Guild Wars 2

According to GW2 Wiki “exploits are errors in the game … that create opportunities for players to move outside the conventional means of gaining value (coin, experience, skills, etc.) or some other kind of notable advantage over other players or regular gameplay mechanics and challenges”. From my story below you will see how guilds in GW2 could in fact be used as exploits.
I was invited to the guild by a friend, and it was not my main guild. But as soon as GW2 allows you to be a part of many guilds I did not see any harm to be a part of my friend’s guild when I am playing with him. The guild has about 150 players, only 30-40 are active during a day. The guild has a website. The most amazing pages on the site are “guild member rules”. They all are “prohibitory”. You are not allowed that and this, but very soon I learned that these rules are not for everyone.
When I joined the guild, neither guild leader nor officers noticed that. Obviously, they are too busy to welcome a newcomer, especially when people come and go every day. Later I found out why. The guild implemented a monitoring system, where the guild leader and officers (or other players) would watch every member’s activity. If you do anything inappropriate in officer’s site, for instance, temporarily represent other guild, you get a ticket called “strike”. 3 strikes and you are automatically out of the guild (though they would not bother informing you about the strikes, as they are too busy). The guild has also implemented a method to humiliate members for their “mistakes”. The guild leader or officers would move you to a group called “naughty corner” (opposite to the “naughty corner” the guild leader calls himself “fearless leader”). You would have to contact the person who put you to the “naughty corner”. Then that person would explain your terrible mistake: being in WvW area on other server is considered “spying”.

Structurally the guild consists of 3 groups: guild leader and his friends, called “masters”; untouchables, called “developers” and others, called “slaves” (all definitions are mine).
Of course, there are no rules for guild leader and his friends (most of them are officers). They can be offensive in chat, rude, unfriendly, racist etc. – I have seen it all. They can play on different servers and represent other guilds. The rules on website are for slaves, not for masters.
Masters play mostly together. Once in a while they would ask slaves to join them for a dungeon run, but it is usually when they do not have enough other masters available and need to get an achievement. When masters play WvW it is the slave’s responsibility to bring supplies.
Untouchables have the same rights as masters, but I never seen any “untouchable” playing with others or speaking in the chat. I have an impression they were ordered to be in this guild.
My friend was a slave, and I was a slave as well. As a new slave you would not get access to the guild bank for a month or two, but always welcome to contribute: even from “naughty corner”. Of course, no one is contributing anything useful to the guild bank. Very fast I found out why. When I put a bunch of “gold” weapons to the guild bank, they all were immediately removed from the guild bank by one of the masters. When slave asks for help or announces a dungeon run, you can be sure masters would not join. Another funny but indicative episode was when I asked the guild about a drop I never seen before. The guild leader told me one of the masters is collecting them. Later I found out the item is worth a few golds. It is expected that slaves would supply masters with free rare materials which masters use to create legendary weapons.

It did not take long time from me to learn about the main unspoken rule of this guild: the slaves must serve the masters. You can confirm that by looking at the guild log. The guild wealth, created by slaves, would be hundreds, if not thousands, influences every day. But I could not remember in two months spent in this guild getting any boost. Masters, from the other hand, use guild influence based boons every day at their convenience.
What stroked me the most is the request to represent the guild 100% of the time. To achieve that goal the guild leader and officers use different tactics. Some slaves would be bribed (25 ectoes per head), some – kicked from the guild. Neither guild leader nor officers could explain why they require 100% representation (generally speaking such request is against ArenaNet rules, as well as the guild owns rules, published on the website), but seeing how the guild is managed it is not a secret to anyone: the slaves must serve the masters, so masters would have a stable source for their wealth and legendary weapons.
The guilds as ArenaNet implemented them today can create opportunities for some players to take advantage of gaining value (loot, experience, karma, etc) over other players. That’s why guilds like I described should be called “exploits” and deleted, and people who use this exploit – banned from the game. I think ArenaNet needs to take a close look at this exploit and make some changes to remove such possibility.

Then leave the guild? If its a bad guild then leave it… I’ve never been in that situation before expect guild taxes which was only 25s a week….

Ever thought about, you know… leaving the guild?

Well, I would call it first of all a social problem. Aren’t there enough guildes of the same size and influence to join? Ask your friend to come with you and leave.

The problem is that the guild tools can be used and misused, and complete security against misuse will usually mean also complete uselessness for those who could use them responsibly…

Better yet, report them for derogatory behaviour.

That’s exploiting people who agree being exploited, not a bug in the game.

People are free to leave and I find surprising that he even have people other than his friends in his guild.

Still, it’s pretty degrading, and coupled with the racism and profanity and whatnot they certainly could use a lesson in common decency.

Stay in the guild for now. And for all the “slaves”, message them about telling them to leave the guild and never look back. But ofc don’t tell them to tell the masters that it was you who told them to leave. Pretty soon, you’ll have a guild full of just masters and no slaves. You can also slander their name in other forums you see (idk if you can do it in this forum). Just be sure to stay in on the guild and not get caught so they don’t get a fresh supply of “slaves”.

You’re not ACTUALLY a slave… click “leave guild” and you’re free of your bondage :p

(Better yet just ignore the guild leaders and tell them where to stick it, whats the worst they can do… kick you? – That just speeds up the process)

To be honest and fair, you should have left the guild within a week. Sticking around is your own fault.
Guild leaders have no actual means to “force” a player to give up items. Lying, coercion, manipulation, and scams have existed for a long time. The presence or absence of a guild system wouldn’t make a difference. So long as there is some method of trading items between players, there is room for “exploit.” Does that guild suck? Yes, undoubtedly so. Not sure why anyone is sticking around.

Also, your story doesn’t match up. They don’t have time to inform you of how many strikes there are, but they’re able to monitor what you’re doing. You’re depositing exotics into the guild bank, without even checking their value on TP until after you’ve deposited them. Despite a very strict strike system, constant racism and rules broken by leaders, and exploitation of underlings, you chose to stay in the guild. You claim the sections are masters, developers, and slaves, yet you admit that those are your own terms for it. And you use GW2 wiki’s definition of exploit to verify your arguement.

Using “master” and “slave” really made it sound worse than it is haha. I agree with the others. You should just leave the guild and even report them. That is not something I would ever be a part of, hell I uncomfortable just reading it.

The most simple solution to this is…..

Make your own guild..

And if you prefer just have yourself in it, or just you and a friend.
Honestly that is what i did at the very start of the game, im a totally grumpy and unsocial person anyway and didn’t feel like joining others in a guild.
Try it you will be suprised how quickly the influence builds up and if you are in no hurry to do things like i am not then its quite satisfying to see..

I appreciate your “leaving the guild” suggestions (I am not in this guild now), but my message was not about that. It takes a month or two from people to understand how the guild operates. And during this time masters would continue taking advantage of other players. Having people come and go relatively often they can keep this guild forever. I want that to stop.

mmm where u in some kind of BDSM guild because it really sounds that way

So you basically joined the guild equivalent of a cult

Do you have stockholm syndrome?

Do you realise you can just press the leave guild button?

Also… do you realise it’s a video game and Raelian aliens aren’t coming down to smite if you don’t pay your guild dues?

Mechanix.5719:

mmm where u in some kind of BDSM guild because it really sounds that way

Haha, no joke… This is exactly what I was thinking when reading her post.

Firstly, that that sort of behaviour exists in a guild is disgraceful. Secondly; run, don’t walk, and never look back.

Lady D.4023:

What stroked me the most is the request to represent the guild 100% of the time. To achieve that goal the guild leader and officers use different tactics. Some slaves would be bribed (25 ectoes per head), some – kicked from the guild. Neither guild leader nor officers could explain why they require 100% representation (generally speaking such request is against ArenaNet rules, as well as the guild owns rules, published on the website), but seeing how the guild is managed it is not a secret to anyone: the slaves must serve the masters, so masters would have a stable source for their wealth and legendary weapons.
The guilds as ArenaNet implemented them today can create opportunities for some players to take advantage of gaining value (loot, experience, karma, etc) over other players. That’s why guilds like I described should be called “exploits” and deleted, and people who use this exploit – banned from the game. I think ArenaNet needs to take a close look at this exploit and make some changes to remove such possibility.

1) It’s not against A.Net’s rules for guilds to put in a requirement of it’s members to 100% represent. Some guilds are open to multi-guilding, others are not. If you don’t like your guild’s choice, you have the FREE WILL OPTION OF LEAVING THE GUILD.

2) You cannot gain Karma for another person. Period. They have to earn their own Karma by doing their own game play. Loot is volunteered from one person to another, that’s it (again, a stage of FREE WILL). The only thing a guild can gain other guild member is Influence, which is used to get guild upgrades, banners, and such things. So, the only huge benefit that they can obtain is personally using buff banners to their own gain without other members using them. Which again… if you don’t like your guild’s choice, you have the FREE WILL OPTION OF LEAVING THE GUILD.

3) Nothing in your entire post(s) is considered an exploit. Sure, if guilds were using the labels of “slaves” and “masters”, that might be crossing a huge line which can get a renaming and/or a temp-ban. But, the rest of it is simply politics within the guild’s self-governed structure into how they operate. If you don’t like your guild’s choice, you have the FREE WILL OPTION OF LEAVING THE GUILD.

The only thing here that I can see as an issue, is that the Original Poster lacked the free will to leave the guild within 1 week of finding out it’s structure.

Why are you still in this guild? It’s not an exploit, they can’t force you to do anything. As for the buffs, the entire guild gets those buffs so long as they represent, the only exception being banners, but I see those everywhere so it shouldn’t be a problem to have them when you want them.

Most guilds have limited access to their bank, especially for new comers. Who’s to say you won’t join the guild, take everything then leave? Many guilds also require representation, as they won’t want members in their guild to pop in to ask for help, then stand down right after asking. You can only have 500 people in the guild, so if you are getting close to that number, you need to start having rules on membership.

If you don’t like the guild, leave. Simple as that.

Yeah, I feel like I must be missing some really big part of the problem’s description here. You are a willing member (slave w/e), who is willingly subjecting themself to this guild’s PAINFULLY obvious abuse of it’s membership and you are subjecting yourself to this guild’s abuse – 100% VOLUNTARILY. From what you have described I see a whole bunch of reasons why anyone wouldn’t want to be a “slave” member of this guild and not one single benefit. I really… I’ve gotta be missing some REALLY important detail in what you wrote. I mean you’re 100% willingly a “member” and continue to be one yet you think A-Net should enact some kind of punishment for the people who you and only you are allowing to completely ruin your guild and game experience.

I mean, there is LITERALLY only one person responsible for you being treated this way and that person is, wait for it… keep waiting for it… YOU!!!. Let me try and break down how you can remedy this situation as simply as I can: ahem – step 1> *QUIT THE GUILD, step 2> … um… uh… Nope that’s it, just that.

This HAS TO BE A TROLL attempt. HAS TO BE! PLEASE!!! Let this just be a troll attempt. If it’s not, then we are left with only two possibilities. 1> You, the OP, are “special” (God I hope that’s all it is) or, 2> Humanity has finally degenerated to this point – the gene pool has become this “polluted”. If it’s #2 then this is it folks, humanity has peaked and crested it’s “high point” in evolution and we need to prepare to rush at break-neak speed through a downward spiral and a rough landing in the next “Dark Age”.

If you, the OP, are willingly subjecting yourself to this treatment and with not even the possibility of a future “payoff” for being this guild’s “slave” member and just skipped right over, “quitting the guild” to solve your conundrum and arrived at “get A-Net to penalize the offending guild ‘masters’” and make this all better for me. Then… kitten it, there’s nothing left to be said and really, everything I have said in this post has likely flown straight over your head so high up there in the stratosphere’s of logic and common sense that it’s been no more than a complete waste of time.

Congratualtions to your guild’s “masters” I guess in weeding out and roping in the players they have as “slaves” who don’t even have the common sense to quit their guild with in seconds of reading their “rules” and seeing how the guild is fundamentally “run”. I mean really guys, just wow! I’m plain awestruck that I’ve seen such a post. The idea that a person exists who has continued to be abused in your guild AND is able to write coherently too is just… well, wow! I mean… wow! I’m just… wow!

If I’ve learned anything from this post’s just plain utter existance I guess, it’s that I should never think “now I’ve seen it all!” Cuz… I… uh…. wow!

Really ? I wouldnt be in a guild like that if my last breath depended upon it. LOL im sorry but any guild like that needs to disband and take a course called fun gaming.

post edit : If they are that serious they should join the army or sumtin. Come on people this is just a video game…

P.S I fully realize I’ll probably be “reprimanded” by the forum moderators here. I honestly feel it’s worth the sacrifice to make this point in as “loud and significant” fashion as I could though. I mean this goes right down to the very pack structure of animals and the primal “forces” that govern that kind of “society”. You, and all the other guild “slaves” are being summarily ABUSED and could LITERALLY end the situation in a matter of seconds by simply quitting the guild. This “problem” literally demanded someone to stand up and point the way in a “loud”, if unkind, fashion. It had to be said, and it had to be said this way. I apologize for that (but not really).

I could really use some naughty corner right now, can you tell me your guild name and an officer i can contact to join?

Why in the name of cute cuddly quaggans and all that is sane…..did you even stay with these DERANGED LUNATICS?

Lady D.4023:

I appreciate your “leaving the guild” suggestions (I am not in this guild now), but my message was not about that. It takes a month or two from people to understand how the guild operates. And during this time masters would continue taking advantage of other players. Having people come and go relatively often they can keep this guild forever. I want that to stop.

fact is no one should be anyones master unless its mutual. In the army or whatever you may have to be submissive and take order’s but in a video game?? really if your still there you must like having a master or sumtin. I would have been gone long ago and tell them no im a fellow gamer not your slave… wow

The fact that you’re comparing a mere troll guild to something as heavy as racism is actually offensive to me and my people.

Mechanix.5719:

mmm where u in some kind of BDSM guild because it really sounds that way

Yeah, we really may be crossing the line into some definitely wierd and especially non MMO related territory here.

Um, if that is the case then I would like to volunteer my services to take you and your friend’s gold, valuable items, etc. Believe me, if having people take the things of value that you’ve worked for “pulls your trigger”. I’m sure there will be a VERY long list of people in game who would be MORE THAN HAPPY to be your “friend”. That much I can garauntee you!

There are a bunch of guilds that have 100% representation. In fact I find the ability to have 4 guilds utterly kitten THAT should be removed from the game.

Also you either didn’t understand what you were writing about exploits or ignored it. There has to be a gain, and per your examples you illustrated that they bribe members. So their losing something not gaining anything.

Further more nothing is making any of these members stay in the guild at all. You don’t lose anything when you leave.

Hell I got kicked out of a guild for not being online for one week. Some guilds are more hardcore than others. Just leave.

One of the funniest things I’ve read in a while.

What kind of psychotic guild structure is this?!

In every guild i have been in it has been the officers and leaders working for the good of the rest of guild. What you are in sounds like insane oligarchy.

Folks, please read the thread. The player is no longer in the guild, and it took a little while for the player to figure out that it was effectively a scam.

Which, if I’m not mistaken, is the point of the thread. The guild leadership takes advantage of well-meaning, perhaps naive players who’re operating under the assumption that this is really a guild, that they’ll be able to get help on stuff, do team activities, etc. In actuality, it’s just a scheme allowing a select few to dupe “marks” for as long as they can get away with it.

Yes, it’s very sleazy. But, no, from ANet’s vantage, I don’t think there’s anything that can really be done about it. The best bet is to set up many good alternatives, so a sucker’s game like that can’t thrive.

This post is so Asheron’s Call, GW2 influence system isn’t even like getting a slice of your underlings experience directly into your experience bar. At least influence is for guild perks. The system was even hailed as a plus for AC1.

Your getting them influence is why they benefit from you, so theoretically it should be incentive for them to treat you well to keep getting it. They didn’t. You left. Not only that but you are telling others that they won’t be treated well there. System working!

As others have said, report them for derogatory remarks, racist remarks, harassment, etc. Even in guild chat, they are subject to the rules just as they would be if they said it in map chat. They just have to be reported. After that, leave the guild and ignore them.

Mechanix.5719:

mmm where u in some kind of BDSM guild because it really sounds that way

Definitely sounds like it. In other “game” communities on the internet, BDSM is typically considered as Mature content. BDSM is generally only for a RP setting, and there must be consent from all participating parties. Non-consensual BDSM (e.g. “force-collaring”) can be considered as a form of harassment. Although there is no direct evidence of sexual elements, the Guild sounds like it’s set up as a “hardcore” BDSM group.

Unless there was a direct statement that says that the Guild is a BDSM group and that minors should not be participating, .

I hope that this type of activity isn’t supported, though GW2 could gain extra publicity from being a MMORPG for BDSM roleplayers.

However, I don’t consider this to be an exploit. It may be harassment, it may be in violation of game rules, it may be illegal for some countries, but it’s not a game exploit.

I honestly still can’t wrap my brain around how they’re able to enact this kind of guild structuring and get it to float. I’ve seen “communist” style guilds succeed in the past in other games where their members were required to contribute a certain amount of materials and currency but this was all for the guild leaders to orchestrate raids, the consumables needed for them, money for repairs and upgrades for the tanks, etc. There was garaunteed benefits to the members too though. For example, they didn’t have to worry about the money to buy their mounts when the time came, the guild handed them their choice of mount when they hit that level. Any specific armor (fire resist or w/e specific stat may be required) or consumables were covered and provided by the guild.

The guild structure you’re describing though just sounds plain, well… stupid! –
“Join us, we’ll allow you to deposit things in our bank (but never withdraw them)! We garauntee that there might be someone you can maybe run a dungeon with uh… possibly? We promise to allow you to contribute to us getting Legendaries for ourselves that you can then freely observe us using (if you follow us around that is)!”

You know what, upon further reflection a loose plan has begun to emerge. If you’d REALLY like to metaphorically body slam these kittens, post the guild’s name and server here. I think with enough dedication to the cause we can gather enough people to transfer over and go about joining this little band of D-bags (no offense to you OP – Lady ‘D’, that is). From there we could put a long term plan into action to not just destroy but fully rob this guild blind, just on principle alone mind you, not for the purpose of monetary gain necessarily (although there’s no reason we have to rule that out either, this part of the game is 100% player content here). Or we could just put a short term plan into effect and coordinate a mass walk out among the “slaves” leaving this handful of “masters” sitting there looking at each other like a bunch of idiots with no source of influence, gear, or monetary income that they’d become accustom to. If we could then follow the physical breaking of the guild from the inside we just need to then launch a tirade of negative PR to seal the lid on them so to speak. We could literally shatter this guild.

Well, ball is in your court. I’m down to wreck shop on these fools though and I think that ultimate moment of smashing this guild would provide enough chuckles that we could enlist enough to do this easy. Just think about them all sitting around yucking it up while they drain the bank, mark “strikes” and banish folks to the “naughty corner” some evening as they’ve done on so many others when all of a sudden they start seeing: [So and So] has left the guild, then [What’s his name] has left the guild, [Watcha-ma-call-it] has left the guild, [Pete] has left the guild, [Repete] has left the guild, [Moe] has left the guild, [Larry] has left the guild, [Curly] has left the guild, and on and on and on and BOOM! The whole floor just gives out and their entire guild, aside from the handful of knuckleheads with the audacity to call themselves the “Masters”, is just…. gone…. just one night out of nowhere in 10 or 15 minutes the whole guild just bleeds out like a stuck pig.

Sounds like nothin but giggles to me =D! And think of the epic story it could turn out to be that you can share with all the youngins in GW4 15 years down the road!

I’m in a guild of 6 which was created by me and only consist of me, my brother, and our friends. We share everything we get from gold to drops. Sure, we don’t earn as much influence points as other guilds, but we still managed to get our guild icon and a guild bank. If a member needs help crafting a rare, we all send our materials to him, if a member needs help clearing a dungeon, we gather available people and help him. OP should do the same and create a small guild and slowly build it up with nice people you meet during your journey or friends irl. There’s no need to be in a big guild to have fun, and there’s definitely no reason to be in a guild just because it’s a famous guild.

Mayam.8976:

If you’d REALLY like to metaphorically body slam these kittens, post the guild’s name and server here.

That may not “survive” its first contact with a Moderator reading here… They seem to be restrictiv about giving other peoples account names and so on to the public when it’s in a negative context.