Give the guilds balance sheets and ways to collect

[amethystdragon]

I do not understand your objecton.

I think I made it clear in my post that I'm not advocating a system where the person gets automatically kicked if the dues are unpaid on the deadline. It is still the guild leader's choice to boot someone or not. So in your example where your guild collected dues, the officer could still do something like boot someone right after someone mailed in the plats, right? So essentially my proposals open up no new loopholes. On the contrary, with my proposal the guild organization can become much more apparent, thus closing many possibilities for abuse.

So if you don't support collecting dues at all, that I can understand, but if you think it's a good thing to do sometimes but just wants to make it hard for people who want to do it, I fail to see your objection.

You pay your dues, and two day latter you are booted. When you ask why, you are told that you did not pay your dues. How do you stop this type of abuse from happening? If dues were TP, then this is dealing with peoples real life money; and then Turbine would need a way to deal with this type of abuse. How would Turbine deal with claims like this; refund the dues, reinstate the booted player? What about people who claim to have paid their dues but did not, and were booted for other reasons, they are simpley trying to get something for nothing?

If they put in a way to track and/or collect dues from members, then there will be people who will try to find a way to abuse it. If people are or are trying to abuse a feature Turbine has put into the game, then Turbine has to have a way to deal with that. Which in my opinion just means more time that the Devs and/or DMs have to take away from other parts of the game.

In my example about the guild who did collect dues. Dues where not mandatory, we paid what we ould when we could. The guild had a three strikes your out rule, for breaking guild rules; and even then three fourths of the officers had to vote to remove said person from the guild, and any officers caught breaking this rule was automaticly removed from the guild. This guild spent a lot of time outside of the game finding what worked for them.

[Ungood]

And I don't know how big your guild is, I think most of the guilds stay at around lvl 70 not because they do not want to grow, but because they are not given the tools to do so. That runs contrary to what turbine wants to do and it runs contrary to what many players want to do.

Auctually this is exactly what Turbine wants for guilds to reach a stopping point, or they would not have put in Guild Renown Decay, which invalidates your entire stand.

[Drakos]

I agree with your assessment. But I think if some guilds want to do that to the members, they should be allowed to. Because in the end, those members can always choose to leave such a guild and go to join your type of guild, right? My point is some people will actually CHOOSE to be in a guild with tough requirements because unlike you, who seem very unselfish and laid back, many people demand a sense of discipline and fairness. Why not give those to them?

I have stated that the guild should be allowed to as long as all memebrs are on board then I have no problem with it.

With that being said I still don't think that the Devs should put any effort toward assisting in this department. It can be tracked by the guils mannually. By them giving their support it would be conscrewed as supporting the concept, which I don't think Turbin should.

[Daggerrr]

Auctually this is exactly what Turbine wants, or they would not have put in Guild Renown Decay, which invalidates your entire stand.

LOL, no, they want you to spend effort to grow guilds, because they don't want everyone to have the same size of guild. They want more capable players who can organize better to have larger guilds, that's why they have a Decay system. My proposal will make guilds who are more capable and organize better stand out more, so the purpose is the same.

[ClashM]

So here's my take on all of this.

1. Guild Roles: Give the ability to create roles and assign powers to said roles (i.e. power to kick, power to invite, power to withdraw from guild funds, etc.)

2. Guild Bank: Anyone can donate plat or TP to the guild fund. There could be an automatically generated sheet to keep track of member contribution amounts and dates (this sheet would require a power to view so if desired only admins and guild masters can access it.)

3. Guild Mass Mail: Gives the leader or whoever has the power to send out mass emails to all members. Admittedly this could be something like:
"Hear ye! Hear ye!
Your taxes are due by 12:00am GMT -5 on Thursday! Pay up or die!
Have a nice day,
-Admin"
But it would also be useful for other guild wide announcements.

[Niktoo]

Well, in warhammer you could set the amount of your guild tax, and it only affected certain things, like for instance 5% of plat gained from vendoring.

But in Warhammer there was a purpose, the heavier guild amenities had significant cost & upkeep.


This game has no such purpose for that yet.

[Daggerrr]

You pay your dues, and two day latter you are booted. When you ask why, you are told that you did not pay your dues. How do you stop this type of abuse from happening? If dues were TP, then this is dealing with peoples real life money; and then Turbine would need a way to deal with this type of abuse. How would Turbine deal with claims like this; refund the dues, reinstate the booted player? What about people who claim to have paid their dues but did not, and were booted for other reasons, they are simpley trying to get something for nothing?

If they put in a way to track and/or collect dues from members, then there will be people who will try to find a way to abuse it. If people are or are trying to abuse a feature Turbine has put into the game, then Turbine has to have a way to deal with that. Which in my opinion just means more time that the Devs and/or DMs have to take away from other parts of the game.

In my example about the guild who did collect dues. Dues where not mandatory, we paid what we ould when we could. The guild had a three strikes your out rule, for breaking guild rules; and even then three fourths of the officers had to vote to remove said person from the guild, and any officers caught breaking this rule was automaticly removed from the guild. This guild spent a lot of time outside of the game finding what worked for them.

... today a guild can still ask for some donation and kick you out saying you did not donate... so how does my system make it worse?

With a better accounting feature you can still require three fourth officers to vote on it... right? The booting is NOT automatic. All my system does is actually allow you to see on a IN GAME spreadsheet (which cannot be manipulated) that who REALLY made contributions, instead of relying on some peoples' words for it. That'd make the entire process much more fair, don't you think?

[Daggerrr]

Well, in warhammer you could set the amount of your guild tax, and it only affected certain things, like for instance 5% of plat gained from vendoring.

But in Warhammer there was a purpose, the heavier guild amenities had significant cost & upkeep.


This game has no such purpose for that yet.

There you go. With that feature implemented Turbine can roll out some REALLY attractive ship amenities (stacking seeker +3 or dodge+3 come to mind) that are very expensive. They make some money, we get to enjoy some interesting stuff.

[Daggerrr]

I have stated that the guild should be allowed to as long as all memebrs are on board then I have no problem with it.

With that being said I still don't think that the Devs should put any effort toward assisting in this department. It can be tracked by the guils mannually. By them giving their support it would be conscrewed as supporting the concept, which I don't think Turbin should.

Right now I think maintaining a spreadsheet manually causes a lot of problems. First of all you have to REALLY TRUST that person. Not only do you have to trust his/her integrity, you also have to trust his/her ability. People make mistakes, you know...

And it's hard for everyone to access that information. I've noticed half of the players are too lazy to go even check the guild website and some of them are not very technology literate, so they find it hard to go on googledoc example. However with an ingame spreadsheet it cannot be manipulated, everyone can view it easily so the loopholes are closed.

As for how Turbine should take a stand on this, this is entirely up to them. That's why I didn't send in an application to join their team, I'm simply making a suggestion and I appreciate your points and inputs.

[Drakos]

So here's my take on all of this.

1. Guild Roles: Give the ability to create roles and assign powers to said roles (i.e. power to kick, power to invite, power to withdraw from guild funds, etc.)

2. Guild Bank: Anyone can donate plat or TP to the guild fund. There could be an automatically generated sheet to keep track of member contribution amounts and dates (this sheet would require a power to view so if desired only admins and guild masters can access it.)

3. Guild Mass Mail: Gives the leader or whoever has the power to send out mass emails to all members. Admittedly this could be something like:
"Hear ye! Hear ye!
Your taxes are due by 12:00am GMT -5 on Thursday! Pay up or die!
Have a nice day,
-Admin"
But it would also be useful for other guild wide announcements.

In regards to item 2 I posted a suggestion to create a guild fund for auto-updating ammenities about 10 minutes ago. I wouldn't endorse the tracking of who or how much, with it however.

As for Item 3, I think a email-guild feature would be great, not for the collecting of dues or such but for the ability to effectively communicate to the guild.

[amethystdragon]

... today a guild can still ask for some donation and kick you out saying you did not donate... so how does my system make it worse?

With a better accounting feature you can still require three fourth officers to vote on it... right? The booting is NOT automatic. All my system does is actually allow you to see on a IN GAME spreadsheet (which cannot be manipulated) that who REALLY made contributions, instead of relying on some peoples' words for it. That'd make the entire process much more fair, don't you think?

Yes but right now it is between the guild leadership and the members, which is realy where these types of issues need to be. If there is dishonesty in this method, then either the guild or the player can blacklist the other; they can come to the forums and tell everyone about the other. Once Turbine starts to put in features that track/monitor any part of this, players will start to take their complaints to Turbine. Then Turbine has to spend more time and money on this one feature.

You also said to be able to use TP as dues, and that deals with peoples real life money and Turbine would have to have a way to prevent fraud.

If you do not have people in your guild that you can trust thier word, then there are other issues invovled that no amount of features that Turbine puts in will correct.

[Daggerrr]

Yes but right now it is between the guild leadership and the members, which is realy where these types of issues need to be. If there is dishonesty in this method, then either the guild or the player can blacklist the other; they can come to the forums and tell everyone about the other. Once Turbine starts to put in features that track/monitor any part of this, players will start to take their complaints to Turbine. Then Turbine has to spend more time and money on this one feature.

You also said to be able to use TP as dues, and that deals with peoples real life money and Turbine would have to have a way to prevent fraud.

If you do not have people in your guild that you can trust thier word, then there are other issues invovled that no amount of features that Turbine puts in will correct.

I will ignore your last point because that's irrelevant to the argument. When I make broad proposals, it doesn't matter whether personally I can find people I trust to run the finance. It's like proposing a different tax system has nothing to do whether I can pay my own tax.

On your main point I think you have some legitmacy. I think whether people will start taking such issues to turbine is a real concern. However, I fail to see why they would because... well the ingame features are just tools. Unless there's a bug in the system where people who made contributions are shown as not making them, then yes, TB is going to hear lots of grief. If the tools work as intended, then what's there to complain... it's still the guild leadership's decision, not Turbine's.

Anyway, I think you have a good concern, I guess that's up to TB whether they think the risk is justified.

[EatSmart]

(or maybe TB points)

This is gigantically open to abuse and as such deserves a massive NO. Nobody should be able to strip your account of turbine points just because you went on holiday and weren't there to defend your account. It would also be extremely risky for a casual player. I can already see guild members on my rosta that I could rob blind. This is bad.

On guild taxation in general:

Speaking from personal experience, plat bought amenities are no real cost inconvenience to anyone with a lvl 20 character. Even the lazy types like myself who vendor to bartenders using no haggle gear. There is, maybe, an argument for a small friends group of 6-12 players that are on low level characters. Such a group could put some vendor trash in a communal chest to be sold and spend on guild stuff. They can mail plat to a guild treasurer. They can divide up the amenety slots between themselves, with each person taking responsibility for funding one thing.

If you still think there is a problem that needs a dev solution, then i'd suggest looking at expanding what the guild deposit bank funds can be spent on. Currently the plat there can only be spent on airships. This is a better solution because it operates on an "opt in" method of revenue collection.

[Ungood]

You know what guys! I think this guy is on to something, maybe have it so whatever you donate to the guild gets recorded, AD towards a new ship , buying amenities, earning renown, or donating plat to a new ship in the showroom (as long as it goes to the guild and not a single player/banker), even have it so the plat value of what they put in the guild chest (minus what they take out) gets credited to them, and then make it so who ever has the highest is the guild leader!

That would motivate people to really work hard, and give more, to get to hold the reins of the guild. That way some fat lazy bum does not get to sit on their duff and do nothing yet stays the guild leader expecting others to carry him! Have them need to work for it!

So if they are going to put in this kind of system, might as well go all the way! and really make it competitive!

*This is still a stupid idea, as far as stupid ideas go, no matter how you slice it

[Elyanna]

You are missing my entire point... Again, nowhere did I say you AUTOMATICALLY boot someone because they don't meet the requirements, all I'm saying is now there's a way to see clearly what contribution a player has made and make it easier for people to contribute. It's the same way as before, with BETTER TRANSPARENCY.

This has nothing to do with my personal guild. This is a proposal to improve the organization capabilities of every guild out there. Again, if you don't need those features, fine, I don't have a problem with that. It's like if everyone else gets computers and you still want to crunch numbers on a piece of paper, I certainly think more power to you.

Ok let's take my guild and your guild out of this and just discuss the current renown mechanics.

Renown decays based on number of accounts in guild - inactive + the number of accounts who left in the last x days (I believe = 14) not characters but accounts. After an account has been inactive for more than y days they don't hurt you anymore. So the key here is member retention not member contribution. Once a person hit's y days they no longer affect decay.

I can't see how guild renown contribution of an active person won't be along the lines of what any guild wants the member to contribute if they are recruiting members based on the contributions they expect from their members. So this isn't a current member issue as much as a recruiting issue.

So really why do you need to know the exact number of renown a player has contributed other than to use it to harrass a member who you should have known on recruiting wasn't the type of player you wanted. You are talking about discipline and organization being enforced by something being shown by Turbine when where was the organization and discipline during the recruiting process?

EDIT: Also on the plat thing. If you really want to charge guild dues that's up to you and could be done. I really don't see anything good or bad to come from it since plat is easy to get even without the Cove Platfest Fiasco.

[Ungood]

So really why do you need to know the exact number of renown a player has contributed other than to use it to harrass a member who you should have known on recruiting wasn't the type of player you wanted. You are talking about discipline and organization being enforced by something being shown by Turbine when where was the organization and discipline during the recruiting process?

See my idea above! I think that would fix the wagon of ideas like this from coming about.

I wanted to see renown for that reason, to promote and rewards my top earners, but, meh, too much abuse now that you mention it.

[spear67]

Based off my experience in other games, I can see the value of tools like this. Roles can be used to limit guild vault access, among other things. The current system is very limiting, either you're an officer or you're not

Some additional ideas to make it work a little better.

1) mass e-mails when any policies are changed (rate change, etc) so changes aren't made without notifying the guild.

2) MUST be off by default, while it has value, most guilds don't need it.

3) Caps to deduction rates.

4) TP donations are fine to track, but should not be taxed at all. A paying VIP might not miss a few, but someone playing on a free account, those points become much more valuable. "wow, I can get this expansion now! WHAT! Where did my points go? Guild Tax? F***************!!" And as others have stated, there's way too many abuse/scam scenarios to go with this as well.

my 2cp

[Daggerrr]

Ok let's take my guild and your guild out of this and just discuss the current renown mechanics.

Renown decays based on number of accounts in guild - inactive + the number of accounts who left in the last x days (I believe = 14) not characters but accounts. After an account has been inactive for more than y days they don't hurt you anymore. So the key here is member retention not member contribution. Once a person hit's y days they no longer affect decay.

I can't see how guild renown contribution of an active person won't be along the lines of what any guild wants the member to contribute if they are recruiting members based on the contributions they expect from their members. So this isn't a current member issue as much as a recruiting issue.

So really why do you need to know the exact number of renown a player has contributed other than to use it to harrass a member who you should have known on recruiting wasn't the type of player you wanted. You are talking about discipline and organization being enforced by something being shown by Turbine when where was the organization and discipline during the recruiting process?

... now if you and I were officers of the same guild we can certainly discuss what is the best way to organize and I think your point has validity, but we are not discussing how to run a specific guild, we are talking about what capabilities a guild should have.

Based on your logic, since the majority of screening process should be done during recruiting, there should be little to no mechanism for accounting stuff once the members are recruited. I respectfully disagree. For example, it's very rare to have a guild that enforces their application rules very strictly (like you can only bring in someone you know in real life, or you can only have 1 alt and no other), so the majority of the guilds carry a pretty large roster of inactive people (one officer's 5 alts, somebody who one member ran with in a dungeon and seemed nice, but do you REALLY know him/her?).

It's easy to boot players who are totally inactive (not on-line for 2 weeks with no notice, okay, let's boot him/her), but it's hard to boot playrs who are only "tokenly active" and do not contribute much (someone who have 5 mules in the guild and log on each one of them just to shift inventory a bit). So in that instance, you can justify the booting by showing everyone the spreadsheet where this person is not making the required contribution.

Now you say "why do you want to require those people make such contributions, everyone wants to relax and play and just leave each other alone". I agree many people are like that, but there are people who are NOT like that as well. For example, a guild that wants to run a guild wide reward system can do it this way: We pool 6 million plats from all members, then based on the PROPORTION of contributions we give out raffle tickets to members, with possible rewards such as large devil scales or bloodstone. And for those larger guild with more resources, the reward can maybe go as high as flawless red scales or marilith scrolls.

That kind of system will GREATLY encourage activity in the guild. Right now there are similar lotteries and rewards systems in different sizes of guilds, but it's a pain to run those things, but with in game features such organizations can be done much more easily.

A guild without proper organizations can only go so far, with better tools the potential is far, far, far more than what we have so far.

Again the main point is... why not? I've already explained to you with no automatical booting there should be no more abusive behaviors than what we have now, so why not get more capabilities and see what people can come up through their creativity?

[MsEricka]

/not signed. ever.

This would simply lead to more guild drama and more people whining about guilds than ever before.

"Come join our guild, we only charge 1000pp a month not like those other guys!"

Pure garbage for two reasons.

1) Money is easy to make in DDO
2) Guilds are not "all that" in DDO

If you want to donate to your guild then walk up to your guild leader and open a trade window. It really is that simple.

3. Guild Mass Mail:

Maybe, if it could be HIGHLY limited like once per week at most. But a Guild announcement would be nice. The same thing as server announcements which is just some text in the top middle of the screen. Only usable by the guild leader of course to prevent abuse/spam. And yes it would only make the announcement to people online.

[Daggerrr]

Based off my experience in other games, I can see the value of tools like this. Roles can be used to limit guild vault access, among other things. The current system is very limiting, either you're an officer or you're not

Some additional ideas to make it work a little better.

1) mass e-mails when any policies are changed (rate change, etc) so changes aren't made without notifying the guild.

2) MUST be off by default, while it has value, most guilds don't need it.

3) Caps to deduction rates.

4) TP donations are fine to track, but should not be taxed at all. A paying VIP might not miss a few, but someone playing on a free account, those points become much more valuable. "wow, I can get this expansion now! WHAT! Where did my points go? Guild Tax? F***************!!" And as others have stated, there's way too many abuse/scam scenarios to go with this as well.

my 2cp

I agree, I think I didn't make it very clear in my original post that i did not mean to get a automatic collecting feature... it's more of a system where you get warnings and noticese and you can be reminded to donate your required quota, and leaders can keep track of how much you've donated.