Closing Guilds (moved from Keeper's Korner)

[Kitriana]

Please recognize that if you DO choose to close certain guilds.. you risk losing the players in those guilds.

ie : Personally.. I've already been in a guild with a previous character that had the guild closed down. I was taken in by another guild and stayed in the realms for a while longer. But was never truly content with where that character ended up.. which is why I left Genesis the first time. When I returned.. I found a new home.. but based on what exists now.. I don't think there are any other places I'd be happy guild wise. So if SU were closed -- I would no longer continue to play Genesis. I dont' say that as a threat... just a reality. Some of us dont' wish to be in other guilds and have made our guild choices for various reasons.

Just something to think about when you guys are throwing around recommendations of guilds you think should close.

[Alorrana]

i dont think we need to close the guilds.. I think we need to activate them.. I know DAs and Knights and Neidars have plains to do.. as guild stuff. And they should have more tasks in the guilds as such. to further roleplay, and keep players in the guilds...

How to activate all guilds is still a puzzle, but thats what i think is wrong, personally i do not wish to change guild.. soo.. i guess thats what i had to say on this..

[Arcon]

These days you don't get prestige from combat as a squire. You gain it mainly from rewards given by you sponsor.

[Sharn]

Closing Guilds

In my opinion the closing of guilds is a terrible idea.
In fact, it is the worse thing I can think of that can happen to Genesis besides closing the game down.
Guilds concept is the greatest aspect of genesis.
It is what makes Genesis distinct from all other games.
Seeing a guild closed always makes me sad. I cannot even imagine closing 4 to 6 guilds!

When I started playing genesis in 1994 or 1993, the game population was significantly larger.
But still there were guilds that everyone considered nearly impossible to join:
mystics, mages, rangers, knights and vampires later on. SO WHAT?!
Actually it added a lot of flavor to the game in my opinion!
Meeting a member of the one of those mythical guilds was extremely exciting.
I remember till now when I teamed with a mystic. He was not really using any spells but a light spell.
But nevertheless it was WOW! A mystic. WOW! He uses spells!

I do believe that joining every guild in the game is possible at the moment.
Joining some of the guilds might take a LOT of time, but still is possible.
When the promotional campaign of the game will start, some people will come back
and I think it will be easier to join guilds with some of the old players comeback.
Some of the new players will have enough energy to do the impossible and join those hard to join guilds.
They might also pour new energy into those guilds and make them alive again.
Few weeks ago both dragonarmies were dead. Now? Both of them are thriving.
This can happen to those guilds you consider closing as well.
It just takes a few dedicated players and does not take much time to fix itself.

If it is the council of the guild that fails - demote them of their council positions and see what happens for starters.

If something is not working correctly, you have to fix it, not close it.

I am not threatening to leave...I have and I always will come back to Genesis.
But that? That might be enough for me to finally leave and never come back, even if none of my guilds were affected.

Knights

Technically, I believe that any knight can take a squire without Conclave intervention (I might be wrong here).
Might be, that Earth was quick enough to approve all candidates before I was able to talk to them
Also a knight can promote the squire to the max rank (for solving tasks).
Conclave approval is required to beknight a squire.

When I was a knight I tended to give every one a chance (unless the squire candidate was the enemy of the Knights or enemy of the Knights allies).
3 weeks is reasonable for full squire training with both squire and knight being active.
Also I have to say that I REALLY enjoyed my time as a squire. I was not there for the abilities,
and being a squire with good mentor is great deal of fun.
I had great mentor (Thanks Illusion!) and lots of fun.

[Hektor]

In regards to the shots fired as SC and councils in general.
Since that one seems to be a derail that stands for some reason - I will try respond from the view of someone who has been involved in guild councils since 98 (no - I am not bragging just trying to explain the perspective of the following ).

There are alot of assumptions and accusations on other guilds and players from people that to my knowledge have never bothered stepping up to the plate or who did somewhat poorly in their own dispositions as councillors.

In SC as far as I can tell from my records we have only directly rejected 2 players - both in the early days of the guild from purely roleplay reasons. I do not remember Hektor getting a mail or communication otherwise from Amberlee that she had an interest in the Elementals or Psuchae in the time the guild has existed.

If she had I am fairly certain he would have given her the same treatment he does anyone else expressing an interesting in learning.

Personally as someone handling applicants I may be opposed to a player (regardless of the character he plays) based on my experiences with this person such as:

• Are they someone who changes guilds at a whim
  Do they try to ruin the community spirit of the game and waste wizard and player time with:
  starting whine and nerf campaigns without proper data and information
  starting said campaigns with purely politcal agendas and personal gain in mind
  making snide and demeaning personal comments and spread lies only to later reject them as "acceptable in the heat of the moments" or "did I say that? oh well nevermind"
  Do they actively pursue and abuse bugs (game or guild) rather than reporting them
  Do they have a history of ruining guilds by joining and then not giving a hoot about the concept of the guild or handling their council positions distastefully
  Do they mix their characters

Then I will have reservations. Yes. However, with all that in mind I can only think of about three players I would reject on sight. In the past two years I have given players a chance to join the guild and become full members despite I suspected at least one of them would leave when every avenue of the guild was explored and something else would be more interesting and another one who did it just to prove "I can".

Both suspecions were proven right and I put months of work in these players. It is the chance you take because people deserve a shot at it.

Handling applicants for SC is very involved work due to the way the guild is created and the theme of the guild. I enjoy it immensely and I am privileged that I get to experience these RP opportunites. Though if someone abuses this time it will affect my fun and I will feel disappointed in making that time investment in said character/player.

If all the above makes me a conservative elitist in the eyes of Genesis and the community so be it. I happen to believe it is for the better of the guilds I've been handling so far and the game as a whole. Until they day my view changes or the admin considers it illegal in which case I must either conform or die (figuratively speaking! ) it remains how I choose to handle that role.


In regards to Gorboths logic.

1. Do nothing. Allow promotion of the game to go forward with guild councils just as they are now. If promotion succeeds, and we have a huge number of new players, we will have advertised a game that offers a vast array of guilds that they do not have the option to join.

This seems relative at best. You suggest it is "a vast array" that they cannot join while at the same time saying you want to shut down between 4 and 6 guilds. Implicitly it seems then that these 4-6 out of some 15 occupational and ca 18 layman guilds should be a vast array? Hmm.

... we will have advertised a game that offers a modest number of of guild options, all of which are staffed by active and responsible guild councils, and all of which have a sense of life and visible membership...

No. Just because someone makes Council (by coercion of threat of possible guild closure or by own motivation) in a guild does not automatically make them active and certainly not responsible.

Time and time again we have seen active players who turn passive, Councillors who roleplay little and hardly know the theme of their own guild, power- and warmongers etc take seats. No matter the number of guildmembers and activity in Genesis.

Closing guilds & ressources.
Generally speaking the whole idea of this thread is something that I find very counterproductive. I agree and have been advocating that it would be a vaste of effort and ressources to invite a heap of players to a game that cannnot support it. However one of the main ressources to support these new players are old players in a good mood to help them out.

Does anyone remember being a member of or knowing members of: the mystics, the vampires/vampyrs, old angmars army, elemental walkers, shadow walkers, wizards of high sorcery, rangers of gondor, house khiraa etc when they shut down?
Does anyone remember the closure and the effect it had on those members as a time of positivism? (regardless of whether the closure was necessary or not).

How many players left due to either being a member of these guilds or because of the negativity that closure spurned?

For my part I remember distinctively applying for WoHS and they shut down.. then I was almost a member of the Elemental Walkers and they shut down.

I was not very positive and certainly did not promote the game in any way for a time period around those episodes... and I was not even a member of those guilds. Imagine the effect it has on someone being a member having invested years of interest and effort in it.

If we have learned anything from guild closures is that it always end up with drama and a large group of players feeling alienated or mistreated no matter the reason for the closure and subsequently we loose players on a drastic scale - if just for a while.

To believe we can actually promote the game by bringing in a group of new players to an environment that is even more negative that it is now? Not by a long shot. It is a complete misplacement of current ressources and accumulated player effort that we cannot afford.

Product & option.
Another issue is that we have a product that is based on options derived from the concept of character development (be it growth or roleplay). Removing an option entirely (close a guild) is reducing the value of the whole product by a far greater margin than the margin loss by this option being hard to achieve (a semi inactive hard to join guild).

Is it not possible to join these guilds at some level already, just not instant gratification? If you want to damage control then you should rather tell the customer that parts of the product are available but not in its desired form and therefore may be harder to achieve.

In other words. Let the new players know that these X Y Z 4-6 unnamed guilds are only available in limited form and that they may want to focus on something else first while the issue is being handled. In fact the new players themselves may be the answer to the problem. But remove the option entirely is from a marketing point of view extremely counter productive.

Summing up
The issue of guild councils and the variety by which they are managed is complex and it is easy to make uninformed assumptions and shouting allegations while not stepping up to the plate.

I agree these guilds have issues and the game would be better for new players if they were more available and had engaged leadership. However, shutting them down is a waste of ressources and accumulated investment that causes negativity and shortage in other areas and secondly greatly devaluates the value of our product. From an economic and marketoriented approach I believe it is not feasible at all.

Therefore I cannot and will not support Genesis in any way if we carry this out. This is not a threat to sway you. If the admin believes it is the right decision, by all means go ahead of course. Yet I will not invest my interest and ressources given that it is something I feel puts it all at jeopardy again.

In my opinion it is the single most dangerous and counter productive suggestion by the administration out there at this moment. Do the guilds have issues - yes - shutting them down is the by all accounts the worst possible solution. It causes far more problems than it solves. It is an uninformed quick fix reducing Genesis as a whole and an admittal of complete defeat to scarce ressources.

Just my 2 cc's of yap

[Laurel]

I still vote:
don't close - merge!

Knights with Neidar Clan
merge councils/officers/elders/thanes/whatever they are called & racks, while leaving skills and requirements for both as they are
simpler solution: give the conclave the commands available to Clan leaders and the other way around

RDA with BDA ... and later with PoT (not saying with current leadership, reading all the negative feedback about it here ... but I'm not expert in that topic)
someone called this a no-brainer ... actually there's such things already implemented with Calians and Rangers being able to switch weapon-skills (with different results and outcomes, but still ...); the DA should then move to be the fighter branch for PoT, just like the next combo - AA with MM

AA with MM
let AA be the ultimate way of proving ones worthiness for the Lord? let full mages have officer rights? let them actually rule their army - not just be part of it for the sake of skills ... proven AA fighters can later move to become MMs or remain high-ranked and proven Shields for MMs
let everybody and their aunt join AA with general rack access and then let them fight for more approval (better racks? Shield of MM rights? MM robes?)

Also:
Drop PoT leadership over KoT. KoT should be some kind of a lay branch of DA (if DAs were merged into one).

Generally I'd see things this like:
step 1. you come and auto-join us - become a squire/DA mercenary/AA footman
OR
step 1. choose our layman solution: Shieldbearer/KoT/AA lay
step 2. you prove yourself and are granted: full knight (or choose our special stuntie branch - the Neidars)/DA soldier/AA member
step 3. you prove yourself even more and are willing to take responsibility: conclave or Thane/DA officer/AA officer
OR
step 3. you prove yourself even more and are willing to focus on librarian tasks rather than pure fighting: PoT/MM (missing something for the KoS/NC here ...)

This could be even applied to Calia:
step 1. autojoin trainee or EW layman (or both)
step 2. full Calian
step 3. Calian officer
OR
step 3. SCoP

Btw. this concept is already applied in Rangers to some extent (with the requirement of any vouch to begin your journey with - which I find quite RP related) and afaik DA and Calians. While there is no other magic-guild in ME to move further in Rangers, there is SCoP for Calians and PoT for DAs.

You can play this as a concept of "we need your muscles to harden, so you can understand basic battle before we teach you spell-casting" or simply "prove yourself, before you are allowed onto our secret weapons (spells)".

But pretty please - no more closing. Hell - you could even wipe out current guild-members to lowest ranks and allow them 1-3 months to re-settle everything themselves ... but closing ... I see it as the first step towards closing this game as a whole.

[Cherek]

Laurel: I dont think merging is a good idea at all. I think the "ally" system suggested in other threads is far better, and most likely requires way less coding. Merging guild with completley different themes and rules will imho be very messy. Then you might as well transfer the members in one guild to the other, and close one of them.

What I called a no-brainer was closing one of the DAs. Nothing else. IF we were to close guilds.

But I really would like to clarify my list of guilds to close were my thoughts if, If, IF, IF!!! guilds are to close at all. They were suggestions in the worst case scenario that guilds need to be closed, and what guilds I think would minimize the damage done, and possibly be a good solution in the end. Possibly.

But as I mentioned earlier my general opinion is that we should not close guilds. However, I am not convinced yet... I do understand the point of closing a guild. Even if it means losing players. But having read Sharn's and hektor's notes.... I do see your point too.

However, also consider the negative impact inactive guilds with inactive councils have on the game and its players. I can safely say I have at times both in the past and more recently lost interest in playing simply because of the inactivity of guild councils, lack of interaction in the guild, and lack of advancement. And I am surely not the only one. And I dont blame this on the actual guild councils either, it is as much the fault of the game itself. The size of the game compared to our playerbase. It does not add up, and guilds made for 20 active players just cannot function with 2-3. No leader can be expected to be that active.

So... yes closing guilds may cause negative feelings and might cause players to leave. But doing nothing and having inactive and semi-dead guilds already cause those things as well.

[Creed]

One solution would be the one I (and others) suggested. That all full members can take on a squire on their own without any approval from any council. Knights are perhaps the guild that would seriously need this the most since they have the most complicated council system. Gorboth says these changes are very hard to accomplish though but perhaps if only the most needy guilds could be given a helping hand it would do alot?

Knights these days don't need Conclave approval in taking on a squire.
The Conclave is only needed in dubbing the squire to become a knight.
But that doesn't help much, if the conclave isn't even available to do that. I have a squire, who isn't playing, just like me.. who was ready for a long time. But it wasn't possible for me to find a conclave member to do the final interview, which is the requirement to pass, to be dubbed.

[Cherek]

Creed:

Well step one in my suggestion is already in place then. Then only the conclave approval for making someone a full knight need to be removed and both you and your squire can start playing again.

Dont you think that would help a bit? It would make it possible for the knights to function pretty well without a conclave. Being a full knight lord warrior is pretty playable if nothing huge has changed...

Maybe with that small change you could manage to build up enough active members to actually find one interested in becoming conclave him/herself.

I suggested making the change to Navarre. Why dont you do it as well? Surely you can login and send a letter? Who knows, maybes its an easy fix that would actually help a lot?

[Draugor]

Dont merge us with the PoT, dont merge AA with MM either, one guild ruling over another is retarded.
And like Laurel said, with the current leadership it would lead to internal war, its close enough a war with those factions due to PoT leadership.
Merge dragonarmies, let us choose from ANY weapon in the game, very few of the dragonarmies in the book had a specific weapon, rather what they scavanged from the armoury or took from the knights corpses. But having 2 dragonarmies? Naaa... make the General into Dragonarmy Highlord as in the joint military commander for all the dragonarmies kinda like Ariakas is but on the peg just below him. And then make people able to choose wich army they wish to belong to, white, black, green, red or blue