Honoured
Legend
The Rise and Fall of <Afterlife>
This post is about my personal experience leading a level 60 twink guild <Afterlife>
No name dropping and no player shaming will be done apart from myself
The entire story will not be here, just the parts I feel are needed
If you don't like reading stories or huge amounts of text.. Sorry!
THE STORY
-----------------------------------------
A few years ago <Deck me out> was the place to be. Although they were not fond of PvP, I enjoyed it none-the-less. I quickly rose to the ranks of Officer and everything was going great, always raiding, everyone being social (to an extent). I took a few months break as raiding the same content with no other events becomes quite boring after a year.
During my return <Deck me out> was still going, not as strong as there had been a few GM changes but still going regardless. I noticed people were always cranky and the mention of the word PvP was shunned immediately, although there was a few exceptions. I decided to make a PvP guild on The Sha'Tar with 1 or 2 other people from <Deck me out> in hopes of creating a more PvP focussed guild called <The Remaining>, Needless to say, it flopped badly and was shortly disbanded.
Another break and focussing more end-game an old 60 Twink friend of mine was talking to me about all the drama going on in <Deck me out>, and shortly after the old GM was dethroned and things went into chaos, more or less killing the guild off.
We decided to find a realm that would be suitable for Level 60 Twinks and to revive the bracket that we love so much, we decided on a high pop realm focussing on Alliance as Horde guilds in the past never survived past a month. We settled on Argent Dawn.
The vision was simple, to create a home for Level 60 Twinks and without the drama of previous Twink guilds.
We started off small, just the two of us (we can make it if we tryyyy) <Afterlife> . Then along came a senior member of <Deck me out> after a lot of persuasion. The ball got rolling and we quickly gathered up to around 100 members in the first month, we started raiding Molten Core and things were great as expected, no drama no hassle.
As the guild got larger, people from all over the world started joining, and this is when things started going down hill, The clash of personalities between guild members and keeping everyone happy was getting increasingly harder, especially when balancing time-zones for events for everyone.
We did what we could and carried on none-the-less creating events almost every day! A lot of time and effort went into this, from myself and other officers, from PvP to PvE, RP and even Competitions!
We rose to the member cap in less than a year, which was absolutely amazing as we never thought it would be possible with such a dead bracket!
However, and I truly believe this, Guilds over say 600 members will never have a long life. Again this is my opinion and how I felt during my leadership! As soon as we hit a high number of players, the guild was social and events were constantly running, however, the personal feel had gone. If anyone has ever started a guild from scratch before you will know what I'm on about.
New members that joined did not have room to grow, and by that I mean, when you start off and invite someone, everyone gets to know each other, their personalities and their traits, with larger guilds a new member would find it very difficult to be noticed and grow in terms of ranking as they would just be another number or member in the guild.
Anyway, I'll try cut down on story time now;
I had some great Officers, we grew distant and I let my personal life get involved with the game which led to the fall of <Afterlife>. I know that a lot of them continue playing to this day and I wish them all the best, regardless of the past
WHAT TO TAKE FROM THIS
--------------------------------------------
From my personal experience of leading a large 60 guild;
- Do not get big headed - I did to an extent, it just kills the mood of the guild and leads to people leaving, A lot of the time if I seemed big-headed, I was being overprotective of what I had built with the rest of the community and did not want any harm to come to it, in hindsight, yeah I shouldn't have done it, but I did, mistakes were made!
- Do not get personal with the guild rules - I hated ERP'ing, so I banned it, and anyone caught doing it would get kicked, people can ERP, It's their choice, I didn't want the guild to be known as a true "Twink Guild" lol
- Trust your fellow Officers - I got paranoid during my leadership which led to Officers and members becoming distant with the rest of the guild which they also felt
- A bad apple is a bad apple - People can change, but my mistake was keeping a few people in the guild that should have been kicked a long time ago as they were bullying others, I did notify them to stop but it continued which led to members leaving and myself having to remove those players in the end anyway
- Forgiveness, A lot of the time when someone had wronged me or the guild, I would ban them outright, which is not the way to go, perhaps a time-out of a week to see if they have changed would have been better, but the past is in the past
- Don't get salty with competition, I made the mistake of other people creating 60 Guilds as a threat and was more or less ignoring their requests. Other 60 guilds should always be promoted regardless of drama between them, without communication between each other, nothing will become a success. Teamwork is essential, forget personality clashes and ego's and get on with it, we are all fighting for the same cause and that is to revive the 60 bracket!
- Time and effort is needed, During my leadership I noticed that, unless I or another senior member was online, people were like lost sheep not knowing what to do and decided to become inactive, I spent hundereds of hours working with this guild and the great community that followed it. But people could never do for themselves without being leaded, I find this a problem and sadly I do not know how to tackle this, as no GM or Officer can be online 24/7
ON THE BRIGHT SIDE
--------------------------------------
When <Deck me out> died, the 60 community was none existant to a noticable degree. And although <Afterlife> (which still exists) is no longer running, it did boost 60 numbers A LOT and bring the majority of players onto one server Argent Dawn which made it very easy for those that wished to continue playing 60 to easily remake, which was done, which is great!
Although <Afterlife> had it's fair share of drama and is no longer running, if you was a member, you will surely remember the good times, and those times were great, especially the 20+ man raid to kill a simple Gnome xD
Running <Afterlife> was the most enjoyable thing I ever did on WoW and it probably ever will be.
I would like to thank everyone that made <Afterlife> what it was and especially to the Officers and members that we're dedicated and hard working within the guild!
This is not a QQ post nor me ranting, It's my own personal experience for everyone to read that is in leadership of a guild or is thinking of starting one, maybe a few guidelines if anything
TLDR;
There is no TLDR, read it or don't
If you have any questions, just ask! And if appropriate I will answer them
- Honoured
This post is about my personal experience leading a level 60 twink guild <Afterlife>
No name dropping and no player shaming will be done apart from myself
The entire story will not be here, just the parts I feel are needed
If you don't like reading stories or huge amounts of text.. Sorry!
THE STORY
-----------------------------------------
A few years ago <Deck me out> was the place to be. Although they were not fond of PvP, I enjoyed it none-the-less. I quickly rose to the ranks of Officer and everything was going great, always raiding, everyone being social (to an extent). I took a few months break as raiding the same content with no other events becomes quite boring after a year.
During my return <Deck me out> was still going, not as strong as there had been a few GM changes but still going regardless. I noticed people were always cranky and the mention of the word PvP was shunned immediately, although there was a few exceptions. I decided to make a PvP guild on The Sha'Tar with 1 or 2 other people from <Deck me out> in hopes of creating a more PvP focussed guild called <The Remaining>, Needless to say, it flopped badly and was shortly disbanded.
Another break and focussing more end-game an old 60 Twink friend of mine was talking to me about all the drama going on in <Deck me out>, and shortly after the old GM was dethroned and things went into chaos, more or less killing the guild off.
We decided to find a realm that would be suitable for Level 60 Twinks and to revive the bracket that we love so much, we decided on a high pop realm focussing on Alliance as Horde guilds in the past never survived past a month. We settled on Argent Dawn.
The vision was simple, to create a home for Level 60 Twinks and without the drama of previous Twink guilds.
We started off small, just the two of us (we can make it if we tryyyy) <Afterlife> . Then along came a senior member of <Deck me out> after a lot of persuasion. The ball got rolling and we quickly gathered up to around 100 members in the first month, we started raiding Molten Core and things were great as expected, no drama no hassle.
As the guild got larger, people from all over the world started joining, and this is when things started going down hill, The clash of personalities between guild members and keeping everyone happy was getting increasingly harder, especially when balancing time-zones for events for everyone.
We did what we could and carried on none-the-less creating events almost every day! A lot of time and effort went into this, from myself and other officers, from PvP to PvE, RP and even Competitions!
We rose to the member cap in less than a year, which was absolutely amazing as we never thought it would be possible with such a dead bracket!
However, and I truly believe this, Guilds over say 600 members will never have a long life. Again this is my opinion and how I felt during my leadership! As soon as we hit a high number of players, the guild was social and events were constantly running, however, the personal feel had gone. If anyone has ever started a guild from scratch before you will know what I'm on about.
New members that joined did not have room to grow, and by that I mean, when you start off and invite someone, everyone gets to know each other, their personalities and their traits, with larger guilds a new member would find it very difficult to be noticed and grow in terms of ranking as they would just be another number or member in the guild.
Anyway, I'll try cut down on story time now;
I had some great Officers, we grew distant and I let my personal life get involved with the game which led to the fall of <Afterlife>. I know that a lot of them continue playing to this day and I wish them all the best, regardless of the past
WHAT TO TAKE FROM THIS
--------------------------------------------
From my personal experience of leading a large 60 guild;
- Do not get big headed - I did to an extent, it just kills the mood of the guild and leads to people leaving, A lot of the time if I seemed big-headed, I was being overprotective of what I had built with the rest of the community and did not want any harm to come to it, in hindsight, yeah I shouldn't have done it, but I did, mistakes were made!
- Do not get personal with the guild rules - I hated ERP'ing, so I banned it, and anyone caught doing it would get kicked, people can ERP, It's their choice, I didn't want the guild to be known as a true "Twink Guild" lol
- Trust your fellow Officers - I got paranoid during my leadership which led to Officers and members becoming distant with the rest of the guild which they also felt
- A bad apple is a bad apple - People can change, but my mistake was keeping a few people in the guild that should have been kicked a long time ago as they were bullying others, I did notify them to stop but it continued which led to members leaving and myself having to remove those players in the end anyway
- Forgiveness, A lot of the time when someone had wronged me or the guild, I would ban them outright, which is not the way to go, perhaps a time-out of a week to see if they have changed would have been better, but the past is in the past
- Don't get salty with competition, I made the mistake of other people creating 60 Guilds as a threat and was more or less ignoring their requests. Other 60 guilds should always be promoted regardless of drama between them, without communication between each other, nothing will become a success. Teamwork is essential, forget personality clashes and ego's and get on with it, we are all fighting for the same cause and that is to revive the 60 bracket!
- Time and effort is needed, During my leadership I noticed that, unless I or another senior member was online, people were like lost sheep not knowing what to do and decided to become inactive, I spent hundereds of hours working with this guild and the great community that followed it. But people could never do for themselves without being leaded, I find this a problem and sadly I do not know how to tackle this, as no GM or Officer can be online 24/7
ON THE BRIGHT SIDE
--------------------------------------
When <Deck me out> died, the 60 community was none existant to a noticable degree. And although <Afterlife> (which still exists) is no longer running, it did boost 60 numbers A LOT and bring the majority of players onto one server Argent Dawn which made it very easy for those that wished to continue playing 60 to easily remake, which was done, which is great!
Although <Afterlife> had it's fair share of drama and is no longer running, if you was a member, you will surely remember the good times, and those times were great, especially the 20+ man raid to kill a simple Gnome xD
Running <Afterlife> was the most enjoyable thing I ever did on WoW and it probably ever will be.
I would like to thank everyone that made <Afterlife> what it was and especially to the Officers and members that we're dedicated and hard working within the guild!
This is not a QQ post nor me ranting, It's my own personal experience for everyone to read that is in leadership of a guild or is thinking of starting one, maybe a few guidelines if anything
TLDR;
There is no TLDR, read it or don't
If you have any questions, just ask! And if appropriate I will answer them
- Honoured
