[quido]

Even without looking towards Velious and such, I think Holocaust is doing a service for red with their M.O.

As a mere hypothetical, let's pretend that all of Holocaust's leadership ghosts and the guild falls apart. I think this would leave red in a more interesting situation than we were left with upon Nihilum's demise. Holocaust has made it a part of their identity to take in, train, and gear up new players. And thus far, they have done an incredible job at this. I think it's throwing the server a more interesting change than Nihilum ever did. Nihilum didn't embrace the fresh blood quite like Holocaust does. When you look at what percentage of the loot was banked or went to people like Vaporize, Strydur, etc, it's not difficult to see why the server had trouble keeping new folks around.

But Holocaust? Holo has done a much better job embracing new players. Newerish people receive quality loots in the fairest loot distribution system I have yet seen in an Everquest guild. There's not this elitist attitude like "this guy is too scrubby for that item" - it's merely "does he deserve it?" I want my new crew of pals to stay together forever, but should some of them decide Holo isn't right for them, at least Holocaust likely enabled them to get a running start on the server and get some experience and a few pieces of gear before they left. Some day, in more tumultuous times on red, this could make for a more interesting server dynamic than Nihilum left us.