Give me back MY guild!

Without commenting your other points or the OPs "problem", do you really think it would be good to automatically return leadership to a person that, say, went afk for couple of months without saying anything and then returns?
Not saying there couldn't be some middle ground but I think the current mechanism is there to protect the guild, to ensure it's survival. If succession was handled before going on a break there is no problem and if it was not, maybe it's good to have a chance to consider if it should be given back.

As others have said, it is the guild leader's responsibility (especially if he considers it to be *his* guild) to understand how the guild system works. It is clearly documented that there are two kinds of guilds in the sub+f2p system: guilds with subscriber members, where the leader must be a subscriber, and guilds with only f2p/preferred members, where obviously the leader can be a non-sub. The OP dropped her ("mrsspooky" sounds like a she...) subscription, but presumably there were still subscribers in the guild, since the leadership passed "immediately" to someone else. That speaks of the OP rejecting that responsibility, and in effect saying, "Guilds should work the way I want them to, no exceptions."

(For the OP: guilds where the leader never logs in are doomed to die unless someone else has enough rights to e.g. manipulate ranks, start GvG battles if such things exist, and so on. I've seen it happen from the inside in more than one game. In Runes of Magic, the leader of my first guild went AWOL, and the guild gradually disintegrated even as some of the players negotiated with CS to get the leadership transferred. The second was more actively led, and went better (I eventually left it to found a guild when my wife started playing, but that's another story). In Allods Online, I joined a series of moribund guilds, and eventually found a more promising one, but even there I spent two months as the only person who logged in. I had recruiting rights, but could not in good conscience recruit for a guild in that condition. Conclusion: guilds need a way to be able to recover the leadership from an absentee leader, and SWTOR has well-defined rules for who can lead a guild with a mixed sub/non-sub membership. You went outside those rules, and you paid the price. Mitigation: it could be worse. You could be one of those people described above who logs in once a week to prevent the idle-leader transfer, but doesn't do anything else with the character.)

Moral of the Story - you want to unsub and take a long break but keep your guild? Kick everyone else out

If this guy was a good guild leader then his clan would remember him and return his status to him, but that is clearly not the case.

It's explicit in the OP that leadership was automatically attributed to a random guy who rarely logs in, the only guy who can give it back. That said, your thinking is really bad form and lacks a single bit of empathy: how would you feel if a project you dedicated so much into - both precious time and real money, likely more than anyone else involved (even though this last point is irrelevant) - got taken away from you without guarantees of having it back, and just because you chose to give it a break. It's nonsense and pretty infuriating in my opinion. This is the only game I know where this happens, others have a vice-lead system with the core abilities and power to keep the guild running. Lead per-se should never be taken away from said person unless he chooses to, even if that title has to be made honorific.

OP's drama blog would be far more interesting and amusing if they got kicked by the rando that stole their birthright.

But no one stole anything. The OP dropped the ball and someone picked it up. A typical "Finders Keepers" situation.

I can imagine the in-game diatribe from the OP when they logged on and saw they lost their guild through ignorance. He/she probably went off half-cocked, cussing and raising hell. Had he/she been more mature, and asked nicely (and explained why they had to un-sub for a month), chances are the current GM would've passed it back. Of course that's taking into consideration that the OP didn't have one of those guilds that recruit people just to increase numbers and have no social interactivity.

OP, you learned a lesson. It was a hard way to learn it, to be sure. But I will bet you'll never be in that situation again, huh?

The joke








Your head

I can't let that pass. Are you kidding me? Do you actually think the correct way to face things is to do nothing? OP shouln't have to ask nicely to get it back, he should not have lost it to a random dude (who apparently does not even log to hand leadership back over) in the first place. Asking ia irrelevant and not the point. You saying something like "OP has learned from a mistake" and "guess it won't happen again" really, really disgust me. Seriously, how vile. Apathy is our worst enemy. Did you miss it where OP claimed he cried, invested money and what not into the guild? Indeed, guess it won't happen again since OP will either leave the game due the bullying or simply won't bother with another guild just to have it snatched from him night to day. Again.

based entirely on the op's rant... the guild is better off now.