Guild Breakup Officers taking a cut

[Hyperfish]

This isn't so much a thread about what to do more along the lines of opinions/similar experiences.

The guild in question has been going for several years, it had a bad breakup a year or so ago were a lot of people left and there's been some animosity between the subsequent guild that formed from the levers. The guild is a 10man raiding guild, with decent progress. Some of the people have been in there for a long time. Personally I've been in the guild for about three years on and off, two of the officers are friends of mine for about five years, another officer is I suppose a 'friend', for two year. I have no personal position of responsibility in this guild though I have experience of leading and being an officer elsewhere.

Anyway onto the topic at hand, about two weeks ago three people left the guild. There was some chatter about the inability to finish some heroic modes was the reason. Subsequently the GM decided to make a point of saying if anyone had an issue they should bring it up with him and the officers. Over this weekend the officers I've been friends with for five years suddenly say that they have been tired of the bad mouthing and want a fresh start so their faction transferring. Sad but fair enough it's their sub, I wished them the best. Then things start getting fishy. The GM, a few hours later, says he's leaving as well but making one of he's alts GM. Obviously I point out to him that if he's going then really someone else should be GM. This is ignored and happens anyway. I wish him the best as I like the guy. I then find that 20k has been taken out of the guild bank after I checked the following day. At first I think he's just taken it but after talking to the other, 'friend', it turns out and that he's now on the, 'other', side with the other two officers who left in the same guild and that that cash was given to people who've been in the guild for a, 'long time'. Bear in mind theres still 12k in the old guild bank and he's alt is still GM.

I can't help but feel slightly betrayed by this, who really has the rights to the money in the GB? If you are breaking up a guild, which this pretty much is, should you really just decide to take the cash and run? I'm wondering now if he gave some of the money to my long term friends to get into another guild....

Any views most welcome, just wondering if I'm overacting as I can't help but feel slightly abandoned and betrayed frankly. I'm not interested in the money it's more the principle. Sorry for long post.

[Bovinity]

I've said it before, the destiny of all guild banks is to ultimately get ninjaed by GM's/Officers. You just have to accept that - at some point - all your contributions to "The Guild" are really going to probably end up in the pockets of those in charge somewhere down the road.

[Reev]

You can pretty much assume when a guild breaks up that all the gold from the guild bank goes to the guildmaster. If any of that gold goes to other members/officers, it's just that GM being nice. I've been in 3 guild breakups, and I've never seen a cent from the guild bank, even when I was an officer.

[Hyperfish]

Indeed, I guess it's one of those things you always hear about but never assume will happen to you :P Thanks for the input.

[Charon]

At least it was only 20k, and not all of the gold and items and a /gdisband. It could ALWAYS be worse.

[Raider123]

shit happens ;/

[him6786]

Edit - I just realized how old this thread is, so this is probably irrelevant, but i'll keep it here anyways. zzzzz

I'm at work, but I'd like to throw in my personal experience with this. When I get home I may just screenshot my convo with GMs for more details etc, but here's the gist of it. During Cata, near the end of BWD/ that raid with Cho'Gall my guild broke up. We were a 10 man guild and when a couple people decided they didn't want to play anymore we decided to just let the guild sit stagnant for a few months. None of the officers continued to play and the few raiders who were left playing found new guilds. Nobody touched the gbank or made any mention of it, because anyone who had invested anything into it had stopped playing.

Fast forward a solid 3-4 months later. Myself, a former officer, and two old raider buddies start playing again. I had maintained a good relationship with all but one of the former officers/raiders throw various other games, who stopped logging on vent etc after the break up. We played rift a little, we played league of legends a lot, you get the idea. Anyways the three of us start playing again and I was talking to the former GM and asked if I payed for his resub if I could have the gbank to split between us 3 returning players and the one raider who was left on our server still. Iirc the gbank had about 120k in it. The GM said he didn't mind as he was never going to play, one of the other officers who was in vent at the time I asked said he had no issue with it either. I payed for a month of his game time, he made me GM and that was that.

I divided up the gold amongst us 4 equally, and then sold the guild to some bro in trade chat for an extra 20k gold, which I also divided up. This again, was fine with all parties involved, including the ones no longer playing. The 3 of us joined a new guild and the 4th guy was already in one he liked and stayed there. About 2 weeks later the one officer I had issues with came on vent one day and over heard us talking about the newly acquired 35k we each had. He asked where we got it and I openly told him. He said he wanted a cut of it incase he started playing again, and I told hm that I would give him a fifth of what I took but I wasn't going to speak for everyone else, and he could have that if he wanted to resub for it. He whined and complained that it wasn't fair, but that was the offer I made him as he hadn't been around since he hadn't been around for 5 months. He left vent all angsty like and I thought that was the end of it. A few days later I am raiding and I get a whisper from a GM along the lines of "Your account is being permanently suspended, you will be logged off shortly. You will receive an email with an explanation." and bam, mid fight I was banned.

The ban boiled down to this. Apparently there is some rule that a GM cannot willfully impair the progression of a guild. In this case they banned me because removing all the money made it so the guild would have a harder time raiding without the access to the gold and resources. The fact I sold the guild was mentioned as an after thought, the GM stated it was sold to a group of Chinese farmers, but they concluded I had no way of knowing that and were not punishing me for that. I successfully argued that the guilds progression was not impaired as for the past 4 months nobody in that guild had even logged on etc. The GM overturned my ban and my account was re-instated within a few days. I had the gold the GM took from my account restored to me, nobody else lost any gold, and the ownership of the guild was transferred to the one remaining officer still in that guild (Apparently the Chinese didn't do any sort of re-ranking or removing of old members), which was the guy who I had issues with, the same one who reported me. He came online and bragged that he had gotten the guild back and all the gold was back in it. I had a few choice words for him, as did many other people and haven't talked to him since.

That ended up being much longer than I had expected it to, but that's my story. I guess what I'm trying to get at here is that although the idea that the GM owns the guild and everything in it is the prevailing opinion, in my case that proved to be untrue. If you feel like the GM did you exceptionally dirty, you do have grounds for a report. That being said I do not think reporting your GM and trying to get the gold back in the gbank is the wisest of choices here. You'll end up burning bridges and just pissing people off over a couple thousand gold that you likely weren't going to see anyways.

[Hyperfish]

Thanks for sharing, that's an interesting case. I personally haven't heard something quite like that before, though I do know of an instance were a former GM protested to Blizz and managed to get the get a guild back after a hostile takeover which was apparently done for the sole purpose of ninjaing the guild bank.

To be fair at the time I was never bothered about the money, it was more the strip mining of the guild we all helped create that bothered me, as was the bizarre alt put in place by the GM. Like others have said, it happens and you just have to get over it.

I still speak to those two friends I mentioned today, although one of them is rapidly losing interest on the, 'other side'. I've always felt playing with your friends sustains you longer in WoW then chasing progression, though having both is ideal