I come from a similar background as you, I've lead multiple guilds - usually not by my own initiative, but because I was there when the original team left, and with XIV I felt that even though I didn't want to, I sort of had to take the position. Else, the project would have failed and I'd be in a situation that scares me just a little bit, which is to find another guild. I think a lot of people who have lead guild can relate to the thought of how do you not do that, when it's not your job anymore. I've always been a rather proactive roleplayer and talkative person in general, which has lead to officer positions prior to actually taking on guild-leadership.Â
I have noticed the generous amount of roleplayers that are.. I'm going to say not like me, but I'm sure you know what I mean. From people who emote in past tense, to people who have very liberal views on what roleplay is.. I don't think there's more of them here than in most other games, but I think they're a bit more visible here because there's a rather relaxed atmosphere and a lot of guilds who take in these kind of people without commenting on why they're playing a miqote with wings (<-- Example). Good for them when they join such guilds, not good when they try to get into more heavy-end guild. And they're going to get in, we've had a fair few that have failed our trial period because they simply didn't take things as serious as we do, where we didn't see any signs of this in our recruitment process.Â
And as much as leading a guild is lovely, I am so tired of it, for many of the reasons you mention. I lead a guild that is rather strict with it's rules, and it's guidelines on how things should be. We only embrace one way of dealing with combat RP (Freeform Emote-style), for example - and to make that go through we beat it into people how things are to be done, so there will be no "YOU'RE OP" - "Your mom's OP!!" - Drama, and so on. People who don't cut it on the quality and who do not desire to learn, gets cut loose - we have this on every area, not just combat. We require people to emote in present tense, we tell them not to emote their thoughts, not because it's wrong - we know it's a different style, but that in itself is the point - it's not how we do it, and when you're a part of the we then you do it our way.Â
We also have a strict no drama policy, if people bring personal conflicts into the guild and they do not react to warnings immediately, they'll be cut loose. Fortunately so far we haven't had the need to cut loose both sides of a conflict like that, but if that was what it took to get peace back in the guild, we would do it. I stopped being afraid of being called elitist and other such negative words a long time ago, I'd much rather hear that than be called a lolrp'er.Â
But even with all of that in place, we still have things that just aren't up to scratch - Like issues with getting everyone to read the rules/information-thread in the first place, getting them to embrace the website as a part of their life they can't miss out on, problems with the pro activity of people - too much receiving, not enough giving. Even some occasional problems with the interpretation of lore. I do not have enough hours in the day to work on the problems, and my officers do not have either. It's draining my willpower, it has caused (and continues to cause) burnouts in RP and so on.Â
And because of that, I've decided that XIV is the last game I will lead an anything in, for a good while. I need a couple of years to forget the downsides, and to have considerably more fun whilst RP'ing. Sastra's a great character to play, but I have more fun on my alts because they will never ever be trapped in leadership matters, and they can go and do whatever they decide to do.Â
Hopefully we'll be able to pick someone up from our community who can take the burden from me in future games (Like Archeage), and the idea that someone wouldn't saddens me because it would likely mean the death of the community - but it's still not enough to motivate me to try again.Â
I of course hope that our XIV guild will carry on for a long time to come, with whatever it carries with it.Â
I'm sure some of the others said good stuff and I probably repeated some of it, but now you have a perspective of someone who's decided to get out of it. Eventually[sup]TM[/sup].
I have noticed the generous amount of roleplayers that are.. I'm going to say not like me, but I'm sure you know what I mean. From people who emote in past tense, to people who have very liberal views on what roleplay is.. I don't think there's more of them here than in most other games, but I think they're a bit more visible here because there's a rather relaxed atmosphere and a lot of guilds who take in these kind of people without commenting on why they're playing a miqote with wings (<-- Example). Good for them when they join such guilds, not good when they try to get into more heavy-end guild. And they're going to get in, we've had a fair few that have failed our trial period because they simply didn't take things as serious as we do, where we didn't see any signs of this in our recruitment process.Â
And as much as leading a guild is lovely, I am so tired of it, for many of the reasons you mention. I lead a guild that is rather strict with it's rules, and it's guidelines on how things should be. We only embrace one way of dealing with combat RP (Freeform Emote-style), for example - and to make that go through we beat it into people how things are to be done, so there will be no "YOU'RE OP" - "Your mom's OP!!" - Drama, and so on. People who don't cut it on the quality and who do not desire to learn, gets cut loose - we have this on every area, not just combat. We require people to emote in present tense, we tell them not to emote their thoughts, not because it's wrong - we know it's a different style, but that in itself is the point - it's not how we do it, and when you're a part of the we then you do it our way.Â
We also have a strict no drama policy, if people bring personal conflicts into the guild and they do not react to warnings immediately, they'll be cut loose. Fortunately so far we haven't had the need to cut loose both sides of a conflict like that, but if that was what it took to get peace back in the guild, we would do it. I stopped being afraid of being called elitist and other such negative words a long time ago, I'd much rather hear that than be called a lolrp'er.Â
But even with all of that in place, we still have things that just aren't up to scratch - Like issues with getting everyone to read the rules/information-thread in the first place, getting them to embrace the website as a part of their life they can't miss out on, problems with the pro activity of people - too much receiving, not enough giving. Even some occasional problems with the interpretation of lore. I do not have enough hours in the day to work on the problems, and my officers do not have either. It's draining my willpower, it has caused (and continues to cause) burnouts in RP and so on.Â
And because of that, I've decided that XIV is the last game I will lead an anything in, for a good while. I need a couple of years to forget the downsides, and to have considerably more fun whilst RP'ing. Sastra's a great character to play, but I have more fun on my alts because they will never ever be trapped in leadership matters, and they can go and do whatever they decide to do.Â
Hopefully we'll be able to pick someone up from our community who can take the burden from me in future games (Like Archeage), and the idea that someone wouldn't saddens me because it would likely mean the death of the community - but it's still not enough to motivate me to try again.Â
I of course hope that our XIV guild will carry on for a long time to come, with whatever it carries with it.Â
I'm sure some of the others said good stuff and I probably repeated some of it, but now you have a perspective of someone who's decided to get out of it. Eventually[sup]TM[/sup].
