I hate change

... What game is this?

wow

What, you're not on the Furry Serrver? Bloodhoof/Horde? Order of the Claws is the place to be.
I'm currently taknig a break from WoW myself, too much other stuff to play... but I may return again later.

home is home

lolfurry server. I'd like to avoid the drama.

I'm not sure what kind of comments you'll get, but its rough being a guild leader. Its even harder when you need to be able to push it aside to be able to focus on something else you find fun or just need a break and you suddenly see that the guild in question only exsists because of you. Then your stay is stretched out to the point where it hurts.

I should know because it just happened to me and its why my guild finally split up. Its hard but if you only knew how big of a burden it will be off your friends shoulders you'd know its for the best.

Right now though, communicate with the people you play with, tell em how you feel, and if someone can't step up to shoulder the guild untill the leader has her second wind then atleast focus on where you all would like to move to. Alot of the people in my previous guild went as far to make a special /join channel to talk to and keep in touch for those who did wander off to other guilds but for the most part they all pretty much funneled into another guild that just started.

Not sure how much of it helps, but I wish you good luck. *soothes.*

we're still talking about it, we might do a guild council instead of a guild leader

What guild?

I'm not going to mention it just because we're probably going to get flak from general chat anyways, and I don't want to maybe inadvertantly add to it

Sorry I was specific enough, a guild from a game?

World of warcraft, so yeah

My guild nearly fell apart once because of something similar, the wife was heading raids and was taking quite a deal of shit from undergeared people everytime we had a raid and they weren't including due to minimum requirements. Add on that her husband was cheating on her and using her CC to buy gold and well... Yeaaaaah.

2 years later we're doing better and under a new guild leader, just now we have our sort of "council" involving Officers and people in a group called Special Order. Duties are split up yet shared and stress isn't as hectic.

I think most of the pressure of (Er, I don't mean to just go off on a tangent. Being in the Online Game Journalism industry after all...) But the pressure of creating an environment of love and hugs and commrodery and such takes a massive toll on anyone assume the leadership or officer role. World of Warcraft has most of these catch 22s of any MMO, really. In order to make everyone happy and the environment to be safe and friendly. someone has to sacrifice a lot of stress, patience, and frankly, a lot of their time to do so.

I think WoW is the larges source of this simply because of the game itself. it's a game thats 'meant' for everyone. Yet requires a lot of unseen emotion as soon as you assume any guild leadership roles. Now. I've been in many WoW guilds, even the #2 on our entire server at one point. The biggest guilds and the smallest guilds all have problems.

The biggest problem is nobody wants to really 'commit' the time it takes to ease the burden on Guild Masters and Officers, as they don't want to ruin their entertained environment. It's sad, but it happens. It could just be due to the fact that people don't have the time, but the people WITH the time are dumped with all of this stress of keeping everything glued together.

It's sad that this happens in WoW because so many MMO's have this problem as well, like EVE Online, with 800-1200 man alliances split between every timezone around the world. It gets stressful in EVE moreso because there is no 'respawn' for your ships. They blow up, they are gone permanently, and you have to buy a new one and fit it.

The only problem is that EVE is a complex game, and as such, has a different audience. People -expect- leadership to be hard. And the people that are in leadership came on board prepared for all of these stresses of an invasion of friendly space by the enemy at 2am in their timezone.

But World of Warcraft, doesn't prepare you at all for being a guild leader until you are already there. It's... hard. To just find 30-40-50 people all looking at YOU for something to do.

I personally (in WoW, no less) watched as a guild of 20 of the friendliest people I've ever met disintegrate. The Guild Masters (A husband and wife) left the server. People who I've known and trusted for months and months on end just left. The guy that gave me an item specifically for my Feral Druid class yet sold for 8000g on the Auction house gave it to me for free because he got it. It was very... hard, to deal with. I personally felt horrible. I don't think I slept that night, honest.

The biggest thing to remember, is that communication with these people is not impossible. It may be awkward, but. Moving on is all anyone can do. People might be bitter, angry, ignorant about why it happened, or downright rude. But, friends are still friends.

If you need to talk about it any more. I'll be here, I've been involved with these online guilds and clans and such for as long as I've had internet, like, 2004. I've seen a lot of ugly things happen to a lot of good people. I'm sorry that the roof over your head collapsed. I feel sorry for your guild leader. You are supposed to play a video game for enjoyment, relaxation. People in WoW push other people to wits end just to get shiney purple things that matter not in the long run. Sadly it's always the good people who are always caught in this. I can completely understand everything she is going through.

(Sorry for the long post. I tend to carry on. This topic is somewhat close to me, as I've had it happen to me as well. Long story short. Sorry your guild master is going through such stress. Games are for relaxing, unfortunately people push others to stress over how 'relaxing' the game should be. I feel sorry for you, too. I've been in your exact shoes.)

well, I should have put this in my journals somewhere, but even though jess cared about the guild, she make it a place of happiness and hugs, she was a bitch. she was strong and she knew that if people couldn't take a little bit of honesty or harsh criticism then they didn't belong there. Doesn't mean that she disliked us, some of her closest friends were in that guild, irl or not, and it doesn't mean that it wasn't a fun place. Her yelling at the raid was one of my favorite things about this guild, and thankfully she's on my steam client friends list and will be online more often

Being a guild leader is a thankless job. If you're soft, players walk all over you. If you're strict, people QQ about how "it's just a game, lighten up!" and then they think the guild should owe them everything they want, when they want it. I've finally found a guild that makes progression, has a fun atmosphere, and even does loot right. With WoW being my primary form of socialization, I can definitely understand your viewpoint on this, but I also keep myself distanced just enough to realize that, if the person in question isn't known to me in real life, then I cannot truly call them a friend. Just doesn't work that way, and the fact that as soon as you leave a guild the people you knew there never talk to you again proves it.

Anyway, I see it this way - if you cannot play the game and ENJOY it, then it's not worth the money to play.

Wow does this to people, i ran my own successful server no 1 raiding guild for about a year and the stress, and tension, you're expected to....keep a full rostor, keep everyone happy, cope with constant questions, check everyone is pulling their weight, cope with the prima donnas who think X isn't good enough and therefore assault them verbally, keep the officer team strong, so much pressure...i quit in the end and left it to someone else to manage for a bit....and then came back as a normal member about 8 months down the line and it felt so much better.

I quit wow 5 months ago and i don't regret it. :)

It sucks mate, trust me, I've been there.

In Vanilla we had a family guild, but a lot of people broke up with TBC coming out.

In TBC I found a new guild, it broke up with WotLK coming out.

And now in this last month, my WotLK guild broke up and I'm looking for a guild that feels like family, not the half remains of this last guild mixed with the assholes of a new guild. It really does blow, but just keep in touch with the friends you had inguild, I know I still do over IM / email / etc, even my vanilla guild I still hear from.

PS - Hey, if they need a Frost DPS DK to stay alive, I'm your guy =P

couple of problems, going to be doing 10's until we decide whether or not we want to build back up to 25, if people leave, but a lot of people are pushing for 25's anyways. Also, it's a late night raiding guild, 8pm-11pm pacific. One last thing is that we cycle out new members on what seems like a weekly basis and what we really need is someone who's willing to stick it out with us. Not saying you're flakey, but if you're looking for something that feels like a family you might just fit in

P.S. we're not much of a progression guild, especially with how small our server is

As an officer of a few guilds (not at once of course) I know how that goes. :(
Best of luck to the guild, I know how attached people, including me, can get to the ones you spend a few times (or more) a week with.

Tough times. I know how a guild can become like a second family. That's how Order of the Claws is for me. We'd be happy to take you in. We're a bit rowdy and immature (hurr) sometimes, but it's a great group of folks. There's not half as much drama as people say there is, and we're all really supportive of each other and enjoy helping people out.