Dealing With Mutiny

It’s been a tough 24 hours for the Dambusters. Some prominent members of the guild have been holding separate discussions about their willingness to stay in the guild after I kicked an officer who ‘politely’ spat his dummy out after I called him out for blatantly disregarding my request to stop using the guild’s own Mumble server as voice communications for another video game.

The issue of using Mumble for another game was actually secondary and didn’t bother me so much, but who was doing it was my issue. The small group of people who I consider friends but who at every opportunity, have decided to go against anything I say around the guild. Certain members of that group have been trying to undermine myself and Spyrot for a long time now and I seen the right opportunity to ask them directly to refrain from doing something I didn’t feel was of any benefit to the unity of the guild.

They were asked to stop, they heard and they carried on regardless. They caused the issue and when I reared my head about it, Jibbas sent out an officer resignation because he felt “that I no longer feel that I live up to the standards required of the role” (damn right son!) directed at me because I had the temerity to ask him to operate within a fairly requested boundary and call him out when he ignored me.

Make no mistake, officers who deliberately throw their teddies out the pram in this manner meet a very ruthless guild leader here. Most of the Dambusters never see my mean streak but honestly, I believe that part of my character is an important requirement when leading an active guild because without that, people walk all over you. I was told last night that I had already been too lenient with this small clicky group who seemed to be a law unto themselves at times.

I already knew this group had been considering leaving the guild but it speaks volumes that not one of them had approached me with any concerns whatsoever. Instead they confided in each other while building up their circle of influence so that when the time came, they had enough backing to go their separate way and feel good about it. Rather than do the honourable thing and leave the guild when they started disliking it, they preferred to band together and try to make others believe in their issues with the guild leader.

None of that group faced me on my own, they made their new guild and poached 13 of our members up until now.

At the end of the day, this is a game and I am delighted to see that at least 85% of The Dambusters are true to the guild considering over half the officer team have quit to make a new guild. I roasted a couple of the ringleaders about the way they departed but having now had time to reflect, I wish them all the best and I believe the new guild is already doing well. I don’t expect to see any of our members being rude to our former guildies because their decision to leave is not because of you guys, it’s because of me.

Sometimes you just gotta eat humble pie and get on with it. This guild has done that before and come right back as strong as ever and with this excellent squad of loyal Dambusters, I don’t see any reason why we can’t crack on with the same attitude and togetherness in the game. We will be recruiting fresh players to join the guild and I think that should give everyone a nice boost.

I have learned from this that I must not trust people when I see them start to become disillusioned with things around the guild. Certain people are prone to turn on a guild leader if they no longer want to follow the GM and in the end, it’s really easy to play a sneaky game that ends up making the GM look like Mr. Nasty when all he wants is for everyone to play by the rules. From now on, I won’t allow anarchists to operate from the inside circle of the guild leadership. People may pretend to want a democracy but unless the guild is run by close IRL friends, it’s very difficult to have a true democracy.

There’s been plenty of times when my officer team have made decisions that I don’t agree with fully and I will voice my objections but if I see it does have a benefit to the guild and people really want to push for it, I am well capable of listening and going with the flow. However, I expect my officers to follow me and show an example to the rest of the guild. If an officer blatantly ignores what I am saying (and this ain’t the first time but I let it slide before) then I feel the officer is already bringing the guild into disrepute.

Officers have much higher expectations than anyone else but they are there because they have proven to be trustworthy and dependable. Nobody needs to become an officer but l welcome people who have a desire to take a lead and show some responsibility in the guild. When an officer changes his/her allegiance from the guild leader to another person then it becomes very difficult for the guild leader but I must make every effort to prevent a recurrence of this phenomenon in the future because it could have been catastrophic.

The past 24 hours have been difficult for us and I’m sure for our friends who felt like they had to leave to join their own friends. Be sure, most guilds operating in this game would easily have imploded yesterday with what went on but this group is still standing and we will not be beaten down. It’s a fresh start and a great opportunity for players to get a chance to raid and maybe even do some PvP if I can keep my hair from bursting into flames 🙂

We still have half of Ironwall and half of Stonewrought 10-man teams here and the primary guild raid leader is 100% behind me as I embark on stabilising the whole thing. The good times will return!

I hope you’re with us to see the good times return 🙂

/Salute