Closing Guilds (moved from Keeper's Korner)

[Padraig]

We have no problems giving x-members from enemy guilds a chance to join...why have you?

Spending 6 monts(!) in an neutral guild to "prove yourself" sounds daft to me...

^^ This.

[Wolverine]

We have no problems giving x-members from enemy guilds a chance to join...why have you?

Spending 6 monts(!) in an neutral guild to "prove yourself" sounds daft to me...

I totally agree with Kas, no melee guild should require the old procedure where you apply, get a sponsor and get to prove yourself worthy..

Just grant each puppetmaster the ability to join any guild that lack active members with their main mortal..

I would gladly like to aid the Knighthood and take them back to where they belong but why should I prove myself worthy as a Mercenary, be a squire for a few months - with a sponsor that isnt active at all and become full member 2012..

I understand why all the spellcaster guilds req a few months to become full member but not the melee guilds.

[Amberlee]

Words of wisdom from the Wolverine.
The problem is.. Old players hold on to grudges for longer then they hold on to characters.
So if X did something to Y 10 years ago.. Then Y still hates player X's second 10 years later because of something that doesnt even matter anymore.

Just stupid if you ask me..
Only thing that it leads to is dead guilds.

[Wolverine]

Old players hold on to grudges for longer then they hold on to characters.

Right now we might be tops 100 people that are devoted to Genesis, imagine what would happen if Knights, PoT, SCOP, SS and Rangers would shut down.. a world with april fool's joke of guilds would decrease the activity by at minimum 30 %... then we have the Diablo 3 release.. what happens then..

Either we fight for what we like and forget old grudges or we lose it all and move on with our lives..

[Padraig]

Words of wisdom from the Wolverine.
The problem is.. Old players hold on to grudges for longer then they hold on to characters.
So if X did something to Y 10 years ago.. Then Y still hates player X's second 10 years later because of something that doesnt even matter anymore.

Just stupid if you ask me..
Only thing that it leads to is dead guilds.

This has been a major problem with the Rangers for a long time.

[gorboth]

Guilds in Genesis have not been created with a template, or in any way that is standardized or even normalized. Each guild is a distinctly unique creation (notice I didn't say "mess") of code that one, or a group of people at one time in Genesis' long history created to bring forth some theme that players can enjoy together. In that each guild has been coded COMPLETELY differently, there is no "off" switch that can be easily flipped globally for guild councils to cease to exist. Rather, each guild has a vastly different degree to which the council structure of the code is enmeshed with even the most simple functions that every guild member uses. In some cases, it would not be too terribly difficult to remove council setup. In others, it would require a massive recode of much of the guild.

Cherek, is there something about what I wrote above that seems vague? The proposal you've made would require many months of work, if not more than a year, with our current wizard staff.

G.

[Wolverine]

That plague is within many guilds padraig, happened to me when I applied to the Dragon Order.. But I rather be apart of something that was half-dead as the Red Dragonarmy than them these days and I am willing to change faction for the life of a honourable guild as the Knights even tho' I would get 20 BDA/RDA enemies, but for the good of Genesis I would die a few times, like I did in Sparkle...

[Kas]

Sounds like we have candidates for the Knights then!

I assume that if you are too restrictive in letting people join your guild and prove their worth, eventually, you most likely risk to kill the guild. Also, I firmly believe, a good guild responds to an application and handle the seeker immediately(within a day or two at max. If you let an applicant wait for weeks, or months, I'll say it's a total failure of the guild council and should perhaps be replaced somehow).

Ok, anyway....combining guilds takes time, and the possibly viable option is to directly shut down guilds that no longer are in use.

If AA occ-part is no longer in use(and shuts down), I think AA layman should still be a viable free-to-join option with very little modifications due to the limited lay-options on the evil side.

[Booger]

I have poor knowledge of guilds but do have some experience of coding, so I'll try a suggestion too, that I hope will mean very little work:

* Since the goal is to get a playerbase big enough to support all guilds, as I understand it, I'd advice against merging guilds that later will have to unmerge, or closing guilds that later has to be reopened. Don't put effort into something that has to be undone later on.
I have no problem with merging guilds, or closing down ones that shouldn't exist. But not for the purpose of handling a small playerbase, when we're planning to increase the number.
* The monk guild has a room where you can apply, so you have evidence that you are applying and for how long. Please make sure every guild with application process has this, if possible. That gives a possibility for immortals to find out number of applicants in waiting and how long they've been waiting. A useful way of seeing if there is any problem. (this can be skipped if it proves to be too much work).
* For guilds that seem inactive or where waiting process is assumed to be pretty long, put a sign in the room where you apply. Something like this:
"PLEASE NOTE: This guild is not very active, so you might not get much response when applying here. Please don't let this discourage you! If your application hasn't been handled within 30 days, please send a mail to AoP and we will look into it. This does not mean that you will be automatically accepted, but we will make sure something gets done."
* Finally, once you start getting these mails from people trying to join these poorly handled guilds, check into it. If there are applicants wanting to join and nobody handling it, DEMOTE the current council, accept the applicants and try to get hold of them (or any other active members) to see which ones would be interested in being part of the new council. Promote the ones that seem most fitting and give the new council a few months to sort things out.

Later on, when the campain to bring in new blood is done and you have time for other things, go through every guild and fix so any application older than 2 (or 3 or 4) months will automatically be accepted - inactivity or laziness should be no reason to prevent people from joining. Plus, make sure that every guild has a possibility to overthrow the council in some way (voting, challenge, whatever).
This way, all guilds should be able to handle themselves without immortals having to interfere. The only way to keep a guild messed up is if the council actively refuse any applicants to join, and there are no members to overthrow them. And if that happens, well... THEN you can interfere.


Total immediate workload: One sign, and placing it in a number of guilds. Plus code to handle (save) applications, which hopefully already exists in most guilds.
Upcoming workload: Handling the mails of complaints and looking into a guild once it gets too many, and then changing the council. This means some hands-on work, but hopefully doesn't take too much work.
End-work: Infinite, but also no time limit for it.

[Kas]

I'd say some wizards SHOULD be able to interfere if the dynamics in a guild fails. If a single player ruins the gameplay of many, well...there should be a proper response.

Maybe I'm biased, but anyone letting an applicant to wait for more than 3+ days fails.