Leading a guild aint easy!

I've always had my own vision on what a perfect guild would be, I have searched with some luck but never truely found it. My perfect guild would include as small amount of people needed to get the job done, gear would be less spread out that way, there would be minimal switching of setups from night to night, so progress made on monday, would actually mean something come tuesday. Raids would run 5 nights a week and last for 4 hours, perhaps with a longer raid time on a sunday through the afternoon and into the evening. Everybody on the active roster would have 80% minimum attendance, holidays discluded of course. The DKP system would be simple, DKP would be almost unneeded in such a guild due to the same effort being put into by everyone.

I have been a member of many guilds, this vision has always been the driving force for me, when trying to push for changes in any guild i'm in. The problem comes when there are people i would call 'casuals' people that will only play 2 nights a week, people that barely turn up at all. I have often found myself blaming guild leaderships for problems with this. Realisticly speaking, not enough people hold the same vision, sure there are plenty out there, but not enough to truely make it happen very often.

With the perfect vision aside, I always preassured guild leaderships to remove those people who do not raid often, 2 nights a week was never enough, perhaps 3 - 4 was acceptable. Guild leaders who did not follow this through, guild leaders who considered the social aspects of a guild were always considered weak, unable to properly lead a guild and generally hindering progress in my mind.

I was wrong. The guild leaders realise the reality of WoW, there are people who will put all the effort in but that numer, is very rarely enough to run a full guild of people with raids each night. You need to keep the 'slackers' on to fill the spaces where needed. Especially with the latest expansion, guild loyalty has been low, people don't seem as commited to the guild, nor the game. These slackers have become essential. What is weak though, is allowing the slackers in a guild influence how the guild will progress, how the guild will organise raids and when.

I have recently led my own guild, after a guild merger, several mass recruitments and several core people becoming frustrated i have disbanded it and took the core members else where, so that they can continue raiding together. I perhaps will stick around a little while, but this new guild does not seem to be something i want to be a part of. It may have progress, but it seems completely unorganised, they seemingly have far too many members, no real method to their recruitment and unfortunatly, since the new expansion that is what is needed to survive. It is not a fun enviroment to play in that way.

As content in the game becomes easier, as people decide they too can make a new guild as easily as join one, the member base is split too many times, no guild is truely safe from falling, except the odd few who have built their base long before WOTLK and hold some of the better progress. Even their players though will become frustrated in time with the ease of content.

WoW as a game has shifted it's focus over time to cater to casual and bad players, this has led to many who played seriously being shafted.

I think my time in WoW is coming swiftly to an end.