Well, crap.... I guess I am a little abrasive.

[Jungy]

Long story, ill try to keep it short.

I had transferred to a new server just after Ulduar came out, as a search for a guild didnt seem promising on my original server. I came to the new server with a good amount of gear. Over 30k HP unbuffed, mitigation balanced, and threat as good as a warrior can be (not trying to be cocky, but I believed I was a great tank).

I got into a guild that was about halfway through Ulduar on 25 man. There was a pally who was the guilds MT, and the GM was on hiatus for a while after Naxx was cleared. The pally was great, he played a warrior pre-BC and throughout BC. Needless to say he knew what warriors were capable of.

The guild itself was great, good synergy on most nights, great fun. Took a while for them to get used to me tanking but things started to click after a few weeks. I was usually quiet on vent, our MT was usually the one who was talking.



A little background on myself:

I was about 55 when BC hit, never got to do the 40 mans and glory days. i progressed slowly but surely through BC, endless wipes in Kara, Gruul crushing me, Mags orbs killing people, Vashjs time of the month always on our raid days, Kael high on arcane crystals, Archie always QQing when 1 person died in a raid, and Illidans little flame pets throwing up all over me in fire.

I never got to Sunwell, my guild wasnt quite ready for that, but by the time we were thinking about it, WotLK hit and we took Naxx by the b*lls.



Back to my story.....


A few times after our initial clear of Ulduar, our MT wouldnt be able to show up on raid nights. I was left with RL position but the catch being, no one really took me seriously and we wiped more than enough times on stuff we should have 1 shotted. My biggest pet peeve in WoW is when people complain about addons giving them trouble during attempts or explanations, or when people yell "LAG ZOMG I HAVE LAG" in vent.

It bugs, very much. I never really said anything during my time with them but I made it somewhat clear to the guild that its not something for you to chat about in Vent.


After a more successful clears in Ulduar 25 man, about 10-15 of us worked on the 10 man hard mode achievements. After about a month and a half of us working on that, we got our drakes and felt very good about our Algalon attempts (who btw hits like Prince when I first tanked him, cept Algalon is on crack with an extra attack).

Well, finally after hearing about our good kills and such, our GM decided it would be a great time to come back and take over as the new MT. Our pally didnt like this, he would have been demoted to OT and me to DPS (no, no, and no). He told me that unless i agreed i wouldnt have a raid spot. He wanted to get a quick run through of Ulduar so he could get geared up for ToC. Frankly me and the pally werent the only ones who were a little pissed off.

My pally friend decided that he would take things into his own hands and start up a new guild and that i was more than welcome to join. I did. So did about 15 others from our original guild.

We recruited some healers, some DPS, cleared ToC boss by boss as per Blizzard allowed. Once 25 man came out, we had no problems clearing each boss, a few wipes, few tuning sessions, and bam, new guild on the block, and to top it off we decided to clear Ulduar in one night, only wiping 3 times and getting 4 hardmodes.Our reputation was growing little by little each week, to where we had to eventually sit people for some raid nights.


Again, i dont raid lead much, but seeing as how i was the 2nd person to get invited to the guild and me and the MT know whats up, I took on a more noticable role. First and foremost, i laid down the law.

I straight up told people they were bad for standing in fires. I told em to shutup about addons and lag. Yes, youre lagging, were lagging I dont need a play by play. Second, theyre your addons turn em off if they bug you and fix it later.

I even had to tell people this stuff who were in my previous guild. Now, we had a warrior DPS come in. Guy was good, DPS was high, knowledge was pretty good and he had experience from Sunwell, as did a lot of members from this guild. I had none if you remember.

He had tanked BC and had also aqquired tank gear, not equivalent to mine, about 4k HP lower then me. 3-4% over mitigation and i couldnt speak for his threat. At the time, we were thinking about doing hardmodes and from what we saw, we needed another tank. So I think he could have worked, if not we could find a DK or druid.

We had one of those lag nights on our server during our raid, a few people seemed to think it would help if they yelled about in vent. I told em no it doesent, (in my own words mind you). I get a tell from one of our shamans who told me I should just not speak in vent as I was never helpful and that "some" people had been complaining about me. I never heard a word from anyone but him. I told him if he didnt like it, to just mute me.

I apologized later to him and he said it was no harm no foul but to just minimize what i have to say to more conventional means of constructive comments.

I accepted him comment and was planning to go about it that way the following week.

The next night, my GM sends me an in game mail to check my PMs on the guild web site. In order for you to get a good idea of what I was faced with, i will post his message, edited of course.



Hey man. I thought that sending you a PM would be the best way of going about this. You and I have tanked together for a while and I'd like to think that we've always gotten along, so hopefully this won't cause you to erupt into burning hatred or open hostility or anything like that... but basically I've talked things over extensively with people and the concensus is that we need to move to using *new warrior* as the OT for the guild. I'd prefer not to sit down and openly rub salt in the wound by rattling off a list of reasons, but if you insist on knowing just talk to me and I'll explain it in detail. Generally tho it amounts to my belief that *the new warrior* will have better performance and that he will cause less friction during raids. I'm not going to gremove you so that if you want to stay and either dps or just play it casual then you can, or (and I expect this is more likely) so that you can gquit on your own terms and make it look like you're leaving us and not that we're leaving you. I owe you at least that much. Also, if you need a vouche somewhere just say the word and I'll give you a rave review. Sorry it had to be like this, man, but business is business. I wish you the best of luck.


Needless to say, i left.

I apped to a few other guilds with about the same progression or better. But not a whole lot of room for another prot warrior in most guilds.

I finally joined a guild that i knew about through an RL friend, who compared to my other guilds were very casual. They arent even halfway through Ulduar and barely make enrage timers and their situational awareness is almost non existent. Needless to say, im very bored and frustrated.

I came here to vent and see what comments other people could give me or if any of you have advice on what I could do to help myself out.

Thanks for reading.

[Swam]

yep that shit can get you in trouble in places, I dont really care though, Ive been a raid leader and a main tank for a while. if people get butt hurt cause you call their stupidity, loose them or move on. Luckily im in a guild with a lot of military people so crazy insults and abrasiveness is kinda a constant, I preform better when im getting yelled at

[Whispah]

Hey there,

I can somewhat relate to your situation although I haven't actually been removed as a result because I'm usually the one running the show.

My experience is unless you're in an old, highly successful guild that know how the game used to be, then calling people out for their stupidity wont help. It may just be because I've gotten older and subsequently more mature myself but for the most part players these days are casual and log on, do their thing and go home. Can't really fault them for it since its the way the games become however it sadly means that you need to find a new guild with like minded people or you need to tone it down yourself.

[Victorcroix]

Guess im a bit like you tbh... at least i see a lot of me there. I am an ex drill sergeant, so my tone is rough at times to say the least. That being said, i only scold people when their actions clearly state that they either did not listen to a word i have said or that i wont believe for a second they looked at their screen while making the blunder.

I am the raidleader/MT and an officer of my guild and i too have at times pushed it a bit too far with some people. They ofcourse get offended occasionally because theyre not used to being talked to like that. The usual way im explaining this to them is that:

1: Why did you make that mistake?
2: Will my flame at you prevent you from doing it again? (100% chance that they wont)
3: Did you really think its a personal attack? (It never is)
4: You learned a lesson and perform better now. Is there a reason to be upset at all?

Basicly by now everyone in my guild knows how i run the show.

I scold people that makes slacker mistakes. They get flamed like crazy, they learn and we continue and succeed.

Some people are just a bit too "fragile" and these people moan for a blame free enviroment. I dont believe such an enviroment will yeld any great chances of succes since if you make a mistake, youre that much liable to learn from it if something "bad" is connected with it.
It may be an archaic belief but it works.

Scenario: Yogg at phase 1

Player A decides to dance in several green clouds and wipes the raid after specificly being told NOT to.

Action: RL yells at player A, flaming him fairly hard, the rest of the raid probably think "Thank God it aint me!" Flaming done and everyone makes damn sure that they dont touch any clouds.

or

Action: RL says "Somebody didnt avoid the green clouds. lets try again." They try again... no flaming and no memorable event to cement the failure.

As i am like you, i think i know the doubts about your style of raidleading and if its to rough at times. It aint if youre in a "hard core" raiding guild with set expectations and people simply half assing it. Then again make sure people understand that it is not a personal matter and when you are raidleading then you are not their "friend". You are their raidleader. You lead.

I have during my time as raidleader gone after officers and even our GM at one point for failures and thats how it is. Im not anyones friend as a raidleader nor should i be. That would make me partial and favorise people. Make sure you make a balance between scolding and praising, and keep in mind that people will grow "numb" if you constantly go at them.

That aint helping you in your current situation granted but imo you havent done anything wrong. Basicly your ex guild sounds like a bunch of spineless sobs that clearly couldnt handle talking face to face with you. Tough luck but it happens.

I wish you the best in the future.

Victor Croix

[Volador]

The problem with yelling, swearing, and being abrassive is when others can fill your role (leadership and job) without doing it.

I've led multiple raid groups on multiple servers on both factions, and I'll tell you one thing: People like to be respected. I don't yell, I don't swear, and I'm not abrassive openly on vent or in the raid (that's what officer chat or not keying your mic is for). I DO call people out when they fail. "Hey XXXX, watch the fire" etc.

As far as vent is concerned, I have rules there about the chatter (much like yours). If you're lagging, tell us, but only periodic updates not constant complaining. If you have an addon that is borked, tell us, and we'll give you a minute (or 5) to fix it. During boss fights, vent will be clear for all but the most important of chat "XXXX has yyyyyy effect and needs heals."

The key difference between us is I'm calm and collected about things. I will hold pulls until people are done doing stupid stuff in raid or in vent. I ensure people know we're waiting on them.

After all that, I end up sucessful in my raids. Our raid went into Naxx10 early (only info out there was from Naxx40), and within 2 weeks we had all wings down (had some difficulty with Sarth, but that was solved after a week). I took over an Uld10 raid and it went from barely clearing the first 3 to getting to Yogg in two weeks(I stepped out of the raid/off the server after the first week on Yogg). Now I'm back to starting up a three tiered raiding group. Good people with multiple characters will make up the core group, so we'll be doing all 3 big WotLK raids each week. I have a feeling it will be just as sucessful as all of the other raids I've led.

Edit: Just going back, it seems that I've just done casual 10 man raiding. For reference, I have done (not led) most of the Hard Mode stuff in Uld25 as well.

[Norik]

There is a fine line amongst raid leaders. Those who can lead, and those that think they can lead.
You can motivate,lead and teach without ever raising your voice.

Granted in a perfect world all 25/10 of your people would be truly interested in progression and take the time to study up on all encounters, min max their gear and come prepared.
But unfortunately this is not always the case which puts a great strain on the raid leader and many times out of frustration they lower themselves to yelling, cursing, be-littling others.
I can take criticisim, I can take it in a heated manner. But the first time a raid leader lowered themselves to yelling at me, they would be looking for a new tank in the time it took me to type /gquit

[Theotherone]

In the end it's a game and people play to have fun. Unfortunately, fun for the casual raider is a lot different then fun for the more serious and each can destroy the fun of the game for the other. No amount of yelling or cursing is going to help. Then there's the whole "just plain stupid" player i.e. don't stand in the fire...don't stand in the fire...don't stand in the fire..... You can't unlearn stupid.

I guess the lesson is to find like minded players and enjoy the content.

[minrog]

Someone comes to you and says that people are talking about some particular behavior of yours behind your back, and you respond by telling *him* to mute you if he doesn't like the behavior? He was probably the only one in the guild with the guts (or he doesn't care what you do) to say it to your face. And more likely he was just the messenger trying to give you a heads up.

Your pet peeve might be talking about lag or addons or whichever. Other people's pet peeve might be hearing someone drone on an on during pulls and run backs about keeping vent clear and not talking about lag or addons or whatever. The raiding crew got together and petitioned the GM to replace you after you brought them victory. It is highly unusual for something like that to happen outside of raid day death marches or loot drama.

If they have been raiding since Sunwell they have to know what kind of a coin flip it is changing MT's or Raid Leader positions. The fact they were willing to take the risk suggests to me it went beyond telling them to stop dying in fires. I had a similar issue recently where someone felt they needed to do a countdown from 20% to 0 on the boss fight. During the raid I said, "No hit point countdowns during a pull guys. It's distracting." I then talked to him after the raid in vent and let him know it isn't personal but I can't have vent getting clogged up during encounters. I also mentioned I understand his excitement and the reason he was doing it but that it might throw some of the other folks off and we could end up losing. It seemed to fix the problem.

Going forward I guess you will likely need to build your own guild if you want to get back to where you were progression wise. There is a long tradition of Warrior tanks running guilds for the reasons you noted. If you do something like that, realize that people who see raiding as "winning the game" are all basically going to be the same kind of players and respond to the same sorts of stimulus. Establish the rules ahead of time and do 1 on 1 talks with specific people where you find them acting up. Even during the raid it's better to drag them into another channel and give direct instruction than calling them out over vent. Peer pressure is good but I've found directly tackling the problem makes someone more likely to follow your lead on other things down the road.

[Ariedan]

To be honest, you can get things done without being rude or abrasive. You don't have to call people bad, scream, or insult them in any way.

The key to it is being firm and privately disciplining. I've found from experience most people don't respond well to being publicly belittled. They either get defensive and angry, or it flusters them and actually makes them play worse. Call them out for it, but you're not being soft for not cussing or being negative. If their behavior continues, talk with them in private and handle accordingly. You can do just as much with this method of leading, and more. Some people prefer the drill sergeant style, but a majority of people- especially those in not bleeding edge content guilds- refuse to tolerate it. Myself included.

Maybe my guild is run a lot differently than the ones you've been in, but mine's been alive and stable since its creation almost two years ago. We don't foster poor play, but we don't belittle for it, either. We're all adults, and we expect people to be responsible for their own actions without being yelled at like poorly behaved children. If they can't meet our standards, they don't raid with us. We raid to slay internet dragons, not to waste time insulting- and yes, it is a time-waster.

I don't mean to come across as harsh, so apologies if I do. As I said before, some people do prefer that style of leading. In that case, there's nothing wrong with it. But in your situation, it wasn't desired and they were in the right for handling the situation as they did.

I wish you luck in your search for a better guild. I know not many are looking for protection warriors, but I suggest perhaps creating an advertisement in the guild recruitment forums. There are many skilled and progressed guilds that don't mind that sort of attitude and/or are full of good players to where you won't feel compelled to be angry and take up such a role.

[Ferim]

I was in a guild with a rather abrasive Raid Leader. We were number 1 alliance on the server,etc, etc. But I was a trial had only been with them for about 2 weeks and the raid leader would just demoralize people in vent. I was taken aback. I'm an active duty Marine, I know how to take (and give) an ass-chewing, but the way he was talking to people in my opinion was completely uncalled for over a game that we are supposed to enjoy. Needless to say, after my server x-fer was up that server I moved on. Now on my current server, I don't think I could have asked for a better raid leader. Our raid leader doesn't yell in vent, he reprimands privately, gives constructive criticism and fine tunes our raid comp to the encounter. Sheer and utter professionalism is what I look for in my guild-mates and though there will always be those few, I've been happy where I'm at for the last 5 months

[Maèl]

I was in a guild with a rather abrasive Raid Leader. We were number 1 alliance on the server,etc, etc. But I was a trial had only been with them for about 2 weeks and the raid leader would just demoralize people in vent. I was taken aback. I'm an active duty Marine, I know how to take (and give) an ass-chewing, but the way he was talking to people in my opinion was completely uncalled for over a game that we are supposed to enjoy. Needless to say, after my server x-fer was up that server I moved on. Now on my current server, I don't think I could have asked for a better raid leader. Our raid leader doesn't yell in vent, he reprimands privately, gives constructive criticism and fine tunes our raid comp to the encounter. Sheer and utter professionalism is what I look for in my guild-mates and though there will always be those few, I've been happy where I'm at for the last 5 months

This.
As a RL you need to tend to your raids morale.
If you keep their spirits up even after wiping for two hours on Maly then you did your job. Progress alone doesn't motivate anybody.
Chewing somebody over for stupidity should be done, no question. One sentence should be sufficient. If you take longer it's becoming abuse. You'd be amazed what people have in mind while not paying attention. It's not like this is their only life.

A friend of mine transports his bad moods thru TS and I told him(in private) not to say another word in TS cause he is ruining it for everyone even more than the ones who didn't understand the bossfight in the first try. So you wipe. Big deal. You wipe again. Well, so. Yet, you yell at somebody and everybody who has to listen to that is glad it isn't him. Doesn't sound like having fun nor very uplifting, now is it?

I wouldn't have put up with something like that for even one second.

[Rilvenar]

Jungy,

The above posts have great information on techniques. However, this not a simple fix. There are no difinate answers because it is unique to the people communicating, at that specific moment in time.

If you don't want to be labeled as abrasive by others, it will take work. Like the type of work you applied when learning to be an exceptional tank.

I would recommend that you read and reread books on communication and business leadership. This will help you become an effective communicator. Make sure you find a copy of "How to win friends and influence people" By Dale Carnegie. It has been the bench mark for communication since 1936. Read through it 5 times. Why 5 times? To firmly imprint it into your subconscious. I won't bore you with the details but the more effort you put towards communicating effectively with other the more you will.

I am not going to say that what you have done is wrong. It is simple, if I were in your position with the same beliefs, values, and mindset, I would have acted just as you have. The problem comes as a result of your method of communication not effectively transferring the intended message. And the outcome of the message isn't clearly thought out. "How is this communication going to get me, my desired result?"

I hope that helps.

[Jungy]

Well I havent taken a look at this thread in a while, kinda forgot about it until my email was telling me that I got some replies.

First off, thanks for the replies.

Second off, I have some communication with some ex guildies from there and they felt that it was a bit over the top for me to get put off of raiding like that. I found out that these people, about 8 or 9 of em, actually didnt mind what I said in vent, as they felt the same way, but didnt want to risk getting kicked out of such a progress guild.

Im not saying my actions were justified just because these guys agree with what I was about, but apparently it was only a select few that actually complained to the GM and that the sudden replacement of tanks was more of a setback than whatever they might have had to deal with had I continued to be part of the guild.

Id like to also set the record straight that I never screamed at anyone on vent, I was simply very stern and straight forward with my words.

Someone died in flames "Hey xxxxx, why were you standing in flames for so long?" "Dont let it happen again."

Iron Council medium mode, you know the adds that come out and if someone gets too close, they explode...

"Hey xxxx, try not standing in the middle, you will kill half of us before your last minute frostbolt means anything"

Lag issues: "Is anyone else lagging, anyone else having problems, am I the only one lagging?"

Me: "No youre not, but youre also not helping when you say it in vent 5 times, concentrate on the fight and figure out the problem later"

These are more or less exact quotes from me, yeah a little abrasive maybe, but very straightforward and lets people know that they shouldnt do it again.

As I said before, some people didnt mind, just seemed to me, as brought up by one of my ex guildies that it seems that the GM was looking for a reason to boot me since he seemed to have more in common with the other tank, them both having experience in Sunwell and whatnot.

[Rilvenar]

It is not just about what you said but how you said it. The tone of voice, pitch, and inflection have communicated meaning. There was a study conducted on communication. The results of that study indicated the context was only a small fraction of the meaning.

Example = How many different ways can you say "I hate you"? There is the obvious angry tone, but can you say it in a playful tone? Can it be seductive?

The point is that your tone conveyed something that destroyed teamwork instead of building it.

[Gretchin]

I must say that I'm against what most people say here. I see people refer to communication and the tone of what you say is important. I can understand that and I can also agree with it, but as long as this is a game and the communication is done over VoIP without facial expressions and body language to refer to the communication said has to be as clear and effective as possible.

If people don't like a tone then we have ourselves a lot of problems immidiantly. Do people expect others to "change" who they are to not offend someone by stating the obvious in a game where standing in the fire is wrong and not standing in the fire is right, to use a known example?

In a raid environment I always try to be as direct as possible if I have to say something. Not only does in my mind this make for less confusion but there will also be less noise to worry about for all raiders. The tanks, healers and dps do a better job if they don't have to use half their brain listening to someone saying pretty please with sugar on top in a gazillion words for 80% of a bossfight (mild overstatement yes :P).

If you as a person hang up in critisism during an encounter then either you have a bad day or somewhere down the line you'll end up doing something irrational and cause a lot of guild drama. Act your age people and it will be all right!

About the tone of the voice thingy. For discussion referance watch this youtube video. Does the tone of her voice change the subject in the lyrics?


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpZm1TstpjQ"]YouTube - Fuck You - Lily Allen Official Music Video[/ame]

[Mookey]

Ok I will speak from other PoV... GM one.

I was GM of Vanilla guild, unfortunately disbanded since many people had RL obligations when we had to focus on BWL progress... however most of those people respected community aspect of the guild one of the best things happened to them in WoW play time.

When I decided to go back to old server and reform guild I had respect from those people that knew me but they've spread legend pretty fast. Guild was populated and renown for many old school players that came back to play because of me. So we started rebuilding community -> Community yielded raiding population -> Raid population cleaned up all instances as they came up -> Endurance of the guild slowly gained more and more good players, bad were filtered -> Good players were rewarded with better guild positions but there came problem.

I can yell in this guild. I can tell people if they f--ed up. But more important I led guild trough several tiers of content, they know that they get loot from strategies and raids they are invited to so I earned right to do so and I cannot explain that enough to my officers that they should be "good guys" and leave bad guy positions to just few of us who really have power to do so.
I cannot explain how much times I got whispers from people about some officers that they are to high nose since they got positions. And this is ONLY ONLY ONLY happening in raid environments.

Examples:
I have officer who is in charge of guild enchanting - noone ever questioned why he got so big trust to do so without control.
I have officer who is in charge of guild recruitment - noone ever questioned why he have power to refuse/invite people
There is healing officer who is in charge of healer channel sorting out who heals what in raid environment, noone ever questioned his judgments on assingments.

But whenever one of mentioned personals make remarks in raids about someone, you can be sure that people are whispering me "wtf he is saying now when he f--ed up there there and there"

To explain you your own situation:
You were silent sideshow guy, doing his job, supporting new GM. You were great.
New GM is insecure yet about his position since he overthrew one GM too.
You are on bad list to several people so they complained to new GM.
He didn't stood up for you as you did for him in old guild.
You lost.

IF THEN situation:
If you were silent, doing some new guild job without being "too exposed" in new position you would still be OT.

[fatdworf]

Ok I feel like throwing my 2 cents worth in here now.

I have been a GM/RL of my guild for about 5 years now. We have never been the top guild on our server but have always progressed and gotten things done.

One of the biggest issues we have had (me and my officers most of which have been here for 3 years plus) is we dont put up with dumbshits or drama queens. In a raid I play MT or OT doesnt matter which i have no ego over it as long as it gets done. My other tank is the same way, just matters if we win.

Now as a RL and a tank you have to pay attention to an amazing amount of crap and handle all of that quite fast to be successful. Northrend beast for example ill tank, ill call out the snowbold on their way out and dps on whichever target got the snowbold. Now as we all know dps should switch to that snowbold and not the boss anymore. Everyone in my raid knows this just as u do before the pull as i make sure to explain the obvious things everytime. Now huntard B, for whatever reason thinks this doesnt include him and keeps dps on boss. My healer gets a snowbold and dies lets say. Now yes there are alot of factors to that healer dying and one guy prolly isnt the reason he dies but that means huntard B isnt doing his job right? Guess what? Ill tell him the first time "dude you have to switch your dps to stated dps target then back to boss kewl?" Now thats pretty mellow i think. Next week we are doing same boss and huntard B does the same thing on the same boss again and still doesnt swap his dps to snowbolds? This time is gonna be "Listen dumbass its been explained before and was again this week your dps is to switch to the snowbolds when they come out. If your to damn dumb to listen to simple instructions how do you expect to do some serious raiding? Either pull your head out of your arse or ill find somebody else who can do the job right."

I dont have time to coddle people cause they want to have fun playing this game. Bottom line is there are 24 other ppl in the raid and if you got somebody making mistakes that are costing your raid then you SHOULD expect to hear about it.

Now that being said if we are doign a progression boss for our guild and people are making their mistakes as everyone is learning the pull that happens. We talk to the raid find out what is happening and why and adjust as we need to np. The mistakes start to get cleaned up and we start getting closer to getting the boss down np. Now its getting real close and you have to just fine tune everything. Still calm and encourage my crew to just clean up the simple things and we got this guy. At this stage of the raid im pretty intense but understanding of mistakes, but I am FULLY EXPECTING my raiders to be learning their job of the fight. If it comes down to a player or two not learning to get the right color orbs for the twins or say get out of the way of the spikes on nub they will hear it as they are at that stage wasting other peoples time with their inability to either listen or perform their jobs. And I will in no uncertain terms let you know how i feel about that in a raid.

[Bladesong]

So far on this thread people have advocated kindness, professionalism and sternness and noted how each of those approaches work well for them. The different leadership styles work in each case because the guild leader and the guild members have (relatively speaking) the same goals and drive. For some people "fun" is showing up and hanging out with friends, for others "fun" is pushing past your limits and driving hard to be the best at something and there's a lot of shades of grey in between.

This means that if you feel that you need to "lay down the law" then you will fail - your guild, or certain members of your guild, simply have different expectations than you do in regards to raiding and fun and will see you as a jerk. If you are with people that share your goals and drive then you won't need to lay down the law because they'll already be on the same page as you and will be harsher on their own failures than you could ever be. They will appreciate your bluntness because they feel the same way when someone makes a mistake.

Keep searching around until you find a like-minded group where you can have fun, however you define that for yourself.

[Prancy]

Speaking as the 'acting' guild/raid leader for my small guild I find it a little unsetteling that you, someone who I would think would have an important role in running the guild, was replace like that. Sounds kind of like the structure of the organization was Pally MT doing everything and everyone else under him.

I used acting in quotes because its really me and 4 of my rl friends who started the guild. I just happen to be the one who's most obsessed with this darn game, tend to be online the most, and they didn't really wanna be the ones leading the raids. I think sharing the power is important, otherwise unfortunate things like this happen.

[Kalbitang]

Well, a couple of things to keep in mind. Everyone's personality is a little different, so what works for some, doesn't work for others. Some folks might be perfectly fine with yelling over vent, for others, it's a huge turnoff.

I'm kind of conflicted. It kind of sounds like you were a victim of your guild's success. You mentioned a new influx of players, so they may have preferred their friend to play a certain role, it's kind of hard to say. A cynical way to look at it is that they were trying to collectively raise their own stock.

The other possibility is that you might have been over the top. This is part of where personality type comes in. I know in the past, I've asked people to try to keep vent quiet, so we could call out info that was important for the raid. The biggest problem we had was people dying to void zones in OS, and they'd yell out in vent "No way, I wasn't standing in that!" over the raid leader trying to warn about something happening. We've had other people leading the raid that would tell people, "Shut up, we don't care if you are terrible and can't get out of the easy void zone, just sit there and die!" Again, it's personal preference what works for you.

Ideally, though, I think the GM (pally) should have approached you earlier, if this was becoming a problem. I'd hate to think it was a one-time thing, and folks could be replaced so easily.