Monthly Archives: January 2012

Disclaimer: This is a rambling post which is just me writing down my current feelings. It’s not necessarily going to make a whole lot of sense, but sometimes writing about things make me feel better. 

You may have noticed that my content update is even worse than usual lately. The reason for this is that I’m struggling with finding things that I can write about. I still enjoy WoW and I’m logged in probably every day (even if some days it’s just for five minutes to check on the guild and read mail, scan the AH). I’m struggling though.

We’re having a hard time in my guild, and while it’s worse now than it’s been for quite some time I can’t shake the feeling that we’ve been fighting an up-hill battle for quite some time. Part of me wonders if I can deal with this for yet another expansion.

When coming back from the regular break around Christmas and New Year’s, we were less people than before. One of our tanks still hasn’t returned, and I suspect he won’t. Our other tank told us the other day that he is going to discontinue his subscription after this week. We lost another couple of members the past few weeks for various reasons as well.

This leaves me with a severely crippled raid team.

I keep recruiting people, but recruitment is slow and the people we’ve gotten hold of either has gone AWOL, aren’t active enough or have left again. Attendance is poor. I fully understand that people work night shifts, have families and what not – but sadly that doesn’t help our raid team progress.

I’m sitting here, looking at our sign-ups for the next raid. Six people accepted, a couple of tentatives. It’s just not doable. As much as I’d like to, I can’t suddenly drum up 2-4 new raid members. And it makes me tired. So very tired.

I also have this feeling, which I’m sure is a very unfair feeling, but I feel alone. I feel like I’m alone in this struggle. I’m sure the other Officers are working as hard as I am, worrying about it as much as I am.. But because we’re not talking about it, I feel like I’m the only one, even if I’m not.

Every time someone leaves the guild a small part of my desire to raid dies. Especially if it’s someone I’ve poured a lot of effort into talking to and trying to get things better. There are issues in my guild which need addressing, but it’s not things that will change overnight. People leaving due to those things I can understand, but it’s still a shame since we’ve not had the time to try to fix them.

Every time we have to cancel a raid because too few people signed up part of my desire to raid dies. I do my best to be there for every raid. We’ve cut our days down from three to two recently since for some reason Thursday just wasn’t working. Even with fewer days, we don’t seem to have the people available to get two raid nights going.

In the end, I’m just tired of the constant struggle. I pour so much into keeping things smooth and running, and yet it fails. Sometimes I wonder if I’d be happier not being an Officer, just one of the team. Let someone else worry about if we’ll raid or not.

What do you do to keep yourself going?

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Christmas and New Year’s, like summer, is a time when WoW slows down and your raiding will most likely be suspended for a couple of weeks, I know ours were. The key to a successful holiday period is planning and communication – from both the officers and guild members.

Both of the guilds that I’m a part of are starting to come to life again after the holidays, but are finding themselves staggering a bit as they’re trying to get back to full speed. Some members are noticeably absent even two weeks into the new year. A fair few are admittedly playing SW:ToR, some are claiming “family emergencies”, some are saying nothing at all.

What I would like to ask of anyone who plays a game together with other people who depend on them for completing tasks such as raiding is this; be honest. If you’re going to be playing another game, just say so. If you just want a break, say so. If you’re quitting, say so.

There will be no hard feelings, I just want to know so that I can know whether to start recruitment to replace you – or if you’ll be back next week. Not knowing what is going on puts your guild and guild mates in a bit of a bad situation. No one wants to over-recruit and then suddenly have an influx of people returning, and having to bench half a raid each night.

I discussed this with a fellow guild leader (from another guild) the other day, and they said that they had a fair number of people who claimed “family emergency” since SW:ToR came out. Usually of course you can’t know, and it may be completely honest, but in at least one case they knew for a fact it wasn’t true. The reason a lot of people will use the “family emergency”-excuse is because they don’t want to lose their raid spot in case they decide they didn’t like that other game and come back. No one will ever fault you for leaving due to “family emergency”.

(Obviously I’m not saying that no one has a legitimate “family emergency”, just that in this particular case there was a very large number happening at the same time SW:ToR was released.)

All I ask is for a bit of honesty. If not for me, then for the other 9 or 24 people that you play with. It’s completely all right for you to want to check out another game, but don’t keep everyone else on hold and possibly having to cancel raids while they’re waiting for you to make up your mind. They have to be allowed to move on, get a replacement, and keep raiding.

Have anyone else noticed a loss of people since SW:ToR or people just not coming back after the holiday season? How do you deal with it?

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