Elrynn is stepping down

Dear members,

I have been with Astronomy Domine almost since I first started playing World of Warcraft. Much of that time I served as an officer, and for the better part of a year now I have been GM. During this time, it has always been my goal to contribute what I could to our group and help make other people's gaming experience more enjoyable.

My personal vision for our guild was to create a home for casual players on the one hand, while offering end-game minded players a solid foundation for raiding. I saw my own participation in end-game raids as secondary to these goals, so I was happy to "miss out" on what the game has to offer, as long as our members were getting in on the action.

To this end, I rented a Ventrilo server, created a website and forums, created a new guild charter, created raid rules, set up a new ranking system, held meetings with officers and members to discuss and refine these changes, appointed officers to organize raids and other events, and so on.

I'm sure all of you know that I live in Germany and have a six hour difference to server time. Regrettably, this means that I am permanently "out of sync" with all members who play in the evenings. When you're playing, I'm sleeping, simple as that. This prevents me from directly taking part in what happens in the guild for the most part. I have to depend on others to provide leadership and organization.

This has not always worked out well. In particular, officers who volunteered to organize raids quickly got overwhelmed by the responsibility and frustration. Different factors, such as the low population on our server, the natural tendency of serious players to gravitate towards big, successful raiding guilds and the need to replace raid leaders who took off for "pastures new" again and again made it hard to get things off the ground.

This situation has now reached a critical mass for me. I am frustrated at not being able to get in and influence things directly because of my time difference. I get up in the morning and the first thing I do is check the guild log to see what damage the night's drama has done. How many people left the guild this time? I feel responsible for what happens (or does not happen) in the guild, but there's hardly anything I can do about it. I have not been able to realize my vision of a raiding guild from the sidelines, much less raid with the guild myself.

For this reason I have decided to step down as GM. I strongly feel that Astronomy Domine would be much better off with a GM who is online at the same times most members are. It's also entirely possible that my personal vision for this guild simply was not what the majority of our members wanted.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all members, especially the officers, for their hard work and support.

Please contact me by September 5th with the name(s) of anyone you would like to nominate as new GM. I will make a list of candidates and all members who wish to can have their say in who the next GM will be.

Ray aka Elrynn

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