Guildleader chores - Leaving guilds, realID and what to tell people

Last weekend, Souglyy left the guild and joined Gutsy's guild on Jubei'thos.  She didn't make a big deal out of it (and did it rather quietly), but she told me her intentions and though I was sad to lose a regular raider, I could understand why she wanted to leave.  There are things she wanted that our guild could not offer her, and they weren't likely to change in the near future.

One of the things was our rotating roster of players, where we have more raiders than raid spots, and people have to sit out.  I realise that everyone likes to play every raid, but in a tight guild roster you can't really have everyone play, and there has to be a little bit of give and take.  I brought this topic up ages ago and one of the suggestions was to have a roster of when people would sit out so that they could organise those days to do something else and not have to worry about turning up to raid.  However, unforseen circumstances such as bad internet connections, RL dramas or being held back at work can drop a raider out at last minute and they may not be able to login to let anyone know what is happening.

One of the ways I have used to try to counter any negativity from this is to advise all new members joining the guild as casuals but would like to raid, about the way our raiding will work.  Even current raiders know that they have to take a turn to sit out, and some tend to sit out more than others, but I try to make it as fair as possible.  Nobody, not even tanks or healers are exempt from being benched when we have extras!

Another thing she was unhappy with was that we had no raid leader.   I know this is an issue, as we have had difficulty finding an appropriate person to lead the raid.  I am hopeless at raid leading, as I tend to be very tunnelled into a healer perspective, and though I read the strategies and watch the videos, I find it hard to explain anything to anyone else that I haven't tried for myself in practice.  Lushnek knows the strats but is very shy with speaking and doesn't want to raid lead (though it doesn't stop him from commenting if you do something WRONG LOL), and Moo is to gruff and grumpy to raid lead (he would probably scare everyone), Sev will complain loudly about having to do it as he would rather snipe smart remarks from the back of the room (lol like any ranged DPS would do!), and Bish doesn't have a mic (nor has he logged in for ages).  The person that I was looking to was Kyxyn, who has now stepped up to tank, and was happy to lead a raid as he was a former GM of a top raiding guild on another oceanic server some years back. He is clear and concise, patient but will be admonishing when people continue to make mistakes on the same things that they should have known, but he had come back from a break and was a bit behind in the tier to be able to catch up during 5.3, but in 5.4 he is up there with the rest of us, allowing him to be able to speak and lead with confidence. Now that he's stepped up, raiding is a lot easier, but it did take some time for that to happen.

Either way, I took on her comments and tried to see what I could do, or if I could improve them.  However, Souglyy is rather quiet in guild, speaking only during raids when needed, and it didn't surprise me that she one day just left the guild without a word.  She had already said goodbye to me, and I could still chat to her on realID so it wasn't a total loss of contact, but to some of the other guildies it was a surprise.

I explained her leaving to them, and they were mollified.  There were other internal guild issues that they thought might have been the cause of her leaving, but she did not say to me that any of those issues were the reason, so I dismissed them.

Today I read on Ysera's Daughter about how she was sad when a guildie she thought of as a friend transferred off server and removed her from realID.  Her anxiety disorder kicked in as she felt like this person left because of her, and had now also removed her as a friend.  Removing people from RealID is a bit funny like that.  People take great offence to it, when if you think about it, there maybe all sorts of reasons other than "I don't like you so I'm removing you from realID".  Sometimes, you just want some alone time, after an in game drama, and seeing people in game who ask you if everything is ok just sets you off. For her guildie, he said

I removed you from Realid due to the fact that I didn’t want to hurt your feelings by telling you when you logged on as I thought that would have lead to more issues rather then resolution.

So is there a proper way to do things?  It depends on why you're leaving, I guess.  If you're not on good terms with your guild, then sure, you can go without a word.  If you're a valued raid member, then at least tell someone who is also a raider or an officer.

I remember when a good friend of mine removed all friends from realID after a depressing guild collapse.  I wasn't particularly worried about it, but others were very upset about being removed from realID.  But I can imagine that after a bad loss, you feel bad and don't want to hang around with other people, or really just talk to others.  And, if you want to play WoW, you just want to totally immerse yourself in the game and pretend it's all new again, where you don't know anyone and can just hide in the anonymity of a large MMO, and remember why you loved the game without constant reminders from your friends that things were not great.

On the flipside, for the unfriended friend who has no idea what happened, you shouldn't be upset that, when things are over, they don't want to be realID friends with you again.  No doubt they feel like they don't have your trust, as you didn't explain to them what happened - so why would they want to be friends with you again as you don't treat them like one?

But back to our guild, what response did we have?  Life has gone on, and now I am wondering if I need to recruit more casual raiders again.  But really, how many people out there would be willing to be on a rotating roster to sit out?  If Bish came back, or Voros was here or if Evea wanted to step up and raid... so many if's!  Man, the thought of trolling trade... sigh, but you never know, we might get someone who would be a real asset!