At 10:11 AM 10/19/00 -0400, Rebecca Small wrote:
>Hail All,
>
> We have had a major exodus of higher level players from our guild as well,
>Excalibur on Xegony. Also a friend of ours is in Dark Legion and receently
>internal strife has conspired to turn him into the new guild leader for
>them. I think the old leader left or quit the game. He was asking us the
>same questions you have.
> When this summer rolled around, there just seemed to be lots of unrest in
>people. We in Excalibur have clamped down very hard on admitting new members
>after the guild grew quite rapidly in spite of some efforts we made to
>control the growth. We also had a couple people tenatively joined who nearly
>ruined our rep overnight. We prefer to have a guild where we all know and
>respect each other. Excalibur is an old guild and even has real life
>meetings twice a year for those who can make it. It's also mostly adults,
>even old folks like me, (35). It's based on the principles of honor and
>chivarly, www.orderexcal.com if you are interested in reading further. While
>I am relatively new to the guild, some folks have been in for many years and
>gone through many games. We still have some active members in Illusia.
> Lately, many folks in EQ have had to reduce playtime or stop for RL
>reasons, some are a bit bored and split their time with other games, and
>this meant we have fewer folks available for the big stuff. This prompted
>the departure of most of the higher levels for the latest hot guild on
>Xegony. Most stated their reaosn was to be able to do the big things. This
>isn't the first time it has happened. The previous summer almost the same
>thing happened, those folks that left ended up as some of the first Inner
>Circle members. Lately the guild list is about equal to my friends list, but
>we had lots of complaining when the guild seemed huge and no one recognized
>anyone on chat. Now we're much much smaller and people complain we can't
>'do' anything. I just don't think there is a perfect answer and I think most
>guilds probably go through these shrink and swell cycles for the same
>variety of reasons. My biggest barrier to 'doing' things is time, not guild,
>so I see no need to change guilds. I am happier with the small guild on the
>whole, there's much less whining and complaining at least. Then there's the
>matter of my solemn oath of honor to the Queen. We're not the roleplay
>police but I really do take the principles behind it all seriously.
> Being in a guild seems necessary in EQ, it classifies or identifies you to
>some extent to people who don't know you personally. My advice on being in a
>guild is be in one you personally are happy with, whose goals are similar to
>your goals, and people you can have fun with. After all, EQ is just a game!
>
>(offical title time)
>Lady Brilinnia Ban'Sidhe,
>Knight Marshal, Order of the Rose
>Excalibur, Xegony
Geez, you guys have to stop writing so much. You're keeping me from my
work. :-)
I agree with you milady wholeheartedly. Just have fun with the people who
are in your guild and help everyone else enjoy their time in Norrath (gee,
could that be like real life as well?)
I've been through this a lot. First guild folded due to attrition (higher
level characters switched servers). My 2nd guild imploded due to internal
strife. My 3rd guild that I just recently join, Red Sky, is just now
starting to go through some of this and I'm starting to think that this is
pretty much inevitable with any large guild. However, I feel that Red Sky
will get through this as there's a very strong guild leader who doesn't
take guff from anyone.
Also, Red Sky has an "honor" system. If you bring dishonor to the guild,
not only does it count against you, but also everyone who sponsored you
into the guild. Also, you need 5 sponsors in order to get in, not just 1.
Here's the universal gripe I seem to hear. There's a core group of high
level characters who play all the time and level very fast. They eventually
want to do planes/dragon raids and there might not always be enough people
to do these with. Even if there are, the lower level chars get jealous and
complain that there's only guild raids for higher level characters. The
solution for this is to have the lower level characters start up their own
raids.
Size of the guild is always a problem. Too small and your guild has a high
probability of dying to attrition and can't do some of the bigger raids
easily. Too big, and you lose that "family" feeling.
In the end, accept that change is inevitable, enjoy the group you play
with, and if the guild isn't the way you want it and you can't change it,
find a new guild or create your own.
My friends and I created our own guild. If my wife and I can play, we have
a phone tree and call up a couple of people, who then call the others. We
play about 2 hours then log off as it gets late. We don't have enough
people for the 10 person min, but a few guildmates and other friends let us
use some of their lesser characters to keep our guild alive. The main
benefits of having our own guild name is we get less people contacting us
to join us (oh, are you on a guild raid?) and we can chat with each other
when we're spread out pre-group. We do invite others in the zone to join
us, but we make sure they know that we're only on for a couple of hours max.
Argh, now I've got to get some work done. :-) Happy Hunting All and save
some mead for me!!
---Windleaf