Ancient of Moo Moo

[Poisonenvy]

As some of you may be aware, over the past few weeks we have been in discussions with Ancient of Moo Moo with the potential aim of incorporating some of their members/characters into our roster. The idea was to improve the social aspect of Dark Wolves and increase our raiders pool, whilst offering them a second home and the ability to raid more regularly.

This culminated in a joint raid organised for members of both guilds last week.

As far as I am aware, all those who attended the raid thoroughly enjoyed it, and were pleased at how it went - it proved that, in essence, Dark Wolves and Ancient of Moo Moo were very similar guilds with a similar ethos.

Since then, however, members of the Moos have had time to reflect on what a merge or move would mean to them, and have instead made the decision to continue "flying solo", at least for the moment.

We have left the door open for discussions to continue if they wish at some point in the future, and in the meantime one or two members may possibly join with an alt.

As at the current moment in time, I know that Annise/Jellap (Ancient of Moo Moo GM) and his girlfriend, Enchillada, have joined with some alts and I know you will join me in welcoming them to Dark Wolves.

[Jayondaga]

I was having a think about this after we had a chat the other night. From their point of view, I can understand the decision.

It's a tough call for them, bearing in mind that the raiding toons are most likely their 'mains'. As such, they would undoubtedly be spending a fair amount of time on them which leads to less time spent with their fellow Moos. Put it this way - if I took Jay out to raid hardcore with another guild, I'd not only feel guilty while doing it but also a bit of a fraud when playing on a toon that's in-guild (like eveyone would be thinking "oh, back to play with the second team, eh?"). It's that commitment to a group of friends and I reckon that they feel the same way about their guild as I feel about ours.

In the end, I don't think there *is* the middle ground we were hoping for. It's either all (i.e. a full merge) or nothing. The good that's come out of it is that they now know the kind of people we are, how we play, how we laugh. I hope that if we get in a tight spot and 1 or 2 people don't turn up for something, we and they would be happy for us to look them up first to see if anyone was free.

[Poisonenvy]

Oh absolutely - I do see that. I think the only possible "middle ground" we were hoping for was that every moo would bring a toon in - so it wouldn't be like they were deserting their friends, more that they were all going on holiday together, but at the same time they got to experience activities that they have perhaps lacked a little up til now.

And the benefit of that was, eventually they would all fall for our charms and come to realise we're a cool place to be :P

But that would require the commitment from all the moos to pull that off, which, I think, would be a big ask. It would rely on the assumption that a lot of their members were frustrated at where their guild was at, and couldn't see a better way to resolve it. I don't believe even a majority are at that stage - which is what it would require to get that particular ball rolling.

I certainly wouldn't want to put us through that - but then hopefully we're not in quite the same situation