Advice to help others please

Got a problem that I think many do and I am really not sure on how best to deal with it. For the last year I have been in an amazing guild. Social/Raiding one and it has been perfect, Fun, friendly, a bit of drama here and there, Raiding, progressing, but understanding.

The facts are simple. I came in the guild apparently after some serious drama. I know the box facts but I wasn’t party to the details. Many people left the first weeks I was new. But things settled and I gained my acceptance with hard work and dedication. I struggled through not being part of the core group with LK downing but was in the second group. Needless to say, we got him down and then summer hit and it was sun in replace of wow for so many people. I took up trying to organize runs for the LK title for other 2 times and many other things to keep the few from boredom. I was offered but declined officer ship. Not because I was not already doing the job, I was, but because I work 8-6, have a child, and other obligations, I did not feel I could handle the title itself, but I kept doing what I was doing. Until Now.

When Cata hit my main was a mess and my security in my class was zero. I had to relearn and research the many flaws of my poor messed up class. I was so bad that my guild which had so much faith in me would bounce me around from heals to dps so I was not even sure of my status in the guild. After talking to an officer whom I respect, I was able to settle down and just fight through it…..until the troubles started.

Just after Cata, some core people left our guild for Harder raiding (acceptable) but a couple came back from the last year exodus, when I had just joined. They not only came back to the guild but were delivered their high ranking status without earning it, and soon the troubles started.

The raids which were fun (we did progress but we always did it slowly but with fun ( I don’t know another way to say it)) became rigorous and there was no joy in it. No one talked on vent, no one laughed told jokes, there was bitching, people not wanting to do wipefeast (strange we wiped a million times for days on LK, but it was fun), mass AFK, etc.

We have some class issues starting at we currently have as our core group 3 preist (1 occasional), 3 shamies (2 resto/elem and 1 enhanc), 2 tankin Pala, 1 pala healer, 3 druids 2 resto/boomie and 1 tank/boomie, 3 hunters (2 are occasional) and then a few mages, locks and warrior. Oh these are not bench sitters but mainly high ranking members including officers and Veteran Raiders. Most of the time we have 3 priest and 2 shamies in a group of 10. Think you can see the difficulties.

Then the kicking started. It started with me. As I said I had some class issues and while I have an decent older computer, Internet blows in my country. Playing with latency dancing anywhere from 300 to 500 ms on a good day . I really hate to be that kind of person who stands in fire for a good bit only because I saw the fire two to three seconds after everyone else has seen and jumped away from it. Yeah, latency is the bane of my gaming existence. My actions on this day were not good, I was playing on an alternate pc and just had massive lag, I understand the reason for the kicking, I will not deny the hurt of the action. I licked my wounds to say for a week, patch 4.0.6 came out and I made some tests and after talking to an officer I tried to get back in. its just the beginning of a lot of little things that have now snowballed.

The second kicking was less fair and resulted in the raid being called. The person kicked ,she and her partner left the guild and it was a lot of damage control by me and the officer that has been trying to help to get feels to calm down. I had been invited to that raid unscheduled, upon arriving it was chaos. The decision was unfair and clearly stated in guild chat and raid chat. But the RL claimed that he would do what is necessary, and said that it’s the first time. I did say it was not and reminded him of 2 weeks prior.

One of our Main tanks left the raid on principle (he is highly respected) and went to GL that he did not agree with the way raids were being run and that he didn’t want to raid under these circumstances. GL said it would be best. One of our Longest standing members and our Main tanks will no logger be raiding with our guild.

People are telling me that one of the Officers is saying that we have too many of this class in the guild and we should weed out some out (priest). Lets not forget that their partner is a priest and in the core as well as 3 others.

The dilemma now is the one officer who understands and is trying to help is faced with going against the GL and the 2 officers –RL. He wants to step down but knows if he does there will be no stopping what will happen. A good many that have come to me are unhappy with the way that the guild has gone since Cata. None of us want to leave but raiding is not even enjoyable. The last raid I did, there was complete silence on vent, we downed 1 and wiped a fair few times They don’t organize the raids they put the place up and sign ups. They ask us to watch videos after getting group together wasting more time, they don’t assign healers (considering that 3 healers are raid healers that is a fairly important thing), I don’t trust either of the RL any more, sad because one use to have my back when I was trying to organize raids throughout the summer. I always research fights but I don’t like to be rushed especial since I am 1 hour behind game time and most of my guild is 1 hour before. Raids are never started on time the time of invite is the time that raid starts so it can take about 30 min to get raid together then 5-10 to summon and buff and then to watch a tactics … come one, but they never know who will come or be online because well …..

And no one seems to see that as a guild, we are no longer happy, we have lost a main tank because he was standing up to the officer for a fellow guildie who was treated unfairly. The guild which use to raid 3-4 times a week, have the best guild chat and personalities, have now reached a point where officers are whispering around that there are too many in one class and should be out of the guild (I would start with the last person of the class to enter, ah that would be his partner), we raid but it is like being force to work a job you hate. We have 4 raids scheduled and hardly more then 8 sign up confirmed a few tentative. People don’t want to Raid with them anymore so they are now taking in alts to fill gaps .,… for progression runs.

Bitter yes. Cata is hard content. Cata when it came out caused a lot of moaning about spec and class problems , I agree. But in patch 4.0.6 not all my issues but a lot of the major ones were dealt with. Along with my hard work, research and just relearning I am starting to get back my edge. I will never been top healer and that I can live with, but an asset and a respected member of my guild I have worked hard for and it honestly bothers me that I cant help fix this.

I don’t believe that people who leave a guild, should be given the past authority. Respect and privilege to lead and oversee must be earned. Even by those that held the position in the past. Bitter yes.. Since the arrival of these two, the guild has basically become a place where no one is happy.

This problem has many parts, sigh, I just don’t know where to begin to make things right. And the thought of leaving this guild I have come to love is not an option until all things have been tired. Advice please.
US Nagrand

Guild breakups involving significant number of people always result from differences in opinion on how a guild should be managed, not single-case minor problems like loot etc. Even if the difference was "slight", it warrented people leaving the guild and you can be sure that time spent seperate will only inflate things. If/when they come back, you should be really prepared for a major disruption. Which seems to be the current case.

Personally if i was an officer, i'd make real sure that the old timers werent going to be trouble before ever inviting them back. Since that hasnt happened, i'm guessing your current management is actually happy with the change.

TLDR: Oil & water dont mix. If the new old-timers arent leaving (dont expect them to change), then it's time for you to leave. But since it seems you have a small following of your own, do some preplanning & leave as a group, setup a new guild to continue your old habitat.

(We had a similar situation. Our founder had stopped playing the game but wanted to come back later. He's extremely respected by just about everyone and a very commanding presense & we were all jubilant to see him back. However, it turned out that we had moved in seperate directions & now our ideas on how the guild should be run didnt match. Fortunately for us, he was just one person and he was intelligent enough to see how things were and he left gracefully without anyone getting upset, including him)

read it briefly;

issue 1) old members returned and were bumped to high rank, when in effect due to member turn over the majority of people may not even know them.
issue 1b) the returners have managed to push ther weight and change the mood of the guild, essentially trying to force it into a raid guild instead of the social+raid guild it was.
issue 2) the raid leader is a douchebag, simple as : unwarned + unfair kickings - not structuring his raid groups and taking it out on others, not getting people to know tacts. the guys sounds like a T O O L.
issue 3) you GM may not want to end up ion the middle of an argument between the oldies and the current generation of members ( generation in terms of first guild induction) so will be stuck between a rock and a hard place, so try not to be confrontational with him and just approach him with concern.

to be honest in this situation i would feel around for who prefers how things were before the oldies returned.
the best thing may be for you to contact the tank and the other two who left and see where they stand.
those 3 + you - thats already 2/5ths of a 10 man raid, find out who doesnt like how things are and then make it simple:

things have changed and the oldies dont seem liek they're going to let things return to how they were. then get the people wh oare on your side to go with you.

when someone that is known by all and respected leaves with good reason, this often creates a chain reaction of gquits, i've seen it myself, ive even caused one of these chain reactions when i left the guild.

its not the people with rank that decide where a guild is headed, it's the guild as a whole, and when the guild isn't right then say your goodbyes, jump ship, and see if anyone you like wants to tag along in your lifeboat.

Only time will tell wether or not this is a guild meltdown.
What can you do? Nothing.

Just either ride it out while looking for alternatives. So if you need to jump ship you can do that smoothly.
Don't feel overburdened by obligations.
You've got a job and a kid and WoW is supposed to be fun.

Thank you for your words. Yes i do understand guild break ups this is my second love in guilds. My first broke and moved realms To say jump ship is too hard to think. and yes the tank that stood up for the guildie is still in the guild, he just does not raid with the guild (pugs mostly now) the two that left we have got back into the guild and trying to tactfully find the core issues without alot of emotions so that we can work on it, but as i said we are against 2 officers (one that returned, and one that has been with the guild for a while) and the GL. I dont want to cause a break the opposite is true i want to fix. Even if we cant have the old back, at least one with guildies at the core. not progression.

There is so much nipping and bitting in this and so many small issues that some times i dont know if i am right to worry. Thanks for ur words all of u. Oh and I am Resto Shamy (not one of the priests ) ^^.

Keep your calm. I would stay out of this one. Each and everything you will say or do can be either beneficial or not. People can listen to you or gang up on you. It will even not change the outcome. This is a dying guild.

Sounds to me like the new old-timers went to the hardcore guild, realized they were small fish in a big pond, and decided they'd come back to be big fish and turn your happy social raiding guild into a hardcore raiding guild. You can't fix that unless they are removed.

We just had a guild problem based on how it was led and of course there are the never-ending raiding problems of a casual guild. When one of our core members gquit (IMO for a good reason), a lot of the top players (including me) went with him. Now we are having so much fun. Where raiding used to be a depressing wipefest that held the better players back, now we are raiding with success and it feels GREAT!

I would suggest that your loyalty isn't to the guild itself, it is to the people in the guild. Not everyone in the guild, but those who deserve your loyalty. If the leadership is that screwed up, IMO there is little chance it will change much. My evidence for this is that main tank who refuses to raid until things change for the better. They just replaced him. Nuff said.

So I say break off and start your own guild. Bring all the good people who are fed up like you (especially that tank, he sounds like someone who deserves loyalty), and start having fun again! Guild rep and perks come back in time, so people shouldn't sweat that.

NO ONE should go into a raid feeling depressed or having apprehension about if it will create more turmoil. NO ONE should log in wondering if they were gkicked while offline or if today is the day they are canned (despite their dedication and hard work).

That's just my opinion tho...