Guild Officer / Leader Questions

[Texlaw1992]

I recently became leader of my guild after our former leader and first officer essentially stopped playing (although I hope they'll return some day). I was essentially 2nd officer and the guild "workhorse" for years, so I had no hesitation in taking the position (and I'm pleased to say we've had significant growth in membership in just the last few days).

Anyway, my two questions are as follows:

1. What policies do other guilds follow with respect to officers? Our former leader promoted everyone as soon as they joined. I don't agree with that policy - I'm considering a roughly 30-day wait period to make sure new members don't just join for a few days and then leave. I'd like to know how other guilds handle naming new officers.

2. What obligations does the guild have to its former leader and 1st officer, if any? I'm keeping them on as legacy officers of course, but just wondered how other guilds handled the issue of a former leader. We became in-game friends over the years, so I don't see any demand for return of leadership or anything if they did come back, but I'm curious as to how other guilds have handled it.

Thanks for any assistance you can provide.

[Qhualor]

1. good people and dedicated to the guild. I would base the number of officers on how many active players in the guild. for example, maybe 1 officer for every 10-20 accounts.

2. keep them on as officers. if they come back, than I would just have a chat with them to see what their intentions are and if they want their guild back. take it from there.

[Powskier]

i promote those who dont go afk for more than a month,And are familiar with the more common quests,and can hang in elite a bit..Promoting everyone is a tactic not unlike chain letters...I really wouldnt want newb:) or way worse -noob officers.

[beta1]

1. Small new guilds tend to promote everyone to officer so that they can recruit other new members faster. As the guild grows they tend to stop promoting new members.

2. I would keep them on as an officer unless there is a specific reason not to do so.

[MadCookieQueen]

1. We look for someone who exemplifies all the qualities we want in a good officer. Must be active, social, willing to lead parties/raids, and be a great person to hang out with. From there we do a nomination and take a quick vote among the other officers. So far we've only added one new officer since Ash and I took over GRR last year.

2. All former leaders remain as officers, it's a courtesy. However previous officers who haven't logged in for 6+ months we demote with the full idea that they can easily be reinstated if they come back and be active for a period of time, like 30 days, give or take.

[FuzzyDuck81]

Ours is a very small, very casual guild, i think i've seen all 13 of us on at once maybe twice, ever... so i think we all have 1 alt at least that's an officer, purely so we can invite our own alts & pretty much don't bother worrying about it really, we just do our thing, whether its 1/2/3-manning things, or just pugging & playing while using the guild channel as a way to chat... having said that a few of us were feeling flush & did club together for a Kraken, because, well, KRAKEN!

[Chilldude]

It depends on the type of guild. An officer, in its strictest sense, is a person who holds an office. For example, a recruitment officer, armory officer, or other such leader of a department your guild relies on to function properly. A proper guild creates structure for its members that allows them to function at peak efficiency as a team. There would be offices for scheduling events such as raids, the procurement of any needed resources to that effect, and any logistical planning to see it through. A member of such a guild would know exactly what's expected of them, but also what they can expect of the guild. Being an officer in such a guild is actually work, and not a position to be coveted.

I've never heard of a guild in DDO functioning on any level even remotely close to this. Certainly any attempt of mine was met with complete failure. In other MMOs where a great deal more structure than is typical of your average DDO guild is required to be successful, I have seen guilds that were extremely organized, with a hierarchical structure more complex than most small businesses.

Let's face it, that much structure would be superfluous in DDO where any rag tag group of random strangers can face roll any content in the game on EH, and any group of geared players on powerful builds can face roll anything on EE. However, a well led guild is a lot like a well led raid, although not required to get the job done, a good leader is much appreciated by the members. Anyone can throw up an LFM for VoN and sit back while people stumble in and scurry around like ants, eventually performing everything that is required. However, a good leader will assign numbnuts and twinkletoes to the puzzle, lightfingers to the traps in the north hall, while every else proceeds to the ring.

A little bit of direction goes a long way. In DDO that direction need not come from someone who is an "officer". There are no powers afforded officers in DDO that in any way facilitate any office normally associated with the functioning of a guild other than recruitment. In other words, since being an officer doesn't help you actually run a guild in any regard, not being an officer in no way prevents you from doing so either. Just as the star does not in any way help you lead a raid, not having the star in no way prevents you.

If you want to be a good leader for your guild, don't worry about who is or isn't an officer, worry about how you can lead them to finding the most success from their time in game. To that end, I highly recommend your first act as guild leader be to disband the guild NOW!

Seriously. If you aren't approaching 100, you are doing a disservice to everyone in your guild by not disbanding it. What good is yet another guild where at any given time 2-3 people are logged in, usually playing different content at very different levels? If 40-50 small guilds were to merge into one large guild, instead of 2-3 people logged in at any given time, there'd be 80 - 100 people, making the guild actually useful and worthy of leadership!

I know there's less than a 0% chance you're going to take my advice and disband. I told my guild years ago we should disband and join a guild we were close friends with at the time. Had we done it, we'd all be much better off. Instead, at any given time you are likely to see 0-1 people online. Peak times you might see 3-4, very different players, playing very different content, at very different levels. Yet now we have so much invested in the guild, it would be so very hard to abandon it. That's why I say DISBAND NOW!!!

Of course if they were to add a guild alliance feature to the game, then the ocean of tiny faltering guilds could work together while still maintaining their autonomy and all that they've built up over the years. But that's neither here nor there. You have to assume that will never happen, because it's very likely to never happen, therefore all your guild is now is all it will every be, minus the endless trickle of F2P players who will stick around for a couple weeks before getting bored and moving on. DISBAND NOW!!!

However, should you decide not to disband, as you likely will, then I wish you the best of luck, you're gonna need it.

[Loromir]

In my guild...I only promote players who are pretty active. Also players who have or are willing to contribute towards buying ships/amenities. We have about 5 officers in our 30+ person guild.

[Maquist]

My little guild is only for people I know in real life, outside the game. So basically it just consists of me, my wife, and our friend we do PnP gaming with. Thus, we make all our characters officers so we can add our new alts or bring in others whom we've recruited to join the game.

To try to address your questions, though: I like the idea of giving a time where the new members can show whether they'd be more of an asset to the guild if they had officer privileges. If they probably won't be bringing anything to the table with that boost, is there a reason they shouldn't just be a basic member?

Secondly, to the former leader and officer. I suppose part of it depends on why they walked away from the game. Were they fed up with the changes coming along, or did they have something in real life that had to take priority? Even if they just burned out and took an extendo-break, they should probably still have a place as officers. If they drained the guild chests and rage-quit, then maybe not so much.

[memloch]

We keep our officers to 12 so that we can meet as a raid group to discuss whatever needs discussing. Our guild has over 50 active members that play all the time and many casuals.

We went through the same type of problem when our guild founder stopped playing for personal reasons and back then there was a bug that did not allow the second to take over. That person also left for personal reasons and the guild dropped to about 10 players. Then one day the founder logged in promoted me and we did not see him for over a year.

He still plays and is a member of the guild but has no desire to be an officer.

The guild is whatever you want it to be. Speak with your current officers and get their feedback. We created a "Code of the Pack" that has helped to guide us whenever drama has come up. You can check it out on our website listed below. Good luck and have fun!

[BigErkyKid]

My guild is a small group of players who live in a different time some from me. We are all officers one one character per account and while we do place loot in our common chests everything is very casual and easy going, at least the part I know.

But my experience in plenty of guilds in DDO is it means close to nothing if you don't have a large group of active members.

There are no real long term goals for a guild other than to level for the buffs, but once you do, what? It is way easier to join a big guild and just benefit from the public good.

DDO guild's are meant to be a place to find friendlier people to play with, but that in my impression ends up happening anyway via meeting random people playing. If you are not really hardcore or have strong links to the people in a guild, just join a large one and forget about it.

Of course, DDO's guilds are for the most part a reflection on the game. Lots of individual goals, non collective, little reason to cooperate beyond being friendly and playing with the people you like.

I find that successful MMOs have way richer collective goals, but alas.

[niehues]

We keep our officers to 12 so that we can meet as a raid group to discuss whatever needs discussing. Our guild has over 50 active members that play all the time and many casuals.

We went through the same type of problem when our guild founder stopped playing for personal reasons and back then there was a bug that did not allow the second to take over. That person also left for personal reasons and the guild dropped to about 10 players. Then one day the founder logged in promoted me and we did not see him for over a year.

He still plays and is a member of the guild but has no desire to be an officer.

The guild is whatever you want it to be. Speak with your current officers and get their feedback. We created a "Code of the Pack" that has helped to guide us whenever drama has come up. You can check it out on our website listed below. Good luck and have fun!

just a quick note on this.. u can have a lot more than 12 officers and do the same communication using channels.. :D

[nokowi]

I recently became leader of my guild after our former leader and first officer essentially stopped playing (although I hope they'll return some day). I was essentially 2nd officer and the guild "workhorse" for years, so I had no hesitation in taking the position (and I'm pleased to say we've had significant growth in membership in just the last few days).

Anyway, my two questions are as follows:

1. What policies do other guilds follow with respect to officers? Our former leader promoted everyone as soon as they joined. I don't agree with that policy - I'm considering a roughly 30-day wait period to make sure new members don't just join for a few days and then leave. I'd like to know how other guilds handle naming new officers.

2. What obligations does the guild have to its former leader and 1st officer, if any? I'm keeping them on as legacy officers of course, but just wondered how other guilds handled the issue of a former leader. We became in-game friends over the years, so I don't see any demand for return of leadership or anything if they did come back, but I'm curious as to how other guilds have handled it.

Thanks for any assistance you can provide.


My first advice would be to try not to take your new job as leader too seriously. Guilds led by really strong personalities tend to break up because conflict inevitably arises. Guilds with active officers and officer-based decisions have a much better chance of surviving player/guild issues. In your case, I would have people apply to be an officer and then vote in the initial group of officers. Vote on some rules and then have your officers stick to them. Clearly define how many/what is required to be an officer (active play, leading raids, etc), and what will cause you to lose officer status. Do the same for the guild leader position. Adding new players should require the approval of several officers who know the new recruit.

Then relax and let the guild run itself. If conflict arises, have an officer vote. Your vote should count the same as any other officer, no more. With this structure your former leader would likely still have an officer vote. Your job as leader is maintain an active number of officers, and to identify and assemble officers whenever there are issues (hey, we need to schedule/lead more raids, recruit more players, etc), and then let officer decisions dictate what to do.

[Shaude]

most likely just decided what type of guild u want to be. elite minded, new member friendly, newbie friendly, friends playing same game ect. any guild have a good goal and the ppl to do it is a good guild. vote with officers to finish promoting or demoting as needed to keep good knowledge to help when needed.

in my guild the leader makes all he recruits officers and that leads to a lot of unnecessary problems guild chest ,booting ppl for no reason, augments in guild chat over nothing. one of my guild leaders promotes those that helps others and shows a good knowledge of the game, after a 2 week probation as it were to ensure they stay and continue to help.

good luck hope it works out for you

[Eyren]

I actively promoted people in the guild who were
1) active - ran quests, asked guildies if they wanted to join etc
2) helped other guildmates with gear. running quests, etc
3) donated plat, shards etc towards guild amenities such as the ship
Generally someone who was a positive force in the guild.

Once we reached a critical mass of players, it became more difficult to determine who should be officers. So during officer meetings of the guild, current officers would nominate people for officer. If the current officers present at the meeting voted favorably, I now promote them.

As for obligations to former players, even leaders, I would recommend that if they return you let them back into the guild and then apply the same criteria you use for other potential officers before promoting them. I had a few players return only to disappear again. There is no point in having these players become officers.

[Texlaw1992]

I appreciate the varied points of view. To respond to some specific suggestions, I am a laid-back type of guild leader, i.e., "welcome! let me know if you need any equipment, advice or anything" and found it seems to work. I'm not really able to group with my current guildies (I'm level 28, next highest is 17, most are 10 or under), but they're able to group with each other.

Personally I'm looking for people who play regularly and can earn some renown for the guild (I've largely carried us past level 60 almost by myself since I joined when we were 24). I've always bought all our ships and buffs from level 25 on (whether for plat or real money), so whether a member contributes to guild funds is not an issue for me.

I thought the post about dissolving the guild was interesting, although I'm not going to do so after investing three years and just buying one of the new ships in July. However, he raised an interesting point about "just dissolve if you're not close to 100." I know that since update 22, if your guild is level 60+ and has any one of the new airships, practically all the stat buffs are available to you and the non-stat buffs are still available in the cargo hold, so by level 61 you pretty much have access to all the relevant buffs these days.

One thing I've learned recently is the value of promoting someone (whether to officer or successor) when they're actually in-game. My guild had a regular player with multiple toons who did very little guild-wise aside showing up for buffs. I talked to him online after becoming leader and named him my successor while he was in-game. He really appreciated that and then went all out and recruited a bunch of new people. Assuming the new people stick around (and it looks promising right now), I'll only do officer promotions when those members are online.

Thanks again for the advice.

[Makkuroi]

I recently became leader of my guild after our former leader and first officer essentially stopped playing (although I hope they'll return some day). I was essentially 2nd officer and the guild "workhorse" for years, so I had no hesitation in taking the position (and I'm pleased to say we've had significant growth in membership in just the last few days).

Anyway, my two questions are as follows:

1. What policies do other guilds follow with respect to officers? Our former leader promoted everyone as soon as they joined. I don't agree with that policy - I'm considering a roughly 30-day wait period to make sure new members don't just join for a few days and then leave. I'd like to know how other guilds handle naming new officers.

2. What obligations does the guild have to its former leader and 1st officer, if any? I'm keeping them on as legacy officers of course, but just wondered how other guilds handled the issue of a former leader. We became in-game friends over the years, so I don't see any demand for return of leadership or anything if they did come back, but I'm curious as to how other guilds have handled it.

Thanks for any assistance you can provide.

1. All chars get promoted to officer, so they can invite their own alts when they make them. Nobody invites new players without asking leader (he is online a lot and in teamspeak). If somebody is an officer and leaves, it doesnt make a big difference. Only disadvantage of making everybody officer is somebody might do some bad recruiting on his own (recruiting annoying people or annoying other people with unwanted recruitment), but you can talk to people about that.

Were a german language guild not actively recruiting, so we dont have many new members. When we meet germans who might feel comfortable in a small casual german guild, we invite them.

[Gremmlynn]

In our guild, pretty much everyone is an officer in name simply due to the games preset guild rank mechanics. While the GL knows who the people are to consult with when decisions need to be made.

If the game actually allowed permissions to be set, we probably would do things differently. But without that, this seems easiest for what little guild administration is needed by this game.

[Enoach]

Every guild structure is different and generally works for the Guild's population. What you have to decide is what kind of leadership you want.

Personally I'm not a fan of "Everyone is and Officer" and time in to me is not a good measurement

Keep in mind that a Guild does not have to be "One type" (ie; raiding, new friendly, casual, and hardcore) Some guilds have sub groups in them and it works because members can belong to different groups based on their own personal goals.

Having multiple groups does take a core group to maintain. The guild I'm in also has our own Web Site and Forum site to allow for out of game communication as well as utilizing Mumble - which we found much more flexible as it can be used on different devices and opens the community up for better communication.

The trick of a GL is delegation - find members that you can work with to set up the environment of the Guild to support it. But I'm not saying you as a GL should do nothing, it is your job to manage the environment. Which means if you want Guild Raids you need to determine what is needed to accomplish that and do what you can to make it happen.

Good luck with the GL position, just don't let it take up all your time where you no longer enjoy playing.