Chapter V: Why?
(June 2008)
"Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again."
-Andre Gide, Le traite du Narcisse, 1891
Now I imagine that most people reading this (inculding former guild members) are going to be pretty confused at this point about what happened and why I did what I did. Its honestly pretty hard to explain, but I'm going to try.
First, let me reiterate the three big problems we had:
#1 Boredom
People lost interest in Guild Wars and wanted a new MMO.
#2 "The Overabundance of Diversity"
This was the problem first seen with Tabula Rasa, people in the guild not willing to participate in the guild because they refused to pay monthly fees or their computers were too outdated to play an MMO. This problem was the problem that prevented me from solving the boredom problem because people wanted a new MMO but would refuse every suggestion I made.
#3 Instigators
These were asshats like Draky and Phylor. They caused Drama with their behavior which was harmful to the guild. Usually this would be a minor problem on its own, but with boredom in play the bad behavior of the instigators was spreading to other guild members who were joining in on the drama just to have some entertainment.
This of course was a big nasty cycle. The Drama was the real problem but couldn't be fixed because of the boredom. The boredom couldn't be fixed because of the "diversity" which prevented people from choosing a new MMO. And because of this none of the problems would ever be solved and would instead just get worse and worse until it started to tear the guild apart. I've seen that happen enough times to know how it would go. As the problems got worse and worse people would begin to get angry and blame the wrong parties for the issues effecting the guild. The wrongly accused parties fight back, people begin to fight constantly and eventually everyone ends up quitting the guild angry. Some splinter off into smaller groups and some just go their own way but the one thing everyone agrees on is their hatered for the previous guild they were all part of. I knew I couldn't let that happen to the Golden Shields, so I had to take some kind of drastic action to prevent it.
If I only kicked out the members who were causing problems, this would have the same effect as the members themselves. Other people who were bored and less cooperative than they might have otherwise been would have gotten angry over the trouble makers being kicked out. Angry members eventually quit and usually take a lot of other people with them and the end result would have been the same as if I had done nothing: a lot of ex-members who would have nothing good to say about the guild. So kicking only a few members did nothing to prevent the main problem I wanted to avoid.
So I finally came up with the only solution that would possibly work: I had to kick everyone, all at once. My theory here was that if everyone was kicked all at once then the guild resources such as the website, forums, vent server, ect. would all stay under my control (unlike the previous times the guild had broken up, when such resources were pulled in multiple directions by people who split off from the guild or were simply not maintained properly and were lost.) If these resources stayed intact and our reputation wasn't ruined by angry ex-members, then it was possible that the guild could be rebuilt someday. It had been rebuilt before and I saw no reason why it couldn't be rebuilt again.
In addition, I intentionally tried to set it up in such a way as to cut off communication between as many people as possible. Why? Because I didn't just want the guild to have a fresh start. I wanted all of its former members to have a fresh start as well. If they were all cut off from one another then they would be forced to go on alone for awhile. Eventually they would play new games and join new guilds. This was the only way I could see to solve the "diversity" problem. The people who were only willing to play browser games would get to go back to playing browser games and eventually join a guild which does nothing but play browser games. The people who were only willing to play free MMOs would go back to playing free MMOs and evntually join a guild which did nothing but play free MMOs. And the people who were willing to pay monthly fees would go back to playing games with monthly fees and eventually join a guild which played nothing but games with monthly fees. Everyone would eventually end up in the type of guild which was right for them, instead of everyone being stuck in a guild where everyone was trying to pull the guild in a different direction and nobody was getting what they wanted. This seemed to be the only solution to the "diversity" problem and the only way to cut everyone out of the guild in a way that would eventually lead to them being happier because of it.
Why did I do all of this? It was just the only soultion I could see to the "diversity" problem. Everyone in the guild wanted something different and I felt like there was no way I could make more than a small group of people happy no matter what decision I made. I felt like forcing everyone to go their seperate ways was the only way for everyone to get what they wanted in the long term.
I knew this decision would make people angry in the short term. But I just couldn't see ANY OTHER WAY out of this situation. I remember Zion gave me a similar excuse when he gave in to East's attempt to blackmail him for leadership of the guild. Now I see what he meant when he said that it was just the best option he had. I think for the first time in a long time I finally understand my old friend Zion. Sometimes you have to act in ways that seem desperate and crazy when the world itself is just as desperate and crazy.