Guild Communities Proposal Discussion

[Amarie Ancalimon]

Please use this thread to discuss the PROPOSED plan for handling guild communities post plot reclaim.

The announcement thread is here.

Greetings Guilds Members of Istaria,

We're finalizing the rule set for managing the transition of guild plots - we treat guild plots special and will exclude them from the general plot reclamation process.

Below is a proposal and is Not The Final Rule Set.

GUILD PLOT RECOVERY PROPOSAL
If the Master Guild Plot is owned by an inactive member, we will transfer that plot to the current Guild Leader.

Any plots in a community that are owned by inactive accounts will have those plots reclaimed immediately and marked for guild-only sale. Prior to this process, we will honor guild leader special requests to have guild plots manually sold to specific guild members to avoid the plots being on the open market.

We will post a list of guild communities that are available for purchase. Guild masters can take part in a random drawing for the opportunity to purchase the Master Guild Plot in any of these communities.
- Interested Guild Masters should submit a list of communities (in priority order) that they are interested in.
- You can only submit an offer if you have enough coin to cover the Master Guild Plot
- Guilds must be at least three months old as of (date we put this in place) to be eligible.
- Guilds which already own one or more guild plots are not eligible to submit an offer.
- A guild must have at least five individual active players in its membership to be eligible. (This is actual player accounts, not subscriptions.)
- Guilds with a history of excessive rules infractions by its membership (3 or more serious infractions resulting in suspension of longer then two weeks or banning) will not be eligible to bid for a guild plot.

Please understand this is Not The Final Rule Set and we will make a separate post with final rules about how we're going to move forward.

(Have I stressed enough that this is a proposal only? )

[Zexoin]

We will post a list of guild communities that are available for purchase. Guild masters can take part in a random drawing for the opportunity to purchase the Master Guild Plot in any of these communities.
- Interested Guild Masters should submit a list of communities (in priority order) that they are interested in.
- You can only submit an offer if you have enough coin to cover the Master Guild Plot
- Guilds must be at least three months old as of (date we put this in place) to be eligible.
- Guilds which already own one or more guild plots are not eligible to submit an offer.
- A guild must have at least five individual active players in its membership to be eligible. (This is actual player accounts, not subscriptions.)
- Guilds with a history of excessive rules infractions by its membership (3 or more serious infractions resulting in suspension of longer then two weeks or banning) will not be eligible to bid for a guild plot.

I have a hard time to understand what this means :/
Sorry if I a being dumb, but could you detail this more ?
Thanks

[rizo/nawkia]

I'm assuming it means that only guild leaders may buy guild plots and that they have to foollow those guidelines as well.

-3months or older
-cant already have a guild plot
-cant have more than 3 infractions(bannings im guessing)
-must have enough coin to buy it
-submit the ones you want in the order wanted

[Deth]

I think it means if any guild master plots become open due to the fact that there are no active guild members they will put them up for action. Or unsold master guild plots that may be in the world.

-The Guild master buy list in desired order from 1st to last the plots they would be interested in buying.
-You must have the coin to buy the plot when you submit your list.
-The guild can not be a new guild created less then 3 months ago to get a new guild plot, I.E. A guild that already has a plot and breaks the rule listed below can not spin off a new guild buy a plot then sale that guild plot to the main guild and disband the new guild.
- If you own a guild master plot you can not buy one of the newly freed ones.
- If you have members that have been causing trouble you are not allowed to bid.

At least that is how I read it.

[Zexoin]

Thanks for the clarification, I understand better.

-The guild can not be a new guild created less then 3 months ago to get a new guild plot

I suppose the plot auctions will happen in more than 3 months then, because the guilds created by former Unity players are recent.

[Amarie Ancalimon]

I suppose the plot auctions will happen in more than 3 months then, because the guilds created by former Unity players are recent.

That is an assumption. We didn't say that anywhere.

Though it is something to discuss pros and cons of.

One thing to consider is how many brand new guilds showed up when people transferred from Unity versus people joined existing guilds.

Another is how much time has passed since we opened up Unity transfers already, and perhaps we adjust the "3 month" to account for that time when we do start reclaims. Remember, it's all a proposal, so things can be adjusted.

Another is to consider opening up plot reclaims separate (and sooner) than guild community reclaims.

And lots of other possibilities here that I can think of. That is why we're opening it up for discussion, though, not just "doing it."

So... what else (if anything) wasn't clear?

[Justa Mirage]

It won't happen with me now that I gave up being GM of Crimson Legion a while back because I didn't own the "guild plot" in Crucita and sits with an inactive player(s) in that guild.

If I had still been with them... here is my question:

If the account(s) of the GM the Master guild plot would default to already has the maximum number of owned properties... then what? do they get to own 2 properties?

[Thangorodrim Atanatari]

serveral guilds wich have been violating rules more then 3 times allready formed a new guild as we speak. so i am not sure how this rule will prevent anything.

also i am in a very big guild, would this mean we could only get 1 guildplot?

and what if our guildmaster is not willing to sell his old plot would all these players in this big guild not be able to get a guild community at all?

would it be possible to have 1 drawing for every 10 or 15 accounts (not characters) in the guild?
and have the guildmaster assign for each drawing a representative to own the master guild plot? (wich could be himself for 1 drawing)

[Hoberton]

Please use this thread to discuss the PROPOSED plan for handling guild communities post plot reclaim.

The announcement thread is here.

Greetings Guilds Members of Istaria,

We're finalizing the rule set for managing the transition of guild plots - we treat guild plots special and will exclude them from the general plot reclamation process.

Below is a proposal and is Not The Final Rule Set.

GUILD PLOT RECOVERY PROPOSAL
If the Master Guild Plot is owned by an inactive member, we will transfer that plot to the current Guild Leader.

Any plots in a community that are owned by inactive accounts will have those plots reclaimed immediately and marked for guild-only sale. Prior to this process, we will honor guild leader special requests to have guild plots manually sold to specific guild members to avoid the plots being on the open market.

We will post a list of guild communities that are available for purchase. Guild masters can take part in a random drawing for the opportunity to purchase the Master Guild Plot in any of these communities.
- Interested Guild Masters should submit a list of communities (in priority order) that they are interested in.
- You can only submit an offer if you have enough coin to cover the Master Guild Plot
- Guilds must be at least three months old as of (date we put this in place) to be eligible.
- Guilds which already own one or more guild plots are not eligible to submit an offer.
- A guild must have at least five individual active players in its membership to be eligible. (This is actual player accounts, not subscriptions.)
- Guilds with a history of excessive rules infractions by its membership (3 or more serious infractions resulting in suspension of longer then two weeks or banning) will not be eligible to bid for a guild plot.

Please understand this is Not The Final Rule Set and we will make a separate post with final rules about how we're going to move forward.

(Have I stressed enough that this is a proposal only? )

I think there may be a little bit of trouble with the sentence I have highlighted. What if the Guild Leader owns a plot outside the Guild community and the Main plot on the Guild community is owned by another player that is not active?

oops - Justa beat me to this concern.

[Amarie Ancalimon]

If you have a guild community and the main plot (the "guild plot") is owned by an inactive player, BUT you want to keep that community in your guild then you either need to:

A) Make someone a guild leader who does not own a plot.
B) Make sure your current guild leader has an "open subscription" (one with no plot associated with it) so that the guild plot can be transfered to them.

You should know if the person who holds your guild's community plot is an active player or not, basically. And if they aren't, and your guild wants to keep the community, then you need to make arrangements to have someone who IS an active player take over that plot. It's as simple as that.

[T-Sar-Goth]

Please use this thread to discuss the PROPOSED plan for handling guild communities post plot reclaim.

The announcement thread is here.

Greetings Guilds Members of Istaria,

We're finalizing the rule set for managing the transition of guild plots - we treat guild plots special and will exclude them from the general plot reclamation process.

Below is a proposal and is Not The Final Rule Set.

GUILD PLOT RECOVERY PROPOSAL
If the Master Guild Plot is owned by an inactive member, we will transfer that plot to the current Guild Leader.

Any plots in a community that are owned by inactive accounts will have those plots reclaimed immediately and marked for guild-only sale. Prior to this process, we will honor guild leader special requests to have guild plots manually sold to specific guild members to avoid the plots being on the open market.

We will post a list of guild communities that are available for purchase. Guild masters can take part in a random drawing for the opportunity to purchase the Master Guild Plot in any of these communities.
- Interested Guild Masters should submit a list of communities (in priority order) that they are interested in.
- You can only submit an offer if you have enough coin to cover the Master Guild Plot
- Guilds must be at least three months old as of (date we put this in place) to be eligible.
- Guilds which already own one or more guild plots are not eligible to submit an offer.
- A guild must have at least five individual active players in its membership to be eligible. (This is actual player accounts, not subscriptions.)
- Guilds with a history of excessive rules infractions by its membership (3 or more serious infractions resulting in suspension of longer then two weeks or banning) will not be eligible to bid for a guild plot.

Please understand this is Not The Final Rule Set and we will make a separate post with final rules about how we're going to move forward.

(Have I stressed enough that this is a proposal only? )

Good afternoon,

I have a number of concerns regarding this.

First, as Zexoin stated the 3 month old time limit would exclude the newly formed Unity player guilds as well as any other guilds that were formed for legitimate reasons prior to draft rule set being published. I understand why this is being suggested but it would exclude players unfairly. It is likely that the new guilds established for legitimate reasons would be excluded when these are the very guilds that need the plots.

Second, Please define "active" player? someone that has a paid account or someone that has logged in X period of time? What about alternate characters that may be in different guilds?

Third, If an inactive player owns a master guild plot and that player owns a guild master plot they would in effect prevent a guild from purchasing the community they want. Would this mean we would have to eject them from the guild? What about if this player is active? I personally wouldn't want to tell a guild member they are not allowed to own a particular plot and must sell it or they will be thrown out of the guild.

Fourth, The one guild plot per guild limit could be juggled it would violate the spirit of the rule but not break the rules as they are written. E.g. an existing guild with a guild plot could sell that plot to an alt in a nameless guild. The nameless guild may not be eligible but the original guild now would be. That being said I understand why it's being suggest but I do not see how this can be enforced.

Fifth, I am sure that some people own plots they are holding because it was the best they could get under the current situation. In some cases these people would be willing to sell the plots they have should they get the plots they want but not give up what they have unless they know it is an option. The current rule set does not consider this.

Sixth, What about larger guilds? they may have legitimate needs for more then one guild plot as some guild plots only have 4 or 5 plots. Guild mergers could result in more then one guild plot where both groups are well established but still need new land.

Seventh, As stated previously how would a master guild plot shift back to a guild master if that guild master already owns a plot? (Guild plot, Master guild plot, or normal plot)

Eighth, some guild have established plots but plots are now owned by players that have joined other guild. This in effect prevents the guilds from growing on those communities as all that is left may be plots that are two small to effectively use. Guild masters really need a way to enforce that these plots can get returned to the communities on leaving that guild. It would help make some guild lands more useful again.

At the moment I do not have any suggestions on how to address any of this but I will consider it and post my own suggestions. I apologize for any errors or incorrect assumptions in what my above concerns that I may have made but at the moment I've little time left in break and I'm hoping some of what I've commented may be helpful :P

Take care,
Tsargoth

[Knossos]

Amen Tsargoth and perhaps it is the tip of the iceberg you have described as many things have "muddied the waters" over the years since Beta.

I will watch in wonderment as this thread evolves.

Knossos

[Algernon]

Any chance that this will be held off until login with Vista becomes possible?

Alger.

[gopher65]

First, as Zexoin stated the 3 month old time limit would exclude the newly formed Unity player guilds as well as any other guilds that were formed for legitimate reasons prior to draft rule set being published. I understand why this is being suggested but it would exclude players unfairly. It is likely that the new guilds established for legitimate reasons would be excluded when these are the very guilds that need the plots.

Yup. There are a few guilds of Unity players have have popped up on Chaos. Hopefully that will be accounted for somehow.

Second, Please define "active" player? someone that has a paid account or someone that has logged in X period of time? What about alternate characters that may be in different guilds?

"Active" *always* means "Active, paid account".

Fourth, The one guild plot per guild limit could be juggled it would violate the spirit of the rule but not break the rules as they are written. E.g. an existing guild with a guild plot could sell that plot to an alt in a nameless guild. The nameless guild may not be eligible but the original guild now would be. That being said I understand why it's being suggest but I do not see how this can be enforced.

I think that's what the "has to be older than 3 months" policy is to avoid. But there are some alt guilds around that are older than 3 months. Personally I can't see any way to avoid possible exploitation of this loophole if people really wanted to get around the problem of owning multiple guild plots.

I can't see many people wanting to do that though. Remember, you still need to have paid accounts for every plot on the Guild Community. That's a lot of accounts to pay for 0_0.

Sixth, What about larger guilds? they may have legitimate needs for more then one guild plot as some guild plots only have 4 or 5 plots. Guild mergers could result in more then one guild plot where both groups are well established but still need new land.

Possibly true.

Also, I'm concerned that some of the Guild Communities (alright, all of them) have wee little tiny plots. You can't do much with those tiny plots, even if they're free.

[Amarie Ancalimon]

Also, I'm concerned that some of the Guild Communities (alright, all of them) have wee little tiny plots. You can't do much with those tiny plots, even if they're free.

Totally off topic. That's a whole different kettle of fish.

Please keep this thread to discussing the Guild Community Proposal Discussion for how Guild Communities will be reclaimed.

[awdz]

Any plots in a community that are owned by inactive accounts will have those plots reclaimed immediately and marked for guild-only sale. Prior to this process, we will honor guild leader special requests to have guild plots manually sold to specific guild members to avoid the plots being on the open market.

Does this mean subplots belonging to inactive accounts in communities where the master plot is owned by an active account are going to be flagged for sale? If so, does the guild get to keep the structures on the subplot, or at least have warning before it gets wiped clean?

We have a number of subplots where members have not logged in for quite some time, I have no idea what their account status is, but our guild would be hugely put out if we just lost all the work we put into building those structures (and contents). Ideally, I'd like the inactive guild subplots simply flagged for sale to other guild members but structures not destroyed.

[LaughingOtter]

Awdz, normally the plots are just set to be for sale. The buildings on the plot are unchanged. You still have to be a member of the owning guild to buy one.

[Zexoin]

Totally off topic. That's a whole different kettle of fish.

Well I think that's an important point, to tell the truth. If guild plots were larger, people would be less tempted to try to own multiple master guild plots. I know that you've limited that by not allowing a guild to hold more than 2 master plots, but that's still a problem ; a small guild with about 10 people could try to own 2 master guild plots, because they don't have enough room on the guild plots, which would leave lots of small plots in those communities vacant. If those sub plots were larger, that guild wouldn't need to own multiple master plot, beause one community would be large enough for ther need. I hope you get what I mean, it's 1 am now and I'm too tired to speak clearly >.>

[Karya]

Totally off topic. That's a whole different kettle of fish.

Please keep this thread to discussing the Guild Community Proposal Discussion for how Guild Communities will be reclaimed.

Actually, I believe that Gopher's concern (and I'm sure others as well, including myself) about the small plot sizes is not completely off topic.

One of the points of actually having a guild land is to have useful and worthwhile land for a guild. Well, if a guild key plot is holding onto so many 25x25 plots, why would anyone want that guild land? Perhaps it'll be for just the one or two useful plots or the lairs that might be there. I see so much guild land that is wasted (even for active guilds!) because guild plots aren't fulfilling the needs of the guild mates, and therefore they look elsewhere anyways. What player is going to settle for a tiny 25x25 plot (which they need to purchase at least a gifted subscription for) when there is much larger elsewhere, even at a higher cost? What good is the land to the guild then?

Plot reclamation isn't just about the process... it's also about the end result in which guilds can get land that they need. Guilds need land for storage and crafting (if they so desire) so how many pieces of land need to be purchased by the guild mates in order to make this happen if the plots are mostly 25x25? How many guild mates want to buy land JUST for guild needs? I don't think there would be many that would. I know that on a 25x25 plot of land one can fit a t1 guildhouse, 2 tents and maybe a couple of trees. How would that effectively help a guild for storage needs? What about the players own personal needs? I wouldn't want to fathom how many plots it would take to build crafting shops and silos when they are mostly 25x25.

Although the focus may be on just the key guild plot, the other plots need to be taken into account since it is a part of the "package" that comes with the main guild plot.

I believe that this is an issue that should also be addressed along with the plot reclamations.

Sincerely,

Karya
Chancellor
The Annatar

[LaughingOtter]

Karya,

At the risk of sounding snippy, if a guild community does not fit your guild's needs, you don't have to buy one. I'm sure any number of other guilds out there would be delighted to have a chance at one.

Players have been asking for the abandoned guild communities to be reclaimed for ages now, small plots and all. Now that the reclaim is almost here, we should call it off for a couple more months in order to make the plots bigger?

Sorry, but personally, I don't think that's a reasonable expectation.