raiding skills so maybe one day they can see the current content? [sarcasm] Oh my god, it's terrible! [/sarcasm]

I mean, the raid to Ulduar usually consists of a similar set up, I try to grab a spot whenever I can, our tanks usually swap around but 9/10 times there's Ercles, our fearless leader, Tam there providing bubbles and after-raid blogs, our hunting cows, a bubbly Austrailian and our overgeared enhancement shaman but the great thing is, it's open to anyone and we get a nice mix. New members, old members, members who are bored, peoples alts looking for a way to practice their new class in a raid and maybe get some gear, it's pretty good the variety we get.

A guild is bound to have its Cliques and I know ours do. For example, the officers and guild leader that's a clique right there (granted, we're actually pretty cool). There's also the old timers, people who have been there for so long they actually know what the sentence "I blame Eli" means after we wipe. People who bring more than one real life friend into the guild start a sort of mini-clique right then and their, they know each other and chat like they do if they were down the pub (sometimes it gets a little offensive but mainly it's just harmless).

I'd noticed this back when I joined my new guild alliance side and was planning to slap a post together about it at some point, just so happens someone else had some views on it and gave me a little bit of inspiration.