Absent Guild Leaders

I've contacted GW Support regarding this issue, and besides the "sorry, can't help you" response, they suggested I post the issue for feedback.

I'd like to see the option/ability to oust an absent guild leader and promote a new one from the pool of active officers. Our current guild leader has not logged on in five weeks, and did not leave any kind of indication his absence would be temporary. While it's true the officers have some of the powers a leader does, there are still some that are missing, such as demoting/kicking officers that also have not logged in for some time (though officers are able to do this to regular members). Since there is a finite number of officer positions possible, this hampers the ability to promote members to officers if all of the officer positions are filled, primarily with players that haven't logged on in two+ months.

I don't feel it should be solely one officer's ability to do these kinds of changes, it could be put to some kind of group decision, i.e., X (where X = some number) officers must approve before the action will be carried out by the game.

The current solution is leaving the guild and starting a new one where you lose all that was associated with the original guild. I think that's far too drastic a measure to have to take just because your guild leader has burned out on the game.

Thanks for listening

Melish Mehlynqhali

I often suggested on another board there be two guild leaders if say one were ill,sick in hospital or haveing real problems.

I like the idea and have thought about it myself

i think your idea is absolutely stupid. sorry but im a guild leader and i have personallypaid 100k for my guild hall 6k on changing the cape and 100 making the guild so if i was to be demoted from my hard earned cash that would drive me crazy. you would be effectivly stealing from some guild leaders

I liked what DAOC does, it autopromotes players to the leader position if the leader doesn't log in for an extended time.

Sure, but if you quit the game and leave your guild leaderless and stagnant, you're screwing your guildmates.

Besides, if you quit the game for 3 months, you obviously don't care about your 100k, or you woulda stayed around.

I like the idea myself.

-sam

I agree.. There should be a clause as to when you can kick your guild leader..

I suggest 1 month of inactivity.. 1 month is not to low or to high of a time frame..

I think the idea of an "auto promotion" is a good one. The leader would be 'demoted' to officer status and the most active, longest lived officer would take over.

Sounds promising. The other alternative is to have one of the officers just start a new guild and bring the players across. The number of stagnet guilds around is amazing!
Maybe a guild merging option if the leader is away for an extended period of time? Two birds with one stone.

I think if the guild leader were in the hospital, their first concern would never be,"Gee, I hope I'm still leader after I'm outta surgery!"

An officer/guild leader must play the game in order to serve. It's very simple.

Not to mention the potential devious bastards who will band together simply to join a guild, demote its rightful founder, and shanghai his or her accomplishements.

I've seen this before. If you had something like this in place, that is exactly what would happen, the griefers who cannot piss me off by talking to me (i have no chats on but current party and guild, EVER) would simply make a dinky character, build up some respectable ability, then seek me out for membership, perhaps lull me into accepting them, or one of my officers (he's slow) and then find some way to oust me.

Nope, this idea is utterly devoid of coherent thought.

That is, of course, an option but the group loses it's hall, essentially starting over from scratch.

Perhaps what could happen when a leader is gone for an extended time would be for the guild to be 'disbanded' with the guildhall being removed. BUT the sigil could be given to the most active ranking officer. That way, they could head out with the remaining members and found a new guild without having to start over from scratch.

Circumstances, circumstances, circumstances Some people work 50 hours a week or MORE. Some have kids. Some ARE kids and have kid-based responsibilities like softball, school, anything. Some people may have not paid a bill and their baroadband is off. Some people may be DEAD and no one knows them enough personally to sort that out. Some people may have multiple accounts/guilds and focus on another one more than their main one. Some also with characters (this happens to me all the time with guilders, they make some new build and then are unreachable, setting their status to offline but I see them run past me, LOL). Some people burn out and take a break. Some people get another new game and take a break. SOme people have their accounts stolen, so the guild master you usually like speaking to and is usually on may not be on because some addtard took their account and is sitting on it for some reason (many come to mind, like blatant irritation and nothing more).

It's not so much about a leader's lack of passion or interest as perhaps their life is in the downer specturm. People have offline lives. I love games but it is easy for us all to forget their are bills to pay, and mouths to feed, and you get the idea...I think...

Our Guild Leader is pretty good about being on. But sometimes, he does remain AFk for a few days (he has this thing called "Life" to attend to ).

Even though he is probably as active as possible, I would hate to see some impacient officers get together and give him the boot (although, I doubt that would happen )

I think that there should be a second in command rank, Im a leader of a growing guild and honestly I have a hard time getting on until late in the day. I wouldnt want to get home one day and find out that my guild had impeached me because I had to work late.

I dont think you should be able to "oust" the guild leader at all... i personaly think that's a very stupid idea...

They're the ones who put the guild together, get things set up... if you don't like the way the guild is being run, then leave... it's not up to you to change a guild that isnt owned by you.

I do agree with the suggestion however, that there could be two guild leaders.

I say if they havent been on for month it should automatically kick them out.
Because maybe some guild leaders get in terrible accident and cannot play for weeks.

EDIT: Some get grounded too lol, that would suck you come back and say "wtf where my guild?" And your officer saying "sucker!"

Then again guilds do have places like groupsites or forums to post on.OI don't see the problem with having 2 guild leaders or even up to 4.This would be good if more than one guild mergered together eg 4 guilds merging to be come one with new cape and all.I am not talking about one with guild halls.

I guess I was unclear about the stipulations for demoting or removing a guild leader.

1) The guild leader would have to be inactive for a prolonged period of time. It's summer, people go on vacations for weeks at a time, other things in life occur - can't argue with that. But if someone is absent for five+ weeks without any kind of notice, it's likely they've got something far more important going on in their lives than GW, even if it's some other game. So, logging on late one evening, or not showing up for a day or two would not meet the stipulation of prolonged inactivity.

2) Once prolonged inactivity has been established, a set number of active officers would have to all agree to change the leadership of the guild, the action performed by the game or a gm. No one officer could accomplish this alone, unless he/she had access to five officers' accounts (I guess that's possible ). GW could even go as far as to email the account of said guild leader, notifying him of the change and giving said guild leader an opportunity to either let it proceed, or log on and do something else. I don't have my guild leader's email address but GW absolutely does.

The idea that it isn't my guild to change is incorrect. I'm expected to participate and add to the general whole. It most certainly is my guild to change, both by my presence and participation as an officer or member. Otherwise, what's the point? If I wanted to be lead by just one ideology, I'd go play an offline RP'ing game. However, in my specific case, a few officers have contributed just as much as the leader has towards the cape, guild name, sigil and hall (even the name of the hall), and they don't deserve to have to work for all of that again just because the leader has stopped logging in.

For those of you who are guild leaders that responded, what I've posted really doesn't seem to apply to you - you're active! What I'm proposing couldn't be used by some mutinous officer, greedily coveting your position, because you're still logging in. It would be nice to think that if you did lose interest in your guild/the game, you'd tie up your loose ends by promoting someone to take over. From my own experience in online games, that doesn't happen most of the time. People leave, think they'll return, and usually don't.

For those of you that support the idea, or similar ones, perhaps GW could concede there needs to be some way of salvaging a guild if the guild leader doesn't officially leave, but is for all intents and purposes gone, rather than losing everything everyone has worked for towards that guild. While this is my suggestion, I think some of the ones posted here and in the threads I searched prior to posting are valid. We're all saying the same thing in the end - we need a solution to the absent guild leader.

Thanks
Melish Mehlynqhali

There should be a Guild Leader position and a Guild FOUNDER position - and they could both be the same person. The Founder basically has the ability to nominate a leader, and can never be removed from the guild. The leader works exactly as they do now, making the decisions and whatnot. The LEADER should be able to be voted up or down by officers in a 75% majority, but the Founder position should be, in a word, invulnerable. Thus, if a leader doesnt show or doesnt preform to the guild's needs, the officers can move him up or down, but the founder stays put. Think of the leader as the CEO and the officers as a Board of Directors.

I'll throw my 2 cents in here, I dont like the idea here is why......

A responsable guild leader should inform his guild of goings on in his life.


That is.....


If he/she is unable to play for a prolonged period of time, an officer of his/her choice should be appointed to act as leader in the interem.

My guild has a rule that all members must play at least twice a week.. (unless otherwise agreed upon eg. holidays etc.). This goes for me too. If I was unable to make this commitment then I would have to stand down as leader and appoint a trusted/deserving officer the role.

Lets face it theres not much emphasis put on the leader ATM ..

that is.....

he/she has almost the same power as an officer. So the officer will not go POWER MAD with his new status as in reality he is not gaining much.

My suggestion is to either .... wait for the leader to return and discuss your concerns with him/her...

or leave your guild taking your friends with you.

Cheers

But officers can't redesign capes or such, and can't affect other officers.

An officer shouldnt need to affect other officers. and the cape should be voted on by the whole guild... well..... ours did. Unless your guild is a dictatorship then I suggest you buy a gun. (joke no flames please)

Only need 1 cape design for guild, its not like you should change it every week. If you hang around same area "Marhan Grotto" people will start to recognize your cape. Officers can do anything Guild Leader can cept for buy guild hall and capes, if guild leader is gone whoop de do, nothing changes, you can form GvG matches.

Ousting a leader seems too radical for me, even if he has been absent in a long time.

If it was to be done by voting between the officers, I'd say it should use a consensus model - if apart from being absent for a long time, the leader doesn't have the trust of ANY of his officers, he probably has earned his demotion (come on, a guy in this situation must have promoted random people to officers)... but it still seems just a tad radical, since as someone pointed out, the leader might have invested a ton of gold in his guild, and he might be absent due to circumstances which he can't control. Also, a consensus model wouldn't work if one of the officers is also absent and doesn't look like he'll show up again soon.

So, here's an idea - if the leader hasn't been on in X weeks, the game could randomly (or maybe this could be decided by majority vote between the officers) give one of the officers temporary leader powers - he can demote and kick officers, but he cannot disband the guild *and* he is automatically demoted back to "regular" officer as soon as the real leader logs on again. What do you guys think?

Perhaps that is the best method.

Agreed. There should be certain circumstances in which a guild is allowed to vote to kick members - and even the leader. Also, there should be more than just three positions. The guild hierarchy needs to be customizable in every aspect. That way you can have members, officers, and one imbetween leader and officer just in case.

i guess im lucky that my guild leader has not been absent for a long period of time, but to be able to kick your leader is just plain wrong. he started it, he created it, he invited you and even promoted you. why would you backstab him/her. sure the person is absent for a very long period of time, but come on guys. if you dont like it, LEAVE simple as that.

*sigh* and it starts "Guild Politics"

I say no change needed.

Oh, I would not be happy at all if someone came in and stole my guild. I worked real hard to get 2k in Presearing so we could have capes right away. I worked even harder, doing Fissure run after Fissure run to get the money needed for my Guild Hall.

I'm a fairly active leader, more so than my guild members, but I have been out of action for a few weeks, things happen sometimes. Things that you can't control. I have over 300 hours logged on this game, and I'm sure half of that has been for my Guild. For someone to be able to take all of that away is just nonsense.

I suggest you create your own guild from scratch, raise it into something and then see how you feel about this issue again. After you help all your members so much, I'm sure you'll see that being backstabbed is not cool.

Being guild leader is exhausting, especially when you 1st start it and invite a bunch of newbies who want you to help them with ft ranik or frontier gate. To tell ya the truth I allways skip those missions now LOL, and go staight to Nolani Academy, one thing for sure its not fun doing same mission over and over with different guild members. One thing I hate being officer is that guild members CONSTANTLY ask you for help, I'm sure its much worse being a leader and dealing with all this Can you help me? Do you wanna buy?

I was thinking the same thing after reading this threed. Leader goes to a "limbo" status after a set time of no login. An officer gets promoted and has full leadership but can't kick limbo leader or disolve the guild but all else have everything. When the leader logs back in Temp leader gets reassigned to officer again. Maybe have the option for the leader to designate the back up 2nd in command ahead of time? so if they leader account gets banned / etc it goes to the back up or random if backup is inactive / no longer in guild.

Yes, I think that would be satisfactory as well, but then you end up with the possibility that both the leader and the second in command disappear for a while - then you have the same problem where officers aren't able to kick/demote inactive officers because only the leader or the pre-designated second-in-command can do that.

Handling inactive officers is the only issue I see, really... everything else can wait until the leader shows up again, but hanlding inactive officers is a guild maintenance thing, which you know a good leader would do if he was around.

now what do you do when a friend of yours convinces you to get this game, starts a guild, and only has 3 freaking people in it?! i feel bad leaving the guild! (this may be a bit off topic, i apologize)

You start recruiting and convincing other people to get the game.

can i recruit for a guild if i am not the leader?

wow that is pretty pathetic...if the officers want to be a guild leader then its obvious they have to start their own guild.

The question is not that.

Problem is many people started Guild Wars, played for about 1-2 months and got bored and left, some of those people started a guild and the guild is still somewhat active but without the leader.

But without the leader they cannot do some things, such as getting a new guildhall or change the cape design.

The current solution is abandon the guild and start a new but that means having to buy new capes and a new guildhall and I think that is the issue with some people that rather simply continue in the guild and simply have a new leader.

Problem is that its not a simple solution, if the guild leader payed everything its not fair to demote him or remove him ... a

i have to tell ya, if my guild booted me . . .i would lose my mind. i paid for the capes 3 times, i bought the sigil for 85k , i got everybody to join, promoted those that were fit to be officers. the rares ive given away amount to more than another 45k at least, not to mention all the armor and materials ive helped with/made.not to mention all the missions ive helped with. now im not online alot the last 2 weeks, and i may not be on for a good long while. it IS as simple as farming your ass off, and doing ALL the groundwork yourself if you want a guild to run how you like. that would ruin the game for me, and i dont mean "im not playing for awhile then maybe ill pck it up later" i mean i would walk away for good. if anybody in my guild, or any other guild are not happy, they can easily move on, or build there own guild from the ground up. as it stands im happy as hell that my guild cant "oust" me for any reason. Keep in mind, that im not saying that your concers are not valid, for sure they are, but punting the leader could possibly be the rudest thing ive heard of yet.

If you're an officer, yes, you can invite people.