The third and final installment of the history of my current WOW guild (Sanctuary on Terokkar/US).
A joined the guild Gypsies (which is still active on the realm), and then tried Lightbringers (not sure if they’re still active or not), all the while keeping in touch with several people from the Stormwind Justicars and others who I’d met in game. After a few months of feeling homeless, I started talking to a few people about starting a new guild for those of us who wanted to play together more often. I remember brainstorming names for the guild (which seemed to take forever) and the brainstorming ranks (which seemed to take longer, and with which I still tinker from time to time). Finally, right on New Year’s Eve of 2007 Sanctuary was formed.
I had a few guild signatures that I got right away, and I remember advertising for a few signatures to flesh out our initial roster. I had to field many “how much gold will I get paid” questions, answering them all with “this will be a permanent guild, and if you sign I’d appreciate you staying in and giving us a try.” After a while we had our required signatures and the guild was born.
Initially I envisioned a leveling / social guild, and I spent lots of time talking in guild chat and recruiting for new members. However, being an introvert in real life, this soon got very hard for me to handle alone. Most of the original signers of the charter were made officers, and they helped immensely in organizing the guild at that point. Many of the activities I enjoy doing now were started in that initial period, like naked instance runs, hide and seek, and guild parties (with pictures and give a ways). I just remembered, too, running low level instances for loot to put into out freshly created guild bank :)
Currently I see us as a family-friendly social / casual raiding guild. We have a large population of 80’s that run heroics daily and a raid night or two each week (we just finished the first wing of ICC on our first guild try!). I’ve met many good people in game, and some of those friendships have moved into facebook / email territory. My son is in the guild, and it’s great getting to spend time with him like that. It’s hard to believe that we’ve been around for 2 1/2 years, but I have wonderful memories of the game, and I look forward to creating many more memories as we look forward to the coming Cataclysm.
Blessings & Peace,
Hugo
