Breakfast Topic: What if your guild went *poof*?
by Mark Crump 
Dec 9th 2007 at 8:00AM
My fear is sometime I'll log in and they won't be there. Not that I got kicked for inactivity--we've got some active military in my guild so we're cautious on these things--but that some guild-destroying drama erupted while I was gone and I'm now guildless. (Note: not affiliated with that guild; it just came up in Google.) My guild is a fairly stable guild--the guild itself is three years old, so I think we're gonna make it.
What would you do if that happened to you? Me, I'd jump servers. My guild is the only bond I have with my server as I have several RL friends on another server. Thankfully, my guild rocks that much that leaving the guild and going to my friends' server has never been seriously considered.
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guilds
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Rydolomo Dec 9th 2007 8:48AM
I agree, I'm on a US time server but live in Australia and raid with an Oceanic time guild.
If anything happend with that guild, I'd transfer to an Oceanic-time server.
However it's a pretty relaxed and stable guild.
Daryl.
Mahmoth Dec 9th 2007 9:00AM
I've had a guild collapse out from under me at least once. Logged off in the evening with a friendly, apparently stable, if rather inactive guild, woke up the next morning (or at least the next time I logged on) with a grey tabard and no Guild tab. Thankfully, it was my first char, so I just kept on levelling and eventually found a nice, stable guild that I kept 'till 70 and on.
Erika Dec 9th 2007 9:03AM
I would go to my friends guild. It wouldnt be a big deal for me. I love my guild but i will still keep in touch with everybody
Velaegis Dec 9th 2007 9:46AM
I'm very lucky. I've been in my guild for a really long time and have always stuck by them... but lately I haven'te been able to play.
Between school, holidays, homework, sports, a girlfriend and a job I can't log on nearly as much as I would like. I'm really thankful they don't kick me :P
Blacklyte Dec 9th 2007 9:53AM
i would up and leave illidan in a heartbeat. the guild is the only reason i stay.
kunukia Dec 9th 2007 10:44AM
Honestly...I would rather a guild go poof than fade slowly. I am in a guild on one server that is mostly inactive, but it is a contact point with some good friends. Some of us went and started over , different server and faction, but a few only have contact through the old guild, so we keep at least one toon in the guild, and try to get together every so often. But it's painful.
Leon Dec 9th 2007 10:51AM
I've had this happen many times. When I first got the game, I rolled on a new server, so there wasn't yet time for stable guilds to develop. I found a good group of people, spent some time with them, then went on vacation to see my family. When I came back, *poof*, no guild.
I found a new guild, but when I left for a conference a few months later, they were disbanded when I came back.
Again, this happened with a third guild.
My fourth guild did well, and served me until I got to level 58, when we were encouraged to join our sister guild aimed at TBC content. I made the jump, but a couple days later the pre-TBC guild folded and dissolved.
Flash forward to a couple weeks ago. Over night (I wasn't logged in to see the drama), the majority of our raiders split off to form a new guild. I stayed with the old guild less out of loyalty, but because I missed the boat. After the old guild leader gave several rousing (and incredibly bitter speeches) about how we few remaining members would rebuild the guild into the best on the server, mostly by selling everything the old members had left in the guild bank, I logged in to discover that he too had disbanded the guild. The breakaway guild wouldn't take me in - "Too many warlocks, sorry".
I'm in a new guild now (my 6th? 7th?), and things look good.
Dave Dec 9th 2007 11:09AM
I don't know how much of an "if" this is for most people, if you've been in the game long enough surely you've had a guild implode or worse.
Having it just END is actually a blessing. It's much worse when the MT quits, the guild leader doesn't want to find a new one and he just gives it to whoever's hanging around at the time that asks nicely. That person claims to make a solid effort at recruiting and getting the right kind of people etc etc and that works for a week or two. Then things just spiral downhill with a couple people leaving here and there. At some point, those people who left in the initial wave will start poaching anyone they think is valuable to their new guilds and if you're of a class that isn't needed in any of the guilds of the people you liked... well you're looking at the fun task of finding a new guild on your own that may have absolutely nobody you know in it. Whee!
I'd much rather a guild just go poof, it skips that month or two of deterioration and just lets you get right on with it. I'll know next time that when a guild leader quits with some emo drama, that it's time to jump ship before it sinks. Live and learn.
Pingmeister Dec 9th 2007 11:13AM
I'm sure it's no record but I ended up the GM of three Guilds that self-destructed.
Two of them still only have ONE member. Me.
But lots of things can kill a Guild. Just ask the folks on Hordeside Zangamarsh. :)
Ian Dec 9th 2007 12:41PM
yeah i'd just get a server transfer too, im attached to my guild like a pea in a pod. ive made friends with just about everyone and i only have 1 rl friend who plays on the server with me (who isn't even close to 70 yet) whereas 3 or 4 of my rl friends play on another pvp server of the same faction (horde) and because of my guild i havn't even considered leaving the server to join my rl friends who i can chat with on vent whenever theyre on.
Sophey Dec 9th 2007 12:58PM
You'd be surprised how many active military play. One of our MT's is late every few weeks because he has to take one of his soldiers to court or has station duty.
Ged Dec 10th 2007 12:48PM
It happened to me. We were a happy little drama-free social guild on an EU server. One day I logged in and there was no guild message. I thought I'd been kicked(even though I was on officer), so I whispered some of the people I knew in the guild, and they were all guildless too. I've wandered guildless ever since, they were the first and only guild I was in.
Beelzebud Dec 9th 2007 1:10PM
I was busy for two days at a family funeral. Came back and the guild I was with was in shambles. We had merged with another Kara guild, and when I got back my old guildies were gone, and only the merged people remained.
That's when I took the plunge and switched servers to join a RL friend's guild.
PapaSmurph Dec 9th 2007 6:17PM
Same thing happened to my guild. My son's best friend died in a car accident, and when we finally were able to play again, 75% of the guild was just GONE. No letter, nothing. Just G-O-N-E gone.
Now we're a guild of 7 people with too many alts. :(
RJ Dec 9th 2007 2:36PM
I had that happen once and I didn't notice. The whole guild disbanded sometime while I was logged off for a few days, and I just thought that everyone was quiet when I logged back in. I didn't notice until a few hours later when I got multiple tells from people wanting me to join their guild.
Hank Dec 9th 2007 3:10PM
Happened to me twice. And then I had such bitter experiences in new guilds (and an old one that had previously kicked me) that I rerolled Horde on a different server.
Tisen Dec 9th 2007 5:18PM
This actually just happened to my guild a couple weeks ago. The GM and most of the officers transfered and the rest of us were pretty much screwed. We had just all gotten attuned to BT also :(. I was gonna transfer but its hard to find a BT/Hyjal guild as a prot tank so I've pretty much sadly quit the game.
Menchicutlets Dec 10th 2007 1:22AM
Funnily enough this did happen to me, I had just logged on after missing the days Kara run to find myself lacking the green text that said I was in a guild. Confused for 5 seconds I was quickly whispered by the ex-guild leader and reinvited into Solstice (this is on the shadowsong EU server, getting into solstice was a huge step up :) ). Turns out the old guild leader got sick of having to deal with the leadership and just gave up on the spot. :P
If I hadn't gotten the invite I wouldve applied with a few of the other big guilds, tanks seem to be limited these days and I've proved myself competent to some of them.
Keiji Dec 10th 2007 6:49AM
That just happened to me. XD I mean... The GM faked he was getting hacked, stole 80% of the Gbank and quit the guild. Left the GM to another guy that just disbanned the guild. -___- Then got back to my friends guild. :P
LostOne Dec 10th 2007 9:03AM
That's happened to me. Logged off that thursday night, go on vacation that weekend, come back monday night and there's no guild. Apparently there was a huge assplosion of pent up emotions and frustrations at the raid that friday night and the guildmaster (whose leadership I had questioned previously anyway) just started /gkicking people. Kicked everyone. He then must have deleted his toon because I saw someone with that same name at level 10 a few days later. This was more than a year ago, before server transfers and name changes. Most of my friends decided at that time to roll horde. I wasn't done with my alliance experience yet and opted to stay (in part due to my wife having gotten her own account a couple months before and investing her limited time on alliance characters, she wasn't ready to roll horde). If the guild I'm in now implodes, I might take that as an excuse to roll horde. I have too many alliance toons to pay to transfer, so I'd just let them sit until the expansion, and if a free transfer opened up for my server I'd take that option to move them all.