Guilds are always faced with political strife. The main issue that seems to appear for most raiding guilds is the distribution of loot. Several guilds have gone to a point based system which awards points based upon participation in sucessful raids that can be used to bid on items that drop during guild raid events. However, for many guilds the point system is too complex and time intensive to be properly utilized. Some guilds use the CAWU method which basically means 'can and will use'. This method allows any player that can and will use the item to put their name in for an open roll. This system causes a lot of turmoil because it comes down to the luck of the roll. A casual player who only shows up to one or two raids can walk away with an incredible item while the seasoned veteran who spends night and day raiding with the guild goes home with nothing. Personally I believe that CAWU should be left to groups and pick-up raids and has no place in guild run raids. The system that my guild uses is the council system. In that system the guild officers and 2 randomly chosen members (a total of 6) decide from the list of those that would like the item, who should receive it based on participation, attitude, last time they recieved loot, etc. However, every system can fail and has its drawbacks. Just last night we had one of our most veteran members disband from the guild because a breastplate that he wanted went to a guild member who was much younger in the guild. The belief that he had 'earned' it in his eyes outweighed the unanimous decision of the council who awarded it to the younger, and honestly more needing player. Since the veteran member disbanded last night there has been a miriad of posts, /tells, and guild chat pointing fingers and asking questions. Only from experience do I know that this will not be over for days and even weeks to come. [EQ, M , 28]

A guild I was once in (for about a year), split due to internal debate on the direction of the guild as a whole. Some people played a lot and put in a huge amount of effort to advance the guild as a whole, and then there were the more casual players who didnt do as much towards this. In order to advance the guild as a whole, and provide more equipment and more engaging experiences for everyone, it is generally considered that Merit Loot, ie giving certain items to the people who can use them to the greatest effect (actually merit just means giving it to a person you choose, but it's usually to the best use, or most deserving due to time put in person), is the best way to help advance your guild if equipment is scarce. Giving the Big Really Protective Breastplate to your number one Warrior who attends every fight, and is always the one getting beating up and keeping to monster from eating everyone else, is a good idea. the alternative to this, Random loot, is where everyone who attends gets to roll a dice (Everquest has a facility for this) and whoever rolls highest wins the item. In this scenario, the Big Really Protective Breastplate could maybe go to a Rogue for example (who if they are doing their job right shouldnt be getting hit anyway), or say a Warrior who might play once a week. In this example, this nice piece of equipment, which could have enabled your main Warrior to do his job even better, meaning your guild succeeds more at raids and gets even MORE loot, has now been given to someone where it will not benefit the guild in any way.

Most high end guilds go in for Merit loot over Random loot, as it is the only way to move the guild forward. Anyway. The casual people in my guild were all for Random loot, as it meant they might get something, improving themselves in the short term, while stopping the guild improving in the long term, where it might have provided loot for all. the people who played every day and were actually making things happen and being the living heart and soul of the guild, were more for merit, in order to equip the people in the line of fire, in order to enable the guild to do bigger and better things, and quite frankly to reward all the hard work and effort of the people who consistently did their best for the good of the guild (the officers and guild leader were on the Merit loot side of things). The casual players accused the dedicated players of being greedy, officers not doing enough work to improve the guild (when in fact they were working their arses off), casual players were not pulling their weight when online, and only attending raids where they knew something would drop that they personally wanted. The leadership then offered to put up a poll of how things should advance. Everyone was given the opportunity to give ideas for inclusion in the poll for a week beforehand, so that everyone's input could be gotten. The poll was held, and the large majority was in favour of Merit loot.

Naturally, the very same hour, one of the people who had voted for the continuance of Random loot (know this from knowing the person, the results were anonymously displayed of course) cried that the poll was obviously rigged and the choices were unfair, even though they had had a whole week to include their own ideas (which, surprisingly, they had not). They further accused the officers and guild leadership of being charlatans, with no interest in helping anyone but themselves. Unsurprisingly, after many months of abuse, our guild leader called their bluff and said that they could run the guild any way they wanted, because he was leaving. Probably about 75% of the guild left with him, from which he forged a new guild, which is currently going strong, and of which I am a part. Merit loot is currently in use. The old guild is falling apart very badly indeed, which i am very happy to laugh gleefully about, as the cretins got what was coming to them. Incidentally, a good portion of the people left behind were the ones who enjoyed shitstirring (if this term is not used outside of England, it means to cause trouble by making snide comments, encouraging arguements, and trying to set people against each other). This was another part of why the guild split, due to constant bickering and backbiting between some members, generally started off by these individuals. [EQ, F, 22]