Debating Contest #2

[Roman]

Hey Everyone,

This weeks Debating moot is "Should level for being a guildmaster be raised". The prize for best debator is 1000 Iron ores.

[evilmangopie]

As a guild master I have a strong opnion about this. When I made my guild my highest skill must have been around 50, and I think I would have made a lot of stupid decisions if it where not for the fact that my previous guild had tought me a lot about the game, and I am a farily mature person (usually ). Also I had a lot of people who soon joined the guild that could help me with my decisions.

 

But I think to be the master of a guild you need to know a lot about the game, it does not take long at all to get a skill to 40, and I think being a GM should be a privelage, not something someone new to the game can easily reach. They could easily make a guild, find it hard and end it, which itself is just a waste of time. Or they could get it running, then make some stupid decisions, and have a lot of guildies (or other guilds) angry with them and leaving the guild, making everybody unfair .

 

Of course even with a higher level cap you still can have "n00bs" who have bought a good char, and bypass the system. However I still think a change definetly needs to be made. The actual new requireents I leave up to more debate . In my opinion there are several different options of hoiw to change the requirement:

• Have a certain amount of time for the account to exist before you can become a GM.
  
• Simply raise the level requirement.
  
• Have a certain amount of time the acount has been played on.
  
• A combination.
  

 

Some of those may not be possible, but if they could I would like to see the following requirements:

1. 2 skill's (NOT overall) above 60
   
2. The account has existed for 6 months or more
   

 

Thank you for listening

[Jezebelle]

When I joined my first guild, I was a wee kitten in this World. Didnt know much, and had to be forced even to kick a bunny. I didnt see the urge of leveling much those days, all I wanted to to have fun (Girls just wanna have fun, right?)

Then after a while, i got to know more folks, and I began to like to practice multiple skills, not so much for the fact of leveling, but more to learn how, and, ofcourse, to please my guildmaster. For the more I could do, the more I could help the guild. I was proud of my accomplishments, for it made my GM proud.

Again, it wasnt the leveling, but the production and the satisfaction of being able to make items and help others.

I looked up to my GM, cause it seemed he had all wisdom in his pocket, or at least the knowledge. For me, being a newcomer, he was my Hero.

I began to realise, if you get 'older' here, and you keep your ears and eyes open, you will level, without much trouble. Especialy with help from yuor friends, you will soon be able to take care of yourself, AND others.

I never understood why and how my Master got his skills so high, untll I found out he didnt do that just for himself, but to help others.

 

Due to the changing of seasons, I left my first guild, and after a while, I build my own. By that time, i had become an, what we call, 'allrounder'I didnt know all, nor pretended to be, but i could find my ways and make all basics.

As most know, we from W&W, have a newcomers training project, where we train and teach newcom,ers in our World, no strings attached.

Now I had a goal to use my all round skills. I worked hard and read alot, and now I was able to help those just starting.

I am not saying you have to have high(er) levels to be able to help others, but you do have the life's experience to know the how and why's of things when you are higher in levels.

 

What is my point?

 

I think a guildmaster should have developed all skills quit a bit and even take some kind of test.

You have to have some garantees to buy a house, you have to have a driverslicense to drive a car, why not have some kind of license to own and run a guild?

At least yuo have to understand the rules of our world, and at least know some basics i think.

 

A guild is more then a group of people sharing the same name, in my opinion. Therefor, it should be led by someone who at least has been around a while, someone strong enough to help his namesakes, through good and bad times here.

 

A guildleader to me, is like a mum, a dad, a big brother or sister, or, if you will, a scoutleader.

 

Those are my feelings..

 

Jez

guildmistress of the family of W&W

[Gohan]

I'm not much of a debate person, but anyway.

 

First thing, raising the minimum level of a guild leader isn't the question, if you want that, you have to take up the minimum level to become member of a guild. Because if you have a single skill at 20 and join a guild and the leader passes it to you, well, there you go, fresh guild for you.

 

 

Second, the level for a guild leader is under no circumstance really important.

 

I have my own guild and yea, I have decent/good stats, w/e you think my stats are.

I don't really let anyone join and my guild is open *ONLY* to my friends and people that I like and get along with.

It all has a reason tho, I'm just not longer up to dealing with the massive amount of newbies around EL and spending my days answering questions.

And because I wish to take care of anyone who's actually IN my guild. All friends of mine who are in or would join can talk to me for just about anything.

 

Got a problem in EL? People bitching, whining, crying, threatening, etc etc. No probs, come to me and ignore those people, I'll take over and settle things for you.

RL problem? Need a talk? Sure, come over and we'll go somewhere private (you never know you get a mistell :/ and you don't always want that), I know what it's like having to deal with crap in RL and I'll gladly listen and talk to you. It can actually help to make people feel better.

 

And lastly, since my stats are good enough, I can actually help with the mixing/harvesting/other stuff if asked.

I am always fully there for the people who are in my guild. (Only 1 member besides me. .. atm anyway) This is my "service" to them as a guild master, and as a friend...

 

So even if my levels weren't what they are now, I'd provide the same thing. Except for the help inside EL with gathering/mixing stuffs.

 

-Blee

[Pride]

I personally don't think it would make a difference if it the minimum level to make a guild is 39 or 100. I, myself did not have a skill at 39 myself when i became a guildmaster. Me and my friend had our own GM leave his rank 20 position to one of the high rankers so he could get kicked and make the guild for us, since we could not do it on our own. He then created the guild, accepted us, and tossed me the rank 20 and ownership. However, it would be different, if the level was raised for both starting the guild and being able to accept ownership. Say the level was set to a skill at 50, then you can't create a guild or have the guild handed to you if you didn't have the level. Also, the minimum level to join a guild should be set to 30 or so, IMO. Lots of newbie players can get harvest 20 no prob, and it's trouble for the GM because they don't know if they're coming back or not. So there should be a higher minimum level and a time period of having played the game to both become a GM and joining a guild.

Edited December 2, 2007 by swordofflame

[Vanyel]

Firstly, I will try to explain why I do not like an idea of raising a required skill level for a guild creation. Then I will try to present you what the true problem is, in my opinion and propose some ways to solve it.

 

Personally, I don't see a reason to raise the required level to create a guild. After all a guild is a kind of comradeship. As in real world, there are many kinds of these. Some of them are, in one's opinion, better. Some are worse. If a fact we do not like a certain group of people (e.g. guild) is a reason to disband it or make it impossible to create it at some point we will encounter a person that doesn't like our brotherhoold (i.e. our guild) and will claim its disbandment. I don't like this idea at all.

We should rather think whether it is a skill level that makes a good guild master. In my opinion it's far from being truth. I know many very mature players that would make a great guild master, yet, their skill levels are low. On the other side of the coin, there are people with extremely high skill levels that are completely unsuitable to be hold the guild. So goes for the knowledge about the game. I don't really think that any artificial limitations like these would help a bit. On the contrary, it most probably would lead to situation when there are few leet (in their opinion) guilds and no space for a newly created guilds.

There are no true profits of being in a guild right now. The guild in Eternal Lands is not created for profits, either. They are comradeships, nothing more, nothing less. If not the fact I am afraid of getting to the totally opposite situation than aforementioned one (i.e. few '1337' guilds) - hundrets of really small guilds I would call for removing any requirements for creating a guild or joining it.

A way to avoid such situation the level requirement has been provided. I think that it is set properly. A problem, though, is a possibility of passing guild to people that do not fulfil requirements to create a guild. It should be disallowed and make impossible.

A first way to achieve it may be a bigger amount of gold coins needed (e.g.200k is a fine, round number). Money is pretty easy to earn in Eternal Lands. Hence, 30k gc is not much. Would raising the amount to 200k change anything? Most probably it would prevent creating guilds to try being a guild master. It would, once again - most probably, prevent people from creating hundrets of small guilds. Moreover, setting a goal so high would force people to cooperate. Working together to achieve this goal would create binds between future guildies.

The side effect of putting the gold coins requirement that high might be, also, a less guilds breaking apart in short time. Too much effort would be wasted.

Concluding, leave level requirement as it is. Raise gold coin requirement a lot, though. Passing a guild to a person not fulfilling requirements should be impossible.

Regards,

Kheres.

[Shujral]

In my oh so humble opinion, levels are not the problem. What is important is how long the GM/GM hopeful has been playing here in EL. As a high rank myself, you have no clue (unless you are one yourself) how many PM's and #IG's i get every day saying "K, Set u as alliance, do the same to me plx, I GM" from a 2-person guild that I've never heard of. Many of these "GM's" have high level friends who set up guilds for them. These people know nothing of leadership or diplomacy...

 

In conclusion, I believe that the required level to run a guild should not be raised, but that the playing time needed to run one should be at least 350 hours of non-afk time.

 

 

 

((Thats my 2 cents, glad to get that out there, don't expect to win anything though, tons of smart people here. Gl all )

 

 

BTW, MaGE is looking for allies

[Vanyel]

((Just short info. AFK time means nothing. I'm 'AFK' for 99% of my time in the game. Other people are never AFK, even if they are away from the computer. The trick is to set AFK time to 0.))

[Usalfin]

Hello, I dont know if making Hour requirements or raising levels requirements will help anything, it might, but I have been playing this caractor sence the big crash. 3+ years. My guild consists of according to #guild_info SaH 20+ members, I have not seen any of them in a long time. I have had a very large guild (300+ members and 60 officers) in another game, its alot of work having a guild. I am just tired.

 

I like having my own private guild. I have a webpage, and message board, which when I had active members, very few people used anyway.

 

Everybody always wants to know "What will a guild do for me, what will I get out of it?" When I was actively recruiting, that was the main question. I guess that is what you get for recruiting newbs. There are alot of good players, that started out in my guild, I wont go into any names, but they know who they are.

 

We will alway have the problem of bad guild leaders, either, old and tired, or young and stupid. Yes, I count myself in on this. I know that I dont have the time to run a guild properly, so I have stopped recruiting all together.

 

Do I want to close my guild, I have thought about it. Selling it, would be even better. But I still like the name, and the concept. So maybe I will stick around, as the only active member of SaH.

Edited December 2, 2007 by Usalfin

[fyrrflyy]

In my opinion, neither the level for creating a guild nor the money required to create one should be raised.

 

To me, experience is far more valuable than money cause you can sit at the Blue Lupine bush for a week and make money to create a guild, but doing that won't get you any experience in playing the game or any valuable memories.

 

Maturity and common sense are something not represented by levels, but a good guildmaster must have both of those. Fairness and equality are not represented by how much knowledge of the game you have, but again, a good guildmaster must have all of those.

 

In my humble opinion, time spent in-game and willingness to help are another two qualities a good GM must have. Money and levels certainly help and make joining your guild more attractive to other people, but it's not a set thing you must have.

 

GM's often spend time running around helping guildies, answering questions, and recruiting for their guild. They oft have no time to play the game for themselves, as they are so busy helping other people. If levels and money are so worthwhile, why is it that once you become a GM, it becomes alot harder to do the stuff people think is needed for a good GM? That, to me, is the important question here.

Edited December 2, 2007 by fyrrflyy

[Stricken]

In my personal opinion,

 

The level is fine as it is. For it is not the level of the person that makes the guild master, it is the spirit and potential that lie within. For is it not true that every person started from zero in all stats?

 

If the level were risen, it could cause dispair in many EL'ers heart. For some it is a great honor to be a 'Guild Master' Raising the bar for our youngest of minds to not be elligble to meet their potential doesn't seem like a fair thing in my mind.

 

Many of the weakest Guild masters have grown to be the best person you could ever meet. For they utilized their guilds strengths and maximized the guilds potential. For as previously stated it is in the heart of the individual, not the level. The will to overcome all obsitcles and become the most powerful person you can be...

 

Is it not within all of us?

 

-Q

[Aphistolas]

Hail.

 

The problem with Guild Masters, in my opinion, is not as terrible as the general populace would like to believe. In all my time playing EL, I have never encountered a Guild Master so critically inept that he/she could not perform the basic duties of aforementioned role.

 

Personally, I believe a few bad examples have permanently, or indefinitely, spoiled it for people wanting to create new guilds, or should I say - Unknown people. We have several features implemented that are devoted to teaching potential Guild-Creators how it works, in the GM world. The most significant of these is the Encyclopedia, an extensive tool, which people often refer to. Atop that, we have old guild-masters - such as Jezebelle from the Witches & Wiccans Guild - who teach people, on a daily basis, the skills needed for successfully gaining knowledge on EL.

 

If a limit had to be imposed, personally, I would implement; a Q&A sheet with some less-than-obvious questions, the need to have played EL for more than a year and possibly even the need for a reference from a game moderator. These features, in my opinion, would eradicate any and all problems pertinent to Guild Masters.

 

As you can probably tell, in my opinion; personality and maturity hold much more water than game skills. Although, in conclusion I believe with only a few measures - as previously stated - the potential problems caused by "Newbie Guild Masters" would cease to exist.

[Guest Annatira]

Thank you all for participating. This week the judging was much more difficult, no one person was a clear standout.

 

I think the answer that won was: No, the level should not be changed, but....

 

Most people felt that something did need to be done, but a level change was not the answer.

 

I have split the winner this week, between Kheres and Aphistolas. Both made good arguments for implementing different additional requirements for guildmasters.

 

Hope to read your opinions on the next debate moot!

Edited December 8, 2007 by Annatira

[Aphistolas]

I'll see you in a few days then, Anne. I'm not able to play EL from my current location, I'll probably be able to in Sunday, though.

[Guest Annatira]

I have the prize of 1000 iron ore for each of the winners, so Kheres and Aphistolas, please contact me in game, thanks.