What to do?
My weekend was most excellent. Flinging hapless wild boars into the middle of a bunch of bored lupus was mucho fun ^.^
Playing a psychotic pit fighter NPC was also like, the highlight for my weekend. ZOMG it rocked. So much so that I might make a Kindred of the East and play it with Fio in his vampire game who has a similar make up to the psycho pit fighter.
MAYBE. Still not sure, because I’m not much of a vampire person, but KoE is a different flavor of Vamp. We shall see.
Anywho, this post started on Monday, it’s now Tuesday, and time for me to talk about what’s been on my mind lately.
I love playing WoW with my friends. But I’m getting to a critical point. I think I’m starting to burn out with all this raiding shit. Yea, I know, you’re thinking, “WTF HOW? You only raid 3 nights a week for like 3 hours!” and yea, I do. But I’m an officer too. So along with the raiding, I’m stratigizing with the other officers on how to approach the new/problem boss, working with a different make up of raiders each time, getting the healers in order and giving them their assignments each raid. Doesn’t sound like a lot when you look at it, but add on top of the whole pile the stress of “What if X or Y has to cancel last second, what then?” and you’re forced to bring an alt in that’s not prepared, or X was a tank or healer or mage (we only have 1 raiding one T.T) or something important to the raid.
The stress piles up. I hate the stress. I thought back in SSC/TK things were bad. It’s just gotten worse. And on top of all that, there’s been some differences with some people on where to take the guild progression wise. Everyone’s got their thoughts, has loot they don’t want to leave behind, etc. Everyone has an opinion on everything. And I have this thing where I want to try and keep as many people happy as possible.
But it’s costing me my happiness. I’m burning out. I don’t even feel like logging in now. And it sucks.
I’m not saying people are horrible, no good, very bad, er whatever. If that’s what you’re reading into this, then you’re dead wrong. If you’re an officer or a guildleader, you probably know all about what I’m experiencing. It’s not fun. I was the troupe “leader” for a while in my werewolf LARP a few years back. Being in charge SUCKS.
We downed Azgalor for the first time ever last night. And when one of the officers made a boo boo after some Archimonde attempts, we lost a guildie from it. Not sure if they’re coming back. I hope so. But it’s like, you know, we’re human. We have human failings. Not everything is going to be perfect every time. But it’s like, we took out a boss that was giving us grief for the past three weeks… and we lost a guildie. Bad event kinda over shadows the boss killing high. : /
I don’t usually blog about this kind of thing. It’s that negative gossip crap that just isn’t me. But honestly, I’m looking for advice. Because I’m tired. I love playing with my friends, though there are some things we’ve had to sacrifice to get where we are and I’m not even sure it’s worth it any more. I know I want our guild to hit Illidan right in the face before Arthas comes out to freeze our butts with level 80 stuff. It’s very DOABLE too.
What do you do?
11 Responses
Yeah, last night was a real bummer, the way things ended. All I can say is, ya got one dworc in yer guild who’s just real happy ta be raiding with ya, no matter what the plan is. BT, MH, Vashj, Kael, ZG or naked VC, I’m cool with whatever. Just tell me whose face ta melt and whose mana pool to top off.
<3
Posted on July 22nd, 2008 at 8:55 am
Whenever I start getting stressed I take a step back and remember it’s a game I play to relax.
For me, that ment pretty much the end of raiding. I still did the weekly Kara pug. Now even that is going to go away.
Not the solution nesacerrily to your issue, But from someone who was more than once an officer in a raiding guild, It was my soultion.
Hey, you asked =)
Posted on July 22nd, 2008 at 9:12 am
When things were going badly in my guild and the pressure got to me, I took almost a week away from the game. I logged back in, expecting to find an empty guild roster.
Instead, I found that in my absence the other officers had managed the guild. The drama was still going on, but the other officers were able to hold it together until I had calmed down.
Some might call that a coward’s approach. But this is a GAME. I am entitled to enjoy it as much as anyone else. That week away was necessary, or I was seriously considering quitting.
You have officers for a reason. They can handle some of the stress. You might step back and let them take some of the burden.
Posted on July 22nd, 2008 at 11:06 am
I myself am going through this situation. My guild is moving at a dead snails pace. Not being an officer or GL I can’t do anything about it except qq.
All the help I try to give the management is discarded almost immidieatly.
What I reccomend for you to do. Is to let others run the raids. Put your mic down and just sit back and raid.
I understand what the officers go through. You CANNOT please everyone. But since you are in a posistion of authority. You have the ability to take charge of that path.
I think if you said. Were looking for someone to help take some responsibility in the guild. You will find alot of people stepping up to help.
Rewarding them in someway would be a plus. Whether its their own vent channel. Officer rank. I dont know.
Thats the problem with my guild. We have our GL who doesn’t do anything.
We have one officer who puts the raids together, hands out healing assignments, forms the groups, tells the strat, does ready checks.
She won’t listen to me. Hopefully you will
This game is about having fun. If you arn’t having fun theirs no point in playing because it means your addicted.
GL.
Posted on July 22nd, 2008 at 2:07 pm
If the stress is getting to you, I’d say see if another officer can help and/or take over the raid leader duties. Start out working with them, then over a couple of weeks let them do more and more of it, then you get a week or 3 vacation from it.
Posted on July 22nd, 2008 at 2:45 pm
My guild is flat out casual and while we have a lot of people we like doing stuff with even getting a kara group together can be an issue.
I can understand your irritation as an officer you’d like everyone to get along and be understanding as this is a game. It should be fun and when the issues you deal with as an officer take some of that fun out it becomes harder to login. At times like that I think I agree with Dinaer you need to take a break. Go play with alts on other servers or step away from WoW and play something else.
It won’t by any means get rid of the issues but if you come into it with a relaxed attitude it’s better to deal with. If you come into the game already frustrated it doesn’t help at all.
Posted on July 22nd, 2008 at 4:47 pm
I certainly hope that you find a way to regain some joy, Steph.
There are a couple of things that can work, depending on whats going on…
If it’s the game itself you’re getting burned out on, then it’s definitely time for a break. Flush the blog, the game and the stress for a few days… take your husband to a hotel and swim in the pool, hit some mini-golf, and have fun. Get something new to talk about into your conversation. I know that with a guild as good as Aetherial Circle, you’ve got some officers that can help for a bit. Right?
If it’s the stress of needing to be ‘the boss’ in the guild, but the game is still fun… why not take that same break for a few, but instead of taking a trip, why not you and the hubby make stealth alts, maybe not even on the same server, don’t tell ANYONE, and have fun rediscovering the joy of the game itself?
And for bonus miles… take a vacation trip to a nearby hotel with internet and indoor or outdoor waterslides, and do both.
Seriously though… if you feel like you can’t take a break from the guild or the game for a few days without things falling apart… then you have entirely too many responsibilities piled onto your shoulders, and you need your officers to pick up some slack. Those lazy bums.
Big smiles! Big smiles!
PS.. us Druids took down BRK’s blog earlier. Didja hear? We gave it back, though.
Posted on July 22nd, 2008 at 7:41 pm
When that happened to me… I quit playing for 4 months. Guild Leadership is not a fun thing all of the time, but when you have to log on and see /w start all over the place about stuff you just consider silly… well… it’s time for a break.
Posted on July 23rd, 2008 at 9:37 am
*hugs* I know how you feel. When my guild first stepped into Kara, we were a group of friends who had been playing together for a long time. Most of us hadn’t raided in 6 months or so (BC incoming old world raid “Why bother” mentality on my server). So our first night in, we one shot Attunman, and got hung up on Moroes. Two hours of wiping. And one of our friends decided he was taking a break from the game that night, logged off, and came back two weeks later to join a more progressed guild (mind you, this was May or June of last year…)
We downed Moroes and Opera the next week. But that first night still leaves a sour taste in my mouth thinking about it. I hope everything works out for you! Maybe a night of hooky, where you KNOW healing is taken care of, and you can peek over Fio’s shoulder if you’re curious, but the night is yours?
>.> and you are ebil. I am totally obsessed with PI at work now. I blame you! *grin*
Posted on July 23rd, 2008 at 11:00 am
I can’t really add to that. Take a break. Go do something else that’s fun.
Posted on July 23rd, 2008 at 1:00 pm
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