Guild Wars 2

MrsAngelD.6971:

Mkalafut.1273:

ZoiN.4280:

I made a smilar thread quite about a month ago or so – Being a guild leader my self as well I found it extremely frustrating seeing people not representing as it doesnt really contribute to the guild you are trying to hold together with as much effort as you possibly can dish out, where as even setting up guild events seems to be futile in several ways – and yeah ive tried several times, having to force people onto your guild website to have the otherwise sign up there is extremely ineffecient compared to having an ingame calendar to setup events in, and secondly, actually having people showing up at all, because there’s not really anything they can’t do on their own with just random people anyway, unless ofcourse we are talking dungeons, though these are for 5 man only, and not everyone needs the same items from those dungeons, though that’s an entirely different discussion.

Guild seems extremely pointless at this time, besides the buffs they provide – though I can’t really see why a guy who’s soloing anyway, would want to be part of a small guild, and not just one huge one which has all the upgrades, and could possibly have all the buffs going 24/7 :/

I am going through literally everything you mentioned. Trying to schedule events, trying to enforce representing and website activity. Just seems, as you said, futile in this game so far. I hope things start looking better in your guild beacuse it seems like we share a lot of the same woes.

MrsAngelD.6971:

Sorry I only read the first page of the thread (it’s a lot to read!..lol).

I am a guild leader, My guild currently has 83 members. Of those 83 members myself & my husband are the leaders and we have 5 officers. We didn’t pick our officers lightly. In order to join our guild our members MUST fill out our small application on the website.

Our website is fairly active, I utilize all the tools available through it’s interface including, calender, news(I personally write articles about the events our guild holds), and forums. I’ve also setup a Facebook page, twitter account, and Google + page for our guild. My officers have each picked one activity a month which they organize and run, we have a monthly screenshot contest in which our members have a chance to win 1 gold, 50 silver or 25 silver. One Saturday a month one of the officers has a trivia contest with prizes, on another Saturday another officer organized a jumping puzzle race with prizes(even a prize just for showing up), and on even another Saturday we do a type of scavenger hunt with prizes where we pick one area of the game and the officers hide and give clues to their locations and must be found, whoever finds and officer wins a chance to pick 3 items from the guild stash portion of our guild bank. We also just started doing an official WvW night which is coordinated with another guild in our alliance it was a great success and for the first time since launch our mumble server had 29 people logged in and what a great time we had. My guild is active, fun and friendly.

I am not against multi-guilding in fact a good portion of my members are also members of other guilds. That being said I think it’s really up to the leadership to make the guild a place members want to be an participate in. Your title comes with more than just a title it’s you taking on the responsibility of making sure that all your members have a good time and enjoy their experience in game.

I personally started my guild with the attitude that I want to make friends, and by that I don’t mean just some people who share a guild name with me, I mean making lasting friends with the people I come in contact with. So far since headstart it’s been a great experience.

I quoted my own post to maybe give you some ideas on better ways to get your guildies active & attentive.

Thanks. We’ve been fine for almost 10 years now and it’s not so much a matter of not having active or attentive members, it’s just the steady amount of gaining and losing members is mostly the problem with my specific case.

What I meant in my response to the other user was that I see that day in and day out – for a while in my own guild and to this day in others. It’s really unfortunate and couple that with the fact that for some reason everyone wants to be in a zerg guild, it could get bad for some.

I got to agree with a lot of the talk on here. I am not really a leader or a member becuase of zerg guild recruitment spamming. I miss the camaraderie of previous games but with guilds running wild like this it is just a headache I do not need.
Unlike the casuals I can remember the importants. I do not want to be a member of the faceless horde. I created my own guild of one just so the messages would stop.

EQ – Solemne – Twilight of Gods – Povar – Leader: Blackfists and later Flarin
BF1942 – BrownDirtCowboy – HSDWG – Leader: Bandit
BF1942 – BrownDirtCowboy – status hanger on of clan General Mayhem
BF1942 – CowboyCrash – AOW (Administrators of War – formerly General Mayhem) Leader: Black Otto and Mrs Otto
GW – Jorn Wolfgang – 4 man guild – Leader: Sorrow Dragon
EQ2 – Fantasay – Dirty Deeds – AB – (WoW’s release destroyed us along with a full class restructuring and I no longer remember the importants)
EQ2 – Fantasay Tanica – Exiles of Lowca – Crushbone – Leader: Rexornal then Whyllo
AOC – Laerith – Kings Guard (Game imploded and I no longer remember the importants)
SWTOR – Deekan – Exiles of Lowca (under another name) Leader: Rexornal until F2P and no one caring killed us
GW2 – Bebe Le Strange – Dead Man Floating – Me, myself and I

I still remember the majority of the people I played with in the games above. But in all those guilds/clans I either applied or was referred by a member. We may not have been the biggest but those people had my respect and friendship. I just do not feel that call in recruiting messages I see now. I can less care about the perks to be honest.

Jorn Wolfgang.3712:

I got to agree with a lot of the talk on here. I am not really a leader or a member becuase of zerg guild recruitment spamming. I miss the camaraderie of previous games but with guilds running wild like this it is just a headache I do not need.
Unlike the casuals I can remember the importants. I do not want to be a member of the faceless horde. I created my own guild of one just so the messages would stop.

EQ – Solemne – Twilight of Gods – Povar – Leader: Blackfists and later Flarin
BF1942 – BrownDirtCowboy – HSDWG – Leader: Bandit
BF1942 – BrownDirtCowboy – status hanger on of clan General Mayhem
BF1942 – CowboyCrash – AOW (Administrators of War – formerly General Mayhem) Leader: Black Otto and Mrs Otto
GW – Jorn Wolfgang – 4 man guild – Leader: Sorrow Dragon
EQ2 – Fantasay – Dirty Deeds – AB – (WoW’s release destroyed us along with a full class restructuring and I no longer remember the importants)
EQ2 – Fantasay Tanica – Exiles of Lowca – Crushbone – Leader: Rexornal then Whyllo
AOC – Laerith – Kings Guard (Game imploded and I no longer remember the importants)
SWTOR – Deekan – Exiles of Lowca (under another name) Leader: Rexornal until F2P and no one caring killed us
GW2 – Bebe Le Strange – Dead Man Floating – Me, myself and I

I still remember the majority of the people I played with in the games above. But in all those guilds/clans I either applied or was referred by a member. We may not have been the biggest but those people had my respect and friendship. I just do not feel that call in recruiting messages I see now. I can less care about the perks to be honest.

I agree with you and thank you for sharing your experiences. As far as I’m conerned I’m like you – I’d rather have a small guild of friends who actually do something than lead a horde of nameless faceless peons that never do anything together.

Mkalafut.1273:

What I meant in my response to the other user was that I see that day in and day out – for a while in my own guild and to this day in others. It’s really unfortunate and couple that with the fact that for some reason everyone wants to be in a zerg guild, it could get bad for some.

I see. Well one thing that I’ve done is in my recruiting process, everyone must fill out an application to join. It’s a small application in which I ask a few basic questions and they must agree to our code of conduct. But if they can’t be bothered with filling out our application then I probably don’t want them in the guild anyway. Our members start off as the rank of prospect and they must Earn the right to access our guild bank they earn that right based on the amount of contribution the put forth to the guild (representing) We hold officer meetings once a week and all the leaders & officers vote on who get’s promoted and who doesn’t. Personally I run a very democratic guild. I make a big deal out of promotions and our guildies earning things. I constantly take feedback about what members are interested in and what they are currently doing. Then we will discuss it in officer meetings and decided ways to handle those things. These are just my thoughts

teviko.6049:

NOTE: One thing that bothers me about many an MMO is that somehow it’s become the ‘leaders’ job to organize everything, to make up special olympics for the ‘socially impaired’.

Who actually expects this? i sure dont . The biggest organizational effort our alliance did was district hosting for Canthan New Year in GW1 but that was a combined effort in farming stuff organizing who was going to be hosting at what hour and getting the word out on what districts we were hosting . When it comes to stuff like dungeons people would never get it done if they expected the guild leader to do it .

MrsAngelD.6971:

It’s a small application in which I ask a few basic questions and they must agree to our code of conduct. But if they can’t be bothered with filling out our application then I probably don’t want them in the guild anyway.

I feel so strongly about the text I quoted. You’d be surprised (or maybe you won’t be.) at the response I get sometimes when I tell people they need to go to a website and fill out a Q/A / Application and read rules before they join.

What? I have to go to a WEBSITE to join your guild? I have to read? I have to apply? Screw that, too much work I’m not looking for a job. <—responses I get.

I actually think a better implementation is to have one guild and many groups, so people can be in a guild do allh their guildie stuff and still communicate with whatever groups they join.

Guilds are not pointless even in a multi-guild system, you just need to understand that different people have different reasons for being in a guild. The advantage of a multi-guild system is that a person with multiple interests can be part of multiple guilds that support those interests, such as PvE, PvP, RP, social, etc.

As a guild leader you should be deciding what the purpose of your guild is and ensure your recruits meet that criteria. The case of members not knowing the guild leader and being abusive is a good example of poor recruiting.

The key to a good guild has always been about having a group of people sharing a common interest. Nothing in GW2 changes that fact and the majority of issues are based on social problems and not the mechanics of the multi-guild system.

Mkalafut.1273:

MrsAngelD.6971:

It’s a small application in which I ask a few basic questions and they must agree to our code of conduct. But if they can’t be bothered with filling out our application then I probably don’t want them in the guild anyway.

I feel so strongly about the text I quoted. You’d be surprised (or maybe you won’t be.) at the response I get sometimes when I tell people they need to go to a website and fill out a Q/A / Application and read rules before they join.

What? I have to go to a WEBSITE to join your guild? I have to read? I have to apply? Screw that, too much work I’m not looking for a job. <—responses I get.

Oh I’m not surprised at all. I’ve received lot’s of responses like that, but for me the trade off is worth it. The people who have filled out applications have been great and I’ve met a lot of good folks.

I dissagree with you here Tzash. I feel that the social problems are compounded by the very design of the multi guild system as it stands. It at thevery least needs tweaking in some way. check my post back along and u will c my ideas for it.

MrsAngelD.6971:

Mkalafut.1273:

MrsAngelD.6971:

It’s a small application in which I ask a few basic questions and they must agree to our code of conduct. But if they can’t be bothered with filling out our application then I probably don’t want them in the guild anyway.

I feel so strongly about the text I quoted. You’d be surprised (or maybe you won’t be.) at the response I get sometimes when I tell people they need to go to a website and fill out a Q/A / Application and read rules before they join.

What? I have to go to a WEBSITE to join your guild? I have to read? I have to apply? Screw that, too much work I’m not looking for a job. <—responses I get.

Oh I’m not surprised at all. I’ve received lot’s of responses like that, but for me the trade off is worth it. The people who have filled out applications have been great and I’ve met a lot of good folks.

Agreed. Delayed gratification > instant. I’d much rather have someone go through the proper protocals and actually show the initial effort than someone who won’t bother taking 5 minutes out of his life to do so.

Jezath.7395:

I dissagree with you here Tzash. I feel that the social problems are compounded by the very design of the multi guild system as it stands. It at thevery least needs tweaking in some way. check my post back along and u will c my ideas for it.

I’ve read your post and I’m still not seeing how it is a mechanics problem. If you have a guild requirement that members represent your guild and then some don’t want to then surely that indicates that they weren’t suitable for your guild in the first place.

This is exactly right. Guilds haven’t got a chance at working against larger more established guilds with this multi guild BS. BEST TIP FOR ANET EVER!!!!! GUILD WARS 1 GUILD AND ALLIANCE WORKED WELL!!!!!!!!!! GUILD AND ALLIANCE CHAT WAS USED REGULARLY AND WE HAD COMMUNITY. GW2 GUILD SETUP IS ANTI SOCIAL RUBBISH!

OP and others, you are the guild leaders. It’s time to start culling the inactive members and un-abiding guildies. Make rules and enforce them. Though multi-guilding does sound like it could use some rules and regulations or options like ‘no multi-guilding allowed’ or other things like that. More development, refining and fine-tuning looks in order.

Zahld.4956:

OP and others, you are the guild leader. It’s time to start culling the inactive members and un-abiding guildies. Make rules and enforce them. Though multi-guilding does sound like it could use some rules and regulations or options like ‘no multi-guilding allowed’ or other thing like that. More development, refining and fine-tuning looks in order.

As soon as Anet updates the guild interface and we can see the inactive members and days since login I’d be more than happy to. I can only enforce the rules so far without kicking someone who may have just logged in on irregular times.

Mkalafut.1273:

I made a simple request for a member to represent us, as it is a requirement to be in the guild which everyone agrees to before joining. I get a whisper back with "Listen I don’t know who the ____ this is, but I’ve been asked this question every day for a ____ing week, enough already. kitten "

Me: “Excuse me? I’m sorry if I messaged you previously about this, it’s just that there’s no way for me to tell who I already talked about without a note feature and I just go down the list and send the same message to anybody not representing. It’s a guild rule you know, as well as respect and I don’t think it’s wise to talk to your guild leader that way – or any player for that matter.”

“LOL Like I give a ____! I’m in plenty of other guilds, go ahead and kick me, see if I give a s___! Hahahahahaahahahah”

It’s as if nobody cares about guilds. They are just things that come and go and don’t have any value (especially since nearly every guild now has max upgrades unlocked) and can just be replaced in seconds.

Correct, and this is always how fringe members have felt, in every guild you’ve ever run. Only before, they would just find a better guild and mysteriously quit from yours (oh right, btw that is what happened all those times). Now, they don’t need to do that, they can switch guilds as they please and if you don’t like it, they lose nothing because they’re not repping you anyway but you lose headcount for whatever that’s worth. More power to the individual.

A better question to ask is, why did you invite him in the first place? Or, does he have a reason to give a kitten about staying in your guild?

Random recruit is random.

I like the multi-guild system, but I get the problems it causes. The solution I would advocate would be:

1. Players’s cannot “represent” whatever guild they want. All “representing” would do is change which guild emblem you displayed on your gear.

2. All influence gained would be divided automatically between all guilds you’re a member of. This may require a one time “inflation” of adding a zero to all influence costs, gains, and stocks, so that it could be more evenly divided (ie instead of gaining 1 influence for an action you’d gain 10, which could more easily be divided up to ten ways).

3. The player ranks each guild in order of importance to him. You may rank your personal guild first, or last, whatever.

4. Influence gained is assigned to each guild round robin style, such that it tends to even out over time. If you gain ten influence, and belong to four guilds, the first would get a point, then the second, and so on, such that by the end of that run the first two would even up with three points and the last two with only two, but they would be first to draw from the news event.

5. You would gain perks only from the first placed guild (which may not be the one who’s emblem you were representing, but is the one that gets “dibs” on your influence).

I don’t know that this would solve all the problems, but what it would mean is that you could make and maintain a personal guild, you could join and maintain any number of “squad” guilds of close friends, and also you could belong to an “uber” guild that had all sorts of high perks, and gain those benefits, and you would definitely not be able to stiff them on the bill. There might need to be one additional change:

6. You can only join one guild of 50 or more people at a time. There’s really no legitimate need to join more than one “uber” guild, if you know more than 50 people who want to be in the same guild then that should be your main guild. This would serve to give some strength back to the idea of a strong core guild.

That said, as a guild leader, you aren’t owed the respect of your members. You have to earn it, and it’s not up to ANet to give it to you.

deriver.5381:

We have a reasonable large guild, with about 150 members… (…) we are not against multi-guilding. Our only request is that when someone is doing something with us, that they keep our guild represented.

But we don’t spam chat channels for new members or things like that. We never worried about numbers. We had a set rule of only accepting people who knew someone from our initial core of players at the beginning or friends of friends of that same core after.

I believe the tool is good, and you can’t blame it for the people who misuse it.

I agree with this. I like the freedom of multi-guilding. It’s reasonable for the player to represent the guild they’re playing with at a given moment but it’s not reasonable in my view for a guild to demand representation at all times from players.

It also depends on guilds to keep players interested. I’m certainly not going to be in a guild that does little communication and activities or one that demands exclusivity.

It’s also good for new players to get to experience having their own guild while being in a bigger one.

@OP

…so, did you kick the guy? Honestly, I would have. Do you really want a player with that kind of attitude in your guild?

I’m not sure I’m a fan of the multi-guild system either, but this is still a problem that can be fixed by the playerbase while ANet tweeks the system more. In my opinion, it is totally reasonable to kick players from your guild who do not represent you IF you really want your community to be close and tight-knit. If you don’t care, then you don’t care.

I actually hopped from guild to guild until I found one that required representation. Sure enough, it’s been the best guild I have found so far.

@OP Think your assumption is wrong. Imo, its not a problem if I want to play in one guild or the other. Its all about the activity really, if you don’t do anything as a guild then why should they play as your guild? (represent) I prefer to represent only 1 guild, but I don’t agree with the represent only 1 rule. What do you provide for potential guild members? WvW parties? Dungeon runs? sPvP tournements? Worry about organizing this first and then see.

Rather, there need to be more activities that should be done with guild members such that guilds can give incentive to people to represent. And why do you allow people to curse you? I really would just kick him w/e. Trying to keep such people is just bad for the guild.

Toezen, yes, he was kicked instantly. I’ve been doing this almost a decade, something like that doesn’t fly with me, nor will it ever. I’m glad you found a guild you like. We also require representation and have a structure that we expect to be followed and for the most part we have good retention because of it and we aren’t just out there to take people in and lose them a week later.

And Beren, once again yes I kicked him instantly and no I don’t allow people to treat me or other guildies that way. That wasn’t what the thread was about but more of an example of the symptoms the huge problem shows.

Also, who said that I don’t do anything in the guild or do events? We do daily dungeon runs as a guild, we used to do a ton of tPvP (countless gold chests), live stream activities members can partake in as well as other games. We have a guild Minecraft server as well as play Steam games together.

Hell I just gave away 3 copies of Firefall Beta and Dota 2 for guildies to play with me. We do WvW when the queues allow for it, which isn’t often on our server. I’m not sure why you would have been lead to believe otherwise about me. If I was just being lazy and not doing anything I wouldn’t have made a thread about it.

Another point, as I’ve stated multiple times, this isn’t a thread specifically about any single problem for any single guild – it’s a combined effort from experiences I’ve had as well as members and leaders of other guilds.

Mkalafut.1273:

As soon as Anet updates the guild interface and we can see the inactive members and days since login I’d be more than happy to. I can only enforce the rules so far without kicking someone who may have just logged in on irregular times.

I use server resets for this. When a server restart rolls out all info is wiped from the guild roster and everyone becomes “unknown”. Then after a few weeks you can see who did still not log in and have those removed.

@OP In my previous post I was generally speaking on what makes me not want to be in a guild.

As long as a guild is dynamic and has a steady flow of activities, multi-guilding shouldn’t be that much of an issue since the player would have little reason to not represent.

However, I personally wouldn’t find comfortable to be in a guild that has too many rules, but that’s really a matter of preference. Guilds should strive to find people that are comfortable to be in them and not take too personally players who decide to leave or simply don’t care.

I feel that multi-guilding is an added bonus for players and an incentive for guilds to be more active. It hasn’t stopped guilds to thrive and get really big. It has also given the opportunity for players to try out smaller guilds and those guilds to benefit from their patronage/representation.

So ! After some reading, here is my thought on the subject.

First of all, Mkalafut, I feel you. I understand how you must feel, being a guild leader for so long and having to deal with such behaviors. Nonetheless, I must say that there are many reasons why I’m not surprised by the situation, the very first being that people are not used to the guild system yet, members and guild leaders included.

I guess that, like WoW in its time, GW2 is an appealing game for everyone, and thus lots of players don’t know how such games work. Most of them haven’t already played a MMORPG before. For example, the issue of people not knowing their guild leader, is something that can be summed up as players not knowing that they can bring up the guild interface and check the ranks to see who their boss is. But this is not necessarily a lack of knowledge, but also a lack of wanting to know. They take what they need (or think they need) and leave the rest.
GW2 mechanics tend to make a lot of social tools no more than an option. Creating a party, being in a guild, crafting, exploring… every last one of the in-game features are completely optional. Thus, people tend to treat guilds that way, and frankly, guilds tend to behave that way. When you see people advertising for their guild on the /map channel, and using the “We have 300+ members, that’s awesome, join us !” argument, you know that something is seriously wrong. How can a “faceless horde” can be of any help to players trying to find a community to play with, or people to create a bond with ? In my opinion, this is just a habit that comes from social tools such as facebook and twitter, where you are “friend” with people you don’t even know, or you join circles just because you received an invite even though you have no idea what you’re doing here. The same goes for GW2. People think that just because you join multiple groups, you’re suddenly gonna make many friends, play with a lot of people, or participate in community events.
But don’t get me wrong here : this does happen ! Only, it only happens for 10 peoples out of 100. So, what about the others 90 ? Well, this portion represents the players that are gonna stop the game anyway, the players that are not fit for the game but still play it and rant all the time, or the players that don’t have the required mindset to be part of a community. And those people have just nothing to do in any guilds that has the pretense to accomplish things as a group.

I think the situation we are in is just a phase. The game is new, and a considerable part of the community is not used to play MMORPG, or they are not used to such freedom of choice. In any other game, you choose ONE guild, and you have to stick to it, or leave it. In GW2, like a dog in a sausage shop, most of the players don’t even know where to focus. It’s not that they are stupid, or uneducated (well, maybe some of them are, but not the majority). It’s just that when you give them multiple choices, you devaluate the importance of a guild, and its usefulness for people (which, after all, is your point here, and I agree about that).

My post is really too long, I have to cut it in half, sorry for the inconvenience. Conclusions in next post !

So here are my conclusions :

1/ We need time. Time for people who are not familiar with guild mechanics to learn them, and time for people who have nothing to do here to leave and go play another game. People who don’t even know that you can bring up the roster of your guild to check the ranks and see the name of your leaders probably are people that don’t make use of 10% of what the game has to offer to them. And frankly, not having those people in your guild is more of a good thing that not. In time, the ones eager to learn will find a guild such as yours when they’re done with the rest of the game, and their need for a community will grow stronger.

2/ We need to adapt. In every other MMORPG, there is a raid system that forces players to find a dedicated group, and stick to it if they want to see the end-game content. Not here. Even in WvW, you can do without a guild. That means that it is the role of the guild leaders to make their members understand the point of belonging to a community. And those who don’t ? Well the “factories guilds”, as I called them, are there for them. Because being in a 300+ members guild is just a way to have a /map chat that goes beyond the map you’re on, and nothing else (xp buff ? karma buff ? Please. In 2 months, that’s gonna be totally useless).

3/ We need some new tools, but we can do without them. Proof is all the people here that explained how they recruit, how they try to organize things so that their members know why they’re here. And to be honest, the perks that come from belonging to a guild are just perks. The lamba player understands that guilds need him more than he needs one, and he is right about that. Thus, the importance of making a difference (see point above).

I’m going to conclude that, in my opinion, there is too much of the “facebook mentality” in GW2 right now. Maybe this is because of the mechanics, maybe this is due to the way players think and behave, maybe this is because that’s how Anet see their game. A massive player-meat-grinding machine (Like any other MMO ? I don’t know, maybe).
Still, game is two months old, so I’m not too sure that the current state of the game is a good indicator of how things are gonna be in another two months. But I do hope that threads such as yours are gonna make things move in the right direction.

first let me correct some people here > guild wars is not named after guild vs guild feature in GW1 but after lore

now I agree with OP I used to be officer raid leader in WoW l2 GW1 SWTOR now for you OP ( you have hard name ^^ ) problem isn’t multi guild system Actually if you are not in guild that is focused on everything this is really great thing

—what can anet do to improve this situation —

1)More guild tools this means > add note system to member list next to achievements and profession add influence points earned for this guild by player

2)Better ranks / rework Banner / Buff system – nerf banners to the ground yep… make them more visual less buff station let people use them for recruitment not for buffs

create guild tree like Lineage 2 got for example member will have access to 5% xp buff but lets say veteran will got previous buff + 5% karma bonus and so on
also limit on how many people can have rank so people will think twice about joining guild with 400 members or leeching buffs from guilds for free…
I know this system can be abused but its better than what we have now

3) More guild activities … Guild vs Guild, city siege by guilds / ally, guild specific dungeons, guild events like if you want 15% bonus karma you need kill this random world boss with at least 5 or so guildies and turn some guild badge for upgrade?

4) guild halls something that start simple but based on how well your guild do with IP / pvp ranking you can expand and add features + guild hall siege mod

let me give example from IP you could buy vendors or decoration from pvp you could build fortification etc …

this would make guild halls great community hubs with something like small version of WvWvW mode.

5) once more more guild specific or guild prestige activies … that makes you care what guild are you in

actually I would pay 60euro just for these features … because for me
mmo = community and that seems to be mostly dead here : /

btw LF EU english guild >.> with both pvp and pve that deserve my IP tho I am only 65 because without guild i somehow lost will to play

I dont know what your guild policy is on invites. But if you have multiple people inviting people in your guild, then not everyone is going to know who you are. The guild i’m in requires to sign-up on our guild offical forums, this allows for everyone who joins to be know by the guild.

Esya.3427:

Mkalafut.1273:

As soon as Anet updates the guild interface and we can see the inactive members and days since login I’d be more than happy to. I can only enforce the rules so far without kicking someone who may have just logged in on irregular times.

I use server resets for this. When a server restart rolls out all info is wiped from the guild roster and everyone becomes “unknown”. Then after a few weeks you can see who did still not log in and have those removed.

I was not aware of that, thank you.

RaZaC.1963:

I dont know what your guild policy is on invites. But if you have multiple people inviting people in your guild, then not everyone is going to know who you are. The guild i’m in requires to sign-up on our guild offical forums, this allows for everyone who joins to be know by the guild.

I’ve gone over that more than enough times in this thread already and won’t go over it again, sorry. But yes we are the same way and require website registration and getting to know people via the website before they can even get in the guild in the game.

Riel.2160:

first let me correct some people here > guild wars is not named after guild vs guild feature in GW1 but after lore

now I agree with OP I used to be officer raid leader in WoW l2 GW1 SWTOR now for you OP ( you have hard name ^^ ) problem isn’t multi guild system Actually if you are not in guild that is focused on everything this is really great thing

—what can anet do to improve this situation —

1)More guild tools this means > add note system to member list next to achievements and profession add influence points earned for this guild by player

2)Better ranks / rework Banner / Buff system – nerf banners to the ground yep… make them more visual less buff station let people use them for recruitment not for buffs

create guild tree like Lineage 2 got for example member will have access to 5% xp buff but lets say veteran will got previous buff + 5% karma bonus and so on
also limit on how many people can have rank so people will think twice about joining guild with 400 members or leeching buffs from guilds for free…
I know this system can be abused but its better than what we have now

3) More guild activities … Guild vs Guild, city siege by guilds / ally, guild specific dungeons, guild events like if you want 15% bonus karma you need kill this random world boss with at least 5 or so guildies and turn some guild badge for upgrade?

4) guild halls something that start simple but based on how well your guild do with IP / pvp ranking you can expand and add features + guild hall siege mod

let me give example from IP you could buy vendors or decoration from pvp you could build fortification etc …

this would make guild halls great community hubs with something like small version of WvWvW mode.

5) once more more guild specific or guild prestige activies … that makes you care what guild are you in

actually I would pay 60euro just for these features … because for me
mmo = community and that seems to be mostly dead here : /

btw LF EU english guild >.> with both pvp and pve that deserve my IP tho I am only 65 because without guild i somehow lost will to play

I agree. I am hoping Guild Halls make a return and that in the future there are more reasons to be in a guild down the road. More features and activities = more incentive to play together = a good thing.

Although my guild is recruiting, we are US. Sorry!

Johnson I really appreciate the time and effort you took into making your post. You pointed out a lot of good things and I appreciate your comment about threads like this potentially causing some good change.

I’m sorry I can’t address every aspect of your post as I’m about to head to bed (Long day, very tired!) but I just wanted to commend you for your feedback and experience on the subject.

I do hope you stay active in this thread and see it develope over time. In less than 24 hours it’s gotten a lot more attention than I thought it would and I’d love to have more discussion with you when I’m not about to fall asleep.

See you all tomorrow, and thanks again to everyone for the feedback and discussion today!

I don’t really see the problem with representing/multi-guilds. If your guild has a rule to represent then kick people who don’t.
Actually I think bigger issue is all kind of buffs and upgrades which promote faceless masses. If prices of upgrades scaled with amount of members it would greatly favor smaller guilds.

I think multi-guild system would be awesome if you actually could represent multiple guilds (then you could make dungeon groups, etc).

Multi-Guilds at this momment I agree that it is an self-destructive system. Guilds are still too simple and with absurd limitations, and with the multi-guild and represents nobody cares already-

Only way I found a good guild is with pre-register on time and must be in teamspeak for example, we BARELY use the guild functions right now. I belive international open guilds are in a hard time with people who don’t care to represent, to organize themselfs… etc…

Multi guild system is neat and I like it. If wars between guild were implemented (in a game called guild wars – go figure) then that system would have to go away or you could not be in both guilds at the same time. One or the other through the duration of the war and that’s that.

the Guild Wars ended in 1070 AE

I guild hopped for the first three weeks since head start until I stumbled into my current guild. It’s an excellent WvW guild, not huge, only maybe 30 members on together at once. I’ve personally kicked in about 20g for two players to get their Commander’s Compendiums.

I would do whatever it takes to stay in this guild because they’re a great group of people that happen to be really good at WvW. They’re active at the time I am on, doing the activity I most want to do (some PvE and s/tPvP happens on the side), and the leaders are really kitten good. We have no problem recruiting, doing it solely in WvW at the time we’re active.

If you are competent in an aspect of the game people want to play and consistently active at a given time, there’s really no reason your guild can’t be successful.

Tzash.5748:

Jezath.7395:

I dissagree with you here Tzash. I feel that the social problems are compounded by the very design of the multi guild system as it stands. It at thevery least needs tweaking in some way. check my post back along and u will c my ideas for it.

I’ve read your post and I’m still not seeing how it is a mechanics problem. If you have a guild requirement that members represent your guild and then some don’t want to then surely that indicates that they weren’t suitable for your guild in the first place.

The reason is because with the multi-guild representation system is that no consideration is taken when joining a guild. Whether you want a small family type of guild, or a large faceless zerg guild.

The example the OP listed was a perfect example of (not just his attitude) but of the symptom o fthe system. This system breed discontent for guilds in ‘general’ because if you don’t want to conform to a guild, you just don’t represent, and if they poke you about it, you ‘threaten’ to leave.

The point is, that when choosing one guild, it is because a guild can help you, and in return you can help the guild. And that is through a unity of purpose. In this game, that unity is hard sought, and even if found, the lack of anything can lead people to discontent and the eventual leaving of a guild for ‘greener’ pastures.

It is nice if some guilds focus on a certain aspect, and you can represent certain aspects and bounce around to guilds that will suit a need for you. But as a guild leader, who needs to track activity, this becomes a nightmare trying to keep tabs on everyone.

Johnson.3874:

I’m going to conclude that, in my opinion, there is too much of the “facebook mentality” in GW2 right now. Maybe this is because of the mechanics, maybe this is due to the way players think and behave, maybe this is because that’s how Anet see their game. A massive player-meat-grinding machine (Like any other MMO ? I don’t know, maybe).

Johnson has a great point here. The “facebook” and twitter and social media mentality is becoming more and more prevalent, and GW2 seems to be targeting those kinds of audience, in my opinion.

And what kinds of gaming company wouldn’t be? The huge market currently is the casual, facebook games, ipad and iphone gamers. GW2 is geared towards the “non-consequentialityness” of things.

For example, dying. You can just repeatedly rez again, and dying is really not a big deal. Secondly, loot. You can hit a world boss just once, then spend your time jumping ‘lol lol lol’, and in the end, you also get a chest even though you didn’t contribute much. Also, partying. I just found out anyone can invite anyone, you don’t have to be a leader.

Also Tradepost can be accessed from anywhere. You can instantly sell on tradepost. Gems can be bought anywhere you are. I’m not saying any of these are bad designs noo. Some of these make our lives much easier. But it is geared towards making lives easier, therefore, targetting casual consumers. Therefore, the mentality of Guild members, like Johnson said , is exactly how ArenaNet sees their game is supposed to be like. Everything is easy, hop on , hop off, not a big deal, there’s no subscription fee also, you can do whatever you like. You will see a different type of crowd if you try a niche MMO like The Secret World, or FF14.

Adine.2184:

teviko.6049:

NOTE: One thing that bothers me about many an MMO is that somehow it’s become the ‘leaders’ job to organize everything, to make up special olympics for the ‘socially impaired’.

Who actually expects this? i sure dont . The biggest organizational effort our alliance did was district hosting for Canthan New Year in GW1 but that was a combined effort in farming stuff organizing who was going to be hosting at what hour and getting the word out on what districts we were hosting . When it comes to stuff like dungeons people would never get it done if they expected the guild leader to do it .

To me the problem if you go back a few quotes is the new guy gets in and says hi everyone, maybe does something with the group that recruited him.

Next day – “anyone want to help with AC Story?” – Crickets Chirping – So he solos some stuff
Following day – “anyone want to help with AC Story?” = Crickets Chirping – So he solos some stuff
3rd day – "Anyone want to help with AC Story? – "Crickets again because nobody knows him.

So he joins and represents another guild. You log on and ask why he’s not representing. That’s why you get “kitten you” as a response.

You say, “what about my fun” well if you want people to ultimately help you, you have to help them. If you have a lot of turnover it gets old running those same noob dungeons over and over, but you need it to build rapport.

You need to encourage people to help each other so you aren’t always the link in the chain and this game feels like “hang on got to go to my 2nd job tonight”.

Now I will say this: If your guild is predominantly a voice chat based guild IE people organize stuff on vent/ts/mumble whatever you NEED to let people know and emphasize this when recruiting.

Some people don’t like headsets or don’t want to wear them and that’s fine, but they need to know that it will be hard for them to get groups w/out doing that. It doesn’t make either of you evil, its just aligning people with your guild culture.

I did not read all the posts but my 2 cents:

The system is not to blame. If you create a good guild that encourages people to play together and you get a handful of leaders who organize WvW runs, dungeon runs etc and give people a reason to Rep if they wanna participate then you should have no problems. The guild I am in doesnt. We continually hit the cap of 500 members and have to purge older non-active members while maintaining about 100+ representing members at peak times. I honestly run into members while questing all the time and join them for WvW whenever i feel the fancy and there is always at least a small group doing something.

You can’t expect to have the rule of “You must always represent” but never give your guild activities to warrant it.

The multi-guild system is a nice idea, but it is poor implemented. Representation, and how it affects guild chat, is the biggest issue, IMO.

I also have been a guild leader for over 10 years. In addition to running alliances for raiding in other games.

I initially was not going to be the leader of a guild here, as I personally just don’t have the time I had previously (working 60-70 hour weeks do that to you). I ended up starting a guild here that was just people from previous games and their family and friends. A guild platform I used to really dislike, has turned out to work out amazingly well for me here, as it has been an extremely casual stance, and outside of 2 people everyone is just single tagged.
Now like the OP I am someone who when running a required forum sign ups, applications to be filled out and a recruitment period. I too would often get the, you mean I have to go to your website to fill out an application?! Thats such of a waste of time I don’t want to join you! Well sure it hinders quick growth but you get quality people who tend to stick it out and get a vested interest in things. If someone couldn’t bother to go online to fill out some basic information for an online game…then we had no interest. This was both for my guild and my raid alliance I ran. Sure we stayed small but it was quality. I still have people I was guilded with in 99/2000 in EQ1 (I wasn’t leader for that guild, but since took on the job) who are still with me. In addition to people who joined up here in guild wars 2 through family aspect this guild is being run in. We also did not allow multi guilding until Sw:tor (simply due to republic vs empire)

Events here I find a little more difficult as a lot of us are raid endgame oriented and that doesn’t truely exist here. But we do get together for events, dungeons and special game events. Our guild is only about 30 people, and our guild chat is pretty lively too, sure there are times it is quiet but we carry a good amount of conversation.

While I agree multi guild can hurt a guild, at the same time it makes it all that much more important to get people who fit with your members and that will make them not look further. I have had people actually turn down guild invites to other guilds just because they saw it as being disloyal to their current guild.

Mkalafut.1273:

If this feature must remain in the game, there need to be systems in place to make it worth your while to remain in a guild and stop guild hopping and lack of importance on guilds.

I used to not get it either but now I do. Its perfect the way it is and yet another example of Arenanet’s good design choices. I don’t want incentive to stay in a guild for anyother reason than having fun in that guild and thats exactly what you’re suggesting.

There doesen’t need to be systems in place that add incentive to stay in a guild outside of simply enjoying yourself in that guild. Thats like asking Anet to give guild leaders something they can hold hostage and use to coerce players into sticking around even when they are unhappy. No thanks.

I think what people are finding is that without content forcing people to keep grouping with the same people over and over and over, people just aren’t that interested in the guild concept.

I know I never have been. Ever since Everquest classic I thought it terminally boring that instead of playing with everyone around me, I needed to start only playing with this subgroup of people on my server and no one else.

Here, people just play with a guild for enjoyment, so you’re going to find a smaller percentage of players that are interested in your group of players full stop. It’s only natural.

Also with multi guilds, it means for someone to want to represent you they’ll need to be having fun being in your guild. Not REQUIRED because that’s the way to join the raid run for loot this tuesday ala WoW, but simply because they enjoy the company.

It’s in the players hands now and I really like it. Be a fun place to hang out and you’ll get your “influence” that’s oh so important.

I am completely aware of all the many perks that are possible with the current guild system, however, I do not think they are offset by the potential damage.

I just can’t ignore the harm it has done to the guild I’m in, which has always been on the small side, but in other games we always stuck together. Now, if there aren’t enough members logged in at the same time everyone seems to toggle over to different guilds, which only makes the problem worse as other members log in and find the majority of their online guildmates representing elsewhere.

On top of this, you have a few dedicated people earning most of the points for the guild while fair-weather members unfairly benefit off the work of others. The current guild system, while very convenient and useful to individuals, ironically can be very damaging to guild families. I liked the idea on paper, but I do not like the end result after seeing it in action.

Edge.4180:

I just can’t ignore the harm it has done to the guild I’m in, which has always been on the small side, but in other games we always stuck together. Now, if there aren’t enough members logged in at the same time everyone seems to toggle over to different guilds, which only makes the problem worse as other members log in and find the majority of their online guildmates representing elsewhere.

What is the problem exactly, that guilds don’t have the ability to force players to stay and basically be an employee during times they aren’t enjoying themselves? If someone is representing elsewhere its because they are having fun elsewhere and you’re going to begrudge that over what that player isn’t doing for you?

I think its beautiful that this system has reduced mmo monarchs or hierarchies to being mmo politicians and that this change is long overdue.

Vlaxitov.5693:

Edge.4180:

I just can’t ignore the harm it has done to the guild I’m in, which has always been on the small side, but in other games we always stuck together. Now, if there aren’t enough members logged in at the same time everyone seems to toggle over to different guilds, which only makes the problem worse as other members log in and find the majority of their online guildmates representing elsewhere.

What is the problem exactly, that guilds don’t have the ability to force players to stay and basically be an employee during times they aren’t enjoying themselves? If someone is representing elsewhere its because they are having fun elsewhere and you’re going to begrudge that over what that player isn’t doing for you?

I think its beautiful that this system has reduced mmo monarchs or hierarchies to being mmo politicians and that this change is long overdue.

Because it’s supposed to be a guild or a family that you stick with through good and tough times and help improve, not a club or bar you may or may not choose to visit depending on how happening things are on a given night. If you want the latter, ask for a tool creating a temporary throw-away chat channel, since that appears to be all you’re looking for.

Edge.4180:

Vlaxitov.5693:

Edge.4180:

I just can’t ignore the harm it has done to the guild I’m in, which has always been on the small side, but in other games we always stuck together. Now, if there aren’t enough members logged in at the same time everyone seems to toggle over to different guilds, which only makes the problem worse as other members log in and find the majority of their online guildmates representing elsewhere.

What is the problem exactly, that guilds don’t have the ability to force players to stay and basically be an employee during times they aren’t enjoying themselves? If someone is representing elsewhere its because they are having fun elsewhere and you’re going to begrudge that over what that player isn’t doing for you?

I think its beautiful that this system has reduced mmo monarchs or hierarchies to being mmo politicians and that this change is long overdue.

Because it’s supposed to be a guild or a family that you stick with through good and tough times and help improve, not a club or bar you may or may not choose to visit depending on how happening things are on a given night. If you want the latter, ask for a tool creating a temporary throw-away chat channel, since that appears to be all you’re looking for.

I like how you made up this imaginary desire of mine that all I’m looking for is a throw a way chat channel. All I want from a guild is fun comradery. Then you basically say that people are supposed to stay in a guild through “tough times.” (aka obligated to not have fun in a video game for the greater good)

What I really see is that some people who are used to having power and ruling over others in previous mmos are mad that they don’t have that power anymore and don’t know what to do because now they have to actually be fun to play with and or provide a fun environment for people to stay.

GW2 -needs- multi-guilding.

You need a proper WvW guild to do WvW properly.
You need a PvE guild to find plenty of good DE/Dungeon teams.
You need a sPvP guild to setup a good tPvP team.

Let’s be real here, those guild saying “we do everything” in /map are terrible at “everything”.
That ad really sounds like NPC’s “I have everything you need”, yeah, right.

Vlaxitov.5693:

Edge.4180:

Vlaxitov.5693:

Edge.4180:

I just can’t ignore the harm it has done to the guild I’m in, which has always been on the small side, but in other games we always stuck together. Now, if there aren’t enough members logged in at the same time everyone seems to toggle over to different guilds, which only makes the problem worse as other members log in and find the majority of their online guildmates representing elsewhere.

What is the problem exactly, that guilds don’t have the ability to force players to stay and basically be an employee during times they aren’t enjoying themselves? If someone is representing elsewhere its because they are having fun elsewhere and you’re going to begrudge that over what that player isn’t doing for you?

I think its beautiful that this system has reduced mmo monarchs or hierarchies to being mmo politicians and that this change is long overdue.

Because it’s supposed to be a guild or a family that you stick with through good and tough times and help improve, not a club or bar you may or may not choose to visit depending on how happening things are on a given night. If you want the latter, ask for a tool creating a temporary throw-away chat channel, since that appears to be all you’re looking for.

I like how you made up this imaginary desire of mine that all I’m looking for is a throw a way chat channel. All I want from a guild is fun comradery. Then you basically say that people are supposed to stay in a guild through “tough times.” (aka obligated to not have fun in a video game for the greater good)

What I really see is that some people who are used to having power and ruling over others in previous mmos are mad that they don’t have that power anymore and don’t know what to do because now they have to actually be fun to play with and or provide a fun environment for people to stay.

Aren’t you, at the same time, making up this imaginary scenario where I’m somehow “ruling over others” rather than just being a loyal member of a guild who happens to not be blind to the damage the current system is causing to said guild? You’re a bit quick on the assumptions.

You say “All I want from a guild is fun comradery”. I suggested a customizable chat channel that you can fill with people who have similar interests. How is that not satisfying your request?

Look, I get it.. you just want to go where the fun is. But the truth is guilds can have upsides and downsides. And if everyone just floats around to wherever the fun is at any given moment, guild communities won’t survive long term, especially smaller guilds. And, believe it or not, not everyone likes huge guilds.