Absolutely agree, bad officers nearly destroyed The Eternal Darkness a couple years ago, forcing me to step up. We now have synergy with all new officers, one Leader, and only one Senior officer, and the common theme has been that we are there to serve all our members, not live in an ivory tower.
Most raiding guilds have a core leadership that can run raids. It all matter what class said person is that quits/retires. If it is a tank maybe there would be an issue. Otherwise it is likely the guild would just continue on. Any raiding guild that just has one person doing almost everything is likely doomed to fail because that person is gonna burn out faster than everyone else. Strong guilds will have multiple people doing various jobs so if any one of them quits another can take over whether it is dkp, leading a raid that night, strategies should have multiple people that are willing to do them. Having a good officer team that can do it all will allow for longevity.
1) Unlikely. I'm one of several guildleaders that Ring of Valor has had over the years. We have a documented process for making new guildleaders and what happens when one steps down. It helps to have some guild bylaws set up for things like this. 2) I like to hope so. Part of the reason I do it is to build a community that will continue and have fun. 3) Chaos happens in these sorts of transitions, so who knows..
Roi started its reign as #1 under different leadership. Had hiccups going into HoT. Overall it was a change for the better but at the time qualas was just the recruitment officer. Had a period of really bad officers lost a lot of good members but kept on trucking. It is easy at the #1 spot to transition unless something catastrophic happens. They have had many raid leaders. Ultimately they have enough members who are or were leadership in other high end guilds to just stay number one. They will remain the exception and not the rule
Queue lion king music I wish I could raid. I don't have enough time anymore. My girlfriend hates eq even the 3 hours every two weeks that I Johnny casual it. But she is hot so I deal ok I guess. Oh and bengs ui is like his computer vomited windows from all the bacon
I agree. Raidleaders in my experiences are usually the first "Officerly Person" to burn out or ride that burn out fine line. They are usually the Officer that manages and monitors their overall game play so that full blown burn out doesn't set in. They usually end up always just logging in to raid and not much else after a certain time has passed. Especially once they get tasks done to request the raids. But once thats all done, Ive known MANY a Raidleader who was a ghost outside of raid times. This has been a common theme where I come from. You cannot be having that as a Guildleader. Your Guildleader needs to be active inside and outside of raids and he needs to be a people person. None of this mentions the fact that 50% of the Raidleaders out there are usually pricks too and not all that great with people in general outside of the overall strategic spectrum. Most Raidleaders Ive known would not accept the Guildleader role anyway. They don't want that extra headache and obligation. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are some Raidleaders out there right now that would make fine Guildleaders, however, I can almost guarantee you that its not as common as some think it is.....not because the Raidleader wouldn't make a good Guildleader, but because the Raidleader wouldn't touch the Guildleader role with a 10 foot pole. But then again, I am also sure there are plenty of Raidleaders who would make horrible Guildleaders too........... Then you have the trickle down effect. If a Raidleader takes over the Guildleader job, then who will be the new Raidleader? Backup Raidleaders are just that, a backup Raidleader. If they were truly GREAT at the job, then they'd be the MAIN Raidleader. "Backup Officer Roles" are usually just there to help alleviate burn out and monotony when fact is, if they took the job over full time, then things wouldn't stay as fluid as they were before. Besides, a lot of these Officers in true backup roles do not want the job full time anyway. I mean, they don't mind filling in here and there on occasion, but doing it full time? I'd venture a guess a lot of these people wouldn't do it. They took the backup role for a reason. And to the OP, it depends on the guild and its culture. A lot of guilds these days have a plan in place for when the time comes when their Guildleader retires. They usually groom someone to accept the role so that the transition is seamless. Good Guildleaders will give their Officers a few Month warning and tell them that the end of near for him and its time to start figuring out who would be a good selection to take over the Guild. The Guildleader in waiting is usually someone that the Guildleader trusts with the role too at times. Good Guildleaders will want the transition to be as seamless and painless as possible. They'll want the entire thing to stay status quo without any hiccups - a flawless continuity so to speak. But if the Guildleader retires suddenly with no plan in place (Which happens and HAS happened) then I'd honestly expect a rough and rocky road and the guild will never be the same again going forward. People need to take into consideration that these days, when a Guildleader retires, then that means to expect Guild members/officers to follow him into retirement. A lot of people are only around for the Guildleader and because of the Guildleader. The Guildleader alone is why player X, Y and Z even joined the guild too. So expect an exodus if a "Sudden Guildleader Retirement" happens with no plan in place. Then of course you have the morale issue when these things happen. There are honestly a lot of variables here that are all negative for guilds when no plan is in place. None of it is good and its usually the guilds demise after a slow and painful death. Guilds in these situations will see more turnover than ever before and see lots of inconsistent Attendance numbers across the board too. It turns into a mess REAL QUICK.
To further add to this quote here by me, most Raidleaders accepting the Guildleader role wouldn't want to do both roles. Its either one or the other, but not both. Perhaps he'd accept being the backup Raidleader while being the Guildleader, but in no way shape or form would a lot of people out there do both jobs full time.
I'm not sure how other guilds do it, but from what I've seen, both require differing but complimentary skill sets. One gets to herd cats, the other gets to either pet them or spray bottle them as needed.
From personal experience #2 and 3 have happened (will let you know if #1 happens ever). First time, the guild leader had told me (I was recruiting officer, loot officer, PR, website updater and a dozen other hats) that he had to be away for a little while for something personal (he told me what in confidence). This was a bit after our main raid leader got burnt out and skipped servers. I suddenly felt I had to step up and manage things the best I could until he returned (no other officer really wanted to). Initially (first few months) we didn't miss a beat. but then that little while stretched a lot longer than expected and eventually he came back but during that time while we were still raiding, there were more hits/misses (new raid leader getting into their groove, revolving door of a few folks leaving as fast as I could replace them - and I had a good system for replacement at the time). One of the issues others told me was my unwillingness during the leader's absence to change some rules that were making people unhappy. I hadn't felt it was my place to do that as it was his guild, not mine and especially since I knew why he wasn't there but was asked not to tell the guild. Anyway, we made a go of it once he came back for a bit, but numbers dropped too much for replacement that quickly and he made the decision to reach out to another guild that was less progressed than us at the time and after a lot of months of thinking over every detail of guild policy, we both shed our guild tags and became a new guild. That guild is still going strong today and has CoF beaten. - I share this as someone who has lived through the situation and who ultimately ended up a casualty of it though I back the decision to have done the merge completely. Guild acquisitions and mergers are definitely a viable option for folks in this situation, but occasionally there will be someone here/there who doesn't really fit into the new structure or get along with the new set of officers for one reason or another. It's not a bad thing if that happens, and while I miss a lot of the folks in that guild, I think they're stronger in some ways for me no longer having been a part of it.
In the end, we're all human. The job of raid leader / guild leader / officer varies between every guild. Some people are better managers, some are better number crunchers, some are better at the social aspect. I guarantee though that every guild is doing whatever they feel necessary to succeed. Sometimes the heart is in the right place, but could be lead by someone incompetent at every one of the roles and drag down the whole. I started off on the path of micromanagement because of a lack of trust in the base, and over the last few years in this role I've been able to build that trust with our core members to unload a lot of those responsibilities. In the end we're basically running a dual guild leader setup where we have an equal say and work together well. Add in a core leadership team that's now sharing and cross-trained to cover attendance, dip, loot, etc. It's worked out well for us. In the end it's just a game, and we're all here to have fun in our own way. The job of raid / guild leader is typically a thankless job, and I commend everyone else doing it. As it's not always easy getting 50+ people of all walks of life with a plethora of values, personalities, and attitudes to stay on point, and focused. When it all comes together though, and watching it happen sometimes is the greatest reward. I'd hope that if I ever got burned out that the guild wouldn't miss a step and continue on for a very long time, but I also know that you can never tell what will happen.
