why are guilds attacked

[Eliza Creststeel]

There are really just two basic forms of attack. One comes from outside, either as part of an ongoing squabble or pirates simply being malicious or as a result of an internal struggle.

1) Infiltrator - This is the most blatant and insidious. At one time, members from a couple of guilds were actively trying to become members of the major guilds in order to move up their ranks. I'm sure that some guild still have little sleepers in them from pirates wanting to keep tabs on other guilds for some reason.

Either by patient waiting to be promoted or being instantly promoted as a recruitment promise, these saboteurs would then purge as many members as possible until caught. Smart moles could feign ignorance or point fingers to more disrupt the remaining members.

Granted this has been addressed by the update, but psychologically an infiltrator can still cause issues of paranoia if they can remove members when they are on alone since there is no trail of purging.

Not a lot you can do about infiltrators, except DON'T GIVE AWAY PROMOTIONS just for joining. We in the ETC had a young member who was with us 3 months before being promoted and then later admitting to be a saboteur for another group. Lucky for us, no damage was done.


2) Personal Politics - A lot more common really. This is when an officer or a group of officers break away or have an internal issue with the GM or the other officers. Sometimes, its even more personal as friendships break apart. Either under threat of removal or demotion, they lash out and do as much damage as possible.

The only protection for a GM in such circumstances is to quickly DE-mote officers they feel may have a growing personal issue or grudge. Some members in some guilds will likely never get promoted or re-promted due to fears of reprisal following such disagreements.


Either of these is obviously childish and immature, but many take the game either very seriously or don't take the relationships of guild members seriously enough. The real casualty of these things is trust. Members become weary after any attack and their guildmates fall under suspicion - so in that respect, the sabotuers win. You have to fight that instinct and show them that your guild is better than that and only grow stronger from it.