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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsDrama Mamas: Are guild perks worth putting up with a bad guild leader?
by Robin Torres 
Apr 29th 2011 at 4:00PM
We've edited the following letter for language and length, but I think we've successfully preserved the passion and relevant details.
Several days ago our guild pretty much fell apart. Our guild leader, as far as we could tell, had been getting into an online relationship with one of our guildies, which by itself was bad enough. Online relationships don't often lead to good results, and this one was near-scandalous; our leader was easily in his 40s and the girl in question always dodged any question regarding her age; but we've heard her speak, and we suspect she was probably underage.
Back to the issue. He was starting to drift away from the guild more and more over the past few months. He never responded to anyone's inquiries, procrastinated from actually addressing any problems that cropped up, and never gave anyone officership, even from active members such as myself who wanted to help contribute more to the guild. Near the end, many of our regulars had quit he game due to his lackluster leadership (some of which were his personal friends) and the entire guild was being run by the only two officers he had left.
So the other night there was a huge fallout over gear drops (which I unfortunately was not on to witness, but from what I understand was entirely from his end) and, long story short, he emptied our ENTIRE guild bank of ALL it's contents, took EVERY last gold piece we had been saving (near 50,000 gold), and handed the guild over to a total pundit who never contributed anything to the guild (and, incidentally, refuses to hand control over to anyone who actually wants to help it recover.) He then jumped server, but not before he and his girlfriend / partner-in-crime claimed WE were the ones who stole everything. [...]
I've talked with the GMs about it, and they said it was something we "had to resolve as a Guild.", which is, unfortunately in this scenario, a euphemism for "Looks like you guys are screwed." I understand that the GMs' hands are tied when it comes to player-to-player interaction such as this, but this one guy, this ONE idiot, completely undermined ALL our hard work [...]. He reacted to get back at a few and ended up hurting everyone in the guild (including the vast majority that had absolutely no say in the guild politics) and ruining our game experience. Most of our main members (myself included) were forced to leave and start up an entirely new guild so we could continue making any progress at all with raids and whatnot, but we were forced to leave behind a fully functioning Lv18 guild [...], with all its achievements, awards and perks that ALL of us as a guild of us had rightfully earned. [...]
I know it's probably just thoughts of vengeance running through my head, but I feel like this HAS to be a breach of SOMETHING in the EULA. There has to be some way of nailing this guy. It's not right that this jackass can pull this kind of thing and get away with it. I'm not the kind of guy who holds grudges, but to me this is entirely unforgivable. It's personal to me, because I value my time rather highly; I only have so much of it. And I feel he just robbed ME of four months of my time and efforts. Four months I'm not likely to get back. And I just feel lost as to what to do about it. I know all I can do is move forward and help make our new guild better than the last, but I'm still having trouble moving on.
What are your thoughts on this?
--Grim Prospects
Drama Mama Robin: Grim Prospects sounds like an excellent guild name -- one based in the Undercity, maybe. Anyway ... Before Cataclysm, leaving a guild wasn't quite so big of a deal. Sure, there was the guild bank and whatever you contributed to it, as well as any loot system, but the introduction of guild perks has made a guild a real investment. I hear tales of guilds that did mass invites only to jettison most of the members after the guilds hit level 25. These tales remind me of the Backyardigans episode where the bad guy steals everyone's ping-pong paddles -- only to discover that if no one else has a paddle, there is no one to play ping-pong with.Grim, let go of your anger. Do not give in to the dark side. Revenge is not the way of the happy player. You and your fellow exiles should make use of the new guild finder to try to find a new home on your realm. You all seem to have marketable raiding skills that an established guild with perks would probably welcome. Yes, you'll have to spend time building up guild rep, but at least you wouldn't have to start from scratch as you are now.
I can't let your comment pass about the hopefully-not-minor girlfriend. My voice is sometimes mistaken for a child's by telemarketers, and I'm definitely more gnomish-sounding than tauren. I am hoping this girl has the same issue. If you have more evidence than her voice, however, our previous column on romance and minors may help.
Regardless, you and your guildies are much better off without your old guild leader and cohort. Here are a few of the warning signs to look for in future guilds, so that you get out before the drama happens. These are quotes from you (that may or may not have made it into the edited letter above):
- He was starting to drift away from the guild more and more over the past few months ...
- He never responded to anyone's inquiries ...
- ... procrastinated from actually addressing any problems that cropped up ...
- ... never gave anyone officership ...
- Many of our regulars had quit the game due to his lackluster leadership ...
- ... entire guild was being run by the only two officers he had left ...
Drama Mama Lisa: Moving on stinks. All that baggage, all those nailed-up crates full of resentment and anger ... Still, you know you gotta do it -- and we're glad to offer so many shoulders for you to pour your heart out to and clear the air. Let it all out, Grim. We're here for you!As far as moving forward, I don't know that I would suggest trying to join another guild, as Robin suggests. You've got so much emotional investment here! If you're still having trouble getting control of the guild back to your officers, though, I suspect you might enjoy taking on herding a new guild of your own. It'll definitely sting to abandon the old group with all those ranks and perks, but think of it as an opportunity to do things right from the ground up. Then do exactly that. Robin offers a great reminder of danger signs to watch out for; I think experience will most definitely be your guide.
Let us know how it goes!
Dodge the drama and become that player everyone wants in their group with a little help and insight from the Drama Mamas. Remember, your mama wouldn't want to see your name on any drama. Play nice ... and when in doubt, ask the Drama Mamas at robin@wowinsider.com.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Drama Mamas
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Eleph Apr 29th 2011 5:20PM
Grim Prospects-
I can identify will your pain that revolves around the dissolution of this guild; I consider myself to be a part of a really great guild right now, but it took me a while to find them. Sparing the details, I chose this guild, applied, thankfully got in, and server-transferred all of my advanced toons just so I could be a part of something with a group of great people.
I know for a fact I would be crushed if anything happened to the guild; it's too great of a fit for me. The people, how we interact, and what we do together is what defines us.
There's a reason I haven't yet said anything about guild achievements. While they're nice and provide a demonstrable benefit, I feel they shouldn't be a players reason for choosing a guild.
We're at level 22 right now, and if for some reason we dissolved, I would not bemoan the loss of achievement progress; I'd be upset about losing a "hub" where my online friends and I chose to congregate daily to take on new challenges, to conquer, and to wipe.
I didn't notice anything in your plea that mentioned relationships with real people (other than the one that supposedly soured the nature of the guild).
When you say "contribute to the guild", do you mean help to amass achievement points, or is it a more general "let's make Azeroth a more enjoyable place for my guildmates?" (Though I'll admit, the two often go hand in hand)
TLDR-
It's not getting your guild to 25 that matters; it's what happens along the journey that counts.
Elrandir Apr 29th 2011 5:33PM
I disbanded my guild recently after no one helped recruit and complained to me about no raiding getting started, it was just going nowhere. Now I found someone who was greatly partly responsible for the disbanding by being never online and not helping, has had a gm revive the damn guild for his precious perks. I made a ticket instantly to either hand it back/make him change the name/or disband it again, I wonder how the GMs will respond to my ticket, cause this isn't right... Can't say I have high hopes. I'm already fed up with wow in this expansion, if the GMs just let him keep my old guild I'm definitely quitting wow forever.
danawhitaker Apr 29th 2011 6:49PM
Maybe instead of disbanding you should have simply passed leadership to someone else. We're only getting one side of your story, which paints you in a perfect light, so I'm more likely to side with the rest of the guild you shafted by clicking the digital equivalent of "take my toys and go home". Usually when there's a problem in a guild, both sides have their share of blame. Petulantly disbanding your guild because people wouldn't do what you wanted makes it sound like you have some culpability too.
I'm the leader of my guild, and I wouldn't dream of disbanding it. If I got upset enough to leave, I'd pass leadership to someone else. I helped found it, but when a guild is formed, it becomes more (in my mind) than just the property of the leader. It becomes the property of everyone who helped it get to where it was. I was worried about exactly this sort of scenario when they mentioned the addition of guild achievements and levels before Cataclysm. What I'd like to see is some sort of system that requires at least two people to disband a guild - or no disband option at all. It certainly would fix the problem of guild leaders getting hacked and then everyone in the guild, even the people who are proactive about account security, getting punished.
For more casual players with less time to invest, losing the perks and the reputation is a big deal. I'd be in a world of hurt on my main if something like that happened to me, because I have finished all the existing daily hubs in Cata and have done all the quests in the game except for the new 1-60 content that wouldn't provide much guild rep anyway. It would take forever for me to get back to exalted. Most of the benefits appeal greatly to people who have less time to play (the 15 minute hearth, for example, is invaluable for archaeology or any sort of travel if you continent hop a lot, and heirlooms, the XP boosts, and the reputation boosts all help people with grinds). One rogue person shouldn't be able to take that away from potentially hundreds of people with a single mouse-click.
Saeadame Apr 30th 2011 3:43AM
Agreed with dana, no matter what the reason, disbanding a guild while there's still people in it is a pretty dick move, imo...
Kravos Apr 30th 2011 5:20AM
Whenever I see some argument that concludes with "if this happens/if that doesn't happen, I'm quitting WoW" I know I can freely disregard everything that comes before it. You're either being the entitled jerk or a drama-seeking attention whore, an infant threatening to hold his breath until he gets his way.
Childish ultimatums are childish. Man up and make your own decision.
Koleckai Apr 29th 2011 6:02PM
I don't think the perks are worth staying with a guild, especially since you can keep your purchases. I just left a guild that has been dying for a couple of months. It was guild level 20 when I left. At first we were active and leveling fast and then 2 months to go from level 19 to level 20. My new guild is level 3.
Eirik Apr 29th 2011 8:04PM
One of the things I would miss about my current guild is all the progress towards "mighty miners" and "that's a lot of bait" that I've done for the guild. Perks? I don't really think about them except every now and then.
Hmm... like when I'm on my weekly rep run in Molten Core.
Eirik Apr 29th 2011 8:02PM
Which perks are you tied to? +10% justice or honor points? (Play for long enough, you won't have a good use for them.) 20% less repair cost? (10% to 8%, y'know. Well, that's what daily quests are for anyway, right?) Instant guild bank access? (Follow the Boy Scout creed: Be Prepared! ... and have an engineer along for the bots...) +10% reputation? (taking 11 days instead of 10 days isn't THAT bad...)
Remember that any guild items (mounts, pets, banners, etc) are things you take with you. (Take a +guildRep tabard. It'll be handy!) You won't be leaving them behind.
If you are joining a brand new guild, it's still bright and shiny. You will be a noticable factor in the guild's success. And if joining some established guild, well! You wanted to do guild instance runs with them anyway to get to know them, right? And here you're getting paid (reputation) to do so!
What I would miss most, moving to a new guild, is all the people I would have to leave behind. My friends list isn't big enough, darnit!
Amaxe Apr 29th 2011 8:03PM
Guild Perks, Guild Rep and the like seem to make it harder to leave a guild to be sure. Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any good solutions that couldn't be abused. Anything like "Guild perks are permanently unlocked for you" sounds good on the surface but in reality it could just allow people to join and quit level 25 guilds.
It seems like the real stumbling point is how much control of the guild should a GM have. As it stands, a guild can be run at the whim of the GM who can be fair or a total jerk.
Again any proposals I can think of seem to be too easily abused.
Ah well. My vanity guild is 77% of the way to level 2. Once I can get the perk for level 3, I'll be content. The Bonus to mounted travel is what I miss from when I had to quit a level 15 guild due to drama from real life invading the game.
kdiddy Apr 29th 2011 8:10PM
I've found myself in a similar situation, although not entirely the same. Our GM and one of the officers have been dealing with rl issues for several months now, and barely log on anymore, and when they do its just for dailies or small talk. I understand that rl always takes the front seat, but there has to be a plan of action. None of the other officers try to head any raids, the most they're done is BH and BoT trash runs this entire expansion. It's hard to bail because its been my first and only guild since some friends convinced me to start playing. Perks aside, its hard to move on sometimes.
Hatred Apr 29th 2011 8:23PM
One way they could improve Guild perk system would be to make "Guild Experience" tied to chars that bring the experience along the way.
That would guarantee that players who have invested time to get guild level would get the benefit of hard work after leaving the guild. In this situation guild would also lose the exp player takes with him.
That would make Guild leadership to regocnize each players input and also make easier to start a fresh guild.
After all it's not guild in a sense that has been leveling it but each players.
I really resent Blizz standing in this if it is truely so that they are not reacting to Guild leaders wrong doings.
It's like some big companys CEO would get away after screwing workers.
It just doesn't happen in real world.
DarkWalker Apr 29th 2011 9:18PM
I would also like:
- Sub-guilds (groups inside a guild that act like a mini-guild, with it's own self-managed bank, leadership, calendar, etc). Make players able to start sub-guilds without the help or authorization of the guild leader or any officer, and let such sub-guilds keep it's bank and part of the guild progression if they break apart from a larger guild.
- Not sure how it would work out, but I would love if players could participate in more than one guild (even if only one directly, the rest just by being allowed into their guild chat channel and seeing their online rosters).
- Limited forms of by-laws. Perhaps have a set of rules that can be enabled by the current leadership, including rules to vote for a new leader if the old one disappears or becomes disliked (probably only allowed to older guild members, to avoid the potential for officers/leaders to stuff the guild with friends just to win such an election), limits on bank withdraws valid also for guild leaders and officers (and that need the approval of most of the guild to be removed), etc.
- GDKP-like system to distribute the remaining items on the guild bank among guild members if it's dissolved (i.e., each player bids on each item, highest bid gets the item, the money is divided equally among every participating player and mailed to them). Much more fair than the current "GL takes all". Perhaps with an option to weight the distributed gold based on level / time the character was a guild member / whether the character is an alt.
Gorkarp Apr 29th 2011 11:09PM
There are nice people in the world and there are douchebags. Both are found in WoW. Please act accordingly.
Sl0th Apr 30th 2011 1:43AM
My deepest sympathies to Grim. Guild breakups almost always suck and leave hard feelings all around even in the best of circumstances. I've been involved in far more more such breakups than I care to think about, and it never gets easier to see something you put time and effort into making crumble to dust and drama over night. And the guild leveling system seems to almost add insult to injury now since it acts as a quantifiable measure of that now-gone time and effort.
Best advice I can give is to move on. As nice as those perks were, you can get them again. It will take time and effort, no doubt. But I'd rather be a part of a guild that is relatively free of drama and has fun who aren't at a high level than a part of a high-level guild that's a festering cesspit of drama and resentment.
And as much as you might want to try to take some kind of vengeance on your loathsome former guild leader and his cohort, don't. He isn't worth your time to pursue such activities. In the end, he'll just be wasting even more of your time, and it seems very likely that as the game stands now, there is little to nothing you could actually do to him without crossing some nasty ethical lines of your own.
Find a new guild or build a new one salvaged from the wreckage of your old guild. It won't be the same as your old guild, but you'll be much happier in the long run than dwelling further on what is already lost.
Elrandir Apr 30th 2011 3:48AM
Ah i see, even if half the people left one day after complaining about recruiting not happening (not helping), the other half doesn't log on anymore, and then one of them gets the guild back from a gm, doesn't reinvite anyone but a stranger. He just revived it for the perks, and got it from a gm. But hey, yeah, at least you got to spout your opinion on the internet, thanks for another display of wonderful wow community.
Eldoron Apr 30th 2011 6:12AM
IMO the guy, and all the normal people, should have left the guild MONTHS ago
zubbiefish Apr 30th 2011 7:16AM
Normal people tend to be loyal, and change averse. Normal people stick around until they have to leave.
Eldoron Apr 30th 2011 2:12PM
Normal people can also see when a situation is bad beyond fixing.
KT Apr 30th 2011 1:25PM
I think it would be good in this situation to step back and think about it in a new way. The perception that you lost all this time just because you lose out on some guild rewards is maybe not the best way to look at it. Yes, people put a lot of time into this game that they could be using for something else and they pay for that time.
HOWEVER - remember back. During that time, did you have FUN? If you did, then you were getting your money's worth and that time was not wasted even if you have to build a new guild up. The point of playing a game is to have fun, not to accumulate points and rewards. The points and rewards just add to the variety of goals that keep the game fun - they are an extra. But if you had fun in the first place, no one can ever take that away from you, even if they take away some rewards.
And if you still like playing the game then you can continue to have fun regardless of this setback. Take a breath and remember that you can still have fun in the game no matter what. Be careful not to start thinking of the game as a job, where you put required time in to receive a tangible reward in exchange, remember that it's a game where you are voluntarily deciding to spend time when you want in order to have fun. If you get too focused on the mindset of putting required time in the game to earn stuff, then maybe it's time to step back, put that energy into doing better at your real job, and find a hobby that is actually all about the fun.
EconoWoW May 1st 2011 11:34AM
While the guild leader was way out of line, it's hard to have sympathy for someone who so blatantly ignored all the warning signs of a shipwreck just because the ship was laden with treasure - relatively valueless, easily replaced treasure, at that.
The gold, loot, and achievements can all be earned again, and if you actually enjoy the game, it will be fun to earn them all over again. The perks only represent a minor convenience and will come again with time.
Play with people you enjoy being around and who have similar goals and the rest will follow. It sounds like the race to guild level 25 was just a source of stress anyway.