As a GL myself, I can say that I've felt the burnout big-time. My guild is a small, casual raiding group that focuses more on having a good time than raids.

We were founded in June 2010 and it was a rough start, but many of hadn't seen much of the ICC content yet, and so we had quite a successful end of the year catching up with all this. In fact, we swelled in numbers for a time, as folks became interested in the momentum we displayed, where other guilds by this point were already finished with ICC.

The natural quiet period appeared about a month before Cata, and while it was a slight bummer to our group, we kept our spirits high and eagerly awaited the release.

Our high spirits, of course, lasted about 2-3 weeks.

With the realization of HOW hard Heroics were, HOW much gear grinding we had to do, and HOW crazy the raid bosses were, we've just had horrible luck getting anyone motivated to do stuff. Many started playing less, some moved to other guilds, others even quit altogether.

Our Officers were really feeling the pressure, and many of us didn't know what to do, outside of trying our best to keep pushing forward. We've been forced to PUG members, and I know that's really affected our performance as well.

I had a lot of things going on in RL recently (3 birthdays this month, including my son's, and a family mini-vacation to boot), and so I took some time off. I admit that it felt a lot of guilty pleasure in having the pressure off, and I almost considered extending my absence.

My guildmates saved me. I talked to some of them, and came to find out just how deep their loyalty ran. Our core group has always stood by me and the other Officers, and it's thanks to them that we did so well in the beginning. Even through the breaks and tough stuff, they still make the effort to show up for our raids. I truly feel that if any one of them had gotten fed up with the guild, I would've lost heart. But they didn't. And it's been inspiring.

Last nite, on a spur of the moment, we went back and started working on Ulduar (we're going get that Glory achieve that we all missed out on to begin with). It's no faceroll; many mechanics still have to be observed and dealt with. But it beats having wipe forever, with little to nothing to show for it. And you want to know something? We had fun again! It felt like our better raiding days all over again. We'll probably finish up Uld for the next couple of raid dates, and then go from there. Mayhaps 4.1 will be out by then, who knows?

I'm not saying this is a solution for all guilds, nor do I expect that every guild have a group as loyal as ours. But Mr. Andrews is right. Talk it out. You may be surprised by what thoughts/feelings your guildmates have. And you never know, you may feel inspired too.

And to my guildmates that read this... thanks.

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