Darkseid, I don't believe you've ever been in a good guild with good leadership, and certainly not as a leader. Because if you ever had been, you'd understand....

My guild started out as you describe, a group of friends wanting to play together. And so it was for Vanilla and most of BC. But here's where you're missing a piece in your perception puzzle: when people are having a great time together, that attracts other people. People saw how much fun this group was having and wanted to be part of that. So out go the invites to these other fun people that the initial group has come across, and more people have more fun. Most guilds like this don't actively recruit, not in this stage. It's just natural for people to come along and want to enjoy the game in this kind of environment.

Eventually, you'll have enough people in this kind of relaxed guild setting that you all want to do something harder together because now you can. So you start raiding. And that usually requires more commitment and coordination, so you say "Hey, let's make this easy on ourselves and we'll get Vent and a website up (because it's easy to just make any old kind of forum-based website nowadays) and we talk and goof off more and plan more fun stuff." Because at this point, raiding is new and fun, and you're all still here for the fun.

Then you start raiding, and you and your buddies are having a good time goofing around, seeing new things, getting new gear. But at some point you'll hit a boss or an encounter that's hard and you have to *gasp* WORK at it! Or someone will really, really want [UBER ITEM] and not get it and some hard feelings start up.

Can you see a natural progression here? Guild leadership isn't some big conspiracy to make people work during their playtime. As you say - "All these guilds start out the same way, a bunch of friends getting together to hang out while they play". But eventually, for you to accomplish the things you want to do in this kind of game - one that's designed with the intention of having people work together - someone has to lead, problem solve, and (if you can imagine it) actually work at making that guild a place that *continues* to be fun for everyone. Because if you don't have solid, reliable, respectable leaders, most guilds will fall into chaos and die. Which, incidentally, isn't FUN.

So you might not see lack of leadership as a reason for a guild to fall apart, but that is probably because you fail to understand the basis on which a successful guild must exist. Just like any relationship, once the fun's over, there has to be something solid there or the show's over. Which means that eventually there must leadership, dedication, organization, etc.

And so it is that those terms to which you refer arise. And if they didn't, you likely wouldn't be having nearly as much fun or getting nearly as much loot or defeating nearly as many challenges within the game. Someone's working hard to provide you with the fun you are likely taking for granted, which is a big issue brought up in this post. For a lot of the great guild leaders who are willing to responsibly run a guild, they work very hard, but they also are likely to get some satisfaction out of doing the work necessary to provide other people with a continuously fun environment in which to play. But it's still work, and as this article points out, they need other people's support and cooperation for it to last, for EVERYONE involved. No guild member of any guild is immune from sharing at least some responsibility for the guild's success, either by your lack of drama, or by actively supporting the guild's function, or supporting those who work hard to provide the guild environment all of those guild members are choosing to play in.

Guild leadership is absolutely a second job for myself and several of our officers. But we love the environment that we're able to create for ourselves and others. I'm enough invested in my guild that I'll get calls when I'm not playing over something going on in-game, and I'll go help if I can. I communicate daily out of game with many of my guildmates, whom I have come to consider very good friends of mine. Running a successful, enjoyable guild is absolutely work for someone, and likely for several people, but absolutely worth it when you've got this amazing group to enjoy as a result.

TLDR: Darkseid, you might want to check your glasses and walk a mile in a few new shoes since you can only "see one thing....", because there's a lot more to things than you've bothered to perceive.