If a player leaves your guild, would you give them a second chance? Now clearly this one of those case by case type questions. I know for me personally, I’ll tell them they can always try again with us later if things in their future guild doesn’t work out. Yet deep down inside, I think to myself, “Probably not going to happen. You left us, buddy.” Of course, if the reason is something like a raid times issue, it is completely understandable. I can’t expect someone with a desire to raid to be in a guild when they can’t commit to those times.
Anyway, under what circumstances would you give players that left a second chance at life with your guild?
Someone recently left my 10-man guild to pursue 25-man raiding in Cataclysm. He’s a great player and a great guy, and he talked to the RL before leaving (we all knew it was going to happen anyway, he’s always liked 25-mans). I’ve known him for a while now and he does tend to guild-hop when the grass looks greener… but he usually discovers the “first love” was better. I’ll take him back if he decides 25-man raiding isn’t working out, because he has been a dependable raider for the past 7 months of Wrath.
The guy we kicked because his friend was playing his character and ninjad a VoA mount? Less likely to get back in. He might do it again, and we don’t like the guild name being associated with ninjas.
If someone leaves my guild, its very rarely I give them a second chance. It has to be something like you mentioned raid times, or they want more pvp than what my guild offers, or they want something more hardcore than my guild currently offers. I have had many folks who when they were in college wanted the 5 day raid schedule with 4-5 hours every night, but later they graduated got a job, and missed the casual but focused nature of the guild I run. However if someone is an ass and has caused drama, leaves and wants back, I will be polite but in reality I am thinking, why did you even bother.
The people that discuss things with an officer before leaving and are polite/friendly about it? Yeah, they can have a second chance. If we aren’t suiting their needs and then they want to come back, we will ask why they think we’ll suit their needs now since we didn’t before… but it’s a fair question.
The person that leaves in the dead of night when as few people are on as possible and sends an “in your face” mail about how awesome they’re going to be without us? Not so much.
I’m with you on the resentful feeling – I’m a very loyal person myself and there’s situations where all I can say is good riddance – I’m certainly not going to cry. 😀
it is highly depending on the situation though: whether it is a relatively new member, a recruit, a longtime member and also the manner of HOW they leave. do they bother to let the guild and leadership know? are they honest about their intentions?
there ARE always reasons to leave a guild, even a good guild that just didn’t do it for you. I’ve absolutely no issue with somebody leaving us, I don’t feel we ‘own’ people. if you want to join a more casual or more progressive guild than us, if you don’t feel at home for some reason, if you want to go and join friends – go ahead.
whether I would take someone back entirely depends on the ‘who’ and ‘how’ and also on the guild’s recruiting needs.
we always have room for good ex-players that were straight with us when they left. no hard feelings there at all.
we always most certainly have room for cherished longtime ex-members whatever their reasons were for leaving.
we even consider ex-members that were only briefly with us and then needed to go and check whether the grass was greener somewhere else – sometimes that’s what a person needs to experience in order to appreciate what he had.
what we don’t reconsider is bad (defined on what we’re looking for in terms of raiding material) players, players that were unreliable or deceptive, players that left in some sort of drama, players that represent some form of hard to calculate ‘risk’ for the guild.
but apart from that we really are quite tolerant. 🙂
Most of the time we do allow second, and even third, chances – it usually depends on how they left the guild and why. If they left on their own for greener pastures, were gently pushed out the door, or forcibly given the boot (happened only once in our history), we take these things into consideration if someone asks to come back. We don’t care so much how the player plays but are more concerned with how the player treats guildies and others in the game.
It really depends on how and why they left. Sometimes people burn bridges in which case, no way no how. In some other cases they just want to try something else (I am in a social guild that caters for a little bit of everything really, raiding occurs regularly but not in the regimented progression focussed way of a raid guild). It’s happened quite often that someone wanted to go to a raid guild to experience more ‘hardcore’ raiding, which is fine, and a lot of the time they come back after a while which is fine too.
As you suggest in your question, it is very dependent on the situation and how it was handled.
I’m in a small guild of friends, so we are not constantly recruiting or losing people. While we have had people join us and leave us, our guild roster is mostly static. (Although dynamic in personality! :D)
Anyway, I’ve found myself (and the other guild officers) to be more welcoming if the departing person is up front and honest about why they’re leaving. We know we aren’t the best fit for everyone, but if you treat us with respect during your departure, then you’re welcome to come hang out.
On the other hand, if you’re dishonest, or say you’re quitting the game while you’re busy on other guild recruitment threads, then don’t come back. If you don’t have the capacity to act like a mature adult or the capacity to treat ME like a mature adult, then you are unwelcome in my guild.
Anyone who actually Gquits we require to go through the application process again. We operate like a business in many ways, and we adhere to our rules. So if someone gquits they have to go through the application process over again, no exceptions. It may seem harsh, but it hasn’t failed us yet.
My guild pretty much avoids any type of drama… by not dealing with drama. Which leads to a completly drama free environment, where insults fly all over the place, but there nobody cares about them,
We handle departures the same way we handle any other drama. We dont care. It gives us more time and mental energy to, you know, get some competitive raiding going. 🙂
While we were a “casual” raiding guild, we had people move to a higher end progression guild and come back preferring our style. I try to encourage my guildies to leave if they don’t think we’re a good fit for them. In some cases, I’ve had players come back and be some of my best raiders.
With some I need to explain its a bad idea. With our new progression focused outlook, people that leave will be allowed back into the guild but will need to reapply for a raiding spot.
Depends how many times the person has left and under what circumstances. In my old guild there was a “one freebie” policy where, if you left the guild under good circumstances, you could come back, no questions asked ONCE. If you left again, the officers would have to think long and hard about whether to readmit.
Personally, due to the fact that most of my guilds have been RP guilds, and people leave mostly due to IC issues, depending on said IC issues, I would might let them back in.
OOCly, I find that non-RP guilds are a completely different story. I’ve let numerous guilds in the past for simply becoming inactive. (Logging on and being the only one online for 5+ hrs is not fun). Now if once Cata starts back up, and older members want to come back in, then I’d probably allow it. But it’s really a case to case basis, as you’ve noted. If someone obviously doesn’t get along with the majority of the members, then obviously I’m not going to allow them back in.
We’ve had a few people come and return over the years. Most of the time they split because of real life issues (raid times etc) but during a rough patch a while back we lost quite a few awesome raiders. Several wanted to come back and we decided on a case by case basis, largely based on personality (and of course skill to a certain extent).
We also have one woman in our guild whose left three times now but is so hilarious and fun to raid with that we just keep letting her back in. Unfortunately for her it means we get to make fun of her pretty much constantly. I guess she has commitment issues.
My general rule of thumb is if you leave for another guild due to progression, that’s it. I will revisit this during new expansions. So if someone screwed us over in Vanilla, yes, I was willing to give them a second chance in Burning Crusade.
But someone who screwed us over in both Vanilla AND Burning Crusade is someone who is dead to me. 😛
And someone who screwed us over worse than leaving us for another guild — like someone who caused the guild we were in to fall apart or went off and set up their own guild — dead to me from the get-go.
In general, my guild is pretty forgiving and is willing to let people back in. HOWEVER it will depend a lot on
-why they left
-how they left, and
-what they were like in guild the first time
For me, it always depends on how they left. As with lodur, applications for people who are not in the guild are the same no matter if they were previous guildies or not. However, we will do our research on you before we trial you. Generally, you need to justify why you should be given a second chance. Why do you want to come back? are you filling a gap that was left?
I have given 4 or 5 chances to more than on guild member – each time they had to convince me why I should let them back on the team. Each time, they did, and then circumstance made them disappear again. Sometimes, life simply gets in the way! Sometimes people don’t know how to say “I know I said I could commit, but now I can’t”. They are scared or proud. I can understand that.
The only time where I have actually given a player a second chance was when he left us due to leaving the game for an extended period of time for deployment reasons. Even that however did not turn out too well. The first few weeks he was an absolute carry, he knew it had been watching his meters as well as we were. From there he stopped showing up to raids all together, not posting, eventually just left again without warning or anything.
I am a person that was given a second chance(sorta kinda) in my old guild. I knew they had replaced me already so for 6+ months I sat outside of icc just waiting on a chance to prove myself again. After the six months of waiting it was evident that even though I had been given a second chance I was more like on friend status than an actual participate of the guild so with that I moved on explaining clearly to the one officer who was an officer from back before I left the first time that I had desired to see raid content before it became obsolete and with that me and the others that had gone to bench status moved into our own guild.
Point is if you are for giving/getting a second chance do not promise something that cannot be delivered. Whether its a raid seat, a position on pvp teams, etc if you don’t have the time/room on the roster, then leading people on does more damage than it does good.
There was a point in my life when if someone even so much as app’ed to another guild, he would be shunned for life.
In retrospect that was probably too harsh. I would have gladly re-welcomed old friends, veterans and excellent players.
While I have never left a guild and came back, I have left alts in former casual guilds. I had the chance to rejoin my former progression guild I left when I moved to China to teach in rural high schools. They were very kind and welcoming, though in the end I couldn’t commit to their schedule again.
Now that I am leading a guild, I agree with everyone else. All depends on why they left. If they went to teach in under-served areas they might have an even better chance the 2nd time around…
I have accepted an ex-guildie back, and also refused one. A highly geared DPS left our guild to pursue a more hardcore raiding guild (we’re a social guild involved in casual raiding and levelling), but soon came back after realising that raiding 3 times a week was more exhausting then he thought it would be:)
However, a guildie once (incredibly rude low level hunter) who left in a huff over money begged for forgiveness and was refused. He had quit in anger because we allowed a high-ranking member borrow 300g for dual-spec so as to make our raiding easier and yet we wouldn’t give him 800g to buy a non-combatant companion. He was already mad because we had collectively given him over 50 boosts and then refused to give him any more. He was so lazy he once asked me to loot the dead mobs in DM for him while I boosted him, then just trade him all the good stuff. I saw him in SW about 4 months after he left guild and he begged to come back. He was the same level as he had been when he quit, and when I said no to him returning, he whispered me abuse for 10 solid mins until I ignored him. Some people just never learn.
For me, like alot of these posts it would depend how they left in the first place. Recently I let a guy back in after he ‘rage quit’ (and was actually quite rude to me) because my co-gm was for the idea.
I think I should have stuck with my guns as he later did it again and took his real life friends with him, who were actually decent guys.
I think from now on I will go with my gut over these things. However a ninja would definately not get a reinvite to my guild and neither would somone who was kicked for being rascist etc. If they were someone who left politely and were just going to try more hardcore raiding times or to play with a friend I would have them back no problem. I guess you just have to accept that you can’t make up people’s minds for them and circumstances change.