I will never forget my time in Prophets and how we were as a family.
What Sugar, Kakahu, Vintal, Raisse and officers had built when I first started coming to the progression T4s as a friend of BPs & Vetivers on USA Sat was an enjoyable environment to raid in. The loyality that Sugar, BP and Kakahu showed to me to include me in the progression raid throughout that long NINE month process of learning the instance even when it became popular within Prophets and they had an excess clamoring to join was very touching and did influence my gaming choice to stay loyal to Prophets and not seek out another Australian-timezone guild as my main home....but instead to have my solo guild, a few toons in BP's guild and a couple of my Big Girls in Prophets.
When Sugar offered me officership in the guild I saw behind the scenes of guild management of a large end-game guild. It takes an enormous amount of energy and time to keep a guild running effectively if you are reaching for end-game content. But more than that - it took an huge amount of grit and determination to keep the nature of Prophets the way that it was...... What I mean by that - is in the face of people being selfish and self-indulgent you have to stay strong and stick to your guns...you have no idea how much energy that takes ... Sugar, her co-leaders and officers managed to bring out the best in us and protect our guild from those who indulged in self-interest above community by setting in place processes and rules...
But dealing with all of that human nature/drama more than anything else burns people out.
Prophets kept rebuilding to try and ensure that we stayed at end-game level as we lost people from game and from guild, but this year as the interest in the game wanes or real-life commitments prevents playing, it had become near impossible to recruit geared and dedicated players in the numbers required to progress in tier 5. For many people, if they are ready and geared for Tier 5 then they wanted to go to guilds that were clearing it and not stay struggling to fill a raid and wipe for multiple weeks on the second boss. That Vistrix Tier 5 fight is the most unforgiving I have ever experienced...even tougher for us to get handle on than the General Sheng fight in T3/khitia gear....one mistake..one slip by one person is raid wipe...
We have been raiding T4 now for three years, for many who have raided ANY instance for that length of time whilst it is fun to go to the occasional well-run and fast raid (T4 and downwards), it is not fun to slog through multiple wipes on bosses that we used to one-shot. And to be blunt, rebuilding Prophets from the ground up would be returning to those days, but not even in T4 back in T2 or if lucky in T3 - and that is not something I think most of the Prophets wish to do on their full T4 toons.
My time is limited with USA players, every weekend I have to negotiate play time with my partner balanced with what we need to do together. This meant I would never commit to being a raid leader for Prophets - I never asked to be. I learnt fast that I do not enjoy having the "star" in a raid - I find that stressful, every raid I have lead for Prophets (which is about 3) was because there was no one else online willing to do so - and I was fortunate that on those occasions Rising or Sugar (or both) supported me in the background. Whereas I do like helping the raid leader with running the raid, quite happy to help with timers, scripts and to boss people about (and appreciated how indulgent Rising and Sugar were of me doing that in their raids and how the guild let me get away with it).
So in summary, whilst I will miss Prophets enormously it is time to let our guild go. We have tried. We succeeded for ..what Seven Years?....Sugarspice and her co-leaders and officers for four years at least. Let us go with our name as it was....
I am sad about Prophets folding, but feel as an officer I have responsibility to let our people go and find what pleasure they can in a game that is rapidly decreasing in population. If our guys and girls are ready for T5 and T6, I hope they are able to find a guild that will enable to them to enjoy that content.
Kwalya