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There have been other entries percolating in my brain recently, but I want to get my memories of last night down in text, while they are still fresh and raw.
I've written emails about this to two friends/ex-guild members, both of which were titled "A Story of Elitist Douchebaggery", which is about the best way to sum it up that I can possibly think of. What I'm about to write here will be somewhat more eloquent, I think.
I've been in the same guild on my main character in World of Warcraft for close to two years now. When my ex and I split, I put up with the PVP server for a few months but eventually got fed up with it, and moved my priest and druid to Bronzebeard, where I knew I had a home with Daughters of the Horde. After being invited to help out on a raid one weekend, I realized I missed raiding, and found Relentless Few. I've been with them ever since, raiding 2-3 nights a week. I've made some really good friends there, and thoroughly enjoyed myself.
I learned earlier this year that the Guild Leader's wife was expecting. She's due in mid-June, and knowing what type of guy the GL is, I fully expected things to change at least a little bit, since he's the type of guy who would be right in there doing his fair share of the baby stuff. I didn't expect the change to be quite as drastic as it was.
The GL posted yesterday that after the raid, there would be a guild meeting, and we should all be there if we could. He explained that because of his impending fatherhood and because his work was getting even more busy, he would only have a couple more months before he had to scale back and go extremely casual, and possibly even stop playing for quite a while after the baby was born. He didn't want to hand RF over to one of the other officers and have it become something he didn't want it to be. So the rest of the officers split off, got a new guild tag, and started a new raiding guild.
But while they were at it, they decided to become a bunch of elitist jerks.
They picked and chose from the existing raiders, and only extended invites to the people they felt were good enough for them. To the ones that they didn't invite, they sent an in-game mail with a rather trite thank-you and some gold (I'm guessing it depended on how long you'd been with the guild, as I received more than someone who joined within the last 6 months), and a message that we'd be receiving a PM on the forums with a longer explanation. My explanation consisted of some blather about the goals of the new guild, and then said that because I had expressed some burnout with raiding in the past 6 months, and wanted to cut back to part time, they felt I wouldn't fit with the new guild.
Ok, fine, that's all well and good, but the problem is that they are coming across VERY elitist in their method of handling things. They are refusing to make a friends and family rank in the guild - basically they want the only people with the guild tag to be some sort of hardcore raider - so the rest of us are left out in the cold. We had a LOT of friends and family in
Relentless Few - for example, Ian was in the guild as well. He couldn't raid with us because of his afternoon work schedule, but he was at least associated with us, and often came along on weekend alt runs.
So as it stands now, all of my characters are still in Relentless Few, as the GL is leaving the guild around as a casual, friends and family type guild, for anyone who wants to stick around and play casually. He actually made me the new officer last night, in fact, so that someone is around to do invites and such. I'm not sure where I'm going to go from here. I have no intention of quitting playing altogether, but I may just stay casual from here on in, and not raid other than on a pickup basis. I haven't decided yet.
This might be a sign from the universe that it's time to focus my energies elsewhere. Like lampworking, perhaps? It might be nice to never have to worry about HAVING to be online at a certain time and stay for a certain time.
Ian was just really starting to enjoy raiding, and he's a really good tank. Maybe an option would be to find a server with a good late-night raiding guild for him to join, and then just follow him over and play on a casual basis myself. I'd kind of like to get the hell off of Bronzebeard.
I've written emails about this to two friends/ex-guild members, both of which were titled "A Story of Elitist Douchebaggery", which is about the best way to sum it up that I can possibly think of. What I'm about to write here will be somewhat more eloquent, I think.
I've been in the same guild on my main character in World of Warcraft for close to two years now. When my ex and I split, I put up with the PVP server for a few months but eventually got fed up with it, and moved my priest and druid to Bronzebeard, where I knew I had a home with Daughters of the Horde. After being invited to help out on a raid one weekend, I realized I missed raiding, and found Relentless Few. I've been with them ever since, raiding 2-3 nights a week. I've made some really good friends there, and thoroughly enjoyed myself.
I learned earlier this year that the Guild Leader's wife was expecting. She's due in mid-June, and knowing what type of guy the GL is, I fully expected things to change at least a little bit, since he's the type of guy who would be right in there doing his fair share of the baby stuff. I didn't expect the change to be quite as drastic as it was.
The GL posted yesterday that after the raid, there would be a guild meeting, and we should all be there if we could. He explained that because of his impending fatherhood and because his work was getting even more busy, he would only have a couple more months before he had to scale back and go extremely casual, and possibly even stop playing for quite a while after the baby was born. He didn't want to hand RF over to one of the other officers and have it become something he didn't want it to be. So the rest of the officers split off, got a new guild tag, and started a new raiding guild.
But while they were at it, they decided to become a bunch of elitist jerks.
They picked and chose from the existing raiders, and only extended invites to the people they felt were good enough for them. To the ones that they didn't invite, they sent an in-game mail with a rather trite thank-you and some gold (I'm guessing it depended on how long you'd been with the guild, as I received more than someone who joined within the last 6 months), and a message that we'd be receiving a PM on the forums with a longer explanation. My explanation consisted of some blather about the goals of the new guild, and then said that because I had expressed some burnout with raiding in the past 6 months, and wanted to cut back to part time, they felt I wouldn't fit with the new guild.
Ok, fine, that's all well and good, but the problem is that they are coming across VERY elitist in their method of handling things. They are refusing to make a friends and family rank in the guild - basically they want the only people with the guild tag to be some sort of hardcore raider - so the rest of us are left out in the cold. We had a LOT of friends and family in
Relentless Few - for example, Ian was in the guild as well. He couldn't raid with us because of his afternoon work schedule, but he was at least associated with us, and often came along on weekend alt runs.
So as it stands now, all of my characters are still in Relentless Few, as the GL is leaving the guild around as a casual, friends and family type guild, for anyone who wants to stick around and play casually. He actually made me the new officer last night, in fact, so that someone is around to do invites and such. I'm not sure where I'm going to go from here. I have no intention of quitting playing altogether, but I may just stay casual from here on in, and not raid other than on a pickup basis. I haven't decided yet.
This might be a sign from the universe that it's time to focus my energies elsewhere. Like lampworking, perhaps? It might be nice to never have to worry about HAVING to be online at a certain time and stay for a certain time.
Ian was just really starting to enjoy raiding, and he's a really good tank. Maybe an option would be to find a server with a good late-night raiding guild for him to join, and then just follow him over and play on a casual basis myself. I'd kind of like to get the hell off of Bronzebeard.