“The sufficiency of my merit is to know that my merit not sufficient.” –St. Augustine
Such is the attitude of those who are able to find loyal followers. Notice the emphasis on loyal, because followers can be found by any tyrant. But to obtain loyalty, a leader must put themselves on the same field as his peers, and lead with humility. This is Baer’s life lesson to all of you J Whether it applies in the workplace, military, or in this case a more casual environment such as gaming. Nevertheless, Anvil Rock is a community that has natural evolved leaders, and we’ve recently seen what happens when one puts himself above those around him.
The Minute of Fame for the Culpepper Minute Men
Commander Ronny Raygun of The Culpepper Minute Men transferred his guild to Anvil Rock about a month after the game launched. His ambitions were to go to a lower tiered server, organize an alliance, and clandestinely raise himself to a position of power while feigning humility.
It was said somewhere else that as soon as men get little authority they will immediately begin to exercise it in a negative way.
Warlords of Anvil Rock [WAR], and myself in particular, owes TCMM some recognition. They donated 30g of the 100g needed for my commander title back when money was tight in the guild and our numbers were less than 200. However, something should have been noticed from a leader who transferred servers in the first place. At the first sign of disagreement, he up and left Anvil Rock in an attempt to vindicate himself against his enemies.
After a somewhat biased “election” process of putting him in as the Anvil Rock alliance leader, he led with good strategies and a passionate response, but always with the underlying theme of “I built this regime.”
(On a side note, I was pleased to learn their membership was only in the 350’s even though they spammed for recruits daily. It goes go to show WAR got to 500 members out of influence and alliance respect, rather than spamming Lion’s Arch all day for recruits.)
He then steps down, giving leadership to Anvil Plants, and the ALS guild, thereafter immediately criticizing the way the server alliance is being run. Leadership 101: You can’t be critical of leadership decisions made in a position you voluntarily left.
Pro tip: Good commanders don’t take offense from allies. They can’t afford the fluctuation in loyalty. This has been shown time and time again when an aggressive commander is running a campaign in Eternal Battle grounds and Warlords of Anvil Rock logs on. We make our presence known, and the army switches loyalty, because they know despite criticism or disagreement, that we are gracious in our victories and humble in our defeats.
From an Anvil Rock player the other night, “I’d rather die inside Borliss Passkeep next to Baerstad on the second gate, then cap it with [Insert Aggressive Commander’s name here] any day. It’s been an honor WAR.”
Now we volley up in the Anvil Rock alliance. The players worry about the fun and skill of our success, and myself,Darkcastor, and the other officers will worry about the politics. When Nomnomnom and ANV (ironically Anvil Rock Defenders) left Anvil Rock the same thing happened, as WAR’spresence shot through the roof. This is our chance again. Ronny has made his decision, and rather than bow out respectfully he ended up in NSP, branding himself a Benedict and incurring the wrath of myself and many others.
Here, loyalty showed its true colors. The count right now is at 15 players who have left. His guild stopped repping and we gained 5 of them last night. Loyalty doesn’t exist in a dictatorship. You’ve met your end Ronny Raygun, and your ‘bottles up’ decision put you in the losing bracket.
If he acts, we react. Rather than mope over a loss. With free server transfers coming to an end, choose your loyalty. WAR stays on Anvil Rock, and we rise. There are politics and strategy going on among thousands of players behind the curtains. While most simply queue and follow the big blue dot, Warlords of AR forms connections, new strategies, and we learn from our mistakes.
And we decimate our enemies.
Commander Baerstad
