The guild is dead, long live the guild

Ever since I logged in the first time back on March 13, 2005, I have mostly been in a guild called The Rogue Knights.  The mostly part I'll get to in a moment.  Last week, however, Boyfriend and I got into a small guild called Thunderforce, thus guilding two characters who had been freelancers since we rerolled them as Draenei.  And while in the guild I began to see more and more similarities to The Rogue Knights.  Essentially the difference being this was a new guild that people were wanting to build into something great, while RK has been fighting the apathy of its members for years.  

So I talked to Boyfriend, and he agreed that we just don't have the energy to try and build up the group again, to recruit and retune the website and try to get into the larger instances, which has been my goal for a long time now.  I've gotten some raiding experience, but it took me leaving RK for a few months to do so.  The members killed the guild, is what it comes down to, and it's harsh, but true.  Too many people refused to put in any effort at all, no matter what we tried.  We tried aligning the ranks to progression, we tried aligning the ranks to mentoring others, we tried guild runs and guild meetings and nothing worked.  It was a group of people more interested in themselves than the group, and that doesn't make for a good guild.

So now we're moved to Thunderforce, well, at least the three people that were still active in RK at the end.  Boyfriend has kept his character in RK for story reasons, and I am leveling a healer to prepare for Kara.  So far they are moving fairly slowly towards the 10-man instance goal, but I am hoping that will pick up once real life steps out of the way and lets the game world continue on its way toward ultimate glory.    RK is still there to fall back on if need be, but I have a good feeling about Thunderforce.  I respect the guild leader more every time I encounter him, and the guild charter itself rings like a streamlined version of the RK charter.  I only hope that the same issues that plagued RK don't also infect TF.  Otherwise we're back to where we started.  And I for one, don't have the energy for that.