My feelings on weekday raids:
One of the only reasons I wanted to be an officer in Grey Horizon was to help. The help Sarkus needed most was when he wasn't on. Like weekday raids. Darkman volunteered to lead and I spoke to Sarkus about leading and Sarkus told me that Darkman & I should work together. Which we have.
Every time we schedule raids during the week we hope to lock out farm raids so GH can raid top content on weekends when we tend to have higher numbers.
Darkman & I split the work setting up groups, fielding tells (oh there are tons of them), getting people into the raid ASAP, trying to get people to get along and work together.
Honestly I don't know how Sarkus does it. It is chaos from the moment we log on till we log off.
The biggest issue though is we have ZERO control of who logs on and what we - as a guild - can actually get done.
Today we had SO many healers (and thank you all for logging on) but, to start, 3 warriors, 2 sks and a pally. Not enough to do Glimpse. Definitely not enough to PoS because we couldn't get more flagged this past weekend. So we did a Tier 1 raid hoping more would log on.
The complaining begins. The tells begin.

I.JUST.WANT.TO.RAID.

I would love to do the higher end stuff but I am good with gearing apps and new recruits. I don't care.

I.JUST.WANT.TO.RAID.

WHY do we all have to bitch? Cry? Quit the raid because GH isn't raiding what "we" want? I don't get it. People were complaining when we had no weekday raids but are still complaining when we do.

As officers we put aside our RL time to plan. We put aside our sanity to help. I'm not looking for gratitude.

I.JUST.WANT.TO.RAID.

All the infighting and vitrol spewed in /gu is disenheartening. I KNOW GH members are bigger and better than this.
WHAT can we do to change?

~Aulu~

Grow up and not be the little insignificant little pimples who declare themselves to be Rulers of the World ? Seriously no idea here how some can mature in GH. There are really wonderful people who try to do everything to get things going, and then there are people who think that they are so important ("I am the backbone of this Guild") or so incredibly awesome ("I can heal 3 Tanks in my group") that they might as well raid by themselves because they don't need us to do so.

And yes, mostly the "hardcore" Raiders are going against the "part-time" Raiders. If you are either disabled (no offense to Sumkilndar and others here, mind you), are retired for some reason, are severely sick and can't leave the house for months on end and so forth - in essence, if you have the luxury of having surplous amounts of time for you to play EQ - then you can maybe get a bit bitchy because you can't advance because the others aren't there for getting Raids done. 

But thats not the majority from what i've seen, and although this is Sarkus's Guild, he as mighty Troll can't do anything if there aren't people about who support him. And by support i don't mean mindlessly follow without question, but point out things to him to make him see his errors (regarding Raids and so forth, takes several tries sometimes but hey, he's a Troll, blockhead all the way, it's expected). 

Pointing out however doesn't mean you can go around and spew abuses left and right and behaving like you own this Guild. Everyone has flaws, there is nobody perfect, and that is good because otherwise we'd be machines not humans. But to those who try to downgrade others, telling them they're "a waste of mana"  or straight out forbidding them to cast some Spell in Guildhall and acting as if they'd own the other persons account or have ANY say in what they should do - i have only one thing to say:

There's the door.

As a person who was actually on last night- I want to thank both Aulu, Darkman and Kindoz for leading the weekday raids.  They did so with class and put up with more abuse then anyone should have to do. We lose folks who are willing to lead raids because we think they do not deserve the same considerations we would give Sarkus.  I thought the choices they made last night were correct and if you noticed who got gear last night it was (with the one exception of the warrior only weapon) going to regular members and our applicants. We do not have the luxury of having fully geared full time raiders. Doing back raids or gearing raids will always be with us.  As the game shrinks this will happen more and more. 


Now as I said last night to the few who left the raid and wanted to whine and bitch to the leaders running the raid.  I have learned a hard lesson from the times I felt passionate about something. Most in the guild just don't want to hear it , and if you throw a fit(justified or not) you will take flack for it.

 Some of the worse problems we have is when folks try  to  send tells( totally private ) trying to work things out and instead of keeping it private-  they shoot off their mouths in guild or vent  instead of dealing with the person in tells.  We have some folks who like to be "victims" in this guild and make other "villains." 


Kubax I have no idea why your post went off on a tangent. I myself sent t a TELL( notice totally private no bashing in guild) to  a cleric saying she should never cast the group version of certitude in guild hall before raids because it blocks symbol and skin.  That is a basic rules all the clerics follow , have always followed and should always follow.  Its about being polite to the others in guild hall who are waiting for raids. Newer members of this guild are given advice about guild policy from others in their class and should learn to take advice and follow the basic guidelines we have.  Also , I think we have enough raiders who leave the guild on their own without needing to tell  folks "there is door", it was that attitude that was at the heart of all the whining in the guild last night.

Ellmadar, i do hope you recall the times in VoA when you tried to lecture me on what i should do or shouldn't do (in tells, yes). I told you then and there that you are in no position whatsoever to tell me because i know my strengths as well as limits regarding playing a SHM. Personally, You will never see me going off at CLR and what they should do or don't because i never touched that class in all my years of playing - or any other for that matter - so i am not going to lecture people on something i have no idea of.

Now regarding that you send the tell to "that Cleric" - unless your attitude has changed considerably from where you tried to tell me what to do (highly unlikely), it wouldn't have made a difference if you sent a tell or said it in Guild. The result was that the person in question logged out due to what you said, so you succeeded in removing a Healer Class from the Raid force, thus weakening it.

You were right with one thing though - people need to take advice and follow basic guidelines. Which would require them to be sensitive to a point, and not come rushing at someone verbally like a Stampede, in tells and / or Guild. This is something you in all the years have not learned Ellmadar, and unless you can mature to that point, you will continue to be nothing but a source of trouble and disheartening to people who need a different approach then what you can offer them.

I will take this to tells

As far as i am concerned, i said my piece. I don't need any more talk about this in the game, since the Forums are there where you can sit, think and write out thoughts without being distracted too much. I will not comment on this subject anymore, since my point is made very clear and there is nothing to add. 

Also i hope there be no tells coming from you Ellmadar, for i have better things to do in this game then to listen to you.

my plan was always to get farm raids down so  on weekends we can move ahead but i can only do what we can with numbers and classes we have on o and what keyed people are on to do t3 or better .So me as a raid leader have to look at this and see what open and what we can do . When i lose people because we not doing what they want it hurts us if they are keyed people or if we do easy stuff till more log in or hope more log in. As officers we put up with alot of crap and i do not go off in guild chat or raid say i take it to tells i want to lead every week sarkus cant but this last few weeks i have bean under the weather starting to feel better but when i get tells or whining in guild chat i cant make every person happy im sorry . That said i was so upset over all the bull i said im not leading next week others can do but now i settaled down and will see what going to be open . U all dont know the tells we get some great but others not so good all we want to do is raid get gear and move on so we need more to log in to get targets done i always post raids on sunday  so i know we have options on the night we pick easy T1 or T2 or even better T3 if we have the right classes on and the keyed people so please all just work with us we can move ahead .

I have a lifetime raid attendence of 94% and consider myself a core raider. If I choose to drop raids after 1 event I don't consider that hurting the guild. I sure as hell don't appreciate eating shit over it too. I'm sorry that I don't have shit alts to get ta ed every time we do shit raids. I think it's unfair that the same alts get invited to shit raids, why not alternate? When Sarkus logged in late that night I explained my displeasure and even he said we couldve done harder raids with what we had...but I'm a soldier not the raid leader. In the 8 years I've been in this guild Sarkus has NEVER given an outside player a piece of loot. I DO  remember when he invited outside folks to help out,  he said if they wanted loot-they shoul apply to GH. I don't remember who said that Sarkus has given out gear/spells to outside players, but they need to wake up. When Kertis and his old man were talking shit to me I saw no respect, much less a warning from our raid leaders.

First can I just say thank you to the leadership of this guild for all the hard work and dedication that they put in week after week. Honestly, I admire you guys. I would never be able to do the things that you guys do or put up with what you all are asked to put up with. I may get frustrated at raids and I may vent a bit but in the end am always grateful to get to raid and I know that raiding just wouldn't happen without you guys. I do not envy you!

More to the point of Aulu's question though. I think the first thing we can try to do in order to change things is to have more respect for one another. My mother always taught me that I didn't have to like everyone but that I did need to respect everyone. She said that there is a certain level of respect that we must give everyone simply because they were apart of this dysfunctional family called humanity. This is something that I feel is missing from the guild. Obviously there are different levels of respect and I am not going to sit here and say that we should be giving everyone the utmost respect. I do think however, that we can all try a bit harder to afford people a level of common courtesy and respect. The kind of respect that has you opening doors for strangers. 

Along those same lines, I think we could stand a little more tact in guild chat. You know that saying "You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar."? If you see someone doing something wrong or you think something can be done better why not say "Hey, I noticed you did ..... I have always found it helpful to do ..... instead" or "I saw you missed that audio trigger, here is the one I have set up, maybe it will work better for you" It isn't hard and you are more likely to get people to see things your way or to at least listen to your point of view. If I learned anything from the Marines it was that yelling, screaming and degrading people was not the way to build a team. I guess what I am hoping is that people will stop being so dang rude to one another in guild chat (hopefully in tells as well).  

Another thing I think would help is developing a better team mentality. I think that as a guild we all have the same goal. We want to raid end game stuff because we will get end game gear. Why play if it is not to improve your toon right? What I have not been seeing is a clear understanding that when you help the individuals in the guild you in the end are helping the guild. As individuals get stronger the guild gets stronger and as the guild gets stronger the individual gets stronger. Selfish as it sounds I am more than happy to do flagging raids over and over again because in the end it will help me get the things that I want. I am more than happy to farm bottom tier raids for others because in the end it benefits me. Whether you are a hard core raider or a raider that can barely make 30% of the raids, we are all still a team. What I hope to see is more "big picture" thinking and less "I, me, my-" thinking. (Funny story, when I was in boot camp we were not allowed to use the words I, me, or my because it took away from the team mentality) 

That brings me to my last point, I feel like there is a serious divisional problem in the guild. More and more it seems like it is "hard core raiders" vs "part time raiders" and it is very disheartening for me. I am going to be very honest here. A lot of the time since I have been back I have felt like a second class member of the guild because I am forced to take extended breaks due to school. Nobody has said anything of the sort to me personally in fact I have received lots of love and support since I have been back. However, I see the way others who have higher attendance than me, more flags than me, ect. get treated and I can't help but look at myself and say "Well if they think that about them then I can't imagine what they think of me" Honestly, it is hurtful...deeply so. I have seen people working their asses off when they are here just to be treated like garbage because they don't have 98% raid attendance. I know personally that I do my very best at every raid to learn the strat and do what I am told. I work hard to be a raider that people like to have in group because I can be trusted to do my job and yet it seems like I won't ever over come this "part time raider" label. I don't know how we can fix this, but I do believe, like Kubax, that it is a problem that should be addressed. 

In closing I want to say that none of my comments were directed at any one person. These are things that I too struggle with, I know I am not perfect.

Fawn
You are on the money with your points.  I hope people read what you have posted and take it to heart.
Whenever you have two or more people together there is a chance of disagreement.  As the number grows you have people that don't just disagree but may also dislike one another.  That is life.  Yet we are all here for the same reasons.  We all want to raid.  So we must put aside our differences and just do it.  I have talked to quite a few members of the guild and we all seem to agree yet once raid time rolls around all it takes is one person starting up and the whole thing seems to fall apart.  Then the true ugliness sets in and it all spirals downward.
I try to settle things through tells just to take drama out of guild chat and sometimes it works other times not so much.  Yes, I also give warnings...not because I think I'm so cool and powerful...because I hope to calm things down before it escalates.  Usually pointless.  Sometimes I envy Sarkus because he cuts to the center of things "Stop crying and raid".  I guess it sounds better with a few angry German squares.
As for the part time raiders vs full time raider thing...Fawn, none of it is personal, I'm sure.  You are just caught in the crossfire (and tail end) of a lot of frustration from the past few months.  We have seen people join GH, gear up, get their flags and leave which is frustrating because it retards our moving forward.  We backflag every few months anyway but to have things stalled because of an influx of people that never had any intention of staying is very different from people returning to the game after RL took precedence.  I am always happy to see familiar faces return.  Especially those that alway gave it their all when they were here.  you are a good example of that.  You are a player that knows your class and plays it well.  RL is what it is and I don't think you should be punished because you have commitments.  I think the complaints are more for those that come back scoop up some gear and disappear for another 3-6 months.  Conveniently when all content is mastered; all the hard work is done.  If you follow the patterns, it is always the same violators.  So if anyone makes you feel bad, take it where it comes from.  not everyone's voice needs to be heeded with the same weight.
I always say only heed the voices of those you respect.  The rest just don't matter.
My 2 cp
~Aulu~