Reynic Defends Home

November 22 , 2004

I’ve intended to write these more often, but for various reasons I wasn’t able to. I’m going to do my best to catch up; this is probably going to be a long one…

On Friday night, I was watching the Pistons-Pacers game. I turned it on just before halftime. Their halftime interview was Ron Artest, who was asking the interviewer if he saw everyone fouling him, and then alluded to not letting them “get away with it.” With 46 seconds left in the game, Artest fouls Ben Wallace. Hard foul? Maybe, but I’ve seen worse. Ben loses his cool and shoves Artest in the face. I called down my roommate, since we’re both big Pistons fans, to watch the scrum between the two rivals. We never expected what we saw next, what we heard during, and what we’ve endured in the days afterwards.

By now, everyone’s seen the incident, so I will try to steer away from specifics. The thing I want to tackle the most is the face of the city of Detroit. I was born about 10 minutes from Detroit, and I now live about 15 minutes from. I’ve worked in Detroit before, downtown Detroit at that. We’re talking walking distance to some not-so-great sections. I’m a die-hard Detroit sports fan, have been for as long as I can remember. I love Detroit and everything it stands for. I pray that I can see the day that the racial barriers – unfortunately one of the most racially segmented cities in the country – come down. But the thing that I believe anyone who doesn’t live in Detroit doesn’t realize is these two facts...first, the Pistons play in Auburn Hills, which is about 45 minutes from Detroit. Second, anyone who has seats in the lower section, well, let’s just say that they’re not from Detroit. Nobody living in Detroit, working 8 to 5, 8 to 8, in factories just to feed their families can afford those tickets. In fact, the guy they believe started the riot by throwing the beer is from West Bloomfield. West Bloomfield is just about the anti-Detroit – rich, spoiled kids who have never worked a day in their life for anything they’ve ever gotten.

I hate generalizing a population like that, but that’s exactly what’s happening to Detroit here. This incident, which happened 45 minutes from Detroit between people who don’t live in Detroit, have destroyed Detroit’s image and set it back a good 20 years. Any time something happens in sports between fans and players, this will be referenced. The baseball All-Star game, college basketball Final Four, and Super Bowl XL are all coming to Detroit – not the suburbs, but to the D itself – and all the folks nationwide who have seen this incident 45 minutes from Detroit by folks not living in Detroit will label Detroit as “unsafe” and not come to these events.

I love Detroit. I have worked in Detroit, and I have lived in the vicinity of Detroit my whole life. I know if I go in the wrong part of Detroit, I may not come out. I also know if I go in the wrong part of any major city – Seattle, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Sacramento, etc etc etc – that I may not come out. Perhaps it’s a social indictment on our nation as a whole that this stereotype is still present about Detroit, that an incident that happens 45 minutes away by folks who don’t even live in the D makes everyone just shake their head and say well, that’s Detroit for you. And that’s sad.

EverQuest – Year 5

Now to get a little bit back on topic, I’d like to talk about where we’re sitting in Year 5 of the life of EverQuest. We have two major new games coming out in EverQuest II and World of Warcraft, and a lot of guilds out there are feeling the pinch. Go to Quellious Collective and look at the thread about the larger raiding guilds picking members off from smaller raiding and crushed family guilds. Guilds that have been together for several years are finally falling under the pressure of losing all of their active membership. The saddest thing about this transition is that you have folks caught in the middle of their guilds breaking up that feel like they have two options – either they can join a raiding guild or they can quit EQ. I’m here to reach out to those people.

Nobody should ever have to quit EQ until they’re ready to. Nobody should feel forced to join a large guild in order to continue playing the game that they’ve loved over the past 5 years. There are several guilds out there, mine included, that frankly don’t care much about progress through the game. We know that it will happen for us in due time, and maybe we’ll need to seek out some help from other guilds and organizations such as ORQ, but we refuse to take on more members simply to be able to tackle different encounters. I’ve been in guilds who took on people for the sake of taking on people, and it didn’t work.

The hardest thing about all of this is those of us in true family guilds are caught in a very difficult situation. Both of these new games are almost designed for us – solid advancement with a group of 5-10. It’s very hard for us to exist in a world designed for groups of 50 or more when we struggle to get 10 folks on in an evening. That being said, those of us in these guilds have put in more “dues” than half of the people in “uber” guilds. We’re the folks who have been around all 5 years. There’s a certain bit of pride that comes with having 1999 in your /played date. We’ve been here since before they started doing expansions. My guild has been here since early 2000. And I’m getting pretty damn tired of folks saying we have no chance to survive unless we get absorbed into a larger guild. My guild will survive if there are two people in it. What you all fail to realize is that some of us still play this game simply to see our friends and do some tradeskills. Some of us still play this game simply to see a new zone, even if that new zone is the first zone in Gates of Discord. Some of us still play this game because we have a kinship with our characters, we feel a connection to them, and they’ve been our representation in Norrath for 5 years. I can see how some folks can’t understand that.

Now I’m not saying it’s as fun as it used to be, especially when every expansion since LDoN (and most before LDoN) is built for groups of 36, 54, even 72. I’m not saying it’s fun being the forgotten souls that nobody knows, being ignored when talking about server politics and server accomplishments. There are some of us that have taken up other games some nights of the week in order to have a feeling of accomplishment again. Some of us need to go to EQII or WoW just to feel included again, because EQ1 has left many of us behind. But, we will always have our little pocket in this game, and all these folks going on and on about how the small guild will crumble and we’re left with five guilds within a year, let me tell you that you have absolutely no clue how the small guild works. We will be here so long as the guild members and leadership hold true to what the guild was created on. If you’re looking for a family guild, you can find it. You don’t have to settle for joining an uber guild or leaving EQ1. You can find what you’re looking for if you look hard enough.

Reynic’s Final Word

My final word for today has to do with the Monday Night Football opening with “Towelgate” or whatever you want to call it. For all the folks who are enraged by folks taking this overboard, you can trace it all back to Janet Jackson in the Super Bowl, which led to this massive conservative movement in the country, which led to Bush getting re-elected. Whoever thought one boob would change the direction of this nation.

Until next time, stay safe and remember where you came from.