Aggitators

Its now been a week since one of our members finally reached a breaking point and left the guild. She was very unhappy with how things were being handled. She joined us in naxx and was – in my opinion – one of those women who has given women players a bad name. She died frequently (despite being a healer), got lost, didn’t understand her class, and talked far too much about nothing in particular.

And yet we kept her on. Because she was nice and we liked her. And at the time, under that leadership in the guild we were not aiming to be a progression guild. We were social with raiding. We didn’t enforce our rules. We talked to players about how they were performing a bit, but we never pressured them.

When Ulduar came up and I became the GM a lot changed. I began enforcing gear and gemming. I began pushing for smarter play. I limited down time and asked for no drinking during raids etc. I expected a bit better behavior from the team. I pushed attendance and started to not take excuses outside of emergencies and family.

What I didn’t realize was the resentment building in this woman. What probably started as a few small things continued to build up till last week.

“'I’ve watched the bunnies go from a fun loving bunch of people who knew how to lead and have fun (Former GM Names here) to a selfish lot of loot mongering, rank placing chasing, 10man core of elitists.”

This sentence bothered me the most. Mostly because I think it is untrue. And I think that the majority of the guild who read her good bye to the guild on our forum would agree with me. But I think it displays the degree of unhappiness she was at.

I sat her out that week. She wasn’t our best healer. She died frequently and had issues with not standing in things. She ran into the paths of rampaging angry yetis. She ran into the melee and died to special attacks that melee didn’t even stick around for from bosses like Mimiron and his Shock Blast. The week before I’d been pressured to not bring her and I said we’d give her another chance and brought her in. In consideration that she wanted to raid and would show it. But instead she did what she always did. Died to things she shouldn’t, stopped focusing and really put in little effort. One officer commented she was likely drunk again, which we’ve asked her to stop.

You know when you are in trouble when people stop critiquing you and trying to help you. And my officers were tired of trying to get her to keep up with where we wanted to go. I spoke with her once, and told her honestly that she wasn’t our best. It wasn’t a matter of gear. She just was not keeping up and that she’d likely be out more. She threw a tantrum but later came back and apologized.

So I sat her last week. And she quit the guild. And I spent the rest of the raid night with her whispering me, growing more and more angry. I’m sure in part because I didn’t say much – after all I was raid lead and its not like Trial of the Crusaders has trash to afk/chat with.

But I found she held a grudge at being told not to camp. I find griefing to be deplorable. She held a grudge at not going in the 10mans run on off raid days. She held a grudge that I didn’t allow drinking in raids. That my idea of fun didn’t include pulling bosses at random and wiping the raid. That my idea of fun didn’t include putting no effort into game play. I’ve no clue where her declarations of loot mongering came from. And yeah, we chase the rank a bit now. But only so far as to show how much we’ve grown. Even if we weren’t first now, I’d still be pushing us to be better. Rank is good and is a good bar to run for. But with every growth I’m proud of the guild.

Not once do I think I’ve told the guild we’re pushing to be first on alliance. But I do think that pressure was placed and implied in peoples minds. Because it was the kind of player behavior I was pushing them to achieve.

Our lady member did the right thing in my mind by leaving. Not in the way she left mind you. She chose to create a thread of drama which erased any good will I had towards her. And I don’t know if others ended up going away feeling the same. Certainly though it gave fuel to a few of the people in one of our cliques. (But she left because she wasn't having fun and you shouldn't stay in a guild if you're not having fun)

So now I’m stuck trying to decide how to approach it. Already the officers who are online most of the time and helping me are encouraging me to release them from the guild. This group spends most of their time in the vent talking and complaining amidst themselves about the state of the guild. They don’t contribute to the guild. They’re people who were raiding at a point and stopped because they didn’t want to put in the efforts (aka: didn’t like) how we were leading the guild.

I am sure they only stay for a small handful of people. But too, they have their own inner circle in the guild which allows them to feed off of one another and grow the dissatisfaction. Do I have them leave the guild because they continue to agitate and incite rebellion. I know for a fact they’re not secret about their unhappiness around some members. I’ve heard about some of the things said myself.

I’m sure this is taking a game way too serious but I’ve invested a lot into the guild. And when I’m going to bed at night and having anxiety attacks and not sleeping because of it – I recognize something needs to change. I don’t want to have gray hair before I’m 30!!!

My officers have asked me to kick them. They think these people are immature. Unwilling to participate in guild. And have just used the guild while here. I was friends at a point with some of these people however, and really – they came here because of me.

I've turned away alot of friends because of the direction of the guild. And really, it feels like sometimes the officers are willing to voice their unhappiness but leave it to me to do the 'dirty' work. So like before, this would be up to me.

Am I ready to play the 'bad guy' again? Am I ready to explain why I would kick them. Am I ready to deal with possible guild backlash and drama? Some of these people paid money to faction change to be over here. Obviously they thought they could raid on those toons. So I feel responsible for that. But I don’t want to gear up other toons when I could use the ones I got gear for and brought to raids before they got flakey on attendance and developed attitudes and started whispering in corners.

So yeah, I’m running in mental circles a bit. This feels like another hurdle to overcome. And each time I am left wondering. Did I really make the right choice? Was I wrong? I take this game way to serious. But I’ve invested too much to let it go to ruin. Question is: how far do I let this go.?