63 replies to this topic

[Sputniks]

Five Thousand Finishers prides itself as being one of the largest guilds in the Ehmry Bay server. It very quickly hit the 500 member mark and prided itself in being able to overtake a borderland on reset nights. It had the capacity to completely overtake a map and hold it that way until the raid would be called. At those times it felt great to be a part of a guild that could pull off some of the most fun I’ve had while playing this game. Of course with its strengths came many weaknesses, such as a non-existence of participation anywhere outside of reset nights and a non-existent desire to help when calls were given that help was needed. Despite all of this I greatly cared about the guild and its officers, most of which I became personal friends with.

So who am I? My name is Sputniks. I began playing this game on release with friends. Being a WoW raider and a DotA player, I had no interest in playing a different game, especially one that didn’t have any raids out of the box. Despite this, my friends talked Guild Wars 2 up until I finally reserved it. I instantly became hooked on sPvP. I loved its competitive nature, its high skill cap, and its equal playing field.

I played GW2 up until right after the Halloween update ended. At this point my warrior was in full exotic gear, I had completed the map, had reached level 20ish in sPvP, and felt as if there was nothing to do. Sure, I could reroll, or complete all the dungeons, or continue to sPvP, but none of those things seemed interesting or rewarding. I had already geared out to max stats, sPvP provided limited rewards, and my friends had already moved on from the game, going back to playing DotA 2. As I received my invitation into the DotA 2 beta I said good bye to GW2. I never thought I’d pick it up again.

Fast forward to the third update in the first living story update. I had grown bored with DotA 2 and re-installed GW2. I never expected to still be in FTF (As I had been recruited into FTF slightly prior to me quitting it), let alone be recognized by its co-leader. I am now an Officer for FTF, one of its last.

So what went wrong? Let’s first talk about FTF prior to me having an active role in it. Most of this information has been handed to me by word of mouth by those who were involved, and those whom simply heard about it. This is in no way, shape, or form factually sound.
Old Trees was the original leader of FTF. A WoW raider, as myself, he bought the game on release and started his own guild with prior WoW friends and Raiders Noice and Basthian. Before I even joined FTF Old Trees stepped down as leader of FTF (A small friends guild at this point) and returned to play other games, having lost complete interest in GW2. Noice then took the guild and began recruiting. Setting the foundation for what FTF is today, a rather large guild which participates in all aspects of the game. (Except sPvP and WvW, of course…)

Fast forward a month or so, just after me leaving, FTF has a falling out with one of its co-leaders, Lisette. After a couple of disagreements and arguments, Lissette moves on to create her own guild, EISN. This is the first time FTF loses a big part of its structural integrity. The loss isn’t devastating, but it breaks the foundation and beings, what I like to think of as, FTF’s biggest issue, trust. Or the lack-there-off.

January hits and I am still enjoying DotA on a competitive level. FTF begins its Squad system. Spear headed by TZ, ECHO Squad is formed. A Squad comprised of individuals willing to hit a zerg with limited numbers in an attempt to destroy it. A zerg buster. ECHO very quickly became popular and recognized for its ability to take on much larger zergs than itself and pushing the tides in WvW. This is generally seem as a bad thing in FTF.

ECHO had become so popular that it began to feel like an elitist group of individuals whom where no longer interested in being categorized by the FTF tag.

(In my opinion a lot of the concerns coming from FTF members were logical. ECHO had begun speaking of itself as an individual, rather than a part of FTF. When FTF would enter a borderland ECHO would leave for another. A lot of people saw this as elitist behavior and it upset them. Call it jealousy, envy? Call it what you will. I think they were reasonably upset by the matter.)

This is where I enter the picture. Recently burnt out of DotA 2, I started playing GW2 for giggles. I never thought I’d be sucked in. I was instantly recognized by Basthian and asked if I wanted to start a sub-guild for FTF, what they called a Squad. I was interested and helped form the beginning of BOOM squad.

During this time Old Trees had returned to play GW2 as well. With his return he was promoted to be a co-leader. Despite the fact that nobody had ever met this individual before, we were told he was the original leader, despite most people looking up to Noice and Basthian for leadership decisions. Old Trees was an opinionated individual, and despite the fact that he had not dealt with ECHO, since his long absence, he hated it. There was a demand made that basically broke ECHO and if they didn’t like it they could pack up their bags.

(To my understanding, ECHO had at this point begun recruiting from other guilds, individuals who were interested in zerg busting. Because of this, the demands made by Old Trees and Basthian were impossible to meet. It asked for every member to be an active FTF REPer, and for anyone else to be kicked. ECHO insisted that it was not interested in losing vital members of its sub-guild simply because they had friends in other guilds. On top of all this, TZ and every other ECHO member were basically being asked to bow down to the demands of an individual whom had come out of the blue, and demanded their respect.)

This is the second time a large section of FTF breaks off to make its own guild. Good Fights was born out of the unreasonable demands and poor leadership decisions of Basthian and Old Trees (And the silence of Noice). The lack of understanding and levelheadedness lost FTF a large and very successful part of its members. This, again, cracks FTF’s foundation, destroying FTF’s ability to trust. After ECHO left to form Good Fights, Old Trees went back to playing other games. To this date he has not logged back on GW2. The damage was done.

Enter Basthian and myself. Basthian had just recruited me to begin a new squad, under striker rules to prevent another ECHO, we started BOOM, a squad of full Solder geared tank classes. This greatly interested me since I’d always wanted to be a main raid tank in WoW. The sub-guild was a major success. During its creation Basthian insisted that he could not be its leader because he was the co-leader of FTF and that it would give him too much power. He set up Spirit of the South as BOOM’s main leader, and myself as its co-leader. A kind of Noice/Basthian relationship he told me. “To keep a check and balance on Spirit.” It quickly became a very popular guild and grew in numbers, far more numbers than previously expected.

Everyone in the Squad had grown to respect Spirit’s leadership position, and his decision making. Despite this, he was never really its leader. Basthian would constantly under mind Spirit and question his decision making. This caused communicational problems where half of the squad was not jumping when Spirit demanded it. Rather, they were questioning it. This caused many a wipe and my resignation as BOOM’s co-leader. I didn’t want to have a title that meant nothing.
Not only was Basthian breaking his “Too much power” rule, he had broken Squad size limit runes, refused the orders of Noice during raids, and broken several other checks and balances that he himself created to stop him from gaining too much power.

Cue Noice’s vacation. With his departure Basthian became the guild leader. This is what ultimately destroyed FTF for me. Basthian demanded more from BOOM, leaving Spirit with a meaningless title. Not only did this destroy BOOM leadership foundation, but it started affecting other FTF projects. (OMEGA did not raid for about a month) Basthian demanded ownership of Flax’s new pet project, Gear Squad. And with it we see the first steps taken in FTF losing most, if not all, its officers.

I had a level 80 thief and a level 80 Engineer. I didn’t have to directly deal with Basthian’s incompetence and inability to lead. His blatant disregard for rules, checks and balances. I could join DELTA or help Flax and Veragan build their new squads. Flax, with the help of other officers, had begun an all Engineer squad, mean to support the other squads thanks to the flexibility of engineers. During its first independent test run, with Flax in command, Gear squad was destroyed. Basthian was outraged beyond logic and reason that Flax would take ownership of Gear Squad. Basthian demanded power over the members of the squad or he would G-kick Flax and his Engineers, and ban them from the public Ehmry Bay TS server. Flax was public humiliated by Basthian simply because he wanted to try his own thing, without Basthian’s consent or ownership. That night Basthian showed his hot headed, power hungry, nature. Ultimate power corrupts ultimately.

Gear Squad died that night and the damage was done. Most of the officers were upset with Basthian’s inability to keep a level head during a situation that demanded delicate actions. Spirit would go on to resign as BOOM’s leader (Which did not bother Basthian in the slightest) for personal reasons outside of the game.

Cue Veragan. Veragan was new GW2 player, and a brand new member of FTF and BOOM. Within relatively short time, he became a guild officer simply because of his ideals and his past experience leading a guild. This promotion came from Basthian himself. Veragan quickly started his own sub-guild ECHO squad. (Version 2.0, I guess you could call it) This upset the other officers, especially after the huge amount of hatred and lack of respect Basthian had showed Flax. Veragan aggressively built ECHO without interruption or demands from Basthian. On top of this, a lot of drama was spewing from ECHO.

(After Ash formed Veragan has not logged on for several weeks now.)

What happens next is a massive drama-bomb that detonates rather quickly. The specifics of which are hard to pin point. Personal real world problems paired with in game drama, drama coming from ECHO, Basthian’s corruption with ultimate power, other officers being disrespected by their guild leader, and the need for change. People wanted out. Most of the officers left FTF to build Ash, (Which is being led by Darin Deathcryer) simply wanting to get away from Basthian.

So why did all of this happen? The very people Basthian had promoted to officer were not trusted with that position. Currently I have not been asked my opinion, or been informed of several new guild rules (Such as the change of sequel for guild raids, change of rules, change of raid times, etc… There is little to no communication with me as an officer.) Constant lack of respect and selfish opinions destroyed the guild. The rules which he had placed to prevent another break out to happen caused the break out. His aggressive actions of belittling officers and his demand for power made people flee. He is a man who lacks tack and competence. Slow to react to developing situations, and quick to exert power. Brute to new ideas, and immune to good advice. (I once argued with him for an hour to allow officers to buy upgrades and manipulate the build queue, so we didn’t have to depend on him being online to buy things we needed. One hour.)

And Noice? Noice just isn’t a leader. He doesn’t make decisions; he doesn’t attend meetings or offer his opinion on matters. He’s a silent figure who cannot seem to understand when he should put his foot down and doesn’t want to. He just wants to have fun, and I respect that. But he isn’t a leader.

The absence of respect, the inability to trust, and the lack of leadership bring me to my conclusion. All of my friends have moved on to form their own guild. I now hope to leave to join them. With FTF moving to force its members to REP or be G-kicked, I resign as an FTF officer and a member.

[QueenEtna]

Well this was an interesting read. Its sad when people come obsessed with power and want to rule over other players. Even when VS was around I was the officer of it. At first they were a fun and friendly WvW oriented guild but then things got serious and pancakez (or w/e he is the leader of the guild) started raging and all that. But yeah I don't like it when this stuff happens :\

[Esme Q]

is there a TL;DR?

This feels like an internal issue.   I hope you find what you're looking for, even tho i'm not in FTF and never was.

[Rassy]

Lots of intelligent individuals within FTF who could help with decision making?

Nope, Basthian.

[Necros Stalker]

Sigh. Another one of these threads. I don't usually comment but I think enough is enough. You have problems with Ftf. Or any other guild  fine feel free to leave or if you must discuss it keep it to your friends or the guild leaders. the general public and normal guild members dont need to know nor do they care. For those few that do care all this thread does is demoralize which is achieving the very thing your seemingly rallying against

I think the holier then thou attitude that some people have needs to be dropped. No goodbye threads, no final blaze of glory. If you leave just do so quietly cause enough is enough. Hopefully thuley or someone locks this and bans all future threads on this matter cause nobody needs this. We should be discussing wvw tactics not internal matters

[DRKAugumon]

Necros Stalker, on 26 August 2013 - 09:44 PM, said:

Sigh. Another one of these threads. I don't usually comment but I think enough is enough. You have problems with Ftf. Or any other guild  fine feel free to leave or if you must discuss it keep it to your friends or the guild leaders. the general public and normal guild members dont need to know nor do they care. For those few that do care all this thread does is demoralize which is achieving the very thing your seemingly rallying against

I think the holier then thou attitude that some people have needs to be dropped. No goodbye threads, no final blaze of glory. If you leave just do so quietly cause enough is enough. Hopefully thuley or someone locks this and bans all future threads on this matter cause nobody needs this. We should be discussing wvw tactics not internal matters

If you think 'bout it necros, this could just be considered a warning to new and old players a like of the state of FTF and how corrupt it has become, frankly, im glad he posted it, now i know not to join a guild i hated to begin with.

[Reina Takayama]

I also agree that this shouldn't be a public statement, and if it is, no matter what mistakes or how someone has acted, he/she should not be called out and "personally attacked" (as this includes criticism of him as a person at least while dealing with game and guild matters).

I do hear about the drama, and all this stuff is unfortunate to hear. Of course, I don't know enough and will not say anything about it. I absolutely stand by the side of community building and positive environment for members. And while I had founded a guild, was the guild leader and running the guild, my first priority is to make everyone feel at home, for all members to be listened to and have a say, and create a place that feels like family. I am against any power struggles, or control.

However, I joined GH and FTF when i got back into game retired from being a guild leader, and being intense or hardcore with gameplay in general, and i love both communities. I will say, ignorance is bliss I guess, because i enjoy my stay at FTF. I have many good friends in both guilds and well alot of different guilds, and i feel FTF has been giving me a nice carefree fun environment, power struggle, leadership issues aside. The guild is not that horrible. I still love the people there.

But leadership issues can be bad. And I don't intend to downplay any of the problems arised because they sound gravely serious and definitely has no place in a well run guild, but wherever there are people, there is drama, is something I always say. No matter how good of a community there is drama. I was in another guild that had leadership issues too that broke apart the guild eventually with a similar sort of situation. These things happen, there are cycles in life, nations and kingdoms and empires will have their time to shine and then fall, same with guilds, so if you take a step back, just let it go, keep moving forward.

[Thuley]

Shit happens in MMOs all the time, at the end of the day no one is forcing anyone to stay in a guild they don't like.

99% of guild drama could be avoided if the people who are unhappy would just realize earlier that they are in the wrong guild and leave to form their own guild to do better.  Instead they stay and try to bend the guild that they are unhappy in into what they think it should be.  That never works.

Leading a guild sounds easy, till you actually have to do it and realize what's involved to entertain a large group of people.  Make no mistake about it, the primary (and thankless) purpose of a guild leader is to ensure that the guild members enjoy the game.  That is hard work, and doing it flawlessly is impossible.

[Noice]

I do understand that I'm part to blame with what happened to FTF....with my "silence" and all. Looks like when I was the single highest authority in the guild, everything was mostly ok. Well I was thinking about what's gonna happen in the next few months before I gave Basthian the same rank as me. I knew that I will be less active in the game and needed someone to take over when I'm not there. It was mentioned that I don't usually join the meetings and don't make decisions for the guild. I did all of that work when FTF was being built and was already happy when it stabilized around February with us getting a constant 50-60 to world vs world.Most of the work on the foundation of the guild, I did 90% of that. How did FTF became like how it was? I was playing gw2 at least 15 hours a day including during work. (Well I work as a server admin anyways so I have a lot of free time).That's when I got popular and people wanted to join the guild. I didn't really do much leadership and decision making in the beginning. I just plainly played world vs world. That's it. And people just joined the guild. Then.we're actually strong enough to control whole borderlands. These past few months, I've been on the lay low mostly just playing world vs world (like always) and leaving all the decision making to all you officers. I play on my leisure and not "forced" to play to get the guild going. I don't regret it really. Now I actually have a life. I don't play at work anymore and is expecting a promotion this coming week. I went back to school to slowly work on my master's. I am actually hanging out with my real life friends, playing ball, going to the gym , parties and dating.

I play this game for fun and I was hoping my members were like that too when they joined my guild. I am a world vs world addict. I recruited most of you guys from world vs world hoping that you all share the same joy for the game. In fact, I only have 1 level 80 and I have been playing this game since beta. I have 3 other alts which I leveled mostly from wvw (all of them level 50 and less). It was mentioned that I'm not really a leader and I don't make those big decisions. I kinda agree to that. I don't really want that much stress since this is a game so I leave that to someone else (Basthian).  I'm more like a figure head. With my extreme addictness to world vs world, people just have to play with me.

To ehmry,
With the recent events in the FTF guild, we have lost about half of our force. We can't rally up to 80 people anymore to world vs world and can rally up to 35-40 nowadays on reset night. About 30% of these are new recruits and untrained. It's not really a lost for the server since we now have [GF] and [Ash] unless of course they decide to leave which I don't have any control. I would say FTF is still a major force here though since we helped capped the whole kaineng borderlands last reset.

I will help when I can but my schedule is really random right now so I just play on my leisure. Thank you everyone

[Chowder]

Noice is a good guy and I would follow him... Basthian on the other hand.. let's just say he didn't step up when Noice was out and negated all the good decision from the start (ex. agreeing that FTF move to emhry teamspeak from the other voip server to have a more unified server-wide intergration WvW wise among other things.) it was just magnified when Noice left for a vacation because Basthian was suppose to lead the guild.

Noice you've done a great job holding FTF and leading the force remarkably well in WvW and I really admire that.. it's just Basthian is really bringing you down :/ a LOT!

[UltraEM]

I'm honestly not against keeping all these things to within the Guild/s involved. As a server, Ehmry WvW prides itself for being very organized when the guilds are concerned, and the Ehmry forums really help that. While some posts are indeed nothing but drama-fests, I think a post like this is not created with the intent of causing drama. This post is more a matter of transparency among guild dealings and happenings, where we can analyze and evaluate the situation and act accordingly. Sure, the post could be biased, but there is no such thing as perfect impartiality.

In this case, the matter can be investigated and drama can be avoided, provided we all keep a level head and discuss in a civilized manner. If it's true what's happening, then we who are not involved now know what FTF's current state is, so we don't have to keep making our own assumptions without enough information, while those involved can attempt to address the issue and offer their own insights.

So I thank you for putting this out. It was informative and the other guilds should now be informed on FTF's current standing(at least how it's doing in your eyes, and with whomever agrees with you). We need a level of transparency here in Ehmry to know if something is wrong so we can provide appropriate support and prevent any more fallouts and breakdowns.

It will cause discussion, yes, but it is the readers who decide whether or not to turn this into a drama fest.

[Ixia]

Hmm people and their opinions...well sputs granted you're a tranny this is very respectable. And I think that its a good idea to keep information like this and guild history on the forums so we can avoid things like pk's split off with one of their guild officers and rekz departure.

[Reina Takayama]

I get the vibe that FTF is a fun community and place to be, Noice's attitude is what makes me like FTF.

[Jinks]

I nominate myself to lead FTF in the new Era.




I know I quit FTF after Tz took off (rejoined em under GF) but I always had this itsy bitsy piece of my heart in FTF.......


Ya no I didn't......I don't give 2 shits about y'all



Moral of the story is its a fucking game. In guild drama is bullshit unless someone hacks guildies accounts or something....even then you /gkick and move the fuck on. So while I appreciate this fine reading w/ my morning Beer......knock it the fuck off already. What's done is done.

[Heylo]

While I agree that drama should be left in private, of all drama threads we've had, this is probably the most level headed one I've seen. Felt like I was reading a history show transcript more than anything.
The responses, at this point, don't seem to be too inflammatory or on the route to a locked thread. Guess we'll see though.
Hope it keeps up.

[Esme Q]

Is ASH debating leaving the server? If so, thats what this thread should be about.

[Chowder]

Why would Ash leave the server?

[XxKakarot]

I would actually thank FTF.
without FTF I would have never met Tz, Terror, Cookies, etc(to many to name all).... and later been part of ECHO which is now [GF]


as for the comment about ECHO leaving when the main FTF guild came into the BL.
we moved not because we didnt like anyone, we moved because we wanted to clear out the BL of enemy zergs or at least demoralize them (which we did very often) that was out job

[Lakayla]

I hate to see Drama drawn out into the open.  It saddens me greatly!  But guess with large guilds its to be expected.  FTF was full of great ppl and still is!  I love my guildies as well as my friends who are in different guilds now... "cant we all just get along?"

[Fritanga]

I am not in FTF and have no idea the conditions in FTF. Since this thread is on the server forums though and is is now supposedly a server issue? Anyways, here are my two-cents for what they are worth. I am speaking as myself and in no way represent GH, its holdings, or its interests in this post.

First, lock this thread. It attacks individuals who are still commanders and active members in the Ehmry Bay community as a whole. Furthering this discussion will only lead to eventual name-calling and further drama.

Secondly, while I am extremely appreciative of the history of FTF part of this post and appreciate how it was a decent read, I feel that airing some of the drama in the later paragraphs of the "History of FTF" novella posted above really could hinder any attempts to move along after this issue has ended. Perhaps an edit?

Third (and I think final), I like the idea of having a history section where guilds can post about their formation and where they were in the past. It think some of the guilds have an interesting story about their creation and morphing. I feel that seeing stuff like this would be great in establishing an Ehmry Tradition or something similar.

Anyways, I like FTF people when they decide to socialize with others. I miss the days when FTF could be counted on to clear/hold an entire BL, but instead of doom and gloom, I will be positive and say that I look forward to the eventual day when they will again.

Love and Bunnies,
Fritanga