Re: Guild members auto kicked and no visibility of guild status post Unified Forces

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@EA_Kipling wrote:

@ragnarok013

The Guild Ranks already act as a successor hierarchy, ie. if the Guild Leader is inactive, the leadership goes to highest ranking active subscriber, so ensuring that your officers are active and subscribed is important.

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I understand how the succession system works, what I was saying was we should have an optional way to disable succession beyond a certain group of people to prevent scenarios like we've experienced here. If there's anything that I can do to assist you in your search for the guild feel free to PM me here or on Slack.

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ragnarok013 wrote:

I understand how the succession system works, what I was saying was we should have an optional way to disable succession beyond a certain group of people to prevent scenarios like we've experienced here.

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Ah right. Not a bad idea, actually.

@EA_Kipling

You can try the following where it concerns Conquest:
[Names Removed, just in case]

@Justice668

No luck there I'm afraid, two guilds, but they've been around for a while now.

@Justice668 Without going into too much detail, the United Forces update wouldn't have anything to do with being able to find the guild. All internal IDs for Characters, Items, Guilds, etc. stayed the same.

The problem is that guilds are commonly renamed after a takeover like this (they have access to the credits to buy one, after all), and finding a guild after it's been renamed is very tricky, hence the conquest log workaround.

@EA_Kipling   Does that Conquest angle only work for members still in that guild, or anyone?

@Justice668

Any character that has completed a Personal Conquest Targed while in the guild, in the last 3 months or so. They don't have to be in the guild now.

That list of names I gave you is the best we have. In fact the one starting ending 'Me-up' was guilded at the time everyone was kicked and said they completed Conquest objectives in December/January.

@EA_Kipling@ragnarok013

Hi Kipling,

I do not know what you had in mind for us in terms of taking action, though I have found one member to this guild and that could be the person whom committed the act. Of course no communication has been established as you can imagine.

What are our options for recourse? Are Bioware going to investigate to determine if this was a clear negative set of actions on the part of that individual, and as a consequence consider reparations? Particularly in lieu of the fact that their poor policy on officer absence/guild leadership transfer is precisely what led to this happening.

@Justice668

Unfortunately because the system worked as it was designed to, there's nothing we can do if it comes down to a dispute. There was no scam/social engineering/hack, the leadership changed due to inactivity, which means the promotion was official and supported by the game. Sadly ours and customer service's hands are tied.

In short, bad policy resulted in: 

• One hundred + players are without a guild
• Bioware loses at least half those in subscriptions( when they could do with all the monetary assistance they can muster )
• A thief gets away with robbery
• The victims did nothing wrong

Bioware should add /start advertising a new benefit to being a subscriber.

"Feature : Guild retention" - We value our customer's patronage so much, that as long as you subscribe, you will always be in control of your guild***

***(fine print) conditions apply : Can never unsubscribe and must have no life/consider taking a vacation over three weeks/micromanage your guild to ensure there's enough subscription/activity coverage.

It's clear the whole thing is a scam, from the policy to the F2P system to the guy that got away with obviously hijacking a guild. 

It's ironic that for nearly five years we disregarded the idea of ever playing SWTOR again because we felt Bioware really tanked on managing the game (in many ways), by summer of 2012, only being five months since the game's launch. Then we decided to take the plunge and after putting all the time and effort into it, to rebuild the second age of the guild, make progress and grow with new members..it ends.

And not because of in-fighting, or boredom, or 'that time of year' (summer, when everyone goes outside), or because of changes in the game itself.

I suppose the 2012-2017 version of me was smarter than my current self.

;shrug; 

I approached the individual whom is the only member of the guild a few weeks ago, and found them quickly log off. My inquiry was innocent, and yet they disappeared rapidly, which was a telling sign.

Update:

We managed to find them online with a different character and this time they obliged me. After wasting an hour arguing with someone whom was clearly belligerent and being obstinate/disingenuous, I have confirmed that that same person whom is the leader of Spice now did in fact remove everyone intentionally.

They're attitude/POV was that the guild 'belongs' to them, - technicality or not- and they have no intention of giving it back.

They also had some choice words about me 'daring' to accuse them, so I think it's safe to say this is the end of the line.

This person spent a total of less than three weeks in our guild, before removing all but one of their characters..

What hurts most about this out of all, is that one of our members spent upwards of hundreds of dollars in real money to help kick start our guild funding, to allow us to enjoy in-game luxuries. And now, all that has been stolen.

I suppose on the plus side, I won't have to speak to them again - clearly he has a screw loose.

Thanks Booware.

@Justice668

Whilst I can say that it is a bad rap

Regardless if it is a bad policy or not you have to take some responsibility if you where the guild leader and was absent for 30 days or more.

Bioware didn't just spring the auto remove guild leader requirement on you overnight it isn't a technicality it is what occurs when your absent for an extended period.

@EA_Kipling did investigate and found it was as intended by the system and that is a system that has remained unchanged for years per this faq link

If your Guild Leader has not logged in to Star Wars: The Old Republic on their Guild Leader character for an extended period of time (4 weeks or more), the system will automatically remove them as Guild Leader and pass their leadership on to the highest ranking member who is a subscriber and has logged in within four weeks.

@ragnarok013 has offered suggestions for alternative policy however that has no bearing on what occurred here.

Best suggestion i can offer for the future is if you are planning to be away pass leadership to someone else before going away.

@proxos666Unfortunately that sounds like a clever spin for a poor policy(one of which didn't exist back in the day, nor is it made obvious).

Maybe Bioware should curb their greed and not require you to be subscribed just to hold onto your guild while also never taking a holiday.

Or better yet, let's start handing out high ranking positions in a guild, for the sole purpose of ensuring a terrible policy doesn't kick in and leave us in a bad position to begin with.

Create potential problems to avoid a potential problem. Good strategy measures 101.

And I guess keeping a guild is a perk right?

Though ultimately, let's blame the victim -  classic deflection.

The only people at fault/reponsible here are Bioware and the person who committed the foul. 

As such, we've virtually all moved on and the company loses out, with less customers because of their ill practices.

@Justice668

This is why as guild leader the person who is the next highest rank should be someone that is trusted whether it be a friend or someone else you know that you can trust.  That way when the policy does kick in that person gets the guild leadership passed to them instead of some random person that may not be trust worthy.

While there are different ways it possibly could be done such as the way WoW does it where you have to request the leadership passed down there still needs to be a policy in place in case the Guild Leader does abandon or leave the guild hanging.

I know it's frustrating for you however you would still as guild leader need to ensure that as the one handing out ranks that the players with the higher ranks are the ones that you trust or know won't do something like this as to the best of your ability.  While of course nothing is 100% with random people on the internet it would help ensure that someone you trust takes over while your away.

 @Belgorad

This was a planned winter break by the guild, particularly with the aim to let the United Forces merge take place and then settle down before we started up again.

All of our guild were aware, and the senior staff were not expected (to their knowledge and mine) to have to keep checking in/logging in.

We also had non senior staff, though trusted veteran members whom were still subscribed at the time and logging in.

If it helps give any scope to the absurdity of the scenario, the person whom got the leadership was far down the list and someone whom was just a standard member that didn't even play often. Furthermore, the trusted guild members were still logging in at that time anyways, which is how we found out.

It's my thought that the system didn't work like it should have, and I've yet to see any evidence from Bioware showing/confirming that it in fact went to a ranked or normal ranked subscriber. 

Rather what it did, was keep handing off the guild leadership to anyone that was subscribing, regardless of rank.

As I stated before, it's a wash now, we're not coming back.

If you want to prevent this from happening again consider the following :

1. Make it obvious, like neon signs wherever guild management is concerned, that it reminds you of this policy.

2. Send out a mailer

•  Every month as a courtesy to a guild leader to further remind them
•  If a guild leader unsubscribed, they get the email immediately upon unsubscribing
•  Should an unsubscribed guild leader be nearing the threshold period, the mail is sent yet again

3. Limit it from dropping any lower than the equivalent the default member status

4. Have the system monitor any extreme leader ship change activity. Such as GM status being handed down more than three or four times within a twenty-four period, or some metric that would red flag odd behavior.

This is most likely the last post I'll make in the thread as I don't believe I have anything left to add/offer.

Feel free to feedback the suggestion(s).