Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
An I deal members will always represent the guild with Honor. They will try to be motivated and willing to participate in events with their members. No matter if it is in game money donation, resources, time and items they will attempt to always contribute to the guild cause.
Although, I dont expect members to always be online or part of every event. I do expect my guild member when they are online to communicate both their involvement and their needs without being shy. Sometimes members have their own goals and feel as if they dont get support in completing or reaching them. Sometimes they are their own barrier, so communicative guild members are a plus.
Ways to help measure involvement should include tools in game to monitor guild members play time, donation such as bank contribution (item and money). Tools for ranking and structure (custom structure similar to discord permissions). This will help identify and modify control and understanding of members involvement as well as give them incentives to reach new ranks within the guild.
Sometimes, I would prefer to say MANY times an ideal guild member needs to be molded into the culture of the guild. Rarely do I feel you find ideal on the first meeting. Yet, anyone that is willing to take that journey along side me in a guild is an ideal member until THEY chose not to be.
1. Active playtime, they are around nights and weekends and like to participate in content with the group on a very regular basis.
2. Attitude fits with the team culture and is not about just the individual. They are relaxed and enjoy group progression as much as their individual character progression.
3. Skilled performer, able to do a solid (but not perfect) job at whatever content the team is tackling, be it PVE, PVP, or other.
The worst guild members I've seen are the ones who constantly rag on their teammates for others' mistakes but never own up to their own. Who complain after every wipe, or are never around. In raiding, unreliable guild members are the worst because that causes a sinkhole effect in the guild. If you can't fill a role during a raid, others in the guild might get upset or impatient with guild progress. WoW was only able to remove the DKP system once they implemented group finder. Otherwise a raid without a third healer would be dead in the water. But by removing DKP, they completely removed the incentive to be a prepared or competent raider.
A guild's leadership sets the tone for the rest of the community - in everything from their recruitment efforts, to the way the leadership holds themselves during raids and social events, to how active they are and how much BS they accept. Guilds should identify and reward members who display the same principles that the guild was founded on. If you want a younger-aged guild, promote young people to officer positions and encourage them to reach out to find new members. If you want a more "mature" guild, promote those people appropriately. It's all about telegraphing to the world and to your own members what you're all about.
These characteristics are what i want to find in my guild members, importance may vary depending on the guild objectives :
Now how to set/communicate those expectations :
First, with a clear guideline/charter/code of conduct witch every member abide. Then with a quick warning (oral of written) when disobeyed or failed to comply with and, if still not enough, a longer oral meeting to see how the problem can be solved.
Finally how to track performance for each characteristics :
I constantly set up a guild structure of class leads where we set up areas to duel, look at peoples rotation, numbers, how they approach certain classes, who they target first, how they assist, how well they listen. Overall, an ideal player, is simply open to constructive criticism, a criticism that is a guiding hand that is non-toxic and a safe learning environment; something that is rare in most PvP related videogames.
This is something I hope guild halls will have the ability to cater to, dummies to beat on, abilities to parse, break down someone's rotation, summon an NPC of a specific "class" for them to face, and really just help someone really improve bit by bit to where the only thing left is positioning which can be done on the battlefield once everything else feels fluid.
Not everyone picks up this type of game easily or has experience in the MMO genre, many of us are willing to build better players and our guilds show that. Sometimes they don't even stick around and they crave a more elitest environment, that's okay.
When it comes to how we promote members, we look at how they participate, and if they want to go really high into our leadership roles, they have to put the guild before their own needs in the game at all times in order to suit those roles, not everyone is fit for that, and it's simply okay to be a respected member of lower leadership. There's responsibility and busy work that might come with the roles and most people won't be bothered with that. What I think we really want to get away from is the spreadsheets many guilds have of tracking membership recognition, if we have various ways of seeing how much someone PvPd, someone's node contribution, someone's financial guild contribution, mat contribution for crafting, etc, we can really just open windows, screenshot, have a 10 minute meeting, and just simply play the game.
Someone who is more skilled and knowledgeable about the game than I am, but isn't a jerk about it.
Obviously, as everyone will say, activity level is key. The ideal guild member shows up regularly and takes part. Not just in events, but in the day-to-day conversations and relationship building that leads to a close-knit group. Someone who logs in 1 minute before a spawn and logs out 30 seconds after...not ideal.
Someone who gets along with others in general, not just one or two others in a clique. Whether they are laid back and easy-going or high-energy and loud...they do it in a way that endears them to the group instead of being annoying or frustrating to other members.
People who share a bit of themselves, in some way. Whether it's stories of real life happenings, a talent for art or music, or any other window into the real live people behind the avatars. Obviously this would be a bit different in a role playing guild, but would still hold true in its own way.
Someone engaged. The person who reads the forums, knows the rules, learns their build or class or role and spends time on their own contribution to the guild, whatever it might be. Even the best player in the world can contribute and benefit from practice and taking part in guild stuff.
Responsibility / accountability. People you can trust to handle their stuff and do what they say they will do, and admit it if they don't. Someone who owns their successes and their mistakes is generally going to be improving and be someone everyone likes to have around.
Commitment. People who stick around, through lean times, drama, and all the ups and downs of any group of people who hang out together. "Creative differences" and personality conflicts break up more groups than just about anything. The best people are the ones who stay, handle grievances in a constructive way, work things out, and are in it for the long haul.
My ideal guild members strive to accept, understand, appreciate, and respect other players for who they are. We all have our communication preferences likes and dislikes and I appreciate people that are willing to navigate those idiosyncrasies.
If you are planning on being an active top content goal oriented guild...
1. State your expectations and intent in the guild charter
2. Using / building an activity point system could also be useful
3. Don't invite random people to quickly fill in spaces, make sure people are on board with the charter, and build a good reputation that draws competitive players you might want
#1 should apply for any guild, state your values and norms
He has to know what he wants to be.
Whichever option you choose, you are always welcome as long as you are honest and really know what you want to be and if you don't know, you are open to learning along the way.
If he just wants things easy, without learning anything and is more of a burden than a help, then he is not a member of my future guild.
We are all brothers and we help each other to improve.
Check out some of the key points of feedback on the OP
What useful/new information did Intrepid gain from all of this?
Was there a part of the above that they were unaware of?