Spinks’ statement that, “they’re moving to a world where there will be automated ways to do all the things guilds used to do for players” is right on the money. Point systems breed players gaming points.

Better would be to start soliciting general geographic info so that you could base your guild formation around location or shared activity (other than raiding), etc. I’d rather chat with folks that follow sports, you know?

Anyhow, yes, less human. I had a younger player ask me why so many guilds spam you, and said, “How do guilds gain experience again?” It’s sad the system’s come to this.

My best time in Guild Wars was unguilded, after my first guild dissolved, funnily! Fact. I had a huge friendlist and organized missions, “raids” (~ elite missions and areas in GW are a bit like that) with a core group of buddies from a ton of guilds. While nobody had any obligation, attendance was ~100% and when I asked someone to come along they always had time. In fact many IMO got used to me or a buddy popping up and telling them what we will do tonight. Sometimes I really wondered about that.

In WoW TBC I was in a guild with the bored veteran syndrome. At one point I left so that I could raid Kara/Gruul/TK when I wanted and not with the guild raids who often got cancelled. Sidenote, one of the reasons why I hate timed raid locks.
I got part of a random raid group made up of randoms/twinks etc.. We soon formed a solid PUG that actually no longer was a PUG and raided SSC, TK, Hyjal successfully. We did not make it to Illidan but formed our own guild out of the core of this raid group and did Naxx in WOTLK within a month after release.

There is a difference between being a guild leader and being the boss at work: I don’t think coming casually to work is something you have to deal with as boss. In a guild this unfortunately seems to be the norm more often than not. Guild are nowadays in my experience too often torn between being a raid roster and being a group of friends. For GW2 and future MMO-style games I will form a guild with a small core group of long time buddies and go full PUG mode.

I don’t know why but for some reason motivation and fun seem to become obligation and unfun for people when they are in the same guild. I find that amazingly strange but our super successful pseudo-PUG raid group mostly dissolved due to players quitting WoW (me being one of them) in WOTLK right after we successfully cleared Naxx. And no, we did not have internal conflicts at all. Ofc WoW is to blame as it is just bad and probably general burnout. But see my first statement in this paragraph, it seems that feeling obliged to raid with a certain group of people burnt people out, the same thing they liked to do when they did not feel this kind of “obligation”.

While not all difficulty come from roster levels 90% of it does. 20 men needed, 21 log in, result happiness. 20 men needed 19 log in, result misery.

While I agree with most of your points, I don’t agree with that line.
unfortunately, the reality on many servers and certainly the server I always played on, was such that it became increasingly hard for any big-scale and more serious raid guild to recruit enough players sometime in mid-WotLK; be it that the game changed and many guilds disappeared into 10man mode, be it that several raidguilds migrated server. neither being “funny” nor being laidback does ultimately solve such very real problems. and the pressure of trying to maintain your guild while you can’t seem to fill the gaps in your roster or keep up with your raid agenda, which creates a vicious cycle in itself for recruitment, can be a stress and downside to guild leading most leaders know. at least those that feel responsible for what’s happen in their guilds.

there are plenty more such situations that are, from a very human point of view, demanding and at times can simply wear somebody down, the examples are endless. you’d have to be a robot not to care or be affected by it if your guild is close to your heart. but it’s important to know how to keep a balance and to know when to stop if you cannot.
all that said, a good sense of humor and nonchalance DOES help loads with things, no disagreement there. but you can’t laugh the walls of jericho down, if you get my point.

The one thing I can’t agree with is feeling bad about not leading anymore after a burnout. While I understand the feeling, it is absolutely not warranted. You’ve done your part for the guild and you’ll help no one by leading again and quitting altogether because of it. I’ve seen guild/raid leaders dropping down to member status and floating back up to leadership after a recreation period and I’ve seen quite a few leaders burning out due to not calling quits early enough. I took a bit of a backseat for Wrath (going from guild leader to member and then administrative officer) and I don’t think I’d have been able to get as far into Wrath as I did if I had stayed in a top position.