When I created my guild, Oasis, the purpose was to bring in all my characters in one root. There was nary any intention of recruiting an outsider nor building the guild in larger proportions. But a friend beg to join and another one decided to follow me until such time, that my guild reached over 16 pages of members, main characters and alts included.
My guild is pretty much a laid back one and everyone are content just being able to talk about anything and everything. No drama, no stress, just a guild with no rules. Probably the only thing that I complain constantly was the differences in the time zone. My guild is noisiest at the struck of midnight, my time. I could just satiate myself spending a few minutes or an hour less to chat with them.
I lost count of the number of players who went in and out of my guild. With the current crop of WLO players, I had to admit I do not really know much of them anymore. Most of my guild members were the old goats. They are the one who started to play since the beginning of WLO time. I don't have to stress how I miss the old days. The old days were I witnessed how players were more socially inclined and amicable.To date, there are quite a number of players who wish to join my guild. Despite informing them that I no longer accept new members, you wouldn't believe the measures they undertook just to be able to step in my guild. One such case goes by the name of Royette. A guy who hacked a guild mate and had the audacity to create an alts to join my guild.
I simply rolled my eyes when my guild mate and I interrogated him about his background. He played his "best actor" mode to the max creating a fictitious story. He claimed his character, OzCaptain, was his main character and that he was only 2 weeks old in the game. He persistently spammed mails on all my characters and begging to help him level up. He even mentioned about paying 5 million gold for bursting. Anyone with a nail on their head will know he was blabbing.
Another one goes by the name of Broadway. He went around telling others how well he knew me and that I was his friend. He was incessantly annoying a guild mate asking to join my guild. I brought in an alts to curtail him off chafing my guild mate. However, this proved futile as he used his alts, Dark Meteor, to enter Oasis. Despite warning him that beggars aren't allowed in the guild, he still did. He was able to take a good look at my guild for about 30 minutes before I kicked him out for good.
Strangers doesn't appear only within the guild. There are the pathetic ones loosely loitterring around WLO. A classic example was the copycat. It has come to my attention that a certain Jackers copied my shop girl, Izis (mine comes with a big cap letter I). He was such a lowlife that he couldn't come up with a unique name on his own. A few people stepped forward and told me about the existence of Izis2. When confronted, he adamantly denied it. He even told me he never copied names since he started playing. Yea, right...man!
It was no surprise to see how many strangers likes to copy high level player's names and use it to scam or hack others. I personally encountered such players and it was hard to decipher the differences in the names if one isn't careful. For instance, I know of a player with the name empbreeze. Eventhough, I never talk with him but his name is familiar. Then a certain empbrezze whisper me one day telling me to move to T4 to trade things with him. Initially, I didn't notice the spelling of the name but when he told me he wanted to trade with me at T4, it raised the alarms on my head. I live by my credo: Never deal nor talk with strangers unless they present their main characters.
The little blacklist button on our character's system panel is downright a useless one. No matter how many players we tried to block out, they can still use other alts to stay in contact with us. Having my own shop gave me that glimpse of how players had evolved through the years. The generation today is different. They come and go after buying or trading with me without sniffing out a word.
Some drop by and start to talk nonsensical things with me. I will either pretend to be away from the keyboard or if the mood strike, will ride on with what the others are telling me. There is nothing wrong with sharing with a stranger about your whole life. But we should learn how to stay on guard and be wise enough in choosing whom we want to spill out our life stories. When people start asking personal questions, I always elude them by giving them a humorous response.
For as long as WLO exist, we will always face strangers like OzCaptain, Broadway, Jackers and empbrezze. However, we can't control the game the way we wanted to. People can do whatever or however will make their day. Gone were the days when people will find the time to hang around and made our acquaintances. There used to be the usual greetings and sharing of tidbits or even doing and helping quests together.
I'm just fortunate to meet good and nice people who also hang around my guild. There were still others who already quit the game for good that I dearly missed. For the moment, I shall enjoy the company of my guildies who never failed to make me laugh. It is such a joy that, albeit, I started to play at version 4, I still get to meet this awesome people. 'Till then, have fun and enjoy!
