We have acquired a mage, a fury warrior, a resto druid, and a shadow priest. We rejected a prot paladin without professions or enchants and a resto druid that tried to play the "I'm a girl so I should get special treatment" card. We are raiding. Things appear to be going well. So what is the problem? We are stagnating at this stage.
Right now the people that we can find are all super casual or super bad and we only have about six of the ten raid spots filled by regular raiders. The rest of the spots are dragging us down. We have spent hours wiping, kicking the bad players, and finding replacements only to find out that those replacements are also bad. Our regulars are getting frustrated, and rightly so. The server is filled with guilds, all in a similar situation. The sensible thing to do is to get some of those guilds together and fix everyone's problems. That tends to create other problems though.
Usually there are more members than raid spots when bringing two partial raid groups together. Leaders have a hard time deciding to take a back seat and feeling comfortable with someone else driving the boat. Then there is the biggest issue in the minds of your guildies. They like being in your guild. They like who you (as a guild) are. Leaving that behind and going somewhere as a group makes you feel like a group of outsiders in someone else's guild, at least for a while. They may not be able to articulate this concern, but it is there.
So, now we are faced with a few options. We can keep trying to recruit while also trying to hold on to what we have, we can disband and go our separate ways, or we can find somewhere to go. The most attractive option is finding somewhere to go, and there lies the mistake that we don't want to repeat. The guild merger.
Hardcore raiders are expected to make a minimum amount of mistakes, and never the same mistake twice. When you do make a mistake you step back, figure out how and why it happened, and then take direct action to prevent it from happening again. The first time I fought Magmaw I ran away from the Pillar of Flame about one second before the cast, thinking that I could be well out of range and not worry about getting hit by it. Of course it spawned under me... and I was positioned directly in line with where the ranged group was going to run. Now they had to recognize what happened, run around the Pillar of Flame instead of through it, and kite the adds at the same time. It didn't go well, but I was able to step back and look at the situation. The problem got fixed and I have never been out of position for the Pillar of Flame since.
What does that have to do with anything? The same is expected of guild leadership. Make a minimum amount of mistakes and never make the same mistake twice. Well, I made the merger mistake once already. Guild mergers do not work. The newly formed guild always ends up as less than what it was supposed to be, if not outright failing. I have had a lot of time to step back and look at that situation, and I know how to not do it again. Guild acquisition is the way to go.
One guild acquires the raiders, guild bank, FnF members, etc. of the other guild. There is no merger, no blending of the rules and customs, no officership granted to the old GM. One guild makes the decision to disband and transfer control of everything to the other guild. This is smooth, efficient, lacking in drama and lengthy discussion, and best of all it works. Players have it made clear to them that they are not infusing their new guild with the old one, they are leaving the old one behind and joining the new.
Why is that so important? It rallies everyone under the same banner that is already in effect, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel by mashing two guild cultures together and splitting hairs over making policy for future eventualities.
Well, now. What to do with all of that info? A decision still needs to be made. What are we to do? I, for one, am going to work at being the guild that does the acquisition, not the one that gets acquired. The truth of the matter is that I like running things my way. It is smooth, it works well, I don't get complaints, and I get to filter important decisions through my years of experience instead of hoping that the 20 year old college student who has never been outside of his home town and has the life experience of a horse fly gets it right this time. The other side of that coin, though, is that I need to be able to recognize when it is time to let go and move in with the neighboring guild. Will that time come? I hope not, but if it does I will not be drowning in regret. I will be looking forward to the possibilities ahead.
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