Guild Leader Swap After 26 Days - Problematic

[Caduceus]

Hey all,

I have just returned from a work-related leave of absence. During my absence I had already gotten word that rules pertaining the inactivity of guild leaders had changed and that with one of the recent patches guild leadership would be involuntarily changed upon 26 days of inactivity.

For my guild and I this is highly problematic. I am an active player, however my occupation sometimes requires me to take prolonged breaks from the game. This is something I took into account when I created the guild Odyssey. To ensure the guild would not become leaderless during these periods, a good friend of mine takes over the leadership in my absence.

This method seemed to work fine, but the recent changes have made things a lot more complicated.

To put it simply, I trust the person whom I assigned as back-up guild leader, but things may happen in real life that one doesn't have control over, and the thought that I can simply lose my guild this way is something that doesn't sit well with me at all.

Secondly, I highly dislike the suggestion that guilds are public property. Starting and managing a guild takes a lot of time and effort. My guild is just as dear to me as my characters and how would you feel if your characters would leave your ownership?

I understand the idea behind this change, but it is too rash. Guild leaders also have private lives and a good guild ensures there's a system in place to guarantee the guild is managed in the guild leader's absence, as is the case for Odyssey.

My suggestion would be to either increase the period of inactivity drastically, to something like six months, or to swap guild leadership back to the original guild leader automatically when they log in after a period of inactivity.

Thanks for reading and I ask you to please take a critical look at this recent change,

- Animalmother

[GamesBond]

Were you not able to contact or ask the current guild leader to transfer ownership again?

There are pros and cons to this feature for sure, but it's made to prevent big guilds led by multiple warband leaders from getting destroyed, since guilds directly affect the gameplay of people.
Players can surely switch to other guilds but it's not about members only, but more about officers and co-leaders. When their leader leaves, they surely can keep the guild up and running without him but they simply need the proper rank to add/edit/remove stuff. And players won't have to leave their guild if it's running again.

Alternatively, you can prevent the automation system by logging once every 26 days. Also, adding your own trusted friend as co-leader rank (a rank right below GM for example), would transfer ownership to him and then, he can transfer it back to you when you return.

This automation helped in keeping large guilds up, with their leader instantly vanishing (we hope he's OK irl). So I believe it does more good than harm; There are lots of rank 40 guilds with leaders away for years - if some officer could give a rebirth to these guilds, it would profit everyone.

[Caduceus]

Were you not able to contact or ask the current guild leader to transfer ownership again?

There are pros and cons to this feature for sure, but it's made to prevent big guilds led by multiple warband leaders from getting destroyed, since guilds directly affect the gameplay of people.
Players can surely switch to other guilds but it's not about members only, but more about officers and co-leaders. When their leader leaves, they surely can keep the guild up and running without him but they simply need the proper rank to add/edit/remove stuff. And players won't have to leave their guild if it's running again.

Alternatively, you can prevent the automation system by logging once every 26 days. Also, adding your own trusted friend as co-leader rank (a rank right below GM for example), would transfer ownership to him and then, he can transfer it back to you when you return.

This automation helped in keeping large guilds up, with their leader instantly vanishing (we hope he's OK irl). So I believe it does more good than harm; There are lots of rank 40 guilds with leaders away for years - if some officer could give a rebirth to these guilds, it would profit everyone.

I understand the reasons behind this change.

The way Odyssey is currently set up is the way you have described. My co-leader has a rank just below guild leader with most of the permissions.

My problem is this; I trust my co-leader, but things can happen in real-life that we have no control over, that may cause him to go inactive during my absence. When this happens, I lose all control over who becomes leader of my guild, and I find this very worrying.

Logging in to break the automation is not an option for me, because during these absences I have no access to internet.

The automation can stay in its place, but a feature to avoid guild leaders losing control over their guilds would be greatly appreciated. For example, perhaps guild leaders can be given the option to modify the duration of the automation. Alternatively, perhaps there can be an option for guild leaders to announce a planned absence (this is what I do) with a set date of return. If the guild leader has not returned on this date, the guild leadership is relinquished.

In other words, a small tweak to the system to prevent planned absences from leading to loss of control is all that's needed to overcome this issue and ease my mind.

Thanks for your response,

- Animalmother

[GamesBond]

Yes I understand your concern, but in an officer/member POV: If the guild leader is away for a month and then, the co-leader is away for a month without the leader returning, the guild has been inactive for 52 days now. You might as well hand the guild over to someone able to be present, since 52 days are a lot.

Don't get me wrong, it's your guild and your decisions of course. But I'll be straight forward with you; the feature is to disallow inactive leaders from destroying guilds. The feature isn't guild leader friendly, it's the opposite, it favors the officers and members.

But you're totally right that it depends on real life work, for example if you serve in the army or anything else that doesn't include access to the game or the whole internet, as you mentioned. I assume we can handle these requests manually since it's the very first request. I have to double check.

I will forward your concern to Max, since we have a short meeting in the next few days.

[Caduceus]

Thank you for taking my concerns into consideration.

[navis]

I agree that longer setting would be better, 6 mo or a year. If a shorter swap is needed then maybe a GM can just do it case by case.

[wargrimnir]

I agree that longer setting would be better, 6 mo or a year. If a shorter swap is needed then maybe a GM can just do it case by case.

You think a guild leader absent for 6 months to a year while the guild he was leading will stick around?

It's not that hard to log into a character once a month. If it gets passed on to an officer, you should be able to trust them to lead while you're away. It's automated specifically so GM's don't need to make judgement calls. Fair system. You abandon your guild, it continues without you.

[navis]

Yes, some guilds. It would be better for guilds where the leader is more symbolic, or for roleplaying.

[Caduceus]

You think a guild leader absent for 6 months to a year while the guild he was leading will stick around?

It's not that hard to log into a character once a month. If it gets passed on to an officer, you should be able to trust them to lead while you're away. It's automated specifically so GM's don't need to make judgement calls. Fair system. You abandon your guild, it continues without you.

6 months to a year seems long, but the current time limit is 1 month. That is way too short, in my opinion.

I don't know how often it occurs that active guilds are left with an inactive guild leader, but this feels like using a cannon to swat a mosquito.

Some way to ensure scheduled, life-related absences do not result into loss of control is all that is needed to solve this issue.