Prologue.

Tibia is a game that basically has 2 great factors that make it the game it is...
1. The game itself
2. The people on the game

That's why the human factor of the game is fundamental for it to work. We have fun hunting with friends and talking with them when we have nothing to do in the game. We also make enemies, for which we ask our friends to help us fight. Basically, while playing Tibia, talking to no one is suicidal, because when you find that you're on your way to an enemy, there won't be friends to help you out. That's why we make strategic alliances with other players... or as the Tibia page says, "those who play it will learn soon enough that unity is strength".

We create guilds.

What's a guild?

"Guilds are coalitions of Tibia characters that are established to bring like-minded players together."

Some guilds are for protection, others for strategy, for others an instrument of war, but for most of the people in game, guilds are where your friends are, your Tibian family. Guilds offer you a home, a place where you can feel safe with your friends, where you can socialize and make new bonds. A guild will make sure that you feel safe and have fun on the game. That's why when your guild sees that you are threatened; they will try to protect you in any way, they will even go to war against other guilds.

Most people don't see it, but the pillar of a guild is the leader. A good guild leader is fundamental for it. They will protect you, give you a rank, trust you, and include you in the guild while giving you missions to fulfill, and sometimes even scream at you when you are making mistakes. They will be the ones that solve every single problem that comes your way, even though sometimes you won't even see it or think it. That's why most guilds have a respected or a powerful player as a leader.

Well after giving this very basic introduction to what guilds are, I want to present to you all my guild leader diaries. Basically, I am the leader of a very interesting guild. I don't know if am respected, but for sure I am not powerful. Just a humble little girl playing Tibia , but my guild chose me as their leader, for which I feel proud and do my best job everyday. We call each other a family.

But my family is very particular, since it's only composed of female members. This means... besides everything that a guild takes out of you, I also have to run their social problems, since girls, unlike boys, play Tibia for the social part of it more than for the hunting part. I have seen it for three years now on my days playing Tibia, girls just don't have as much fun killing a demon than chatting outside a depot making runes. I don't know why this is, but girls' just think differently I guess... we love the role-playing of it more than the "kill kill kill" part of it. That's why it's such a demanding job to take care of all my little sisters... and I want to share with all of you Tibianews readers a very personal and loved part of my Tibia time... my guild. This is my introduction to the diaries of Grrrl Power, one of the first all-girl guilds in Tibia.

Part 1: Problems With Player Killers

Another Tibian day has started and I log in thinking about what problems I will have to fix today. Anyway, I am hoping for a peaceful day, since yesterday I was helping my boyfriend organize PoI, and being stuck there for eight hours, speaking three different languages isn't that cool, or fun.

The day begins with a simple message on guild chat... "GIRLS HELP ON AB". I just 'hur' out of my house, leaving my boy talking alone, and rush there. I'm thinking to myself.... "Please, please.... I hope it isn't a PK, she is such a low level... she will die.... Please let it not be a PK...". The rest of the guild is moving to Ab'dendriel as well. Some members were there at Ab'dendriel already, so I just used exiva on the girl that asked for help.

"Lower level to the west."

I ran... I saw blood... I saw a skull.... he was running. A group of around five players, including two of my sisters are there. But this guy just won't die; he is healing every second, throwing burst arrows at Prinzxim. I see the only way he will go down is if I shoot a SD at him. I aim, I hit, and he goes to the floor. Dead.

The girls come close to me, thanking me for coming so soon. Prinzxim explains that this guy pops out of nowhere and comes to kill her. She doesn't understand why a person would try to kill her when she was just sitting quietly outside the depot making runes. This is the part I have to explain, there are some people in Tibia that just have fun killing lower levels that can't protect themselves. I advise her: "next time, instead of running, just go directly inside a protection zone till the stronger members of the guild arrive."

The girls gather around us, and we just chill. Prinzxim comes to me and tells me privately: "I was so scared... I'm still shaking... I don't know why people think its fun to kill other people when we do nothing to provoke the situation." I explain to her once more that that's Tibia. It gives you the option to kill others for fun, but she just doesn't understand, since she is just a little girl playing. I wonder to myself if this person that tried to kill others for fun knew it was a little girl that just saved all her Christmas money to buy herself a premium account. If they just knew how much trouble and effort it takes her to level up just one level. For her it can even pass two weeks before she gets even one level, because she isn't "the power gamer" type, and for her it's much more fun talking to friends than going to cold and dark caves to kill worms. If they just simply knew how much it takes for her to level up... I don't think they would think it was fun almost making a girl cry to have a simple moment of excitement. I guess I'll never know... it's just another part of the game.

Part Two: Account Sharing, a problem for everyone.

A few weeks ago, a very awesome girl was invited to the guild. Our guild is democratic, we vote for members to enter, and it must be unanimous. I will call this girl "Selena". She was great. She was funny, friendly, social, solidary... She bonded and mixed to the guild so fast that we just made her probation period shorter and made her a regular member within a week. She always went to our guild activities, she helped the leaders organizing every single detail, she was always happy and sharing that joyful spirit of hers on the guild chat. It was simply a pleasure to have her on our guild.

Sadly, one of my vice leaders contacted me to solve a problem...



Selena was sharing her account. Grrrl Power as a guild has a VERY strict policy on breaking the Tibia rules, including sharing, which is not allowed. Some guild leaders know their members share or bot, and they don't do anything; well I'm not one of them, simply because of the internal security on the guild. Legnakra Nessa Alkarin, one of my vice leaders, had a talk with Selena.

Legnakra : hey Selena, you've been awfully quiet today, why aren't you talking on the GC?
Selena: Oh sorry, it's her boyfriend, I was told not to open GC while I play here.
Legnakra: You can't do that, we don't allow sharing -.-
Selena: Yes I know, but we aren't, I'm just leveling up her character a little.
Legnakra: Dude, that's sharing! our guild members aren't allowed to share their accounts.
Selena: But it's just 5%, I'm logging out soon...
Legnakra: No, log out now, I'm taking ss of this and sending it to Baladha, this isn't allowed.



After reading the screen shot, my heart simply broke. I knew what had to be done, but as a leader it's so hard to take the mean side and do stuff your heart doesn't want to do. As a leader, you almost lose yourself trying to do stuff that will make others see you as a bad person, and a heartless person. I wish everyone knew how hard it is to apply the rules equally to everyone, without showing weakness doing it. Being a girl leader, you must show you are capable of the job, and will do it equally or even better than what a male leader would do.



For being a girl leader, it's so hard to show authority to the girls to make them see they have to follow the rules or else they will be punished. It's hard to always be the one that make others feel bad and punish them for their actions. It really makes you sad, and sometimes you just don't log on Tibia for days thinking all this problems you will have to solve once you log in.

I simply said to Legnakra... "Unite the vice leaders council ... we will discuss her punishment for breaking the rules", and I logged. I just didn't want to see it happen. I knew it had to be done, but still I can't help that it feels so bitter to kick a friend and such a nice person out of the guild because of things that can be avoided simply by reading the guild rules, or for that fact the Tibia rules, which I force them to read the moment they join.

I logged back in, Selena is online.

I don't like making those types of decisions alone, but I had to talk to Selena first, to know what happened exactly. So I put on my guild leader mask, and put all my emotions and sadness into a box, and start the conversation.

Baladha: We need to talk...
Selena: =( yes I know....I'm sorry... Do you want me to explain to you?
Baladha: Yes please.
Selena: Well... You know my boyfriend had some things on my character, some mana potions and stuff that I took from our house. He logged to my character, but first told one of the vice leaders he was there, and he said he was sorry, but that it was going to be fast. The vice leader told him not to worry, but he understood another thing, that he could log in to level up the character and all. Well, that can't be done, but we didn't know that. He had never leveled up my character before, but since his premium ran out, he started to level mine because I had logged out on hellgate. Then this morning that he logged again, Legnakra tells him he didn't have permission to level my character up, and that she was going to take an ss and tell you. Then he logged and called me. Now Legnakra doesn't want to speak to me. But I understand you if you want to kick me out of the guild, it was our fault... =( .... but seriously, forgive me...
Baladha: Look sweetie... I made you read the guild rules from the first moment you entered the guild for a reason, so these situations don't happen. There is nothing I hate more than banishing a member from the guild, but this isn't just my call, all vice leaders will have to talk now about the situation and see what we will do.
Selena: =( Don't worry... I understand... and if you are going to kick me, it was nice to be here, thank you so much for giving me the oportunity to be part of your family... and again, I'm truly sorry.

The guild vice leaders and I start a reunion. It isn't easy to make a decision; after all it's a friend, a sister. I take the word and ask opinions.

"Should I make Selena go back to probation period, or she will get kicked?" - I ask.

The vice leaders talk....they love Selena, but they know what she did is wrong, still they think that making her leave the guild will be worse in the long term, at least if they let her stay, she will learn that account sharing is illegal, and she will never do it again. Voting starts. Everyone starts to give their reasons for her to leave or stay. Finally, after a long reunion, we decided to let her stay, on probation.

I talk to Selena, and tell her the good news.

Selena: Do you really think I deserve to stay?
Baladha: Yes sweetie, just never do it again... ok? =)
Selena: ^^ Of course not!!!! I love this guild!
Baladha: I hope you do, because we love you too, very much, and loosing you would hurt very much.
Selena: Thank you for this chance, I promise I'll do my best to be a better sister from now on.

After this, the lesson of the day was learnt. Sharing your account is illegal, and not only Tibia punishes it, but your guild might too, so don't do it. Don't risk your account and your guild mate's privacy doing this.

Part Three: The Sunrise Gala

One of the things the guild worries about is doing activities were we can all unite forces and have fun. Getting to really know and trust on people on your guild is vital, so bonding and making any activity to do that is a must for my conception of a friendly guild. For this propose, I gave the job of Activity Organizer to my dear friend Angelik'Divine, which I've known for three years already and is my left hand on the guild. She was always the one in charge of thinking new activities and new things to be done as a group. The first one she did was the Sunrise Gala.

The Sunrise Gala came as a two part idea. First "Sunrise," that meant for us the new beginning, the first moment of the day, a new change to start things over. The "Gala" idea came because we wanted something glamorous and not something ordinary that will bring people to trash our lovely guild house or something similar to what we would do any day.

It was going to be done the day we would get our new guild house. We asked our photo administrator (a girl on the guild that posts all the photos and levels we take, and quest we make on a special photo website) to make a beautiful picture so we could advertise our gala party on our webpage. We asked our treasurer to tell us how much money we could spend, and started to plan it. A "Party Commission" was created. The girl had as main function to decorate the guild house for the gala, choose the motive of it, the name of the party, the buying of glamorous flood (that included shrimp and exotic fishes), to have the guest list ready... etc...

The Party Commission thought a gala should be also something to go with someone, so we were asked to bring a date, our significant other, our boyfriends, our best friends... who ever we felt that was special enough to be there by our side. The next thing was clothing. We thought, hell why not, lets all dress the same. After a modeling session on wish everyone showed their color and cloth combination, the first outfit we choose was to dress in red and white gloves of the Noblewoman outfit. Our escort should be on the same category wearing formal cloth (no barbarians allowed!). Might sound silly, but we wanted a formal event.

This is the fun part; when you tell a girl what to dress, it wont be enough for her just to have the dress, she will want the hat, and the full gown!... that's where the drama started. Some of us already had the full outfit, so we never ever thought the rest would have wanted it too, we just assumed we would all wear the dress without addons or wear it if they wanted with addons. But the rest of the girls didn't... and mayhem dominated the guild for a week. Girls were hunting non-stop trying to loot gps on Banuta and Lizzards just to get the hat. Some of them were all day long doing runes to accomplish the goal of getting 150k.

One day i opened the GC without them knowing I was there... and I saw messages like "I think I cant move my hand anymore, I've been hunting 15 hours already..." then someone else would ask why, and she would answer ..."Because I need 30k to buy the first addon"... then I interrupted...

Baladha: Hey girl, you don't need the first outfit for the gala, it's just all wearing the same outfit so we look pretty ^^
Girl 1: yes but I don't want to wear the simple dress if the rest are going with it full..
Girl 2: I just got the hat!
Girl 3: I wont go without the big dress...
Girl 4: AFFFFFFFF I don't have NOTHING
Girl 1: I have to get it!
Baladha: But the idea of this event is to inaugurate the guild house, not a contest of whom has more addons...

But it was useless, they had the idea of getting the outfit, and so I stood quiet and let them do it. Things started to get messed up remaining 2 days for the party. Some of them already had looted enough money to buy one addon, and some of them already had bought them all. But when they saw they had 2 days to gather 150k, panic stroke them down! Some of them sold almost everything they had... another one stood 24 hours straight hunting to get gold... one of them borrow it so she didn't care much...the result was a party with all the members with a full outfit, and no one talking since they were all falling asleep on their keyboards...

Lesson learned. We won't have gala parties any time soon.

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