Guilds Under Attack?

[Captain Del]

The way I see it, while adding ranks would be a good idea, the only thing it may do is just slow down the crasher from achieving his goal. Guilds that have strict Officer rules have been crashed as well, so theres no say whether crashers will just give up because of new ranks. (Besides, if you don't fully trust somebody, why are you promoting them in the first place?)

However, the idea of having a Co-Guildmaster/2nd in Command/First Mate rank, who can watch over the guild when the GM is not present, is a good idea. It would help mantain order in the guild when the GM is not present. But, of course, there is still no stopping a really experienced, patient crasher from recieving this rank as well.

On to my idea:

Why not make it so that instead of an "Eject" Power for Officers, they have a "Mute" option. Basically, if a member is being unruly, the Officer can simply hit the Mute button on the member, blocking them from Guild Chat. Of course, if an Officer just happens to be doing this to abuse their powers, the Mute can be undone by a majority vote by the Officers, when if one Officer presses the "Unmute" button, a prompt sends out to the other Officers asking "Would you like to unmute ____?" That would just leave the deleting to the GM's.

Also, to build on to the First Mate idea, I think it would be a good idea to only allow 1, 2 at the most at a time. That way, Guildmaster's can sleep soundly at night knowing they have a safer guild. (But still, choosing a large number of pirates to be a First mate is a bad judgement on the GM's part.)

I have a huge list of ideas, but I'm not gonna get in to it all. So, I'll just end with a general idea: Why not just make Guilds customizable? Guildmasters will be able to choose the number of ranks, and what powers these ranks have. A general idea, but I'm sure a big payout.

[Sven Osymthe]

I like all of these suggestions about ranks, but I don't think that is the way to go in order to help stop guild crashing. I would like them to add ranks, but they need something more to solve this issue.

Just an idea I thought of.. it is similar to some already suggested. When pressing the F key, it brings up friends, player friends, and guild. Maybe they could add a fourth option, which you only get if you are the GM of the guild. This option would list the names of members that have been "ejected" by an officer, and the GM of the guild can either deny, or approve the request.

I doubt that would ever happen.. but it is just an idea. And since i'm not sure I said that clearly.. i'll give an example. An officer logs on, and ejects every member. All of those members are removed from the guild list, and are instead placed in the GMs fourth tab. When the GM logs on, he/she has to approve the ejection for it to be accepted, if the ejection is denied the member is returned to the guild. And if a member happens to log on prior to approval, or denial, the member receives a notification, allowing them to know their "status".

There are numerous other solutions out there. The only problem I have with guild ranks, that won't stop ejecting. If an account is hacked, someone just decides they wanna boot people, it won't matter. If someone has the power to eject a member without the consent of the GM, then that isn't safe in this matter.

[Kat Five Knives]

Sven I LOVE that suggestion and was thinking along those lines when trying to come up with a solution. Big D should seriously consider allowing the GM to confirm or deny boots. (Or at least KNOW who was booted and by whom).

[Angel Daggerfury]

Originally Posted by Cannonfury

In the last week 3 guilds: Darkside demons, The Guardians and Coastal pirates were attacked. They all have over 200 that were booted. Just letting you all know to be careful who you guild and who you make an officer.




savage hearts was also attacked earlier but is not related to these 3 attacks

Not really about who u guild & who u make officer right off the bat...lol

Coastal Pirates - GM & some guildmates play LotR now & the GM booted 1 of the officers out of the LotR guild, that long time officer came over where hes still an officer of the PotCO guild & did his thing...

Savage Hearts - one of the former long time officers had access to the GM's account...go figure...

Ik the 2 who did it and they were long time officers not some random officers.

[Ham]

EVERYONE is an officer in the Co. Empire. But there is a test to join.

[Nate Swordwalker]

Originally Posted by djr_8fan

incase of emergencies or other circumstances that would prevent the Guild Master from playing Pirates for a period of time.

Thats what happened to our guild, our GM has been gone for almost 5 months and all of our Generals ( pretty much guys who are second in command ) keep the guild in tact.

However, before he had to leave, we got hacked to! We lost over 70 members.

Big caution to everyone out there, DONT GIVE OUT PROMOTIONS! Have a system that lets members slowly become an officer. Good luck to all you guilds out there, and BEWARE!

Sven that is a GREAT suggestion! Disney needs to do something about all of these problems.

[Jade Macmorrigan]

both of my pirates are Officers in Coastal Pirates.. (Jade MacMorrigan aka JMac.. and Jade)

our incident was pretty isolated too...

one of our Officers... that had been with us for several months i might add... was playing in another guild on another game with some of our members and our GM. long story short (from what i know) said Officer was running his mouth about his wife, which led to the guild to understand that there was some abuse issues... when he was cornered about it by our GM he retaliated by going on Pirates and proceeding to delete all of the members. 200+ because of someone who has issues. some of us had an idea he was shady... that was the main reason i wouldn't try out the other game while waiting for POTC to update.. cuz he was such a creep toward women.. but what can you do? we gave him a benefit of a doubt.. thought he was just kidding.. then they got him on voicechat and figured out otherwise. it's a shame too... we lost some excellent people! and we're STILL trying to get our members back...

[Red Nations]

I've been away from the game for almost a year and recently returned, I see that this is still an ongoing problem. I was second in command of a fairly active guild with about 80 members. Our GM was called to work a lot of overtime on his job plus attending night classes at college. As a result he was absent for several months.

I agree that a guilds second in command needs more than just officer powers, there are times when action must be taken swiftly in order to prevent serious problems within the guild. In the example above our GM never returned to the game, he had made a couple of rather poor choices in promoting officers and as a result these people began recruiting members who were not good for the well being of the guild and who later led to the destruction of the guild.

Giving the second in command the ability to demote or remove problem members would have prevented this and possibly saved the guild.

I agree that a time limit to promotion or a probationary period for all new members does help reduce these issues. But this isn't a fix all solution. Before recruiting all officers need to excercise good judgement when choosing to recruit. Spending time getting to know prospective members, seeing how they play and behave in game, and how well they interact with other players.

[Kat Five Knives]

If you are a lost Baratarian, the word is that you may be able to find someone on the second B server on Tortuga to re-guild you.

No details are available at the moment.. and I am no longer in the Baratarian guild but I still have friends there and I have spoken to the GM Jean LaFitte and I am getting this information straight from him.

If you recently found yourself out of the guild, please know that they are looking for you.

[JM Ohara]

Sadly, this is still going on. Just today I had someone from Epic Disaster's ask if I wanted to join. He told me the guild had been attacked and almost destroyed. It's a sad commentary on the lack of checks inside the guild system.

I believe that Co-GM should be more than just a player designation, it should be a game title. Where as like POTB, if a GM goes AWOL, the second is offered the job, then any officer, then any member of said guild. I would take that a step further and say that the removal of any player from a guild should have to be approved by not just an officer, but the GM or Co-GM.

Whether or not D listens, that remains to be seen.

[MacIronhawk]

This will inevitably always go on.

Guilds need to remember that you need to respect each and everyone in the guild and treat everyone equally. I was kicked out of a very big guild for repeatedly shooting the cannon at forts during a boss battle when an officer said, "Stop, lets hold on a second" and failed to realize the forts were still firing at us.

Second, guild members need to be nice to EVERYONE they meet. Angering some random person can lead to big changes to the guild when said person manages to join the guild and become an officer.

Third, there are always people that want to bring the big guilds down. No matter how good a guild is at making sure all officers are good, that won't change the fact that there are people out there wasting their time acting good so they can become an officer in a big guild just so they can kick people out. It may seem unlikely, but there are people that bored out there.

Just understand that if you're going to give someone a spot as an officer, do they really seem like the type of person that can have all these members to just kick out? Not really, and picking officers should be an extremely hard thing to do. Even if it's someone on POF, you never know what they might be thinking about doing to your guild. Just be careful is all, and if you are worried a lot, just don't have there be officers.

[matthew]

I am the won who is suffering the attack on my guild.my guild epic disasters 77 members is number of ppl deleted its a horrible site to see

[Eliza Creststeel]

A little update.

The ETC has fortunately never been the victim of a sabotage, but amazingly we almost were. A young member who joined us, earned her way up to full officer and was very well liked by many of our membership suddenly left us.

Once we found her, members inquired why she departed - and she made a horrible admission. She had been a spy the entire time for another guild. Part of her infiltration was to earn promotion and then sabotage us by purging members.

I'm still not 100% sure I even believe her story.

When she was pressed for an answer, the girl said that she liked us too much to complete her task. No member had been deleted. Instead, she left and never went back to her original guild.

Lessons learned?

1) I sadly learned that anyone could be a potential hazard to your guild.

2) Having a guild family that cares and respects each other could actually warm the heart of a spy and potential saboteur - turning an enemy sympathetic.

3) That there are groups out there who systematically are attacking larger group, either for sport or as a way of promoting themselves. I'd like to think they lost this round.

In the end, we will be more cautious perhaps but our system of promotion is still intact and my faith in the ETC's membership is still strong.

[Kat Five Knives]

Well said EC! Creating a minimum service time for new members before they are eligible for officership may help. It will give them time to get to know the members and hopefully develop bonds and close friendships that may help avoid this situation. Someone who pretends to be your friend for an extended period of time only to turn on you and delete your guild is a cold hearted person indeed.

[James Bladefury]

There is another way to be safe from guild take outs. Either make everyone officers, or everyone members. If people do not have the power to take people out, then it will not be a problem. I have also learned that some people (who will not be meantioned) lie to be your friend and then stab you in the back, and take down your guild.

My Lessons: Do not trust anyone no matter how nice or cool they may seem, this is a video game remember.
Not everyone is who they claim to be.
Befriend people wisely, do not just keep friends because they have something that you do not, or cannot have. Examples: Test Server Access and Unlimited Access.