Originally Posted by Tiggles
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So Long, And Thanks for All the Fish
Hi, my name is Foorpers and I (used to) play a Wizard in Forceful Entry.
"Be careful the environment you choose for it will shape you; be careful the friends you choose for you will become like them." -W. Clement Stone
This is why I have decided to leave Forceful Entry.
My reasons for making this decision are as follows:
THE PROBLEM(s)
Cliques:
Forceful Entry is a shambles. I've only been in the guild a short time but upon reflection I have found it to be the most frustrating and unenjoyable period I have ever experienced in an MMO.
Unless things change drastically I don't envisage FE maintaining a sufficient roster to compete with TMO in the long term.
At it's core FE has a group of highly-skilled players who are good friends with each other. This group of players includes all but 2 of the active/semi-active officers and aside from raid situations they barely interact with members of the guild who are not part of this clique. Many members of this clique have extremely high raid attendance and tracking hours but make very little other contribution to the guild.
These people are the first to show up to Ragefire when he spawns, but also the first to firmly advise other members of the guild that they shouldn't come as their assistance is unwanted. This, of course, is not to prevent others wasting their precious time by porting to Lavastorm and coming in to help, but by the pure greed of the members of this clique who are consistently bragging about how much money they already have. God forbid you share the wealth guys.. we need the "lesser" members of the guild to know their place after all. Yes, I've heard the argument that it's your pearl and you camped Ragefire all day, but what you haven't considered is that while you were doing that other members of the guild were actually contributing to the guild.
These people are always camping King in Seb with their friends, and virtually always turn you away if you ask to be included, because again, why allow those poorer members of the guild to be included in a cash camp that would allow them to properly equip their mains/primary raiding alts, thus making the guild stronger? That's not what FE is about.
These people virtually never offer any assistance should someone ask in guild, whether it be help killing an epic mob, somebody asking for a port, a request for a transfer in EC tunnel, or a planar raid to help gear those members that don't already have full best in slot outside VP.
This causes each and every day to be stressful and unenjoyable for the few members of the guild who are picking up the slack. I'm talking about people like Goodies, Lilyanna, Planarity, Tasslehof, Lucabrazi, etc.. some of whom have informed me they are on the brink of guildremoving due to this amongst other things - the only thing preventing them doing so is a lack of viable guild options. What the current leadership fails to comprehend is that without these helpful people FE would absolutely fall apart.
Why invite someone to the guild if you are going to treat them as a second-class citizen? I understand that you want to group with your friends but that doesn't preclude you from including others or occasionally lending a hand. This is a rhetorical question as obviously I know the answer is that you need more warm bodies to throw at dragons so you can get some VP loot.
I've also been informed by some guild members that when Velious hits and IB return, they are going to dump the 'excess weight' so to speak.
All of these issues have been raised to the officers on numerous occasions and discarded without explanation each time. I expect this post to yield the same result.
Leadership and Consistency:
There are many issues with the way the guild is run currently, but the most pressing has to be the lack of consistency in decision making. The lack of consistency stems from not having structure. Without structure and the adherence to a set of written rules, coupled with the clique'ish nature of the guild mentioned above, means that most, if not all loot decisions made by the officers will be questioned by members who believe that favouritism has played a part in the decision.
The most recent incident where a Green Scale was awarded to an alt is a prime example of this. The argument was made after the fact that this shouldn't have happened as epic items should be awarded to a main. The counter to this argument was that this is the way it has always worked, however if this is the case why have the Slime Blood of Cazic Thule not been awarded? Why do Hand of the Maestro and Red/White Dragonscales get banked? More importantly, why whenever someone tries to have a rational discussion about this type of issue are they told to shut up or ignored? Why after being told to take it to the forums when speaking in guild chat were they told "Don't take it to my forums" by an officer. I was under the mistaken impression that they were OUR forums..
The other area that has a high level of inconsistency is the recruitment process. You need this process to be clear and transparent and CONSISTENT. You invited Kagok and Xerxes to the guild after a trial period of 2 weeks, then when questioned about it you said it's because they are exceptional players. Isn't the point of the trial period to allow guild members to group with the applicant and see if they are the right fit for the guild? Or is that process bypassed if the applicant is friends with the officers? Having applications approved for people who have been in the guild for 2 weeks sure makes the applicants that joined before them feel valued..
How difficult is it to write down a set of rules and stick to them? To create a spreadsheet that shows priority for each epic piece and stick to it? To create a spreadsheet that shows priority for Trak Teeth and stick to it? To develop a process to show what loot dropped off which mob and where it went? This should include spells. I know I saw Torpor drop off Prot at one of the Trak kills last week, who received it? What is the process for applying for it? I asked several long time members and they have no clue what the process for requesting spells is.. this is the type of basic issue that causes problems.
I know the response to this as I've heard it numerous times. The officers are too busy to do all of this. Then assign it to guild members - I know for a fact that some of them have offered to help and been turned down. I know Visceral is making a spreadsheet for epic pieces and Lily is updating the spell bank, but are you actually going utilise these documents once they are finished?
While we're on the subject of leadership - here's a few observations about FE's officers.
Sloan: You are an amazing raid leader, you know what to do in every raid encounter. Your patience has allowed the guild to kill targets that we have previously wiped on due to hasty engages. Your raid leadership can not be called into question. The rest of the time however, you are like an absentee dad. Your sole focus is VP and you come across as very disinterested in the general day-to-day admin of the guild.
Shinko: You are a good player and seem like a decent guy, no doubt. Your abrupt manner rubs some people the wrong way however and leads people to feel that they can't approach you with valid concerns. Your limited play time means you aren't around a lot to get a clear picture of what is going in guild.
Option: Great player, good raid leader. Not on enough to get a clear picture of what is going on.
Talenos: Really nice guy, very helpful, one of the 2 officers I consider not part of the clique, but again, not on enough to get a clear picture of what is going on.
Goodies: Thank you, thank you, thank you. I know you are the one who gets stuck doing all of the boring admin work with no thanks from anyone. I know you get your opinion ignored by the other officers. I know you are often the only officer online for hours at a time, and I know having to deal with everything for the guild has prevented you from being able to even level a single raiding alt.
Unbrella a.k.a 'Little Hitler'. I call you this because I can only imagine by the way that you act that you must have Napoleon complex.
From the threats, the guild kicks, the inspirational gems such as "You've all had it too easy" in response to people raising valid concerns, the cliquey behaviour and the hypocrisy, you are by far the worst officer I have ever seen in an online game. Your are extremely arrogant and narcissistic and believe you are beyond reproach. In the past couple of weeks I've seen several instances of you doing things that a member should be ashamed of, let alone an officer.
- On the previous server reset we went and killed Yael & Dartain the Lost. A member of our guild also needed help with Ghost of Kindle. After loot was distributed for Dartain & Yael, you gated out.. thanks for the help.
- You spout off about people keeping shit out of OOC, but I see you do it over and over again.
- You delete threads at a whim without explanation, most recently the thread about keeping racism out of guild chat.
- You spout sexist bullshit in guild chat.
- YOU LOG ON A MONK CALLED GARGIMEL AND TRAIN YOUR OWN GUILD, killing those exping in VS pit - making people lose bubs of xp on their raiding alt, and putting us at serious risk of losing VS FTE if he were to pop.
As far as I'm concerned you're not even fit to be a member of the guild, and should at the very minimum be demoted from being an officer. You talk so much shit about how awesome your real life is, about how much you bench and how many hot chicks you bang; why don't you go and be a real life all-star instead of an in-game douchebag?
SUMMARY:
Demote Unbrella
Promote 3 new officers to help handle the workload. At least 1, preferably 2 from Euro timezone. Visceral, Versager, Lily would all be good choices.
Develop rules and processes, write them down, and stick to them. No exceptions.
Embrace your guildmates and help them when they ask for it.
Be open to suggestions from your guild members. When they give you constructive input don't just dismiss it as whining.
"Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not
care. Either case is a failure of leadership." -Colin Powell
I doubt any of this will happen, as this post will be promptly deleted. Probably by Unbrella.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Regards,
Foorpers
P.S You may be thinking of replying with LOL U Mad, but in all honesty, I'm not. This isn't some form of snap decision.. I've been leading up to this over the past few weeks. Look at the length of this post and tell me it was a snap decision. I'm leaving for greener pastures - whether they be the rolling green hills of the sleeper server, starting a twinked alt on P99, or even (gasp) real life. I encourage other people who feel similarly to do the same.
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04-13-2013, 01:08 AM
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