Loving your guild can be such a curse.
Posted 08-15-2008 at 01:42 PM by Vash
In my last blog I talked about how I was contemplating applying to one of the T6 guilds on my server. After much thinking and some new experiences with my guildmates, I decided to forgoe this and stay in Existence. There were a number of reasons for this, ranging from insecurity over my tanking abilities to other lesser concerns. However, the main reasons not to leave was that I just found out that I love my guild. I think it was the hanging out on vent that corrupted me. Before I began doing it( previously from lack of a mic), my guildmates were just so many lines of text, and not a significantly large number of lines at that, the guild chat is not very active at all.
But then I did something stupid.
I got to know them.
The bastards are so much damn fun to talk to and just chill with that I didn't want to leave at all. Even my interest in wow was waning before I discovered how much fun they were. They not only revitalised it, I think they've made it the funnest it's ever been. This by itself would seem like provience(spelling?) of the best kind, there are some irritating circumstances.
The main irritation is our stasis on progress. We're stuck in an endless limbo of doing Kara and ZA when they reset, there are also many wipes in ZA. While I somewhat expect the wipes in ZA (seeing that a number of people, including me, it must be said, have never been there before we started doing it again), the fact that we aren't doing 25-mans is irking me to no end, I want to see content, I want to progress, but it's just not happening. It was due to the summer malaise that we took a break, but now summer is over, and the one attempt at a 25-man was met with poor sign-ups, only 11 in total.
The obvious answer would be to recuit more people but I'm not sure the GM's are trying at all, I haven't seen the recuitment macro in a good while and on one occasion I heard one of the GM's say that we have the numbers, just not the active numbers, which, I'm sorry to say has the exact same result. It all comes down to whether they're just going to sit on their hands and hope things resolve themselves or they get off their asses and do something about it. By not being proactive they are just ushering in the stagnation.
So that is why I say that loving your guild is a curse, because despite how much I enjoy hanging out with them and raiding with them, I still want to see content that they simply do not seem to be making an effort to get into=(
But then I did something stupid.
I got to know them.
The bastards are so much damn fun to talk to and just chill with that I didn't want to leave at all. Even my interest in wow was waning before I discovered how much fun they were. They not only revitalised it, I think they've made it the funnest it's ever been. This by itself would seem like provience(spelling?) of the best kind, there are some irritating circumstances.
The main irritation is our stasis on progress. We're stuck in an endless limbo of doing Kara and ZA when they reset, there are also many wipes in ZA. While I somewhat expect the wipes in ZA (seeing that a number of people, including me, it must be said, have never been there before we started doing it again), the fact that we aren't doing 25-mans is irking me to no end, I want to see content, I want to progress, but it's just not happening. It was due to the summer malaise that we took a break, but now summer is over, and the one attempt at a 25-man was met with poor sign-ups, only 11 in total.
The obvious answer would be to recuit more people but I'm not sure the GM's are trying at all, I haven't seen the recuitment macro in a good while and on one occasion I heard one of the GM's say that we have the numbers, just not the active numbers, which, I'm sorry to say has the exact same result. It all comes down to whether they're just going to sit on their hands and hope things resolve themselves or they get off their asses and do something about it. By not being proactive they are just ushering in the stagnation.
So that is why I say that loving your guild is a curse, because despite how much I enjoy hanging out with them and raiding with them, I still want to see content that they simply do not seem to be making an effort to get into=(
Total Comments 4
Comments
 | I think sometimes you just need to think of it like any relationship - they can be great to hang out with, but you may not find them attractive or want to go on vacation with them anymore, and its time to move on ;-) If you hang around you too long then you may not remember them so pleasantly. |
Posted 08-15-2008 at 02:19 PM by Thist  |
| |  I suggest you try what I did. I told them "Hey, I want to see 25 mans, I really enjoy everyone here but I don't think we're going to make it to 25 mans, I'd like your blessing to leave and I will try my best to find a raid guild that lets me make our kara/za groups." And you know, the crazy thing was, I did find such a raid guild. Today I raid with both guilds, and we even ended up setting up a joint raid so that my old guild could get into T5 raiding, and our T6 raiders could get their alts into T5 content or go back for those "best in slot" items that they never got. It really did work out for the best- my old guild is growing strong now and there are alot of friendships between the two guilds. |
Posted 08-15-2008 at 03:04 PM by Alent  |
| | Warning: Incoming Wall of Text!!! Friendships are probably the best thing you can have in a game. But that being said, if you are in a guild with a divided focus you will probably run into some serious problems. If one of your focuses is to progress, (and if you are on this site that is very likely!) but a significant faction of your guild, or its leaders are not then you will find yourself at cross purposes, and this can strain relationships. Back when most guilds were working to progress beyond Karazhan I was in a guild that encountered this. We thought the BC x-pac was going to be ideal for our guild. We had worked our way through all 20 man stuff before the x-pac, and taken a nice chunk out of 40 man. Our guild was small and didn't often bolster the numbers for the big raids, but a few of us moonlighted with another guild, on their progression (and a standing raid membbers were actually included fully--and fairly-- in the loot distribution.) So this was a nice balance for us pre X-Pac. However, instead of the 25 man cap being ideal for us it actually hurt us. We found a new divide between the 'acheiver camp', of which I was part, and the more 'hang out and just socialize camp.' We had 2 kara groups, which we expected to sub members in and out of, but it never really worked out that way. We had 10 of us that were always ready and stocked up for our early start time. Another 10 that were hit and miss on attendance. And another small group who made little to no effort to be ready to go. At first this wasn't really an issue.Those of us that would be on would sub out, if we had run more often, and others would sub in. Over time though it became apparent that some of us were taking the situation more seriously , and some were definately more casual, or even disinterested. So slowly over tim we kind of consolodated into a regular 10 man group, that would run together every week, a semi regular group, and a few who almost never went. As the group I was in started doing full clears every week, and gearing up, the less regular group fell behind, and the few others were left in the dust. Resentments soon started appearing. Those who were left out, started to feel as though our groups (especially mine,) werebecoming a cliche, and elitist. The semi regular group shared this sentiment a bit, though not as strongly.But they would complain if we did not bring couple of them along (to say fight nightbane, which only members of my group had obtained the ability to summon.) But they also shared the opinion that my group carried of the straggling group,--though we also held this opinion to a lesser degree about their group,) that the less progressed groups were unwilling to put forth the effort, and the consistancy to progress, and only wanted us to carry them through. Our group wanted to make the push into 25 man content, and felt that the others were unwilling to make the commitments needed to make it happen This is the poison you could face. It goes without saying that there were some pretty heated arguments. and meeting in the middle didn't work, as no one changed their outlook, we would all fall into our old patterns. When we would grudgingly agree to bring along other guild members, they would often be late, and have nothing ready to raid. We would show little to no tolerance for any infraction, since we took it as an insult. Soon we were all back in the same pattern. Several member of my group splintered off, and joined with members of other guilds with people we knew who were on par with our progression. We made instant gains with our new group, but the old group floundered, and eventually died. This was sad, we had played together for a long time. In the end several friendships were salvaged, and some of us still played together, in WoW, and other games, but several friendships were lost. But in our situation, any one of the three factions that appeared would have been very unhappy altering their playstyle and expectations in order to appease the other groups and hold the old guild together. Luckily most(but not all,) of our friendships were solid enough to last through this. Over time most of us realised that we wanted different things out of the game, and that where our expectations intersected, we were still able to game together and have a lot of fun. Oddly most of us have moved away from WoW, and most of us from the different subgroups still stay in contact and play other stuff together. My advice would be to meet this issue head on instead of prolonging the agony like we did. I think we could have avoided a lot of the drama, and injured feelings if we had dealt with it sooner:
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| Posted 08-17-2008 at 09:38 PM by Calamity |
| | Choosing what you want out of WoW can be hard. I was in a guild similar to Calamity's and made some great friends. But I wanted to progress and eventually I had to leave to do that. I don't regret it, I just had to decide what I wanted. I needed a more serious group to enjoy the game. Others need the opposite. It's all up to you. So what is most important to you? Your guild should be the natural extension of those values. |
| Posted 10-31-2008 at 02:12 PM by Ott |
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