World of Warcraft™

I haven't played Wow since May of last year and I've always been the GM. Now I came back to Wow yesterday and the guild is gone. Please help! My RL friends and I put SO much work into this guild! I never promoted anyone else to be the GM.

In this case, the succeeding GM kicked everyone and now doesn't login himself. Now no one gets to use the guild and Blizzard has a lot of angry customers!

The troublesome part is that Blizzard has a ridiculous policy whereby after 30 days of the GM's absence, they give away the guild with zero warning and recourse.

Terrible policy, Blizzard, to just give away the guild with zero notice!!

Sorry you lost your guild.
Question, if you knew back in May about the policy and how it worked, what would you or your friends of done different to prevent someone from taking over your guild?

Honestly, you left a guild (obviously with some active players in it) without any effective leadership for 9 months -- what do you expect? Most players enjoy a bit of direction in a guild and you effectively abandoned them and the guild without finding a suitable replacement. As a result someone seized the opportunity to take control, and unfortunately abused the system by kicking everyone. You'd have been better off g-kicking everyone who was not a "RL friend" before you took your break so you could just sit on it and resume your leadership when you returned.

Guild Dethrone has always been a part of the game. At any time during an GL's absense a member of the guild could use this feature.

The only difference is that today it is an automated option in the game. Before last November it was something that required a GM Ticket be submitted.

There were several notifications on this website and in Patch Notes. As a GL it was your responsibility to take care of your guild and it's members. This feature has always been a policy which, as a GL, you should have been aware of.

And out of curiosity, who do you think was "putting so much work into this guild" during your 8 month absense?

Sorry you lost your guild.
Question, if you knew back in May about the policy and how it worked, what would you or your friends of done different to prevent someone from taking over your guild?

I would've kicked every member of the guild except my RL friends and our alts.

02/20/2012 07:35 AMPosted by Lythe

Honestly, you left a guild (obviously with some active players in it) without any effective leadership for 9 months -- what do you expect?

For the guild to be there when I get back just like every other time I had taken a break from Wow in the last 4 years.

Regardless, the guild had no regular actives when we quit. Once in a while someone would login after a few months of their own inactivity, rifle through their inventory and logout again. No active members.

The problem is that we changed the guild membership privileges so that anyone could invite others to the guild. That means someone in the last 9 months resurrected their inactive account, and either they themselves petitioned to steal the guild or they invited a 5-minute friend who knew how to abuse this heartbreaking policy.

02/20/2012 07:35 AMPosted by Lythe

Most players enjoy a bit of direction in a guild and you effectively abandoned them and the guild without finding a suitable replacement.

And it's my responsibility to babysit them, or to find a suitable babysitter in my stead?

02/20/2012 07:35 AMPosted by Lythe

As a result someone seized the opportunity to take control, and unfortunately abused the system by kicking everyone. You'd have been better off g-kicking everyone who was not a "RL friend" before you took your break so you could just sit on it and resume your leadership when you returned.

Yes, and if Blizzard gave any of us any kind of warning about their new guild-giveaway policy, we would've done just that.

For the guild to be there when I get back just like every other time I had taken a break from Wow in the last 4 years.

Regardless, the guild had no regular actives when we quit. Once in a while someone would login after a few months of their own inactivity, rifle through their inventory and logout again. No active members.

The problem is that we changed the guild membership privileges so that anyone could invite others to the guild. That means someone in the last 9 months resurrected their inactive account, and either they themselves petitioned to steal the guild or they invited a 5-minute friend who knew how to abuse this heartbreaking policy.

If you are not active in the game you should have already had a guild with no members other than yourself, real life friends and family. Basically what you had was an in-game "bank" that kept you from being annoyed by recruiters for other guilds when you did decide to play once a year.

02/20/2012 07:49 AMPosted by Cørporations

And it's my responsibility to babysit them, or to find a suitable babysitter in my stead?

People like you are why we need a policy like this.

It is your responsibility to LEAD the guild you created or to find someone who will in your absense.

02/20/2012 07:49 AMPosted by Cørporations

Yes, and if Blizzard gave any of us any kind of warning about their new guild-giveaway policy, we would've done just that.

Blizzard gave notice. They have had this policy in effect since the implementation of guild banks which was at least 6 years ago. It is not Blizzard's fault you were unaware of a policy that has been in effect for that amount of time.

They also began public notification of the change from a GM Ticketing system to an In-Game Automated Feature last November. It is not their fault you were not playing during that time. It is a reasonable assumption that you were also not paying for a game subscription at that time which would effectively take the need for Blizzard to notify you away. There is no need for them to communicate with persons who are not customers.

If you were paying for your subscription that wasn't being used for 8 months you could have easily logged in a couple of times over the course of those months to check on the guild you worked so hard on and that meant so much to you just to see how it was doing orif there were any issues that needed to be dealt with.

--

You failed to lead your guild. While there are some things about the automated system that could be changed, the need to be able to remove in-active or in-effective leadership remains for the members of those guilds who are not being taken care of and who are actively contributing to that guild.

02/20/2012 07:45 AMPosted by Malorei

There were several notifications on this website and in Patch Notes. As a GL it was your responsibility to take care of your guild and it's members. This feature has always been a policy which, as a GL, you should have been aware of.

Before the feature was well publicized by the recent change, almost nobody knew about the fact you could submit a ticket to take control of a guild. It was discussed on this forum once in a while, and I'm not even sure it was in any official Blizzard FAQs. A lot of people like to point out that policy is years old, but the reality is that it was so obscure and so infrequently used that for all intents and purposes it is a new policy

This had been Blizzard's policy for a number of years, they've just gotten around to automating it. As GM of your guild, it's your responsibility to keep abreast of changes like that.

You have taken breaks beforehand, but you know what? This exact same thing could have happened at anytime then too, had someone taken the time to open a ticket about it.

Someone unfortunately took advantage of that this time around and you are out of your own guild.

I would just take this as one of those live and learn situations.

02/20/2012 08:08 AMPosted by Siantha

There were several notifications on this website and in Patch Notes. As a GL it was your responsibility to take care of your guild and it's members. This feature has always been a policy which, as a GL, you should have been aware of.

Before the feature was well publicized by the recent change, almost nobody knew about the fact you could submit a ticket to take control of a guild. It was discussed on this forum once in a while, and I'm not even sure it was in any official Blizzard FAQs. A lot of people like to point out that policy is years old, but the reality is that it was so obscure and so infrequently used that for all intents and purposes it is a new policy

Not true!

Had the GM Ticketing been used to such a small degree there would have been no reason to change it to an automated feature.

It was a part of Blizzard FAQ which I would link but since the change the FAQ is different today than it was before. I'm sure someone (probably Ewing, he's really good at finding old links) could find it and link it for you.

Even if the general populus of the World of Warcraft community was unaware of the GM Ticketing feature they would still report absentee GL's via GM Ticket and effectively "dethrone" the in-active leadership.

Asking how to remove an in-active leader consitituted a large number of posts in the original GRF on the original website. Most of us who frequently posted there (orignially I was a Priest named "Raiyyn".../wave to those of you who remember me and now you know who I am) knew of this policy and let people know what they needed to do to remove in-active leaders.

This has been an issue for a number of years. The issue then may have been "my GL is in-active, what can I do" rather than "I didn't play for a year and someone stole my guild", but it has always been an issue.

Policy changes to this degree generally don't occur when something is not being used. Blizzard is making several changes in policy's that create "time sinks" for their employees on a daily basis right now, which can be seen in the large number of posts regarding this issue, loot disputes, bank thefts, etc. in many different forums and in small changes in Blizzard Support pages. Obviously the transfer of guild leadership from an in-active GL to an active member of a guild must have been a "time sink" or the policy would not needed to be changed as it would have been working fine as it was.

02/20/2012 08:03 AMPosted by Malorei

Basically what you had was an in-game "bank" that kept you from being annoyed by recruiters for other guilds when you did decide to play once a year.

You assume a lot.

02/20/2012 08:03 AMPosted by Malorei

It is your responsibility to LEAD the guild you created or to find someone who will in your absense.

In your opinion maybe.

Agreeing to lead others was and is never a part of the guild creation process. In fact I paid others to join for the purposes of guild leveling. I paid them based on their activity and contribution. It was all very contractual.

Now you're fabricating some ethical and moral responsibility that all GMs have to their guilds to retroactively justify this highly controversial and IMO retarded policy.

02/20/2012 08:03 AMPosted by Malorei

They also began public notification of the change from a GM Ticketing system to an In-Game Automated Feature last November.

They gave away our guild in October, a month before, according to the GM that responded to my open ticket.

02/20/2012 08:03 AMPosted by Malorei

If you were paying for your subscription that wasn't being used for 8 months you could have easily logged in a couple of times over the course of those months to check on the guild you worked so hard on and that meant so much to you just to see how it was doing orif there were any issues that needed to be dealt with.

Again, you're injecting your personal stance on how GMs should babysit the guilds to justify the end.

02/20/2012 08:08 AMPosted by Siantha

There were several notifications on this website and in Patch Notes. As a GL it was your responsibility to take care of your guild and it's members. This feature has always been a policy which, as a GL, you should have been aware of.

Before the feature was well publicized by the recent change, almost nobody knew about the fact you could submit a ticket to take control of a guild. It was discussed on this forum once in a while, and I'm not even sure it was in any official Blizzard FAQs. A lot of people like to point out that policy is years old, but the reality is that it was so obscure and so infrequently used that for all intents and purposes it is a new policy

Right. Even today, no one that I talk to IRL knows about this policy, and these friends have been playing for years--sometimes as far back as Vanilla.

02/20/2012 08:23 AMPosted by Malorei

This has been an issue for a number of years. The issue then may have been "my GL is in-active, what can I do" rather than "I didn't play for a year and someone stole my guild", but it has always been an issue.

Right, I never said it wasn't an issue - but in general it was only researched by people who were in the relatively rare position of their GM being absent for a while. And while it came up from time to time, I don't think it ever dominated the discussion to the extent that "dethroning" does now. Go look at an old random page index, there is a good chance you'll see not a single thread about 'my GM is inactive'

My point through is that a when a policy that <1% of people had known about to >75% (or whatever), it is effectively functioning as a new policy. This explains why we are seeing zillions of "My guild was stolen" posts now, even though a variation of the policy has been around for 6+ years

02/20/2012 08:09 AMPosted by Erolisa

This had been Blizzard's policy for a number of years, they've just gotten around to automating it. As GM of your guild, it's your responsibility to keep abreast of changes like that.

Good point. So I think I'll spend the next week researching if there's any way Blizzard has in its power to give away my house and my car. While also highly unlikely and (as far as I know) unprecedented, it's my responsibility (as you say) to keep abreast of Blizzard's relatively unknown and unreasonable policies.

To the OP you are wasting your time here. Stay up to date on game basics playing the I did not know card is no good and a waste of time. Lesson learned. Take some responsability, your sense of self entitlement is disgusting. Feel free to start over tho now since your up to speed.

02/20/2012 08:03 AMPosted by Malorei

They have had this policy in effect since the implementation of guild banks which was at least 6 years ago.

Slightly off topic, and only because everyone gets this wrong: Guild banks were introduced in Patch 2.3, which was the same patch that brought the original Zul'Aman into the game. This patch was introduced November 13, 2007. It has not been 6 years since the introduction of guild banks, it's been 4 years and 3 months. However, the policy about contacting a GM for moving guild leadership has been, I believe, around roughly 6 years.

Carry on.

02/20/2012 08:36 AMPosted by Cørporations

Good point. So I think I'll spend the next week researching if there's any way Blizzard has in its power to give away my house and my car. While also highly unlikely and (as far as I know) unprecedented, it's my responsibility (as you say) to keep abreast of Blizzard's relatively unknown and unreasonable policies.

Just because it's unknown and unreasonable to you doesn't mean it's unknown and unreasonable to all and that's the crux of the matter unfortunately. So again, it's a shame you lost the guild but the situation is what it is.

02/20/2012 08:36 AMPosted by Cørporations

Good point. So I think I'll spend the next week researching if there's any way Blizzard has in its power to give away my house and my car. While also highly unlikely and (as far as I know) unprecedented, it's my responsibility (as you say) to keep abreast of Blizzard's relatively unknown and unreasonable policies.

How's that red herring working out for you?

You're paying Blizzard to play this game, and therefore, as a paying customer, it's your responsibility to understand what changes Blizzard is making to your game play. Ignorance of changes to policy doesn't mean there's something inherently wrong with the policy. There is nothing unreasonable about expecting a guild leader to actually lead a guild. You were gone, and therefore, you weren't a leader. You can continue to cry about it, or you can learn from it.

The choice is yours.

02/20/2012 08:44 AMPosted by Issabella

They have had this policy in effect since the implementation of guild banks which was at least 6 years ago.

Slightly off topic, and only because everyone gets this wrong: Guild banks were introduced in Patch 2.3, which was the same patch that brought the original Zul'Aman into the game. This patch was introduced November 13, 2007. It has not been 6 years since the introduction of guild banks, it's been 4 years and 3 months. However, the policy about contacting a GM for moving guild leadership has been, I believe, around roughly 6 years.

Carry on.

Yeah, he's makes up stuff as he goes along. Just scroll up for more examples.

This post is done old news.

02/20/2012 08:47 AMPosted by Issabella

There is nothing unreasonable about expecting a guild leader to actually lead a guild.

Agreeing to lead others was never a part of the guild process. It's an excuse invented by lapdogs to retroactively justify what Blizzard did.