Ramblings of a Guild Leader: Why I Still Love Warcraft
Seventeen years, countless raids, lifelong friendships, Sparkle Ponies, mammoth trains and one guild that somehow became home.
It still makes me laugh that all of this started because Tapps bought me World of Warcraft.
At the time, I genuinely thought it was a terrible present.
I had no idea what I was doing. I created a Human Mage called Michelemarie, ran around Northshire killing kobolds, probably wore completely the wrong gear and generally existed in a state of total confusion.
I certainly didn't sit there thinking:
“This is going to become a massive part of my life for the next 17 years.”
But somehow, it did.
And when I think about why I still love World of Warcraft after all this time, I don't think it's really possible to separate Warcraft from Carnage Inc anymore.
WoW gave me Carnage.
And Carnage gave me so much more than I ever expected from a computer game.
Somewhere Along the Way, a Guild Became a Community
Over the years we've changed realms, changed factions, rebuilt raid teams, lost people, welcomed new people, watched old friends return and survived expansions that probably tested everyone's sanity.
We've had incredible tiers and absolutely terrible ones.
We've had bosses die in a handful of pulls and bosses that made us question every life choice that brought us to that particular raid night.
We've laughed until we couldn't concentrate.
We've celebrated.
We've wiped because somebody did something ridiculous.
We've wiped because I did something ridiculous.
And somewhere amongst all of that, a guild became a community.
Some of my favourite memories in Warcraft aren't actually the impressive ones.
Of course I remember the Cutting Edge kills. I remember the bosses that felt impossible until suddenly, somehow, they weren't.
I remember that feeling when everything finally comes together after weeks of progression and twenty people realise at virtually the same moment:
This is the pull.
There is nothing quite like that.
But some of my favourite memories are the completely stupid little things that probably meant absolutely nothing to anybody outside our guild.
Sparkle Ponies, Mammoth Trains & Transmog Before Transmog
Wrath in particular will always have a special place in my heart.
One night, ridiculously late, all of the officers decided we needed matching Celestial Steeds — our Sparkle Ponies.
So naturally, we all bought them.
There was absolutely no good reason for it.
We just wanted to match.
And I loved stuff like that.
In fact, I loved transmog before transmog was even a thing.
I would collect different outfits, get myself completely dressed up and then just stand outside the bank in Dalaran showing them off.
Because obviously that was important guild business.
Sometimes we'd get the mammoths out, dress ourselves in different ridiculous outfits and start a mammoth train around Dalaran.
No achievement.
No loot.
No progression.
Just a group of friends being complete idiots together.
And honestly, those moments are every bit as much World of Warcraft to me as killing a Mythic boss.
Ulduar Will Always Be The One
And while we're talking about Wrath...
Ulduar will forever be my favourite raid of all time.
Nothing has ever quite beaten it for me.
The atmosphere, the music, the scale of it, the bosses, the hard modes — everything about that place just felt special.
Even now, after all of the raids Blizzard has created since, Ulduar is still the one for me.
I would absolutely love for us to somehow go back there in the new expansion.
Give me Ulduar again and I'm happy. 😂
They're Not Just “Online Friends”
The thing that has always made Warcraft special isn't really the places.
It's the people.
I've always struggled when people dismiss online friendships as somehow less real.
Some of the people we've met through Carnage have been in our lives for years.
We've watched people get married, have children, change careers, disappear for a while and then wander back into Discord years later like they only logged off yesterday.
And sometimes those friendships stopped being online friendships altogether.
Tapps and I actually attended Vekna's wedding.
A person we met through World of Warcraft became somebody whose wedding we were standing at in real life.
She is genuinely a friend for life.
We miss her dearly, and I still live in hope that one day she will finally give in and come back to WoW.
Vekna, if you're reading this... this is absolutely aimed at you. 😂
And she isn't the only one.
Over the years we've had so many Carnage IRL meet-ups in the UK, with people travelling from all over — some literally flying in from other countries just to spend time together.
People who technically met because their little characters happened to join the same guild on a computer game ended up travelling across the world to see each other.
When you stop and really think about that, it's actually pretty incredible.
People who started as character names on a screen became friends.
Real friends.
No Man Left Behind
Carnage has always been about trying to protect that.
One of my favourite examples will always be when we moved the guild and effectively decided:
No man left behind.
Not everyone could afford the transfer, so as a guild we raised around £600 so that the people who couldn't pay weren't simply left behind.
Looking back, that probably says more about Carnage than any boss kill ever could.
Nobody cared whether it was the most efficient thing to do.
They were our people.
So they came with us.
That mentality is still incredibly important to me.
“POP HERO, SHELL!”
There are some memories where the line between Warcraft and real life became almost completely ridiculous.
When I was giving birth to our first baby, the guild was there.
Obviously not physically.
That would have been slightly concerning.
But back then we had Remote Guild Chat, and while I was literally in labour, Carnage were there chatting away and encouraging me with:
“POP HERO, SHELL! WE WANT TO MEET BABY CARNAGE!”
Because apparently even childbirth required Bloodlust.
😂
There aren't many gaming communities that can say they were effectively present for the birth of their Guild Master's baby.
But that's Carnage.
And I love that.
Progression Matters — But It's Never Been Everything
Anyone who has raided with me for more than five minutes knows how much I care about raiding well.
I analyse things to death.
I want people prepared.
I want us improving.
I want people checking logs, understanding mechanics and doing everything we can to achieve our goals.
I absolutely want Cutting Edge.
But there has always been a bigger picture.
I don't want Carnage to become a place where the only thing anyone remembers is their Warcraft Logs percentile.
I want people to remember the nights we spent together getting there.
That's the part that matters.
Raidathon — When a Guild Became Something Bigger
It's also why Raidathon will always be such a massive part of Carnage's history for me.
Somehow this group of people who met because we enjoyed killing internet dragons managed to turn that community into something that raised thousands of pounds for Cancer Research.
The wider Warcraft community got involved.
Players supported us.
Companies supported us.
People gave their time simply because they wanted to help.
That was probably one of the first times I really understood how powerful gaming communities could be.
We weren't “just people playing a game”.
We had built something.
And here we are, all these years later, still building it.
Seventeen Years Changes a Lot
The guild looks different today.
Of course it does.
You cannot run something for 17 years and expect nothing to change.
The players change.
The game changes.
Real life changes.
Some people stay for years.
Some leave and return.
Some move on completely but remain part of our lives anyway.
And then new people arrive and start making completely new memories with us.
Even the way we raid is completely different now.
We have Warcraft Logs, Wipefest, Recorder, assignments, cooldown planners and approximately 900 different ways for me to investigate exactly who stood in what and when. 😂
A fairly long way from standing outside Dalaran bank in a carefully coordinated outfit thinking I looked fabulous.
Although, to be fair, I'd still happily do that too.
And Yet It Still Feels the Same
Underneath all of those changes, it still feels familiar.
I still get excited when a new raid opens.
I still love learning a new boss.
I still get that stupid buzz when we're close to a kill.
I still love seeing twenty people finally execute something we've been working on.
I still get ridiculously excited about new expansions and announcements.
And I still genuinely enjoy logging into Discord and seeing Carnage there.
That's probably the part outsiders don't always understand about being a Guild Master for this long.
Carnage doesn't only exist when I'm logged into WoW.
Tapps and I talk about the guild while we're cooking dinner.
We talk about it in the car.
We talk about it walking the dogs.
We talk about raid setups when we're supposed to be going to sleep.
Occasionally one of us has to remind the other that we are, in fact, discussing fictional dragons again.
It can be stressful.
Sometimes it drives me absolutely bloody mad.
There are times when looking after a guild full of very different personalities feels significantly harder than any Mythic boss Blizzard could design.
But I wouldn't still care this much if I didn't love it.
And right now, I think Carnage is in a genuinely lovely place.
We're progressing together, but more importantly we've got people talking, playing together, running raids outside the main team, organising things, joining socials and actually enjoying being part of the guild.
That matters to me enormously.
Soon I'll Have a Whole Guild Hall to Decorate...
Because one day Warcraft will eventually disappear.
Hopefully not anytime soon — I've still got far too much stuff to collect, and soon I'll have a whole guild hall to decorate as well as my house! 😂
At this rate, I'm going to spend more time rearranging furniture in Azeroth than I do actually killing anything.
But eventually the servers won't be there.
The bosses won't matter.
Nobody will remember what our DPS was on some random Tuesday night in 2026.
What we will remember are the people.
The Sparkle Ponies.
The mammoth trains around Dalaran.
The ridiculous outfits.
The IRL meet-ups.
The weddings.
The people who flew across the world to see friends they originally met in Azeroth.
The nights where we laughed until our sides hurt.
The boss kills we screamed about.
The people who disappeared for five years and then came home.
The guild shouting “POP HERO!” while I was giving birth.
The ones who were there during difficult periods of our lives without perhaps ever realising quite how much it mattered.
A Special Shoutout to My Wingman
And I have to give a special shoutout here to Jahanicus.
He knows I've always called him my wingman, but truthfully, he was a lot more than that.
I could rely on him to look after Carnage as if it were his own.
I never had to wonder whether things would be okay if I needed to step away, because I knew he cared about this guild just as fiercely as I did.
And when my mum died, he stepped up in a way I will never forget.
At a time when I simply didn't have the headspace to worry about Warcraft or running a guild, he was there.
He took care of things, took pressure off me and gave me the space I needed, without ever making me feel like Carnage wasn't safe in his hands.
But beyond all of that, he is a true friend.
His stupid, weird sense of humour somehow perfectly matched mine — which probably says worrying things about both of us. 😂
He'll always be one of those people who proves exactly what I mean when I say:
The friendships we make here are real.
That's What Warcraft Gave Me
I started playing because Tapps bought me a Battle Chest that I didn't particularly want.
Seventeen years later, that terrible present gave me thousands of memories, lifelong friendships, ridiculous amounts of laughter and a community I'm incredibly proud of.
So yes, I still love World of Warcraft.
I love Azeroth.
I love raiding.
I love getting dressed up for absolutely no reason.
I love the ridiculous things we do together.
I love that feeling when a new expansion is coming and suddenly everyone is excited again.
I still bloody love Ulduar.
And most of all, I love the place we've built inside this game.
Carnage Inc.
Not perfect.
Occasionally chaotic.
Frequently inappropriate.
Full of history.
Full of memories.
But ours.
Seventeen years later, some of the people have changed and Azeroth has changed almost beyond recognition.
But that feeling hasn't.
And I think the little phrase we've used for so long probably says it better than anything else ever could.
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