Officers' Quarters: Ragequit fallout
by Scott Andrews 
Oct 5th 2009 at 1:00PM
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.
If you've played WoW long enough, and if you've raided enough, odds are you've wanted to quit your guild right in the middle of a run at some point. Some people actually go through with it. I'll never forget the night many years ago when our raid's main tank quit the guild and zoned out of Onyxia's Lair while he was tanking the boss. Yeah, that guy had some anger issues . . .
But what happens when a guild leader ragequits in the middle of a raid? Read on to find out!
Hi Scott,
A friend and I started a guild about 5 months back. I assumed the Co-Gm role, led the raids and recruited quite a bit. After a slow start we ended up making an impact on the server as a stand up crew and were moving into the top rankings for 10 and cracking the 25 man progression as well. The other Co-Gm was very good at handling issues and I admit that was not my strong point. Things worked really well until unfortunately I had an "EMO" moment.
Real life stress crept into my enjoyment of WoW. Coincidentally issues started arising as to the direction the guild should head. We had 2 10 man raids into Ulduar and 2 nights of 25 man raiding (ToC and Ulduar). What I had been doing is moving one of the 10 Man Ulduar groups into ToC and pushing 10 Ulduar clear with the other group. This led to some jealousy and complaining and my co-gm who is great at handling these issues conspicuously became absent after bringing up the discussion. So ensues the drama.
The main issue is that the group that was focusing Ulduar contained 4 members from our sister guild that we had been working with from the beginning when we did not have as many members. In vent some of the disgruntled were bashing this group. The sister guild is a 4 member guild and they are a family. This setup was preferred by the father so their younger daughter wasn't exposed to some of the crude maturer aspects of the game. However the "father" of our sister guild heard his daughter being bashed out of jealousy in vent and I became very upset that this discussion was not being held privately with me or the other officers of the guild. 2 of the guildies also did not want to run ToC as it was too difficult and did not want us picking up pugs to fill out our 25 man raids that were starting to feel some effects from the back to school blues. They wanted to solely run 10 Ulduar. They also said they had discussed this with the other GM over the last 3 hours and she agreed.
The night this all occured was our 10 man ulduar run with the sister guild. Acquiescing to the complaints I decided I would take guildies only on a ten man Ulduar run. I was however boiling at the disrespect shown to some very reliable players and friends. Combine this with the fact that one of the main complaintants regularly signs up and does not show up for raids and the other frequently needs to leave the raid early only to remain online. I was mad, I should've controlled myself better but on top of the stress from real life and now stress from the guild I exploded during the run.
I messaged my co-gm that i didn't appreciate the maelstrom I stepped into that I felt she was a party to. I told her that if we weren't going to focus on progression, which in my opinion was ToC and 25 man content, that I would be leaving the guild. Her response naturally was very curt as I was and I proceeded to gquit after we downed the next boss. Half of the members agreed with me about the guildies being out of line but no one including myself thinks my gquit was justified.
I committed the ultimate sin in quitting during a raid, although it was a pause. Thinking rationally and not being emo, I realize I threw away a very good thing and deeply regret it. The guild subsequently disbanded with the co-gm and the complaintants starting a new guild. I had come to the conclusion that I should retire from wow as I was perceiving wow as being stressful as opposed to the RL issues I was tackling. Combined with everything just being a huge misunderstanding and my eventual overreaction.
Subsequently I have decided to come back (it really was just a weekend off). In your opinion should the guild forgive me and reunite? How could I go about rebuilding their trust that was completely shattered by my 1 emo moment that ultimately led to the dissolving of the guild. I have gotten half of the members back but the other half appears to be holding a grudge, although they are not outwardly hostile to me there clearly are some very hard feelings (not wanting me to have the new vent password or refusing to pick me up if they are spamming for more to fill out their raids, and yes they are using pug's...). The co-gm and her new guild (she is not running raids just enjoying logging and killing things) seem to be enjoying themselves but I know everyone would be happy if we reformed. I would even volunteer to not be in charge as punishment for my one moment of weakness.
Sincerely,
Emo Raid Leader
PS I do know what I did is the ultimate wrong and I have apologized profusely and have requested forgiveness from every member. Unfortunately the one lapse in judgement supersedes 99% of the great job I did and fun everyone had as the guild progressed.
Hi, ERL. You definitely did not do anyone a favor by the way you acted. However, I think you are being a bit hard on yourself. You had a reason to be angry. Your co-guild leader made a huge decision without consulting you. I don't know what sort of arrangement you had with her. As the raid leader, it seems to me that you should have been an important part of any discussion about the direction of the guild's raiding. Combined with the Vent drama, I don't blame you for being upset.
Still, as you admit, you handled the situation poorly. It's never a good idea to make a major decision when you're in a state of heightened emotion, whether you're a guild leader or a new recruit. I understand that you wanted to get away from the guild for a while, but simply logging off would have been far less damaging to the guild than quitting. I doubt that it would have endeared you to your members, but coming back the next day and apologizing could have kept the guild together. Then you could have had a reasonable discussion with your co-leader about your raiding situation, handled the Vent drama in a constructive way, and moved on as a guild.
Instead, your guild fell apart. You want to do you best to make it right, and I respect that. You will have to eat some crow here. You need to approach the situation both humbly and delicately. You can't push too hard. If someone doesn't want to come back, respect their decision.
Whether or not your former members forgive you is up to them. I honestly don't see a point in holding a grudge, although I can understand if they just don't want to associate with you anymore.
The faith of your former members in you has been greatly diminished, so your best option would be to organize the guild under another leader. Speak to the players you trust and find someone who would make a good candidate that's willing to give it another try. That person should be the one to go about recruiting the old crew. You should stay out of the spotlight, as a member but not an officer.
Realize, however, that the person you ask to lead the guild may institute policies that you don't agree with 100%. You can make suggestions, but ultimately you will have to live with his or her decisions. It's possible, in the future, after you've proven that you can stay calm and rational, that you'll be able to carry out more of a leadership role. For now, however, you need to let others run the show.
It sounds like, with the exception of some bad apples, the guild worked well together. With any luck, most former members will be eager to return. You probably won't get everyone back, and you may have to add some new players.
On your end, the most important part of this whole mess is that you forgive yourself. We all make mistakes, particularly when we're feeling stressed and wronged. You can't beat yourself up over this one terrible moment forever. Apologize and then move on. Hopefully, everyone else will, too.
/salute
Send Scott your guild-related questions, conundrums, ideas, and suggestions at scott.andrews@weblogsinc.com. You may find your question the subject of next week's Officers' Quarters!Filed under: Officers' Quarters (Guild Leadership)
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 4)
Nord Oct 6th 2009 10:14AM
Don't unplug your computer in the middle of a raid, I had a power outage happen once in the middle of a raid, it crashed my OS and I had to reinstall every on my HD, took three days to get back online...
Caelys Oct 6th 2009 3:31PM
Back when Kara was hard, I was in a group as a healer. We had just downed The Curator and for the first time EVER - the priest/warrior/druid token drops. I was ecstatic to even get a chance to roll on them. Instead, my guild leader/main tank took them with the reasoning of "tanks get gear first." I got really upset at it, said a few.. unchoice words, but dropped it after 5 minutes. I wanted to finish the group, get what loot I could and get out of there.
Instead, someone else in the group decided to continually berate me in whispers, purposely trying to make me angry (ok, angrier). I was already angry, and his words just pushed me over the edge. I ended up screaming, quite literally, at the group over vent. I wish I would have just pulled the plug, but I use to have a thing about seeing groups through to the end - even if it made me want to break things.
Just because there's distance between me and another player does not give either party the right to treat the other like shit. For all you know, the other person might be having an epicly bad day and they're trying to relax in game. You being a douche is only going to make the day worse. The Golden Rule applies online as much as it does IRL - if not moreso.
Plug pulls are definitely justified in some cases. Not all, no, but definitely in some.
Extrox Oct 5th 2009 1:17PM
Sounds somewhat similar to what I did, though mine wasn't in a Co-GM position. I had caught on quite a bit of stress from school / other lifes demands and unfortunately the bubble burst when I was online. I was completely in the wrong, I ripped people who didn't deserve it nor was involved in any of it. Thankfully I didn't have much of a "following" and the crew I left is still trucking along just fine. I apologized to everyone and I think I'm "ok" terms with them all now, but I refuse to forgive myself of the matter. When I screw up, I take it to heart, I figure the lesson isn't learned unless I continue to keep the matter fresh to myself. No pain, no gain.
Clevins Oct 5th 2009 1:21PM
I knew where this was going the second I read the phrase 'co-GM'. There's no such thing - one person is the GM in reality and has to be. If you have two people who each think they're GM... who wins when they disagree?
The co-GM was immature too, to break up a guild based on one incident. And, frankly, they both created a situation where they *weren't* progressing as a guild, they were progressing as a guild with an alliance. I can see that causing some issues when the small 4 person guild ends up getting loot even when it's deserved and won fairly. It's the "why don't they join us?" sentiment and a lot of players won't have the life experience or maturity to appreciate the father's concerns.
The OP needs to take a break. A long one. Progression in a video game is NOT worth the kind of emotion that person was dealing with and saying he was going to take a break, then took a weekend shows some immaturity. Walk away for a couple of weeks. But getting THAT angry over a video game is simply not healthy.
Hagen Oct 5th 2009 1:21PM
I think the advice provided to you in the article has been very sound. If these people are really your friends they will understand what happened, even if it did end up with some pretty serious ramifications.
The important thing is to learn from your mistake and make sure you don't continue to repeat it down the line. Good luck.
Netherscourge Oct 5th 2009 1:21PM
I am soooooooooooooooooooooooo happy that WoW Raiding is PuGable now.
I will never join another guild again. DKP systems, drama, favoritism, etc... what utter GARBAGE.
I am enjoying WoW morw now then I ever did. Playing solo is awesome, especially on a server like Medivh (US) where PuGers are very good and you can get a reputation as a solid raider even without a guild.
Never again will I touch a guild. I cancel invites to guilds on a weekly basis. I can raid when I want, I don't have to wait in line behind a bunch of stupid DKP-whoring idiots and I'm 100% happy.
SCREW GUILDS!
peagle Oct 5th 2009 1:47PM
You sound like you've just had bad guild experiences. Pugging is its own horrific nightmare, unless you enjoy people who don't know what they're doing grinding through content.
malaika Oct 5th 2009 2:15PM
If you are "100% happy" as you claim, the more power to you.
However, PUG raids have their own issues, as I have found. On my previous server, I would wait for hours in LFG for a spot. If one would form, over 50% of the time, it would dissolve before any of us set foot in the instance portal. It is true that cross-server LFG will help with that (when implemented). Also, PUGs for Ulduar and TOC were very rare, so I was limited to Naxx/OS in terms of progression. The best PUG raids I was in were, in fact, when a guild required a few peeps to fill in the slots. Often PUGs don't have access to Ventrilo. There is also the risk of loot ninjas. There was a great post here on wow.com a few months ago on PUG raiding. When you avoid the common pitfalls, it can be very fulfilling. Be sure to put the best players you meet in PUGs on your friends list. That way, you build a network of reliable players that will make your future PUGs more sucessful.
I have transfered off to join a guild. I now have a raid scedule that fits my RL schedule, I can see top tier content and I do get the occasional loot even if I am a rookie to this guild. Furthermore, with the proposed guild talent system, raiding with guilds will have extra perks (multi-summon, mass-rez, etc).
I can see both sides of the medal. With the announced improvements, Blizz is catering to both sides as well.
t0xic Oct 5th 2009 2:40PM
"Never again will I touch a guild. I cancel invites to guilds on a weekly basis. I can raid when I want, I don't have to wait in line behind a bunch of stupid DKP-whoring idiots and I'm 100% happy."
I know that this sounds drastic to anyone that plays the game with friends. I personally don't have any real life friends that play the game.
There are no specific ties to a guild for me. I've been in guilds where raid attendance was mandated (which didn't work very well with my schedule), I've been in guilds where the "core" were all real-life friends, and they recruited to get 10 man raids going. The main issue being that they would do heroic badge runs and leave half of the guild PUG'ing for badges. At that point you have to ask yourself why you're in a guild at all. I eventually had to start playing my paladin tank with my girlfriend's holy priest to create 5-man groups on my own (even though I'd rather play my mage, hunter, or druid most of the time).
The truth is, sometimes the best option is no guild at all. It really depends on the circumstances.
Brigaren Oct 5th 2009 1:24PM
WoW is a game. If you don't enjoy the time you spend with the other players, you have every right to leave their company at any time, including right in the middle of a raid. Some rage quit without good cause or for selfish reasons, this is true. In many cases however it is more than justified because in many cases the people that play WoW treat others with disrespect or at the very least like personal resources.
Also, blanket proclamations about "anger issues" seem a bit presumptuous to me, like much of the editorial content of this site. I'm an avid reader of WoW.com (have been since before it switched from plain old 'WoW Insider.') You guys do good work but I personally find the level of arbitrary personal judgment included with a lot of the recent coverage of the game distasteful.
Rob Oct 5th 2009 1:28PM
50 DKP MINUS.
Deadly. Off. Topic. Oct 5th 2009 1:26PM
(BTW BALDIE Gnome is scary.)
Honestly, why would you want to go back to a guild who can't forgive? Obviously they love slamming people and being jealous over other people... even going so far as to make deals behind your back with your ex co-leader there.
I think you should just start another guild, or join another guild with people who understand stress and realize they're just as much to blame as you are. People are human, they need to blow up sometimes.
Blacksheep Oct 5th 2009 1:28PM
It's so difficult being a top ranking officer/raid planner/raid leader. First, we have to learn the gaming hard part, that is details of every single fight and how to best explain it and correct mistakes as they happen.
Second, the hardest part, dealing with everyone complaining about why they weren't invited this week, or why their friend isn't there, or "why are we doing this raid, we should be doing that one" etc. Most of the drama really does seem to occur with who is and isn't getting invites. My guild does 10 mans because when we tried doing 25 mans, 11 people would show up and no raid would happen (of course 20 people online when there is no raid, go figure), so we made a policy of rotating different people into the multiple 10 mans we run, so everyone gets to do something. Even though we have informed everyone about it, there are still complaints here and there, every week.
I feel like I should just say to the complainers "ok, you plan out both 10 man runs this week, try and mix the groups, get the proper amount of tanks and healers, then invite people who need the run, mixed with vets who can explain/pick up the slack, then post it up for all to see." What would happen to them? Slew of complaints about who was invited, only so much room in a 10 man run and there is nothing we can do to sneak 12 people in, Blizzard won't let us cheat like that :p
I think we should all implement a new policy, "raid leader of the week" so everyone can see just how difficult it all is to deal with lol.
Gimmlette Oct 5th 2009 3:46PM
"I think we should all implement a new policy, 'raid leader of the week' so everyone can see just how difficult it all is to deal with lol." ^This.
The first time I wanted to do a guild clear of Naxx, my MT offered to put the groups together. We had enough people to make a clear run in two 10-man groups. He sat down and ran all the numbers off people's gear and whether he had done anything with them. Then he made lists, cleared everything with me, and sent out letters asking for a commitment to be in the main raid or on stand-by.
You would have thought the world exploded. The whole point, to get a guild clear of Naxx, went out the window. I had two people /gquit in the middle of the first night of the raid because they were put on standby. I had the raid leader of one of the groups, without my permission, bring in three of his friends from another guild so they could finish off the bosses they hadn't been able to do for the Naxx clear achievement. I had a tank sit down in the middle of the construct wing and refuse to go any farther until a healer who, as far as his standards went, wasn't doing her job, was replaced. I had two people bring alts instead of the toons that had been invited and then refuse to bring the requested toons. In the end, I aborted the runs. For my officers, myself and my MT in particular, it was a nightmare.
Since that weekend, we have, as a guild cleared Naxx and moved on to other things. Those who caused problems that weekend are gone. We didn't want to hurt feelings by publicizing someone's gear score as the mark of how we were deciding whom to take with us. In retrospect, we should have; should have posted it to the forum and said, "This is why you are on stand-by." Those people who are still in the guild understand that I can only take 10 people into a 10-man raid and I'm going to try for the best mix of new and old so everyone has a decent experience.
To the OP, several people have suggested you join another guild and that's what I would recommend. This will sound callous but understand from where this comes. While we call the people in our guild "friends", unless we actually see them face-to-face and break bread with them, they are "friends" in name only. (That being said, some of these faceless friends were my rock when I went through some major stress this past summer.) My point is that they may have forgiven you or may never forgive you or may be somewhere between those. But their will always be a slight tilt to your relationship based on how they perceived your meltdown and the fact that they may never, ever meet you in person. Personally, if I was a member of the guild and watched your melt down, regardless of how much "friendship" we had, I would be incredibly leery of you.
I think you should join another guild and get your feet back under you. Whether it's come back to you or not, your meltdown made the rounds of your server's gossip channels. Likely 90% of the server doesn't know about it, but that 10% who does probably includes some guild leaders and people who are well known on your server. You may have to own up to this for a few more months. That's why going into another guild and being a "grunt" is a good idea. Lay low, play well, show people that you can handle any stressful situation and they will come to trust you again. Don't form another guild. Don't take any position of management. Just play.
I agree that you can't beat yourself up over this but I also know we have a huge capacity to forgive others and little capacity to forgive ourselves. My officers are very good at reminding me that I need to forgive myself when I screw up. It's over. It's done. Now move on. Get back into playing with another guild and show your former guild mates that you have put the incident behind you.
Xandari Oct 5th 2009 4:44PM
*Peer* You wouldn't happen to be on Thorium brotherhood, would you? because that SO sounds like my guild before we hit a super-slump! And you sound just like one of our raid leaders! (I mean that in a very good way, btw. You make excellent sense!)
Xandari Oct 5th 2009 4:45PM
Blacksheep, that is. :)
Krugeroff Oct 5th 2009 1:29PM
we had one of these happen.
Our very competent RL was doinr her 10-man leading thing a few months back in Uld, which was off content for us btw, and our GM was with the raid as a player. After getting fed up with one of the other officers' behavior in the raid, instead of kicking the player and making an example of him, he demoted all his toons, kicked several of them from the guild, transferred guild leadership to another of the officers in our group. He probably would have gquit also if the RL and the other officer hadn't talked some sense into him. The demoted the bad apple, and told him his behavior was out of line.
In the end he (our GM) logged off without gquitting and later was reinstated as the GM. But those of us who were there will probably remmber that for a while, if only to laugh about it.
Altogether, not a great experience, but slightly better than following through with the ragequit.
henray Oct 5th 2009 1:36PM
netherscourge sounds like just another loot whore who gets mad he cant /roll on everything that's equip-able for his toon, so all that is left for him is pugs. lol keep soloing wow there champ.
Megamoo Oct 5th 2009 1:39PM
Or at least a lucky roller, I'd hate to rely on my /roll luck
orlochavez Oct 5th 2009 1:36PM
@ERL
Sure , you did the "wrong thing," but it can work out for you. It sounds like your previous guild wasn't where you wanted it to be as far as progression and ambition toward progression. that's usually the Number 1 complaint people have with their guilds (i.e. - too casual or too hardcore). Go out and find a guild whose playstyle, attitude and "hardcore-ness" suits you, and you should be fine.
I totally agree that you should consider "retiring" from raid leading. As someone who's been there (RL concerns taking a toll on WoW time), I can tell you that taking a step back and being "just a raider" can be an awesome thing. When you find the right guild, you end up with all the perks of being a raider with none of the responsibility of things like recruiting, raid composition, attendance, DKP, etc. Give it a go.