niapet wrote:Maybe there should be a rule against holding a position of power in more than one guild per player.
This is really a "great" idea and I haven't heard it for the first time. I just wonder where you would take the new leaders from?
Actually in three years of holding a "position of power", I have met maybe one player that would voluntary step up and take over a guild as leader. Those who do, are often the one who can't say no. There are just not enough people to keep all guilds healthy in my opinion. And yes, there have been some new leaders in other guilds, but when they notice how hard it is to keep the guild members busy, they often just leave as soon as possible without really looking for any following leader. Others really tried hard and got maybe very disapointed, maybe still not knowing what they did wrong. Probably they didn't do anything wrong.
And you not only have to keep them busy. You need to recruit as well. In this three years Ven conducted the trials of 25 new members. Each member had around three events to pass the trials and get into the guild. Some of them just disappeared shortly after because of several reasons, unfortunatly it often happend without any comment. Some more stay, but only a few stay as active members.
So 25 x 3 events x 3 h = 225 hours of playtime, just for new members to keep the numbers a least stable. If you have 3 x 53= 159 weeks a year it is still 1 and a half hour each week only for the trials. You can see, that it is a lot of time and only a few keep playing their main for such a long time. And this also may be a reason why some think that noone should be a leader in two or more guilds. That may be right, but as far as I know there are only a few that keep positions of power in several guilds. Those I knew of mostly did it because there was noone else who wanted to step up and they didn't want the guild to go completly down. I think a more or less inactive leader still is better then none leader.
That is why I can tell you that in my opinion such a rule won't help anything to keep guilds from getting inactive. It only will cause atctual guilds to go even more into inactivity. Besides you never can tell if it is the same players as a lot of players use different and anonym logins. So such a rule would be hardly enforceable.
One leader makes no guild. As far as I know you need at least four players to get guild status and a guild forum. If such
requirements also would count for active guilds, most of our guilds would have lost their status more than once.
Don't forget that the best leader can't do anything if the players are not will to support him by also taking their own initiatives, like for example Steve mentioned with the dwarves. You can call out several task for the members, but mostly such things don't really do well, because two of them will lose motivation, two more have real life trouble and the others can't really meet because of playtimes.
Telling you this, I am very happy with the few members who keep staying with me and the Elder Circle. You are very great and I thank you a lot for the support and the fun we had over all this years. Also over more then 15 years of rp at different persitant worlds, I learned not to get disappointed by the many who can't stay with the grove for out of whatever reason.
So if there is a player out there who is interested in leading the EC and taking Ven's position as High Ranger, please send me a pm. If you like plants and animals, think you will be able to get the support of your guild members, keep them busy, have lots of time for recruiting, forum work and meetings and you want to get disappointed a lot, than you are the right canidate and we can start your new career very soon.
This is no joke at all. You surely get some fun too.
To those who are interested in joining the EC, here is a
link for the rp contact.