Guild Wars 2

Mkalafut.1273:

I’m sorry, I figured the part where I mentioned I’ve been doing this for almost 10 years would have given the impression that I knew what I was doing and am still doing it successfully up to this point.

It’s an issue, regardless of current success or lack-there-of. I don’t zerg invite, none of my officers do either. We have conversations with members WHO WHISPER US about getting invites to our guild. Only to find that days later they just stop representing.

Please if you’re going to comment, read the posts people make before hand.

Maybe they thought your guild would be great but it turned out to be a typical few friend circlejerking while everyone else is only there for the look.
How can we know? So many guilds are like that, and especially the small one trying to be big. Big guild are full of circlejerking too but there’s so many people that you always find someone else to play with you anyway.

It’s easy to blame the system but If we were limited to 1 guild per character these people would simply have left. Maybe you wouldn’t even realize they left. They would join and leave guilds until they find something suitable for themselves.

It’s your job as a leader to make them want to stay.

We just dont allow multi guilding, and i personally dont know anyone who is in more than 1 guild – so i cant see your problem tbh. If representing is a guild rule, you just have to enforce it.

If they would use guild alliances and alliances chats it would solve all(?) of the problems people in this thread have.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

I don’t see the same things you see, Mkalafut. Our members usually know each other, at least they know their officers/leaders. And if they don’t recognize a name (which can happen, especially if said officer has a lot of characters :P), they know where to find the account name and check that.

We do have an international guild, but most people know each other for a long time now (coming from GW1). And those new ones either know one or more other members or have been going to the forum where our guild is also represented.

I know of a few members who do have multiple guild(s) and who will represent that other guild some times. For instance when they’re playing WvW. But when I meet them in WvW, they’ll just as easily team up with me as with somebody from their other guild.

I also am part of three guilds. I made my own (hey, free storage!), I have my main guild, and I’m in a guild with friends I met during my time in GW1 with the same love for ranger pets. I am mostly in my main guild but once guesting is finally working, I’ll probably switch a few hours a week to that other guild, so I can play with those people (in GW1 we met once a week).

If there is one thing that is killing guilds, it is the server split. As I said, I’m part of an international guild, with people from all over the world. But some are on NA servers and some are on EU servers. And that’s simply killing the guild spirit as guild members who happen to be online at the same time can’t play together. At times, somebody says: “Maw is up”, I respond with “Would love to join, but you’re on the other server”.

We don’t have anybody on other servers in our guild as we don’t recruit in overflow. And as I said earlier I’ve been doing this close to 10 years. We’re more of a family than a guild and the first thing we do is get to know people on a first name basis.

All of our core members (the active ones that actually participate) are on a first name basis with the rest including all officers and leaders and other members. The problem lies in the fact that some individuals just flat out don’t care and don’t take time to get to know anybody in the guild because they already, from the get-go, have no intention to stay.

I have no problem allowing members in my guild to represent other guilds. I know that right now tons of my core members have guild bank guilds, guilds with their IRl friends and the like. That’s fine because they communicate that fact to me.

Not always that lucky though as people often just stop representing out of the blue and take that as their “I quit” sign that we’re supposed to magically pick up on.

I myself have 12 characters, so it’s a valid thing for a new member to not know me right away, but my account name is the same on each, I’m always communicating in our Vent server as well as in game guild chat, so they should know enough to see that I’m around and take 2 seconds to look, right? We also have our forums that have updated as we have throughout the years from various games we played.

As I said we played GW1 and WoW along side each other for the full duration of the last 8 years respectively. We are all a tight knit group of people who love to hang out and just shoot the s__ with each other and have a good time.

As for the server issue, we avoid recruiting in overflow for that reason. It’s not that we can’t play with them on other servers for dungeons or PvP, but as far as events and the like go, they might as well be in a different guild anyway.

Haishao.6851:

Mkalafut.1273:

I’m sorry, I figured the part where I mentioned I’ve been doing this for almost 10 years would have given the impression that I knew what I was doing and am still doing it successfully up to this point.

It’s an issue, regardless of current success or lack-there-of. I don’t zerg invite, none of my officers do either. We have conversations with members WHO WHISPER US about getting invites to our guild. Only to find that days later they just stop representing.

Please if you’re going to comment, read the posts people make before hand.

Maybe they thought your guild would be great but it turned out to be a typical few friend circlejerking while everyone else is only there for the look.
How can we know? So many guilds are like that, and especially the small one trying to be big. Big guild are full of circlejerking too but there’s so many people that you always find someone else to play with you anyway.

It’s easy to blame the system but If we were limited to 1 guild per character these people would simply have left. Maybe you wouldn’t even realize they left. They would join and leave guilds until they find something suitable for themselves.

It’s your job as a leader to make them want to stay.

You’re right. 10 years of top PvE status in WoW and tons of 50/50 and GWAMM in GW1 has proved we suck and just circlejerk. As I said already I’d rather the people straight up leave rather than waste my time tracking them down seeing if they’ll come back or not.

The people worth the time and effort prove it to us and show that they care and WANT to be there. I’m not going to make someone want to be there – even if it were possible. And you’re wrong. I check the roster and log every time I see someone leave to ask why they left and what we can do to improve.

Thanks for your replies.

Cures.7451:

We just dont allow multi guilding, and i personally dont know anyone who is in more than 1 guild – so i cant see your problem tbh. If representing is a guild rule, you just have to enforce it.

And we do enforce it. Once again, it’s not a problem specifically with my guild. Or any guild for that matter. It’s the fact that the system essentially makes guilds pointless and takes the entire meaning of them away. No matter how convenient it is for some and whether or not it’s used correctly or not.

PaWryce.9702:

If they would use guild alliances and alliances chats it would solve all(?) of the problems people in this thread have.

Agreed. Future feature, maybe? I’m definitely open to having that come back again from GW1. Though you’re right to put the (?) there, as who knows how it’d work. I get enough of a headache trying to rationalize the current system in place without adding in other things to consider.

Though I’m not sure that’d completely eliminate the issue entirely, if at all.

Ok seriously heading to bed now. Thanks everyone for the constructive replies. I look forward to continuing this tomorrow.

TheVirtualFrog.8714:

Mkalafut.1273:

VirtualFrog, thank you for your reply! I’m glad you were able to find a good guild that you were looking for. We also have those requirements and an organized website with information about our guild plastered all over the thing so people know what to expect from us and from them before entry.

Unfortunately, people can say whatever they want and then go do something else 5 minutes later. And I’m glad to see that you pointed out the huge issue with it all – the representation and people forgetting they’re even in certain guilds. They do, literally become meaningless.

Thank you for taking the time to answer. The delicate care with which you manage this topic to keep the ball rolling while remaining diplomatic really makes you shine as a leader even if I don’t know you personally and have never been in your guild. I hope you are able to succeed with your endeavors as head of the clan.

The multi-guild system that encourages consequence-free hopping and primal human nature certainly dosen’t make it easy but from what I see in your posting history it’s either people like you that can make it work or no one.

Keep on fighting the good fight! (:

Thank you again for your input and compliments, I really do appreciate it. I’m not just speaking on behalf of my guild or any one guild, but for all the people who have expressed concerns about this to me – leaders and members alike.

One last note before I head off to bed, I will do what I can regardless of the outcome. I can see both sides of this thing as it has directly effected myself, friends who run guilds, and people I’ve never met who I’ve just had conversations in passing about this with.

Thank you again for your kind words of encouragement and contribution to the topic.

OP I do agree with you. When I heard that they would give the ability to be in multiple guilds I disliked it and I still do. I know people say, well one day I can represent my WvW guild, the next be with friends, the next be in the dungeon running guild, etc.

To me and from what I have seen, people tend to represent the guild that offers more. My guild is a smaller guild, we dont have the influence that bigger guilds bring in so we dont have all of the bells and whistles. So people represent the bigger guilds and dont if rarely come back.

Being a smaller guild and with now guild tools available, I do track my guild members on paper. Those that dont represent us in 2 weeks get booted. I have yet to hear from anyone I have kicked as to why they where, they really dont care.

Anyway, I still dont like the mechanic of being able to be in multiple guilds at the same time. I really wish they would change it to maybe only officers/leader could be in multiple guilds, thus allowing for the bigger guilds to have their officers/leader to bounce between the guilds in order to manage them, but anyone else in the guild would be limited to 1 guild only.

Building a guild isn’t just about size it’s about who the people are.
The way you described how people talk to you in your guild is ridiculous.

I tell everyone in my guild that they are free to stay as long as they want and when they want to leave they can. If they want to represent a different guild but represent mine I have a whole separate rank made for it called associate.

I’ve stolen many people on accident who started out as associates because they don’t feel like they are being held hostage in my guild.

You are building a community talk to people you are recruiting before you just stuff them into your guild. You can tell if someone is going to be a good fit pretty fast.
This multi-guild system is scary for guilds because it means they have to be the best guild out there in order to keep their members. It keeps guilds trying.

My members get offers from much bigger guilds with lots of upgrades. They practically get bribed to leave but in the end of the day people want to be in a guild where they like the people more than anything else. If there is a strong community there is nothing to worry about.

I think the multi-guild system is fine if you use it the right way.

People often like to think of guilds as an “end,” where you join one and do everything with your guild members, hence the whole “only represent our guild” kind of thing going around. The multi-guild system is definitely destructive to this kind of environment.

On the other hand, instead of thinking of guilds as an end, try to think of them as means to an end. They are an extended contact list for the purposes of doing something.

For example, I was in one of the first few waves of people to hit L80. Because of this, there were very few people in places such as Orr, or other higher level areas, which made the Orr events quite difficult. I made a guild for the purposes of keeping track of all L80s on our world in order to allow for easier contact between higher level players in order to do the Orr events or higher level dungeons. After about a week or two, as more and more people hit level 80, the guild was no longer necessary, so I disbanded it.

Additionally, I am currently in five different guilds, all of which serve a different purpose for me. I represent each when it serves my purpose, and don’t really see a problem with the system at all.

1. Personal Guild Bank
2. tPvP team name
3. tPvP tournament syncing guild
4. An Extended contacts list to find decent/good players for tournaments.
5. Guild to play casual tPvP with.

Create a “Guest” or “Ally” rank for people who don’t represent and remove treasure trove access to that rank. Move anyone not representing into that rank.

I’ve found that guild loyalty usually revolves around one of 2 things. A Social aspect or a value of a raiding spot. Without raiding one of those are taken away and with mutiguilding, the social aspect can be achieved fairly easily. Yes, i agree it’s a problem when trying to establish loyalty.

Certainly I think some more tools for guild leadership would be very helpful. Being able to see activity levels, time representing, influence earned per member, etc., would take a lot of the mystery and guesswork out of things. Being able to post a message of the day and have it show up when people log in. That sort of thing would make a big difference.

For me at least, it’s not about wanting to restrict people’s social play or require loyalty. I want my guild to be as laid-back as possible, but it’s a chicken-or-the-egg problem. People don’t represent and aren’t active… BECAUSE people don’t represent and aren’t active. How do you break that cycle once it starts, or manage things so it doesn’t happen in the first place?

I’m sure some of this is due to us starting guilds at the launch of the game…there were a lot of players who were totally gung-ho and playing much more actively than they normally do, plus you have at least a reasonable number of people who played the game for a while and then decided they wanted something different or didn’t want to play any more. Perhaps just some more time and careful recruiting (now that the launch explosion has settled down) will improve these issues for us.

There will always be players who believe that there is nothing wrong with the current system, but I am not one of them.

This system is flawed. It breaks any sense of loyalty to a guild and creates an anti-social mentality. I literally hop between guilds just to find groups and could care less about who I’m representing. I doubt this is the intended functionality behind guilds.

I personally do not think the issue is with the system, it is with people not liking change.

Things are different here. People expect their tried and test methods for leadership in other games to work here, they do not work with the new system. It is clear from many of the posts here that people are clinging to what they know, rather than working with the new system they are trying to make it so their guild is not a part of it. Guilds that demand full-time representation are living in a different MMO.

I think there are a couple of things to do to improve your engagement with the system. Firstly accept that there is a difference here. If you embrace the system, you relax about chasing people who are not representing you will find you have a lot more time to really work on what actually matters in the guild. Pay attention to those who are representing, make your guild a place they want to be. You will find then if others do poke their heads back into the guild they are more likely to stay.

On a personal experience note I have not joined a guild with representation requirements. I have joined guilds where people share similar interests, places where I can become part of a community. The idea of a guild for me is one that suits your needs and you suit theirs. If you are recruiting players who do not share the same point of view you will part ways pretty quickly. But also there is that first few days/weeks of fitting in. I have found myself in guilds that did not suit and that is okay there will always be an element of finding your feet.

TL;DR – Accept the system for what it is and work with it, not against it.

I personally run a guild and am a member of another. I typically rep which ever guild is doing something i want to do. It’s not rocket surgery. We used to use the guest feature and I would be fine with that again, however, being able to rep multiple Guilds is a great feature for me (both as a leader and a member). Over the years of being a leader, I’ve had far more fun playing with a small group good friends far more than i ever did managing 100 people that rarely interact. Over time you will find loyal players and it will be a smaller group for the most part. I personally like the the window shopping option that multi-guild membership provides and i’m hardly concerned with worrying about who’s repping. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be a serious guild leader it’s just not everyone cup-o-tea.

dimgl.4786:

There will always be players who believe that there is nothing wrong with the current system, but I am not one of them.

This system is flawed. It breaks any sense of loyalty to a guild and creates an anti-social mentality. I literally hop between guilds just to find groups and could care less about who I’m representing. I doubt this is the intended functionality behind guilds.

This is extremely misleading… If you’re hopping around then you’re just not getting a sense of the people you are playing with. You could easily pick a guild and be loyal to that guild, the system doesn’t hinder that in the least. If anything, it gives you a choice right out of the gate. If people want to hop around, then let em. There are a large enough group of people that will hop around regardless how the system works, there always is, why penalize those people? And if they are going to hop around and you as a leader don’t want that, then kick em. If a person doesn’t care to rep your guild and you require it, then kick em, you don’t want them around anyway, apparently.

I understand the guild system….IN THEORY. What the developers intended was a mass infilstructure of guilds, interwoven through the members knowing other members who know other members. That you could represent guild A when doing dungeon runs (because that is what guild A does) and represent guild B when doing WvW (because that is what guild B does) and guild C when you want to run around and do map completions, because that is what they do.

It’s beautiful in concept. Except the DEVs forgot one thing.

The HUMAN element.

If you set up a system where guild loyalty is not a factor, then there is no guild loyalty. Why does there need to be?? You get booted from one, you go onto the next. If guild A has few members and hardly any of them speak, then you can always go to guild B that has 500 members, and only 7 of them speak, but its more social, because one guild talks and the other doesn’t.

This doesn’t promote helping one guild at all. This only promotes the larger guilds, who already HAVE all the upgrades and influence they could stand, and still…the lesser guilds struggle to get members, because they have to force themselves to recruit just anyone in hopes of getting members, and all the while, the new people see the lack of..representing members, or lack of people, and ‘shop around’ for a new guild.

The system doesn’t work.

Plain and simple.

The only guilds I’ve heard of guild chat being existent (in game or in a VOIP server) are the guilds with 400+ members with at least 60% activity. Anything short of that and you have players either not representing you or not paying attention at all.

This is simply not true. We are a guild with a roster of 30 members where guildchat is active. We stay this size on purpose. I never have to ask someone to represent us other then after them creating a new character and they might forget or when guild bugs pop up and they are fighting with that button.

Due to my experiences I cannot say the system is bad. I see how it is beneficial for players who want to group with their friends on one side but also want to join a guild that does dungeon runs and another guild that is doing WvW. We however will just not invite those players into our guild. That is their and our choice. There are always people looking to join only 1 guild.

If anything the system makes it more clear and flexible when a member does not really fit a guild like ours. This can make it a struggle for you, but I rather see people find a guild that suits them best than having many members who are not totally happy with our guild. In the end you will have a guild full of people with a similar idea about the kind of guild they want to be in.

teviko.6049:

This doesn’t promote helping one guild at all. This only promotes the larger guilds, who already HAVE all the upgrades and influence they could stand, and still…the lesser guilds struggle to get members, because they have to force themselves to recruit just anyone in hopes of getting members, and all the while, the new people see the lack of..representing members, or lack of people, and ‘shop around’ for a new guild.

This is the worst tactic of doing it. Recruiting any member just to get numbers up will cause more harm than it does good (will cause even less loyalty). You better start with a small roster of loyal players and build on that than a big roster that is not loyal. If it is a rule that people should represent, then enforce it. Reduce your roster to those representing and then start recruiting people looking for a guild like yours (and not just inviting everyone to get numbers up). It might be a bit slow, but otherwise your guild will most likely remain as what it is now or implode.

…wow.

After reading all of this thread, I am struck by two glaring points:
*A lot of people here want the current guild system changed because after dictating how players may use it and failing, they want ANet to force players to conform to their idea of how guilds should work.
*Much like PvP, there seem to be a lot of people who can’t adapt.

Not everyone wants the same old guild system. I love the multi-guild system. Sure there is room for improvement, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be reduced to the format used by most other games. While I have seen my share of hopping, I’d rather deal with that than lose the ability to chat with friends who are more interested in other guilds than the one I am in.

Everyone knows a guild is made by its members, and if those members (usually the leaders/officers) don’t give new members a reason to stay, it’s not anyone’s fault but the guild. Guilds aren’t a contract; just because someone joins doesn’t mean they can’t leave when they choose. The leadership has to work to keep players interested in staying; unless a player has some motivation to stay (close friends, time or money investment, whatever it may be), the leadership has to keep “selling” them on the guild.

I appreciate very much the guilds in many games who understand that players may want to “try them out” first and don’t mind inviting someone who may leave after a few hours or days. Not every guild is going to appeal to every player. As leaders, most try to set up the tools they want their members to have access to outside of the game, get their guild established within the game with perks and banks, and say to new members, “This who we are” hoping to find as many like-minded players to join their ranks as they can.

Ultimately, if guilds can’t keep members, they need to look at what they are doing to encourage those members to hang around. Sure it might be easier to swap to another guild in this game, but otherwise, it’s not much different than someone not liking a guild and leaving to find another.

-

A few other things I wanted to mention which were a bit off to the side to me… If a leader/officer expects every member to know who he/she is, that person needs to personally invite every member, make sure every recruiter who invites mentions them, or include it as a statement to be read by any potential new member. Otherwise, they need to realize that not every new member cares about looking up every member of the leadership, their alts, professions, birthdays, facebook pages, and favorite colors. Most care about the person who actually invited them or the point of contact who got them invited. Until they actually chat, party, or just hang out with another member of the guild, the only thing which distinguishes any other member from the random player out in the world is that guild tag next to their name – which doesn’t show up when that person receives a whisper out of the blue.

Not everyone has the same reason for joining a guild, so it’s pretty easy to see that not everyone cares about the same things within a guild. When I have joined a new guild, unless the leader invited me, or introduced themselves as the leader, I didn’t care who the leader was or who the officers were. I wanted to see how the people chatting related to each other because the attitude/personality I see in chat is the single most important thing to me in deciding if I want to stay in a guild. When I have been a leader/officer of a guild, if I wanted a new player to know my rank, I introduced myself with that rank because I know that what may be important to me, may not be important to the new player who just joined.

I didn’t bother reading the whole thread (since it’s big and I should be studying :p)

But in response to the OP: I totally agree. I also played a lot of MMOs and have seen no game before in which guilds mean so little. The first and foremost cause is I think indeed the multi guild system, which reduces the importance of choosing a guild because you can choose a few more anyway. Secondary causes are that you can’t fight other guilds (no guild wars in Guild Wars 2) and that there are no guild points or rankings, other than influence which is just used for perks.

I would like to see the multi guild system removed because: the more guilds a person can join, the less a guild means to that person.

Mkalafut.1273:

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

I don’t see the same things you see, Mkalafut. Our members usually know each other, at least they know their officers/leaders. And if they don’t recognize a name (which can happen, especially if said officer has a lot of characters :P), they know where to find the account name and check that.

We do have an international guild, but most people know each other for a long time now (coming from GW1). And those new ones either know one or more other members or have been going to the forum where our guild is also represented.

I know of a few members who do have multiple guild(s) and who will represent that other guild some times. For instance when they’re playing WvW. But when I meet them in WvW, they’ll just as easily team up with me as with somebody from their other guild.

I also am part of three guilds. I made my own (hey, free storage!), I have my main guild, and I’m in a guild with friends I met during my time in GW1 with the same love for ranger pets. I am mostly in my main guild but once guesting is finally working, I’ll probably switch a few hours a week to that other guild, so I can play with those people (in GW1 we met once a week).

If there is one thing that is killing guilds, it is the server split. As I said, I’m part of an international guild, with people from all over the world. But some are on NA servers and some are on EU servers. And that’s simply killing the guild spirit as guild members who happen to be online at the same time can’t play together. At times, somebody says: “Maw is up”, I respond with “Would love to join, but you’re on the other server”.

We don’t have anybody on other servers in our guild as we don’t recruit in overflow. And as I said earlier I’ve been doing this close to 10 years. We’re more of a family than a guild and the first thing we do is get to know people on a first name basis.

All of our core members (the active ones that actually participate) are on a first name basis with the rest including all officers and leaders and other members. The problem lies in the fact that some individuals just flat out don’t care and don’t take time to get to know anybody in the guild because they already, from the get-go, have no intention to stay.

I have no problem allowing members in my guild to represent other guilds. I know that right now tons of my core members have guild bank guilds, guilds with their IRl friends and the like. That’s fine because they communicate that fact to me.

Not always that lucky though as people often just stop representing out of the blue and take that as their “I quit” sign that we’re supposed to magically pick up on.

I myself have 12 characters, so it’s a valid thing for a new member to not know me right away, but my account name is the same on each, I’m always communicating in our Vent server as well as in game guild chat, so they should know enough to see that I’m around and take 2 seconds to look, right? We also have our forums that have updated as we have throughout the years from various games we played.

As I said we played GW1 and WoW along side each other for the full duration of the last 8 years respectively. We are all a tight knit group of people who love to hang out and just shoot the s__ with each other and have a good time.

As for the server issue, we avoid recruiting in overflow for that reason. It’s not that we can’t play with them on other servers for dungeons or PvP, but as far as events and the like go, they might as well be in a different guild anyway.

Well, we don’t recruit in overflow either. But our guild is together for almost 8 years already. As I said, we came from GW1, where we have always been able to play together, even before the districts were opened up, thanks to the International District. We expected to be able to do the same in GW2. But sadly, this is not the case. The same with our alliance.

I really think that ANet dropped the ball with the guilds. It’s nothing more than an extended friend list with some extra functions such as bonusses and storage…

Mkalafut.1273:

Cures.7451:

We just dont allow multi guilding, and i personally dont know anyone who is in more than 1 guild – so i cant see your problem tbh. If representing is a guild rule, you just have to enforce it.

And we do enforce it. Once again, it’s not a problem specifically with my guild. Or any guild for that matter. It’s the fact that the system essentially makes guilds pointless and takes the entire meaning of them away. No matter how convenient it is for some and whether or not it’s used correctly or not.

I just don’t see this argument “makes guilds pointless”. People are going to hop, regardless (unless maybe there is a penalty for leaving). A guild unlike any other social group is going to stay together as they have mutual goals, get along and genuinely care about each other. Not unlike being a member of multiple social groups with varying agendas, being a member of multiple guilds follows the same social pattern, which includes being able to choose conflicting events and tighter bonds with various members. I think people almost expect a virtual world to be so drastically different that one might expect loyalty in as much as they might expect the opposite. It’s so impersonal at times. It’s not the system that’s broken, it’s just how people interact in general (even more so online). Not everyone is looking for the same experience or fits a certain personality that might fit in with anyones current roster.

i dont see any problems with the multi guild feature!
i mean if you have been leading a guild for 10 years, im pretty sure you must have a website/voice chat server, and stuff, along with a pretty “big” playerbase, right?
just make the guild with those people that, im guessing, should be loyal to your guild

if some1 just doesnt like your guild would either leave, or not talk to anybody, and wont even care to know the people so it would be as usefull as not having him there anyways
Guild Loyalty doesnt come from being a part of a guild for “x” or “y” or from “what this guild can give me?”, it comes from within each player, the player that join a guild because the guild offers “this” or “that” are not going to be loyal, once the guild fails to offer him something he wants, he would just leave
that’s in this game, or any other game, why would they stay if the guild is no longer providing anything worth for them?

this guild system actually puts more value into the social stuff, rather than guild benefits, people would stay in a guild if they actually find players they can talk to and play with, not just because the guild is gnna offer buffs or banks, because any other guild can offer that too, but the social value is rarer to find!

some players are more loyal than others, some dont even Care about it (like the player in your example)
but the multi guild system has nothing to do with it!

My guild will never have more than 75 people. At any given time (other than 9-5 work/school hours) 1/3 of us might be on. More on weekends.

There are only a few that do not represent and they are guys that had fun with us in dungeons and wanted to join and be Pm’d whenever we do guild stuff. When we do, they represent so we all get influence.

Everyone knows everyone. Everyone plays with everyone. And everyone pretty much jumps to help out their guild-mates because they know there will be a time that they will need help also. This is what happens when you focus on starting with a small group and only recruit a few people at a time (max 3 per week), so new people and existing members can get familiar with each other before being washed over by 25 other new people.

You can’t call a mechanic a problem because it prevents you from being able to strong arm people in to playing with you and the your arbitrary list of names. If you create a more positive and cooperative social environment, then people will represent, chat and make friends within the guild. Do you know how to do that? By not mass recruiting strangers that no one in the guild has played with. Think about quality over quantity.

Right now most of the guilds that are 200+ members are little more than LFG tools. People join them to use for a pool of people they can quickly address to ask for stuff. And that’s not because of the multi-guild system. It’s because too many guild leaders care more about the size of that list than they do the names on it.

The fact some guilds even have a mandatory repping policy speaks volumes. If you have to have a rule to make people hang out within your guild, then maybe you should look at the atmosphere and attitude within the guild that makes people not want to.

Edit: To demonstrate my points…the guildie that the OP was appalled by for lashing at him when PM’d to rep… did the OP know his real first name, or his alts, or the role he can fill in PvE/PvP groups so the player can be addressed directly when that role is needed? Where were his characters in story and did he need help completing it? Was he stuck at a certain crafting level for a while, if so did the OP bother to ask him why and if he needed anything? I don’t think the OP knows any of that. Because he didn’t know the player. He didn’t even remember if he PM’d the player before. If you don’t know you players, why should they be expected to know you? Again…shift priority from number of members to quality of members and you improve the quality of the guild.

I just don’t care for guilds anymore I just use them to store stuff as none of them promise what they say they will promise, “We are helpful and will help you whenever you need it?” Helpful my kitten

Until I see a guild that will go out of their way to be helpful and ask me if I need help… then I’ll see a guild being worth more than a kitten bank for my excess food.

I role play as well, so I’m not always going to be out in the harder maps that I have yet to complete, I probably will need a guild that Role Plays and also helps a lot and its not always dungeons I want to so, (I’m not into doing dungeons all day long) yeah stop asking for dungeons!

I haven’t been 100% loyal to any guild since 2011 in GW 1 when my guild I was like family in died. No other guild could replace it. The old members of it plan to revive it in GW 2 someday but until that happens, I’ll be guild hopping most likely. I always came back to Falling Angelz [FaZ] even after I left on occasion to do things they couldn’t do (because of their faction or something related). My second most loyal-to guild was Order of Unrivaled Chaos [OUC] which had some ties to my mother guild and thus I was indebted to them for a time. When GW 2 came around we all got absorbed into a super guild (the whole luxon ally became one Guild) and it was far from friendly after that. I left to tarnished coast a month and a half later after that and never been more happy. The former leader of OUC though feels bad he failed me.

I’m in small guild I found on forums here that seems to be helpful, but I never asked for help yet as I’m mostly farming in lower level areas for materials for crafting.

I agree with the guild problems in GW2.

There’s no sense of belonging to a singular guild. Guild chat feels like a facebook friendlist. That was until I joined a guild that we must represent it 99% of the time. Full loyalty to one guild. When I joined that guild, everything felt better. (That guild is also strong in wvwvw.) People knows each other names and you see some recognisable ones each day. The bond grows when you’re loyal to one guild. 50 friends from the same guild you know is better than 5000 strangers from different guilds you don’t know.

I think the folks who have long-established guilds of close friends, or very large, powerful guilds from previous games, should cut the rest of us a little more slack. I know it might be difficult to remember, but starting a guild from the ground up is a completely different perspective than years later when you are just maintaining something in a new game, and you’ve already found a large group of friends who share your interests and activity levels.

Perhaps it would be reasonable to acknowledge that the system in GW2 works better for some types of guilds at the moment, and worse for others. Sure, I would probably love the flexibility of the GW2 guild system if I ran a mega-guild and had active members coming out of my ears. I probably wouldn’t mind the lack of tools if I already had a very well established, close-knit guild. I don’t have either of those things yet…so the system isn’t working as well for me.

Coming into a thread like this and saying, “There’s nothing wrong with the system…MY guild is just fine, you just aren’t doing it right” really just sounds condescending, insulting, and largely unhelpful.

maybe you should provide people with reasons to represent your guild instead of harassing them about it.

People likes the multiguild because for them Guilds are like facebook now. Guilds here are SOCIAL NETOWRKS, no GUILDS.
I find the guilds to be nathing more than a social club or something. I think the DEV was players who had a bad experience with guilds in another game, so they just made guilds like social networks. Guild system sucks in this game.

my guild has 50ish people total on the roster, let than half of that are active and rep the guild.

i see some of the people that are actively playing the game but not repping us in other guilds on teh server, so i guess they just like that guild better than us. or on other servers, which is strange to me, because yeah, they are all on different servers like every other day.

even then, i have nearly equal numbers of repping active players show up for wvw nights than guilds 2-10x our size. i have to wonder what’s going on in those guilds that they can onyl field 20 people with 300-500 members on their rosters when my 50 man total roster guild brings in 15.

anyways, most of the people that are inactive or not repping on our roster either didn’t give us a chance in mumble, weren’t a good fit for us in mumble, or quit the game several weeks ago.

would be nice to have a last date logged in or last date repped indicator, and maybe an officer note.

as well as some other oversights on teh whole guild thing.

One can not just point at the multi-guild feature and say “This is the bad guy” when there is nothing in the game that instils guild pride and loyalty into the members.

Fozzik.1742:

I probably wouldn’t mind the lack of tools if I already had a very well established, close-knit guild. I don’t have either of those things yet…so the system isn’t working as well for me.

Coming into a thread like this and saying, “There’s nothing wrong with the system…MY guild is just fine, you just aren’t doing it right” really just sounds condescending, insulting, and largely unhelpful.

I think there are two different issues here.

Firstly what do you mean by lack of tools? If you mean that the guilds have limited functionality to what we could have I would agree. There is an awful lot is lacking from the guild system in way of functionality.

However, is this the focus of the thread? Not really. This is more an over view of the entire concept of multi-guilds. I think you can say there is nothing wrong with the system and still believe smaller elements of it can be improved. I think saying others are being un-helpful just because they are coming from a different view point is misleading. Just because others find the system does work does not mean it is unhelpful to say so.

I don’t think the problem is the multi guild system. After all, it’s no different then if a person has each alt in a different guild, the only difference is that it’s now transperant. I think rather that the problem is that there are few tools for communicating with a large group of people beside the guild you are currently representing. One way to solve it would be if you could create custom chat channels, another would be if you could have access to the chat of all the guilds you belong to, even when not representing.

And yeah, if people don’t know who the guild leader is, I would think the issue lies with management rather then the unknowning member.

@Erin.7521

You are not a guild leader and I almost wish you’d bow out of the conversation…leartn to adapt.

As a guild leader myself, I tried adapting. At first, we recruited anyone who said: “Invite me!” we wanted to build a fast player base and then once we hit 50 members we would slow down, weed out those who ’didn’t fit’ and recruit those interested in guild loyalty, even rewarding members who fullfilled a base requirment to sign up on our website.

Within the first week, we didn’t have 50 people and we recruited EVERY DAY (me and my other guild leader) and by a full month later, we finally eeked out 50 people. But a few left, and far too many did not represent. WHen discussed with the guild as a whole, we decided that those who did not represent would be removed.

The problem (AS A GUILD LEADER) is that you advance your guild by having people represent you. The problem is getting people to represent. I am a chatty cathy by nature. I love talking to my guild members. I like watching guild chat scroll by, even if I am not particpating. I do my best (in the limitations of this guild interface) to greet everyone when they log in, say hi and how’s your day…and invite them to do the things I am doing, or see what intrests they have at the time.

More often than not, people have stopped logging in. People did not want to join me in the things I was doing, guild chat diminished, activity diminished, and I tried getting new people to ‘bring in new life’. Yet, outside of a1 or 2 key people, activity remained at an all time low, some people that joined turned around and immediatley represented other guilds, and I was left with a shell of a guild that had activity.

The representation system does more harm than good. For the proverbial guild shopper, its a wonderful system, but instead of the members working and suppoting the guild, out of a sense of loyalty and a desire to advance as a unit, you find that this system makes it so that if I as the top dog in my guild, the leader, the enforcer of my guild’s ways…doesn’t bend knee and kiss the ground around my members feet to make them stay, they just get up and leave.

I’m all about praising and rewarding my members, but I am NOT about to give them what they want, when they want it, at the expense of my other members or else they will leave….I won’t do it.

And that’s exactly the kind of system this guild representation has instiituted.

TL;DR

It’s not about the guild, its about the individual

I’ve been searching for a guild since launch and still haven’t found one. Maybe its just my server, but this game is the least social MMO I’ve ever played.

teviko.6049:

@Erin.7521

You are not a guild leader and I almost wish you’d bow out of the conversation…leartn to adapt.

As a guild leader myself, I tried adapting. At first, we recruited anyone who said: “Invite me!” we wanted to build a fast player base and then once we hit 50 members we would slow down, weed out those who ’didn’t fit’ and recruit those interested in guild loyalty, even rewarding members who fullfilled a base requirment to sign up on our website.

Within the first week, we didn’t have 50 people and we recruited EVERY DAY (me and my other guild leader) and by a full month later, we finally eeked out 50 people. But a few left, and far too many did not represent. WHen discussed with the guild as a whole, we decided that those who did not represent would be removed.

The problem (AS A GUILD LEADER) is that you advance your guild by having people represent you. The problem is getting people to represent. I am a chatty cathy by nature. I love talking to my guild members. I like watching guild chat scroll by, even if I am not particpating. I do my best (in the limitations of this guild interface) to greet everyone when they log in, say hi and how’s your day…and invite them to do the things I am doing, or see what intrests they have at the time.

More often than not, people have stopped logging in. People did not want to join me in the things I was doing, guild chat diminished, activity diminished, and I tried getting new people to ‘bring in new life’. Yet, outside of a1 or 2 key people, activity remained at an all time low, some people that joined turned around and immediatley represented other guilds, and I was left with a shell of a guild that had activity.

The representation system does more harm than good. For the proverbial guild shopper, its a wonderful system, but instead of the members working and suppoting the guild, out of a sense of loyalty and a desire to advance as a unit, you find that this system makes it so that if I as the top dog in my guild, the leader, the enforcer of my guild’s ways…doesn’t bend knee and kiss the ground around my members feet to make them stay, they just get up and leave.

I’m all about praising and rewarding my members, but I am NOT about to give them what they want, when they want it, at the expense of my other members or else they will leave….I won’t do it.

And that’s exactly the kind of system this guild representation has instiituted.

TL;DR

It’s not about the guild, its about the individual

Much of the things you mention here are typical in most MMO’s/games/guilds/clans and clubs and also what most leaders struggle with. Tools and their usefulness is another discussion.

I can see that many people think it’s a factor of multi-guild rep’s, but it’s not, it’s more about transparency, knowing people are in a guild and not repping, which is also not a problem of the multi-guild system. I run a 600 member club for mature gamers, it’s not any different, people come and go, peoples schedules change, you can’t fault anyone for that and they certainly are members of other sites (even myself, here on this forum). In that sense i feel it’s completely unfair to blame the multi-guild system for behavior that goes on in social systems everywhere.

I think there are two different issues here.

Firstly what do you mean by lack of tools? If you mean that the guilds have limited functionality to what we could have I would agree. There is an awful lot is lacking from the guild system in way of functionality.

That’s exactly what I was saying. Maybe I was taking things a bit off-topic for this thread, but in earlier posts I tried to explain that I feel some of the problem the original poster is trying to describe is due to a lack of guild functionality / tools. It might seem like the multi-guild system isn’t working…simply because it isn’t fleshed out and supported properly. That’s my feeling, anyway.

I think the situation would be a lot better if it wasn’t so ambiguous for new / young guilds. We don’t have the structures in place to organize and keep track of people and their activity, and the game doesn’t help much at all.

teviko.6049:

I’m all about praising and rewarding my members, but I am NOT about to give them what they want, when they want it, at the expense of my other members or else they will leave….I won’t do it.

I have to massively agree with this. In fact this is the exact sort of thing I was talking about when I said “The idea of a guild for me is one that suits your needs and you suit theirs.” If the member does not suit you as a guild then that is just as much of an issue as you not suiting them. It is about getting a group of people together that share a common goal and a common purpose.

There are two types of guilds I feel are going to do well in this game. The large zerg guilds which have been mention a lot. But also the often over looked smaller guilds that have clear goals and shared aims. I think this is where adaptation comes in. In other games the multi-disciplinary guild was king, people enjoyed be able to everything in one place. Here I think as people can join more than one many members are going to want to join a selection of more specialist guilds. The small guilds that I have seen who are strong and thriving have all catered to a niche.

teviko.6049:

you find that this system makes it so that if I as the top dog in my guild, the leader, the enforcer of my guild’s ways…doesn’t bend knee and kiss the ground around my members feet to make them stay, they just get up and leave.

This is the other part of adapting I think some guild leaders are missing. It is letting people leave, letting people not represent, not sweating about it as that is a part of this game. It is a different mind set but perhaps it would make you feel less jaded if you did not worry about chasing everyone on your guild list and just spent time playing instead.

teviko.6049:

You are not a guild leader and I almost wish you’d bow out of the conversation…leartn to adapt.

Aside I am sorry if my lack of guild leadership offends you , but after all guilds are not just for the leaders. I honestly believe in a balance discussion members opinion are just as important, especially when talking about changing the entire foundation of the system.

Edit:

It might seem like the multi-guild system isn’t working…simply because it isn’t fleshed out and supported properly. That’s my feeling, anyway.

This is a very good point, I didn’t make the connection when I ready your first post but it could indeed be a factor.

I don’t mean to be rude, but if you have a situation where people don’t know who you are in your guild, especially when you’re a major influence in said guild, then your guild is either:
A) Recruiting way too many random people with no obligations or reasons for them to care about your guild.
OR
B) Not as tightly knit as you like to claim.

I personally am in 4 guilds myself. I have a similar situation to someone who posted early in this thread.
I have a forum guild, a guild built off of a group of people on another forum for another game. We all got the game and decided to make a guild.
I have two guilds joined because of friends
And I have a “Main” guild that I joined because of it’s activity and size.

I was in my Main guild for two days, and everyone already knew me. We have great conversations, we party, we WvW (even though I’m not a fan of it, I join it to play with them), and we have fun. If any of my other guilds have people on and I’m bored, I switch over. They all know me too. They PM me about stuff too, even when I’m not representing. I’m not even that active in 2/4, and 1 I’m less active in ever since I joined my current Main guild.

Honestly, there’s nothing wrong with the guild system if you use it right. If you just go around and invite any shmuck off the street, you shouldn’t be surprised when people have no idea who you are.

The only other contributing factor to your issues is Character Names. If you have several characters with completely different names, you can run into issues where they do not know who you are when you attempt to contact them. How do I get around this issue? I use something that Guild Wars 1 forced: A surname (Okay, it didn’t really ENFORCE it, but it required two words/names in your character names, something they abandoned in GW2). All of my characters have the same surname. This has really worked wonders. I’ve never had someone, even someone I talked to very little, wonder who I am in my guilds, because my name sticks out.

I’m sorry but I don’t see your problem at all.

When I was playing Aion getting into a good guild was critical because you needed organization for PvP, you needed help completing quests, you needed help getting a revenge kill in open world PvP. The size of the guilds was limited to 100 and a guild could capture world fortresses and a GUILD MEANT SOMETHING.

Here there is little incentive to be in a guild – you can pretty much pug everything and the long term rewards are all fluff so it doesnt really matter.

I am not a guild leader or some where close to leadership but I know that feeling. I join a huge guild that has 700+ members. We are forced to split into 2 guilds due to 500 limit. For 450+ members our guild have, we never have 100+ members representing our guild at once. And 50 man are the most we can mobilize. I know some quit this game, some have a busy real life so can’t play much, but most of them are not active because they can have multiple guilds and each could serve its purpose better. This guild could be their “main” guild and they join other for different reasons, like playing with real life friends, time zone. Or it could be their “alt” and they join us just for some purposes, like wvw karma train.

Taking me for example, beside that huge guild, I also have a one-man stash guild which allow me to trade/store items better and I am currently looking for a dungeon only guild. I would not say multiple guilds system is destructive. It is great but it has problems. It spread some guilds’ member, especially big causal guilds’ member, thin. And worse, it “disconnect” member who are using the system to do something else.

My suggestion is that ANET should have something like “Community” or “Alliance”. “Community/Alliance”should have no bonus but no member limit and more in-game social functions, like a chat channel, in-game message board/forum, conference-room instance, newsletter. It could have many guilds in it and it should have roundtable kind of management so small guilds could join while remaining independent. This allow player stay connected even they are on other businesses and join the event once they are done. It help big guilds to organize events better. And it also help forming small specialized guilds, like JP/dungeon/explore guilds, which do help players a lot.

Erin.7521:

teviko.6049:

I’m all about praising and rewarding my members, but I am NOT about to give them what they want, when they want it, at the expense of my other members or else they will leave….I won’t do it.

I have to massively agree with this. In fact this is the exact sort of thing I was talking about when I said “The idea of a guild for me is one that suits your needs and you suit theirs.” If the member does not suit you as a guild then that is just as much of an issue as you not suiting them. It is about getting a group of people together that share a common goal and a common purpose.

There are two types of guilds I feel are going to do well in this game. The large zerg guilds which have been mention a lot. But also the often over looked smaller guilds that have clear goals and shared aims. I think this is where adaptation comes in. In other games the multi-disciplinary guild was king, people enjoyed be able to everything in one place. Here I think as people can join more than one many members are going to want to join a selection of more specialist guilds. The small guilds that I have seen who are strong and thriving have all catered to a niche.

teviko.6049:

you find that this system makes it so that if I as the top dog in my guild, the leader, the enforcer of my guild’s ways…doesn’t bend knee and kiss the ground around my members feet to make them stay, they just get up and leave.

This is the other part of adapting I think some guild leaders are missing. It is letting people leave, letting people not represent, not sweating about it as that is a part of this game. It is a different mind set but perhaps it would make you feel less jaded if you did not worry about chasing everyone on your guild list and just spent time playing instead.

teviko.6049:

You are not a guild leader and I almost wish you’d bow out of the conversation…leartn to adapt.

Aside I am sorry if my lack of guild leadership offends you , but after all guilds are not just for the leaders. I honestly believe in a balance discussion members opinion are just as important, especially when talking about changing the entire foundation of the system.

Edit:

It might seem like the multi-guild system isn’t working…simply because it isn’t fleshed out and supported properly. That’s my feeling, anyway.

This is a very good point, I didn’t make the connection when I ready your first post but it could indeed be a factor.

I am NOT offended you are not a guild leader yourself, but I don’t think you understand it from a guild leader’s perspective on the issue. As a guild leader myself, and having tried my best to entice peopel to my guild, grow it internally and tried to keep intrest in my guild.

But ultimately, it comes down to that if you don’t represent MY guild, you are not earning MY guild any influence. I don’t benefit you, you don’t benefit me, WHY bother taking up a spot in my guild? As a guild leader, I don’t know who you are, you don’t know who I am, and serves to further the gap between us, especially since, you cannot see chat with my guild so you can’t get to know us, or know when things are going on.

IF you were earning every guild influence that you were in, I wouldn’t mind, but it would just promote large guild full of…unrepresenting players, but at least they are still earning me influence. I’d be more inclined to allow access to more players.

And as for ‘easing up’ I had one member who had a friend in another guild (even after we said their friend could join us) and we allowed her to not represent us while playing with her friend.

She never represented us again. After a week, we disbanded her, as per our charter.

That is the problem. She never looked in on us, and while we wish her the best, the problem is, they go elsewhere and don’t look back. I’ve fought tooth and claw to hold my own together, and just before the halloween event me and my friend came to the conclusion that this ‘GW2 experiment’ was over. The guild exists, and whenever i log in to check on my members, none are on.

Now, I don’t play, but I still have responsibility to my guild, and I log on once a day to check on my (non-existent) members. But I still check, even if I don’t play.

Let me say first that I am not a guild leader and I am not currently in a guild (other than my own and a friends).

Why am I not looking for a guild – well two reasons, mainly because I like randomly hopping between my 7 character out of which I kinda play 5 mostly atm.

Secondly because I believe that the culture of a multi-guild environment has to be established first.

I see great potential in this, guilds being able to run multiple divisions etc – all of this really has already been mentioned.

But yes, right now I would not want to get these whispers “why are you not representing” and so on, being on a different character all together maybe. Sometimes you just want to come online and not have the feeling to “have to” do something. Since it’s not really possible to come online with a different character (short of buying a second account) and not everyone understands a “no thank you” I’ll have to wait until it may click with someone who thinks along the same lines.

To maybe elaborate this some more, I have 2 kids and a wife who does not really like this hobby, so there are compromises to be made every now and then – another reason why I don’t often run dungeons – I don’t like to commit and then not being able to stay or make other people wait for me.

Something to perhaps consider for the guild leaders who have trouble with this, make sure you understand what your member is doing. Is he/she maybe not on a character that he/she associates with your guild?

My current guild rarely has more than 10 people online. 2 to 3 are usually not representing and are on other servers. The others mostly either group in 2’s and 3’s or solo. Other than a few hellos, nothing is said. This guild originally had a solid core of people who would PvP and do dungeons together. Then, the guild leader went to the LoL tournament, and this revived interest in LoL among the core. Other than the Saturday before Halloween, they’ve been absent.

However, these people are friends from our GW1 alliance. I’d like to remain loyal and game with them if they return. However, I am getting zilch for benefits. I still represent, and influence is being accumulated, but the officers are not logging on even long enough to queue up bonuses.

The multi-guild system seems ideal for this situation. I have been thinking about joining another guild to be able to enjoy guild privileges, and participate with others in game-play. I would, of course, represent the new guild when playing with them, and the old one if/when playing with them.

However, I can see how a guild would not want to have people on the roster who are not representing. Iirc guild size has to be purchased, and having someone take up roster space if they are not participating would be a downer.

As a result of this thread I am thinking I will leave my old guild and join an active one. I could still play with old friends if the occasion arises, but I would not want to be seen as a drag to new friends.

teviko.6049:

But ultimately, it comes down to that if you don’t represent MY guild, you are not earning MY guild any influence. I don’t benefit you, you don’t benefit me, WHY bother taking up a spot in my guild? As a guild leader, I don’t know who you are, you don’t know who I am, and serves to further the gap between us, especially since, you cannot see chat with my guild so you can’t get to know us, or know when things are going on.

Seems to me your guild might be suffering more from your attitude than from the multi-guild system.

Look at it more this way, being able to join multiple guilds means the guild leaders are more accountable for the satisfaction of their members. As i said before, if you are having trouble keeping members representing or they are joining a second guild and forgetting about you…then maybe you should look at why.

It might have something to do with the “My, My, My” attitude.

Ill reference my previous post again since you never responded…the guy that gives you kitten that doesn’t know you: did you know him? The progress of his alts? If he stalled and needed help on his crafts or story? What role did he fill in groups and did you ever ask him to join one?

See, that’s the thing that separates guilds and leaders that people want to represent from the ones they don’t: You can pm people to tell them they need to represent your guild, per your rules, but how often did you pm that same person for a dungeon run, or karma farming, or any other guild event? I would bet a shiny nickle…never.

A guild leader is accountable to the players. Not the other way around. If your members are leaving or not waving your banner, then its a failing on your part. Not the games.

AcidicVision.5498:

teviko.6049:

But ultimately, it comes down to that if you don’t represent MY guild, you are not earning MY guild any influence. I don’t benefit you, you don’t benefit me, WHY bother taking up a spot in my guild? As a guild leader, I don’t know who you are, you don’t know who I am, and serves to further the gap between us, especially since, you cannot see chat with my guild so you can’t get to know us, or know when things are going on.

Seems to me your guild might be suffering more from your attitude than from the multi-guild system.

Look at it more this way, being able to join multiple guilds means the guild leaders are more accountable for the satisfaction of their members. As i said before, if you are having trouble keeping members representing or they are joining a second guild and forgetting about you…then maybe you should look at why.

It might have something to do with the “My, My, My” attitude.

Ill reference my previous post again since you never responded…the guy that gives you kitten that doesn’t know you: did you know him? The progress of his alts? If he stalled and needed help on his crafts or story? What role did he fill in groups and did you ever ask him to join one?

See, that’s the thing that separates guilds and leaders that people want to represent from the ones they don’t: You can pm people to tell them they need to represent your guild, per your rules, but how often did you pm that same person for a dungeon run, or karma farming, or any other guild event? I would bet a shiny nickle…never.

A guild leader is accountable to the players. Not the other way around. If your members are leaving or not waving your banner, then its a failing on your part. Not the games.

You didn’t read my first post. I was ALWAYS inviting players to join me, or ask if they needed help. I was always trying to organize events and get things rolling. I was always talkitive and ALWAYS doing my best (when I saw someone new log in) to say HI when they log in.

My attitude on the forums does not represent who I am in game. IF I say: “Does anyone need help?” And noone replies, and then leave because ‘noone would help them’ is that really my failing??

NO, because if they are not representing when I ask, and don’t ask in guild i dunno whom to help. THAT is a failing of the multiple guild system. I put in more of my life’s blood into my guild, only to watch people stop logging in, leave, or simply not represent and go their own way. AND I SAID: I WISH THEM ALL THE BEST. I hold no ill will to THEM, for doing as they feel is best for them.

But I will not hold one member over another simply because they ‘threaten’ to leave if I do not do XXXXXXX for them. That is my point, and that is the ‘power’ the average player can hold over their guilds. If they don’t get the help THEY want, when THEY want it, then they leave. I don’t give two flying figs. Those are not the type of people I wanted anyways.

The type of people I did want, have (mostly) left the game altogether.

So, is that a failing on my part? Or the game?

Considering that more and more people are complaining about the state of the game. I’m gonna put my money on the latter.

Edit button was gone…

On not repping members and influence. Our guild does not WvW a lot. I have three guys that WvW with their friends in another guild. I don’t really care that they earn influence for another guild that will be used towards warfare bonuses. It benefits them, their little WvW group and the activity they have fun with.

Those same three guys do up to 9 dungeons runs a night on the regular with me and other members, while repping us. That’s a nice big chunk of influence that I wouldn’t be getting without them. You know what they would do if I forced them to always rep? They would quit. Because players aren’t pokemon. And I would lose that influence to having to pick up pugs or ask other members to do dungeons they don’t have much fun in.

The selfishness, not knowing your players, and your draconian rules are costing you more influence than I think you were earning.