Rattus Rattus
I am a member of two different guilds on two different servers.
One of them, my Aerie Peak guild where I have most of my chars and where up until a month ago I was an officer, is a casual raid guild filled with fun and friendly and nice people.
The other one, my Stormrage guild to which I applied and got invited with my shaman a month ago, is a raid guild filled with fun and friendly and nice people.
Real life constraints (raid end times vs my getting up in the morning times) had made me unable to raid seriously with my Aerie Peak guild for a long time and as I had been working on getting around this in a variety of ways without success and the only way untried was emo’ing my way to making the raids end earlier, I decided to not put my guildies through that since everyone seemed happy with things the way they were and applied to another guild where the raid hours suited me better.
I didn’t make a secret of this, I told my fellow officers about it and when I got accepted I retired as officer, telling everyone why and where I was going with my shaman and I kept all my other chars in the guild.
I retired because it would not feel right to still have a say in what the guild was doing and where it was going when I was raiding with another guild, and also because the months of trying to make things work for me had been rather draining my energy and I wanted to relax a little and not worry about every little thing.
I still play all my chars on Aerie Peak a lot, and I raid with my Aerie Peak guild too when I get the chance. Why shouldn’t I, they are all sweet and nice and wonderful people and really I like playing with them. I would not have applied to another guild had I been able to raid with them more.
Because I like to raid. It is fun, it is challenging and it is social. I like to quest and play solo a lot too, but if I hadn’t been able to raid at all I think I would have quit the game.
So to satisfy my raid itch, I found this Stormrage guild, and you know what? They are also sweet and nice and wonderful people, they dragged me into their chat channels and bid me welcome and didn’t blow up on me when I made mistakes.
I was worried at first, they are focused about their raiding, they do 25mans and hard modes and although I really wanted to try it out I was not sure I was cut out for those challenges. But you know what, I was and it’s fun! Great fun!
So I was happy, getting to know my new guildies on Stormrage and still spending a lot of time with my guildies on Aerie Peak. I was eating my cake and having it too.
I made a point of not mixing the two guilds, if anyone asked me I answered, but I didn’t volunteer any information or told stories from one guild in the other. I do not think one guild to be better than the other, they are simply two guilds with different styles, both good.
Also, I was terrified of my Aerie Peak guildies thinking I now saw myself as teh uber raider, doing all these 25 mans hard modes, or that someone would feel I was trying to poach people from one guild to the other. So I kept quiet and kept having fun in both places.
And then drama flared in my Aerie Peak guild.
The GM left, being badly burned out, and one of the officers and raid leaders left as well, saying he is going to make a new guild dedicated to more focused 10man raiding. Nobody else have yet left but some people have signed off the raid core and it is not unlikely that more people will leave.
The new GM, a lovely and passionate and adorable person whom I really care about and who was appointed officer just before I retired, came to me in her need and asked me to help out, and perhaps even coming back to being an officer.
I would do anything to help my guild and this girl out, she is absolutely outstanding in her dedication and passion and will to make things work and a fun giggly person to boot, I might even consider being an officer advisor or similar for some time til everythings sorted out, if they want me.
But I am not going to leave my Stormrage guild. I told her this, and it was perfectly ok.
And as my Stormrage guild is recruiting and could use a few more people for our coming hard mode attempts, I also told her that I might ask a few of the people who left, if any, to join me on Stormrage. Not asking them before they left, or even hinting that I would ask them, or in any way leaning or persuading or poking someone to leave. Not poaching on my Aerie Peak guild, because the people I’d ask would not be in the guild anymore, but rather poaching on the guild my ex-guildie is forming.
Logical, and clever, don’t you think? Any people leaving my Aerie Peak guild now is not leaving because I asked them, they are leaving of their own accord, right?
I wish it wouldn’t make me feel like such a rat.
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I think this is just a hard situation for you to find yourself in. :( I’ve always tried to avoid being active in more than one guild at once, since I can be invested in more than one character without a problem, but a guild takes so much more investment than a single alt.
I think you’re handling things appropriately, honestly. While it may feel awful to divert your ex-guildies from Aerie Peak to your new guild on Stormrage, it isn’t as though they were staying in the guild on AP to begin with. What you’re doing is doing your best by a friend by pointing them toward a good place you’ve found. And you’re not influencing them to leave, so you shouldn’t feel like a rat.
It sucks, but at least you’re doing the best you can.
Rhii´s last blog ..GEEEE QUIT!
I’m absolutely convinced that you will handle the situation wisely and with all the empathy, nice manners and maturity it takes.
I just hope it won’t become to much of a burden for you. Whatever you do, don’t put impossible demands on yourself. The game is there for you to enjoy, not to become a duty and a burden.
I would be extremely happy if a few lost souls from Aerie Peak would find a new home with us. It remains to see if that will be an option or not.
Anyway… Guild drama is always a pain, but somehow you will come out of it, life will come back, just like after a fire, when all sorts of insects and plants will florish. (Hmmm I think I just managed to crash a metaphore). Anyway. I just wanted to give some comfort.
Don’t dispair.
Larísa´s last blog ..Tickled Pink: Blizzard’s New Account Services
Thank you both for your comforting words :-)
However, I’ve realised that by asking people to come join me on Stormrage if they leave me on Aerie Peak, so to speak, I am effectively removing all chances of them ever working out their differences and making it work again on Aerie Peak (should they decide to apply and get invited and actually move to Stormrage, of course).
Moving out of a guild to a struggling new one you set up yourself and with all the work and effort involved trying to do things your way is quite different to coming to a working guild with nice people already doing things the way you want.
So, by asking people just after they leave I am in a way betraying the trust and confidence of my new Aerie Peak GM, wrecking all hope of the guild and the ex-guildies finding their way together again, and the reason I feel a rat, well, it is because I am a rat.