Guild Wars 2

I don’t know if this is the best place to try and get answers but I couldn’t find the topic anywhere else. What are the responsibilities of members of the guild?

My guild and I had a rather large falling out last night and I feel a lot of it is because there was a lack of understanding and common knowledge. The center of the argument was over the fact that some members of the guild would like to expand into a larger guild. The counter argument was that a larger guild meant more commitment from the guild leader. But it was never explained what those commitments were or why they couldn’t be sub-divided to the other lieutenants like myself.
Needless to say a lot of hate filled words were exchanged and as of right now i am no longer part of the guild. It actually reminds me a lot of what happened with in Destiny Edge’s story in all honesty. I would like to make amends and hopefully save the guild but I don’t dare try without the proper knowledge this time.
I am fairly new to the concept of a guild, being as this is the first one MMO I have truly played a large part of, so I would appreciate any advice or knowledge that can be shared.
Thank you

It depends on the focus of said guild. I like small, tight groups. Some people like armies.. But those soldiers will never know each other as well and will never have as much fun as smaller guilds do. The trick here is to find people who share the same interests as you do. An alternative would be spread people into different guilds with different focuses but stay in the same alliance. This way pve-ers could ask pvp-ers for advice when they go to spvp or wvw and pvp-ers could ask pve-ers for help when they go to dungeons or fractals. It really is a very complicated issue and it’s very hard to find the right people but when you do everyone responsibilities will become apparent.

I’ve been thinking about my reply here for a while now and if anything, I am more busy as leader of my small guild than the small leadership team I used to be a part of in a larger guild was, all together. I’m all about integrating new members into the group, organizing us, etc. while the bigger guild’s members weren’t as involved with one another. Maybe your leader is similar to me and just doesn’t want to lose that small group feeling. It can also be hard for some people to delegate responsibilities if they like doing everything themselves.

Guild Leaders responsibilities are you managing the guild or just facilitating discussions? Do you have authority or are you just there to take the blame / make suggestions?

BLUF- leaders responsibilities are shaped by goals and personal commitment

I am the leader of a small guild of 20 players with 15 active and a long term goal of 25 active fully equipped, well trained and experienced players.
In order to meet that goal we first need people, this dictates recruiting and retention as my first responsibility. I and some of my team direct recruit. We do interviews and make decisions on invitations. In order to build retention and therefore experience we work together as a guild in group and in ventrillo. We rotate our focus week to week to build a wide breadth of experience, tactics and to keep things fresh. This also allows for the opportunity to meet individual player goals. Not everyone likes WvW or dungeons, guild missions, generic PVE so by rotating focus we let everyone have time to work on a variety of goals with the majority of the guild supporting those activities.

Once a team is built and you are making progress discipline and reward can become an issue. Griefers, beggars, ghosts or outstanding leaders and contributors all have to be addressed. Whether you are rebuking, punishing or removing a member there is a judgment to be made and that can be an individual leader judgment or group decision based on your guilds rules / dynamics. In order to recognize or reward things that make the guild grow you have to be creative and look for opportunities to highlight those positive actions. Are you as the leader providing funds, equipment and written public recognition for the individual or team effort your star members provide or is that a group effort?

Funds, upgrades, influence management- Is there a plan or policy in place to discuss how this variety of assets are distributed, collected and used? Do you have a treasurer?

A guild could establish positions like HR, Operations, R&D, Historian, Judge, Recruiter, and Treasurer etc… You could build boards to handle those functions or you could put all of that work in yourself or that officer could execute those duties.
Managing a group of people, their time, game knowledge and game assets can be time consuming and really be work. If you want to be the guy /gal that shows up and plays and leaves and has no commitment to the betterment of the team that is fine as it is a game and people come into it to play rather than work. I would say at that point you are a member but not a leader. The OP mentioned being a officer in the organization and it sounded like some responsibilities were being delegated but of all the things mentioned above there will always be friction about focus, priorities and use of time. If you think about the work a guild leader puts in after looking at the above text then you would see why staying small has some advantages. That doesn’t prevent growth if you have a solid team that is willing to put the time in you could easily grow into the hundreds. It shifts the leaders focus from managing most things to working with his officers more. Maybe your leader didn’t find that a good fit?

Its different in GW2. Being able to multi-guild doesn’t promote as strong a bond to an single guild as almost all previous games have done in the past. It took me quite awhile to get used to this. Finally, I just embraced it as part of the game…but I still don’t think the guild system is as strong as other games.

But given that game mechanic? Why is it such an issue? Your members could still maintain the current guild and join the larger guild at the same time.

Well roadkill we were called the Knights of Moral Ambiguity or KoMA for short. We started the guild so that everyone could communicate easier and group together for events or just leveling. The big thing was we weren’t suppose to be held to any single belief or standard. So long as you were willing to answer for whatever you did, and you didn’t bring trouble to the door you were golden. We were a smaller guild with only 6 players. That’s why the topic of expansion came up. One of our members dedicated a lot of time to make a website at the guilds request. But with only six members we never had enough people on at the same time to run as a guild.

Phlogus I was a 1st ranked LT. About the only thing I couldnt do was to just recruit new members. Normally I don’t mind endorsing people for approval, but we never given any guide lines as to what the Leader deemed an appropriate applicant. I played with plenty of good people on my own, but without some guide lines i was afraid to ask for fear of them being rejected, and me coming across as a buffoon. This argument ended up with me being the scapegoat because I called for the guild to meet and make a decision on the topic. I wont go into the details here unless they are needed.

Raf I actually didnt know that you could join other guilds. I only run one or two characters so I thought i was pretty much bound to the guild once i joined

Jeepers you guys are hardcore, no offense to you guys but your mentality is why I decided to open my own Guild. I work for a living, so when I go to have my relax time at home, I dont want to be “bossed around”. My guild is made up of 3 RL friends who have been inactive since December, the rest of my guild mates I met through the game, once they joined I enbaled all features to them (But I still outrank em >:D)

Did this interfere with running the Guild? Nope, we know the guild is a team effort, we’ve been doing Guild bounties for the last 3 weeks, Guild Treks are gonna unlock this week, and Guild Rush in 10 days. There is no guild leader or officers or scrubs, we’re all equal, Viva la Revolución!

My background: I’ve run or been an officer of half a dozen guilds over various MMO’s.
Rozcinana is right, smaller guilds can have leaders/officers a lot busier than a large one, it’s just a different dynamic with small guilds. Larger ones tend to have lives of their own, smaller ones tend to be more personality driven and, for me at least, feel more like a family.

Your original question, “what are a guild member’s responsibilities?” has as many answers as there are options. Barzmon has a really cool idea but one that can go south really fast if you get a bad human being in there with you.

Having been bitten once or twice in the past, I tend to go with the traditional hierarchy in my guild. Get to know people and have them work their way up the ranks. One hopes to find Officers who are willing to share the “burden” of running a guild together, people willing to set up events and help get people organized and achieve their goals within the game, manage the guild bank and resources, recruiting, etc but, if there is no one willing to step up, then delegation becomes impossible (which is a problem that can be especially hazardous to a smaller guild). Anyone could be given any of those things to do and more so there is really no “right” answer to what a guild member’s responsibility is.

The first thing to do when creating a guild is to make a decision about what your goals are and how you plan to execute them; groundwork is the secret to avoiding the type of situation you mentioned. The hard part is to also write in room to adjust and rethink the rules as you grow and as things change.

I opened my personal guild to invites a month ago and, before I asked the first person to join, I had written my rules and expectations for the members and leadership and, I had even written a “So you want to be an Officer” letter, so people would know at every step what the expectation was. It doesn’t mean surprises won’t happen but, it helps to have a rudder in the water guiding the ship before you hit stormy weather.

Even though you aren’t in it any longer, your guild (with you in it) might still be saved; it just depends on the type of people you are dealing with, if they can forgive and forget the things that were said and move on to create a more complete vision so everyone understands what is expected of them. If they hold grudges, be glad you are done with them now.

Aside from that, you could always start your own guild but, being new to guilds and MMO’s I would not recommend that as a first course of action. The other option is to simply join another guild (or two or three) and see what you like and don’t like. There’s no harm trying several on for size. When you do though, I’d recommend giving it your undivided attention for at least a month (unless you know right away it doesn’t work for you), don’t rep other guilds in that time, just absorb the one you’re with, get to know the people in the guild.

Also, take some time to interview the guild leader or recruiter before you join. I get excited when I hear people want to shop around and ask me questions first, those are the type of thoughtful players I prefer. If the leadership can’t tell you what they want from a guild member, then don’t be surprised if they end up with similar problems to what you just left.

Anyway, if you have any questions please feel free to message me and you can also check out my guilds web site and see what I mean about putting those expectations out there in writing.

Best of luck,

Vel/Nichole
In Game: myenchantedlife.3729
Web Site: http://hedo.guildportal.com

pointless arguments….
large guild has wide range of officers who can help with day-to-day activities
also active and capable leader who can make long term decisions
a large guild that goes down is due to incapable or inactive management
u dun hav to be online 24hr a day to manage a guild, there isnt much to manage except moving the guild towards a certain direction through activities

Barzmon.1320:

Jeepers you guys are hardcore, no offense to you guys but your mentality is why I decided to open my own Guild. I work for a living, so when I go to have my relax time at home, I dont want to be “bossed around”. My guild is made up of 3 RL friends who have been inactive since December, the rest of my guild mates I met through the game, once they joined I enbaled all features to them (But I still outrank em >:D)

Did this interfere with running the Guild? Nope, we know the guild is a team effort, we’ve been doing Guild bounties for the last 3 weeks, Guild Treks are gonna unlock this week, and Guild Rush in 10 days. There is no guild leader or officers or scrubs, we’re all equal, Viva la Revolución!

Sorry, but isn’t that dangerous? If you give everyone the same power, and someone joins who is totally unloyal and decides to kick some fun and blows everything up?

Thanks to everyone for the info. Its helped to make some pretty big decisions for my game.