It's too bad really. 4+ years of gaming with Provoked has come to a sad end. It's been winding down tragically over the course of sevearl MMO's now, but I see no change in sight. So... saturday night I kinda lashed out at one of the main causes behind the guilds current state... the stream. I knew full well it wasn't going to do much but take it down for a day or so, but I sent the message I wanted to send and had a little fun. I'll summarize my reasons now and then go into some detail.
- Leadership is no longer interested in leading the guild.
- Recruiting friends-of-friends is out of control, and the guild is 85% trash now.
- Full members continue to (and are permitted to) make the guild shitty.
...and by far the biggest offense...
- Guild Wars 2 wasn't fun in Provoked, and I believe the above 3 items are responsible for this.
Before I go into the details I want to share what the precious ProvokedGuild stream looked like on Twitch when I got finished removing the nice graphics I prepared for the guild from the site.
Now on to the details....
Leadership
Leadership in any guild is primarily the responsibility of the "Guild Leader" (obviously, but I guess it needs to be stated). It also falls on the shoulders of those that have authority delegated to them... i.e., the officers. The most essential functions of leadership are to provide direction, organization, dispute resolution, and then take action that moves the guild toward it's stated goals. To the extent that actions (or inaction) do not move the guild toward their stated goals, to the extent that organization is lacking, to the extent that disputes go unresolved, and to the extent that no direction is provided, is the extent to which membership frustration will build and the extent to which the guild will be unsuccessful.
Minatoto
Minatoto, the guild leader decided that playing Guild Wars 2 meant doing nothing except running structured pvp tournaments. For him nothing else in the game mattered. There was no statement of "ok in GW2 this is all we're going to do" it just seemed to evolve at launch, and then slowly become an unspoken policy that Provoked would do nothing but structured pvp tournaments. Meanwhile while this unspoken position was being developed... members are working on achievments, the best executed large scale pvp platform in MMOs ever made was waiting for us to place our guilds emblem all over it. Basically Minatoto treated Guild Wars 2 (an MMO) like League of Legends (a MOBA) and refused to acknowledge activities in PvE and WvW. Seeing that there weren't enough players in the guild to throw together the five man team he wanted... he recruited shady players from some garbage guild named Condemened (who have no respect for Provoked, and are not in Provoked in any meaningful sense) to run tournaments with all day. In addition to tournaments the only thing he focused on was building his stream viewership. I mistakenly assisted him with this, and designed some graphics for the page. Activities Mina would participate in became a question of "What would attract more viewers?" instead of "What would make Provoked better?"
On multiple occasions when other members would join the group for tournaments... just filling in, all of a sudden after one loss or any small thing that would frustrate them these shady Condemned guys would have something they need to go do... or blatantly just leave the group and form their own little 3 man group by themselves... but Mina allowed this. In fact, Mina did the same stuff. All of a sudden he needs to go eat or just tells you he's going to soloqueue for a while. (Mind you I didn't play many tournaments with these guys, because didn't want to play with Condemened) These people weren't interested in trying to build a Provoked team. The absolute worst offenses with regard to this is when Mina decides to post titles on his stream like "Playing with bads" referring to the guildies he doesn't run tournaments with often because nobody else is online or because Condemned are off doing their own thing. Or when he plays with viewers on his stream and doesn't get frustrated (like he does with guildies) even though they streamers lack just as much experience as guildies.
One of the more recent things I found offensive. On his stream he said, "For a game named 'Guild Wars' its funny how little you actually need a guild in this game." This to me was really the tell-tale of where is head is at in terms of leading guilds in games, and one of the factors that made me get a little honest with myself about how I was enjoying myself in the guild over this last month.
If you don't want to lead a guild, you shouldn't be a guild leader.
Officers
The first person I want to address is Omens. I used to like Omens. Omens was the guy that originally invited me to the guild years ago in Warhammer Online. We have the same attitude toward excessive talking in activities that require focus, and would rather people shut the hell up unless they have something critical to say. Sadly, Omens remains level 2 in GW2 at the time of this writing... (I have 4/8 of the crafting professions leveled to 400, and I achieved 100% world completion as of yesterday). When you do nothing but tournaments you're not useful to the guild in any other aspect of the game, and by staying level 2 and not even leveling slowly you're telling the guild you don't give a shit about them (same goes for Mina). In massive guilds that contain hundreds of members, maybe this type of "Officer" can exist since there are so many types of activities to manage (assuming you manage them). In a small guild like Provoked, this is inexcusable.
Not only is Omens useless in activities that require you be level 80 and decently geared to succeed like WvW and PvE (not that Provoked does either of these as a guild anyway), he was also a loaner in tournaments. Always the first person to get frustrated and quit, and a huge superiority complex. ...which is funny to have as a hundred blades glass cannon warrior. The sad part about Omens is that he thinks he's good. The sad thing about Provoked is that he's still an Officer. Officer in Provoked really just means "I've been in the guild a long time."
Volt is the only other official officer. I commend him for trying to organize some events and kinda do Mina's job for him, but I find him contemptible because he has no spine. He's more interested in being friends with people than he is being an officer in a high end guild. Unlike Omens, at least Volt is a great player. I recall many times in previous MMOs and in League of Legends that the only thing he tries to manage is when players get criticized. Specifically the bad ones. If a guild desires to be great, to attract great players, to win at what they do, then bad players have to be criticized and removed. Players that can't handle criticism (i.e., Eclips) cannot be allowed to remain in the guild where they can troll and argue (predictably and always like clockwork) until they're blue in the face that its everyone elses fault but his. You have to drop the hammer on fucks like that and boot them. If you're trying to make a great guild you don't invite players like Cerith to the guild and then subsequently invite all of Ceriths shitty friends to the guild. Today Provoked is polluted with garbage players primarily because of Volt.
I honestly can't remember anyone ever being kicked from the guild for anything... and certainly nobody getting booted from the guild for being bad at the game or incapable of handling criticism.
Recruits
Not much to say about this one as I've already touched on why this is a problem. Provoked wasn't filled with scrubs in the past. Sure, every guild has its weak links... but if you're trying to build a great guild then half the guild can't be weak links. What is interesting to me is the build-up to Guild Wars 2. Failure MMO after failure MMO came and went, but for this one everyone was supposed to be getting serious. Promises of past members from old MMO's returning to make us an even stronger powerhouse were common. These players never materialized.
I think the only reason these garbage players are allowed to stay in the guild is to bump Mina's stream viewer count. Oh I forgot to mention that its posted in the guild window that you should open up and watch the guild stream to inflate the numbers, since only popular streams get more viewers... this was Mina's attempt to break through some glass ceiling to get his stream off the ground. Invite shit players to the guild, and make them watch the stream. Recruit viewers! Fake internet fame here we come! Worth it?
Guild Members
To a much lesser degree I left the guild because the community is shitty. Current members who have been in the guild for multiple MMOs are bad, lazy, dickheads. These fails couldn't clear Rhianna in Citadel of Flame (couldn't even make it past the first part where you light the torches), and decided to quit because it was "stupid." What is hilarious is that they still expected help from me, after they bailed on me, and after I left the guild... asking me for Orichalcum farming maps (laughing at you Migs), and to craft things for them. Although our group in CoF was composed of 3/5 ths shitty recruits because none of the actual members of the guild would run it. Kind of a "You scratch my back and then you can fuck off" kind of situation. Yea its a sweet guild.
The night I decided to gquit I was pretty drunk (smashed actually), and I decided to jump in a channel late at night with Tav to chat a little. Tav was drunk a few nights before and couldn't seem to talk about anything but dicks and I was curious about why. I'm not really sure what kind of shitty experiences this guy had in his life, but he's really always been shitty to mostly everyone. He's cordial with less than a handful of players in the guild. As I was trying to make small talk with him, ask him about his job etc..., he leaves the channel and goes to the afk channel (while still actively playing) to avoid conversation. It seems over-the-top for this kind of exchange to occur between two people who have been in the same guild together for close to two years.
I couldn't even get Mina to run a dungeon with me. When I was playing Heroes of Newerth and Mina wanted someone to play League of Legends with because the people he was playing with either sucked or weren't online enough... I was opposed to playing the game... but I quit HoN and jumped on a steep learning curve to play with him in League/ ...and he won't run a dungeon or two in this game for me. Instead he's just going to call me a carebear for helping people in the guild farm quick and easy gold and ask me smart ass shit like, "did you win at PvE yet?" Fuck you bro.
No Fun
This was really the cumulative effect of all of the above. Playing with the same people for 4 years watching them give less and less of a shit as time goes by. I couldn't really deal with that for Guild Wars 2. I want to enjoy this game. So I've got to move on.
You can find them beating bads and losing to pros (like all average players do) here:
http://www.twitch.tv/provokedguild
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Quick tips: 
Now on to the details....
