Alliance Chat.... -_- Not sure if this is the right place but whatever.

Alright yeah this is a rant, you've been warned, but I am also curious as to how many other alliances are having semilar issues!

So our guild is new to joining an alliance but we aren't newbs to the game... However being the fresh meat with the alliance we are treated as such. Yesterday marked the greatest day in spam history >_<
Guild chat was just not something I could come back to and check after 10mins of afk because all the WTB/WTS/WTT crap that went on in the alliance chat. Some of the stupidest things were asked... People begging for money and so forth... I just.. wow... So our leader starts a bickering match in good fun trying to get them to understand that spamming is WRONG and against the rules as we and everyone else in this particular alliance should know them.... He is promptly told to shut up and stop spamming after another person went: OMG WHERE IS THE FESTIVAL GOING TO BE
WHERE
WHERE
WHERE
WHERE
Our leader typed: www.guildwars.com and entered it in twice to make it clear This set off yelling at him for spamming... WTF?!?!? (and yes it was at him they said his name and not the other guys)

So today it starts up again. Again our leader and many of our guild are very put off by the fact that we have to kill our alliance chat in order to read guild chat (its like LA D1 I SWEAR!).
Our leader: WTB all your ecto for 1.3k and shards for 300g
Person: USE THE TRADE CHANNEL! WTB WTS IS AGAINST THE RULES IN ALLIANCE CHAT!

......Here I am about to start rolling... did they REALLY miss the point? So our leader goes: Yeah I am aware of that, but I saw it fitting with all the mini pet sells going on previously....
Guy: Well its an unwritten rule not to spam alliance chat with that stuff. *is still missing the point*
Leader: Yes it was spamtastic yesterday! It was so bad I had to turn off alliance chat!
Guy: yeah I know!
Leader: Does this happen often?

~SILENCE FOR 30mins~
Random other alliance guy for the 4th time today that I saw: So who wants to help me through Vizunah?!?
And thusly the spam for price checks and other stupidity starts again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~Oh look, this is the reason that Alliance Chat shouldn't have been made for "everyone" -_- I am not trying to down everyone but I have seen more stupidity out of 7guilds in 2days than I have seen out of our guild from the time we made it!

Needless to say this is why we were reluctant to join an alliance. We also have idiots like this in our guild but they have been chastised and no longer talk in alliance chat unless they have to about alliance stuff! And so we have over 200k that we brought to the alliance.... Some of the spammers have less than 90k to their guild.... So WHY!?!?!? Omg idiots make me cry and it seems they cannot be reasoned with, because A: they cannot read.
B: they don't know sarcasm
C: If they understand they realize their guilt and refuse to dignify you with an answer because you asking them to be mature people is ABSURD!
D: Asking them to make the unwritten rule written is a death sentence for them and they shy away from anything that might do away with their little trade economy but its ok for them to castrate you for doing the same thing even in jest......


Wow people never cease to amaze me!

A: Its not a price check forum
B: I am not the Eula
C: I am not a mod
D: I am not rich
E: I am not Ghandi
F: OMG SIGN UP ON A MESSAGE BOARD AND LEARN TO READ AND STOP BEING A MORON!


[/rant]
Sorry I am just frazzled again by stupidity, it happens often, but now its worse when its made into a chat box that I am actually supposed to have to keep up with ;_;

I'm sorry that your Alliance chat is abused but for us it is a "life-saver". It has allowed us to grow beyond 100 members and still have a good way to communicate in-game. We have the original guild [WPG] and the expansion guild [WPG2] and two allies [RCC] and [DE] and so have a decent number of players on at any particular time and I've neither seen any such abuse nor heard of it. Sure every once in a while someone uses the wrong channel but it is followed with an "oops" rather than spamming.

It is pretty much hellos and goodbyes, team forming, questions and answers and sharing in game experiences - all the good stuff that makes a guild (and now alliance) a good community.

Alliance chat gets a double thumbs up from me and I'm sure everyone in our alliance.

aww hun if only this were an oops case... -_- Even now someone is trying to buy ectos in alliance chat. They just got through saying not to do it, and they are doing it anyways with the response from one of the other alliance people being "In here anything goes" meaning alliance chat.... But yet if we even ask a simple question we get railed at... If it keeps up we will likely be going back to a lone guild state cause this is just stupid. Our leader plans to talk to the head of the alliance tonight.

i think it totally depends on who you alliance with... our alliance chat is sometimes filled with a bit of friendly spam, but it's not the ignorant WTS WTS WTS over and over again. people can say pretty much what they want as long as they don't repeat it too much if you know what i mean? it's nice to have a friendly chat in alliance chat with everyone, and be able to make teams, trade and ask questions about the game to more than just our guild.

i would say it's a bad idea to just just into a big alliance you don't know... start off with a small, friendly one (like ours!) and work your way up. or start your own and watch it grow up like. but don't be hesitant to kick out the childish guilds with people like you mentioned in.

good luck!

Well our leader is sort of friends with the head of the alliance, thats why we joined it. And personally our guild doesn't mind that kind of stuff, but when we are getting jumped on and told its a rule that none of the others abide but see fit to yell at us for... Well it just makes it stupidly hard to understand the mentality of it all -_-

In my guild/alliance, we do not permit any WTS/WTB over guild or alliance chat. This is strictly enforced. Alliance chat is reserved for making partied for various missions, questions in which the answer might benefit others, and for Faction updates. I might be a little on the spam side, but I have announced over AC every time we hit another 100k.

Just sick of the double standard... Finally someone logs on from the controling guild and starts telling those spamming to stop and just generally being a jerk, but he was getting the point across (basically also saying no one else had the nads to stand up about it, which is total BS, we just got bitched at for doing so). So we kindly thank him for his imput and say we were tired of the double standard.... He goes: I didn't give a double standard and gets kind of pissy... We told him we weren't referring to him but an earlier person... Thusly the AC goes completely quiet again and the spam resumes a few hours later -_-

Its the double standard and the fact that they seem even with rules to have no standards... They dont even kick guilds so we can't possibly be rude enough to get kicked out >_> So in the end I just dont see the point -_-

I am fine with strict rules or lax rules, but when people are throwing around double standards like its Santa slinging coal in a Pr0n house... Well.... It makes me tick is all... None of them get it, trying to talk to those that do is equally fruitless. Our meeting has netted that we shall bring up these things to the head guild but *shrugs* I won't hold my breath...

They don't kick guilds supposedly so those who aren't with high amounts of faction are just idling. Some of my guildies plan to try and get us kicked out I think - in hopes it will force them to look at their policies and such a little closer...>_>
Its a sucky way to do it but if it works -_- I think at this point "most" of us feel like we have nothing to lose really.

We have a policy against use of alliance chat for buying/selling, and we ask people to try not to spam (if you have asked for help twice, don't ask again for a while - people are clearly busy...)

Mostly it works but some people will always bend or break the rules. If they seem to be abusing alliance chat, we ask them not to, and if they carry on, take it up with their guild leader to sort them out... It is not right that people have to end up turning off alliance chat and missing out on the community things becuase a couple of people want to abuse it.

Having double standards seems totally unreasonable though. Take it up with your guild leader and ask them to sort it with the alliance leader. If the alliance/guild is worth belonging to they will try and resolve this...

Seems you're rather unlucky with having such idiotic guilds to ally with...IMO if you're not after owning towns, you're better off alone, or just a sister-guild ( pref. USA-EURO , so that you always have people online ).

We just allied with a guild that shares the vent with us, we often GvG, HA or TA together. Nice people. UL for you :/

We have never had a problem with people selling stuff in either guild or alliance chat. Usually it is people giving stuff away, asking if anyone wants such-and-such before it is sold or salvaged.

We do have a Trade board on our forum and if this ever does arise people will be directed there to do their business. That's what it is there for and is a better place for it since you can reach more people than those online at the moment.

Can't you just quit an alliance, kinda like an individual quiting a guild?

I think this is an alliance that you do not want to be in.
Its better to tell your guild leader to quit the alliance and save yourself all the unmature behaviour happening in that alliance

Well my husband runs our guild, and it seems things were talked out and that the unwritten ground rules are going to start being inforced more liberally.

I personally (and I am sure some of the others in my guild will do as well) have decided that I won't be giving anymore faction to the cause. We may end up quitting, I dunno, but I do know that my alliance chat isn't coming back on till either the issue is fixed or we quit ^_^
And I figure not having that particular chat on won't make me miss much, since I don't think they have much to offer.

We did own a town very briefly and I was able to get some cheap things huzzah for that. *shrugs* Other than that, I find its not worth it.
We already had a guildie leave because he was chastized for spamming the AC. We asked him nicely not to do it, I guess he got offended and left *sighs* Oh well, nothing that can be done about that I suppose =/ It would have been nice tho if he had at least told someone he was leaving and why. *shrugs*

Thanks guys, I am still very put off but not near as angry as I was when I first posted ^_^

Maybe it is not the feature, it is the PEOPLE using the feature.

In my alliance, we don't have this problem. We have the opposite. Even though about 75% of the alliance members will be on, only when I go "Hi, what is everyone doing and how's it going" or a fellow officer goes "anyone needs (insert mission)?" will anyone say anything.

In short, it is the kind of people permeating the guilds that will make the difference.

Story about our old alliance:

Me in Alliance Chat: "When anyone run to Sanctum Cay?"
*noone was running atm and I needed a character to go there*
Guy in my Guild Responds in Allaince Chat: "I think I can, wait til I cap this skill and I'll try"
The Alliance Leader: "USE GUILD CHAT FOR THAT TYPE OF MESSAGING!!!@@@!!!!!shiftone!@@!1!"
Me in Alliance Chat again: "Sorry man, I was asking the ALLIANCE for alittle help, and someone from my guild happened to reply"
Then he TOTALLY blows up - so I tell him off - and He kicks us out of the alliance.

End of Story.

I generally wont even start bothering with such cases. Guildwars has 2 nice buttons called kick & leave. If you join an alliance thats complete bull, just leave it and find a better one. If you're leader of some alliance and some guild thats bull joins you, then its generally easier to kick them out than start teaching them (Usually they want to be teached). Dont leave bad seeds to passively mess up your alliance. Same thing with guilds.

i'm in a pvp alliance, so there's none of this bs.

The first alliance my guild was in was terribly BS...i said hi one day through alliance chat, hi to one of my old pals in their guild..i suddenly get a message from this guy "stfu, dont f***ing spam in alliance chat...dont even use it." The next day i come on and our guild is kicked from the alliance because one of officers typed out "shit" in alliance chat...which of course is completely unacceptable and unforgivable and deserved such a witch burning of the entire guild.

Our current alliance isnt much better...although it does beat all of the others we have been in...one guy got yelled at by 12 guys for accidentally selling something in alliance chat...another guy was yelled at by the alliance leader for asking what another characters name meant. sheesh...where are alll of the good alliances.

I was in a similar position with an alliance earlier.... fortunitly my guild left the alliance. anyway, i often get lots of things and i don't like selling things so.... i give them away. Friends and Guildmembers have first dibs... but if they don't want them i offer them to Alliance members. In additions, from the recent Dragon Festival, i was running people through the jade wind orb missions for free from my guild and alliance. So during this time i got yelled at from noob members of the alliance leader family saying that alliance chat is for AB organization only. Then they threatened to kick my guild. Naturally i was a bit peeved since i know i had just given an officer in thier guild a green iteam i had had doubles of (not a great one, just a hammer ... but still) and i was currently running 2 of thier members through that annoying cave mission during the festival. So i asked the Alliance leader about it and he said i should stop.... "Spamming the alliance chat trying to get people to buy your stuff and getting people to run you places". that was pretty much it for me since i had never tried to buy or sell anything on the AC and never asked anyone to run me anywhere on AC.... it was pretty much me asking if anyone wanted anything or needed any help. Sorry for the pseudo-rant.... but i do feel your pain dealing with really stupid Alliance Leaders. AC can be fun.... but put the power in the wrong hands and.... *shudders*

i have noticed that and why dont people use guild and alliance chat anymore like they usto they usto just wanna talk for a while u know shoot the brezze i liked that

My guild's alliance is great, we talk about everything from PvE groups, to farming, to getting a guest for GvG, just got to choose a good alliance.

This is why my guild never joined an alliance (partly). We figured we would gain nothing from it since none of us are especially fond of fame farming. If we didn't join an alliance, we could still choose which side to play for individually. We would never be able to buy an outpost either way with these prices, so we have no point in donating faction to an alliance. Now we are in an Alliance though, but I keep my Alliance-chat off at all times, and has barely talked to anyone since we joined.

lol i hate people like you (in the nicest possible way), out of 100 people i kno maybe 20 because the rest dont speak, but yea i was a bit aprehensive at first but in my alliance its all good, some people are looking to buy/sell things but why shouldnt they? up to 1000 people and your not allowed to ask if one of them has the item your looking for, imo it speeds up the whole process and you may get it for a discount. I tend to give stuff away on a.chat like the other day i gave away everything off a character i was deleting. In general though theres just a lot of friendly banter going on WTS spam isnt allowed but your allowed to ask once or twice, ive never found it a problem.

Also even if you dont want to gain a town an alliance is still benificial for whatever your doing, I know a lot of my members have had help from alliance members completing missions, taught farm runs, going for titles etc just depends how you want to use it

I'm with a PvP guild .. though we still do PvE every so often .. we're lucky that the other alliances are similiar to us, but we do get the random comments, from obvious "idiots" and I will be the first to say sometimes we just retalliate because it's funny watching them. But ...

To be honest ... I liked it when only the Leader and the Officers could talk .. not the entire guild .. it made it feel .. oh I don't know ... "Special"

IMHO

I think part of the problem is all the nice friendly chat tends to happen on guild chat, and alliance chat is only used for "need help with mission" type things. A few people do say Hi etc on it, but most don't. This doesn't help with building up links between the allied guilds...

It seems to imply you've joined a factions farming alliance, isn't it?

I was in FF alliances before, and I have to say both alliances were like what you describe. The reason is simple: if you wanna be a "strong" alliance - the kind of alliance that controls major cities (or even probably remote outposts), you need... factions farmers. Players with free time and nothing better to do than repeating the same thing all day to get factions. And who can do that? Kids. The alliances I was in had to fill their ranks with whoever can bring factions to stay in the competition, which means a bunch of annoying kids were accepted to keep the factions high. Of course, out of the 10 guilds of the alliance, a few of them were more restrictive and did not suffer such immature players. But those guilds generally had the alliance chat off as well, because they could bear the spam. So yeah, spamming kids seem to take over the alliance chat of the main alliances (main, in this case = controlling towns). We also had a "no WTS" policy, but it never really worked. And as said before, the players pissed by this spam just turned off the alliance chat of the time, abandoning it to the spammers.

Would it be better if ANET reverts the system so only officers can talk? Yes, definitely, for those alliances. Should ANET do that? No, I don't think so.

Most of the alliances in this game are not about factions farming. They're just made of friends who wanna be together. When my guild got kicked from the 2nd "large" alliance I was talking about, we joined an anonymous alliance, made of players who just wanted to play the game without having to worry about boring stuff like factions farming. And there was no spam at all.

So yes, what you describe is definitely a problem for the large alliances, but I do believe it's not the case for the majority of the alliances. It really sucks for those alliances - and this problem is one of the reasons why I don't think I'll ever join one of them again, but there's no much ANET can do about that, without penalizing more players even.

In our alliance we don't wts or wtb because we don't sell each other stuff, we give it away. Our alliance chat is for hello's, good byes and orgainizing pvp's or getting help on missions.

Instead of changing it back to officers only, maybe anet could make it where the alliance leader decides to make it all chat or officers only. That would solve the problem for all. I like having it with everyone. That way, we all get to know each other. I can understand the problems with bigger alliances tho.

As far as turning in faction......we don't insist on that either. We aren't interested in taking over anything and I'd rather people spend it on jadeite or amber to sell.

i feel sorry for those who have probs with alliance chat it must suck, the best method would be if new levels were introduced into the guild roster then you could promote people to be able to speak on alliance chat and demote those that abuse it, im sure this method would sort it out because who wants to be in the lowest ranks.. also would make members feel special instead of everyone wanting to be officers

yes...i would like it if the leader could give and or remove ac privleges...some members of my guild shouldnt be in ac...same wit members in the alliance...when they join the guild they have to prove that they are mature enought to be unleashed on ur allied guilds :P

Ah since my thread seems not to have died.... >_> We finally disbanded from our old alliance and joined one just for the fun and people in the other guilds that we were friends with. I still have alliance chat turned off most of the time out of habbit. But there is so much less spam and since most of the members are from IRC we typically just talk there.
It's also a much smaller alliance so its not filled with near as much stupidity. I do hope that our old alliance was able to fix whatever issues it had or at the very least regain control of its alliance to again hold a town. *shrugs* Anyways, it all eventually worked out and I didn't have to throw my monitor across the room to accomplish it