I seem to recall a process for becoming guild leader if the leader is no longer playing. I tried to search for the post but can't find it. I was wondering what the process is.
The /usurp command is what you are looking for. The leader needs to not have logged in for a number of months, I'm not sure how much exactly.
" The /usurp command can be used by a senior officer to become guild leader. The current guild must have no leader, or the current leader must have been offline for at least one year. Also, officers can take leadership of the guild with the /usurp command if no leader or senior officers have been online in the past year."
As a guild leader myself I think its a horrible shame that there is even a need for this command. I can't imagine just disappearing and screwing over my guildmates. Its just a matter of respect to at least transfer leadership if you intend to quit. I have also made sure that in the case that I'm in a car accident or something and die, that my guild won't be left without the ability to transfer leadership. Thats just the bare minimum that a leader should do. I have no respect whatsoever for guild leaders that have quit and could log in to transfer leadership but refuse to.
I acknowledge the need for it. I am glad it exists as a recourse for guilds to appoint a new leader in cases where the old leader abandoned their guild mates, or if someone passed away or was jailed I guess, but again, its a shame that the command is needed at all. A good guild leader would ensure that it was not necessary. Not all guild leaders are good, which is what makes the command necessary.
Ya I was quite surprised when I saw they came up with this command. The command should have been in game a long time ago. It's hard to run a guild when you don't have the permissions to change things. And people get so loyal to the guild name that they refuse to leave to start a new guild, so what do you do? I've seen guilds fall apart because of this very subject. Can you imagine a CEO of a company just taking a year off from their company and not stepping down?
I would guess that previously it was handled by Petitioning. Removing the need for human service staff is a main driver of the game's development now.
That is a neat trick! I accidentally removed the leader of my box guild on Test and was worried about having to petition to get that sorted out but now I can fix it myself. All the characters are mine so there's no issue with upsetting anyone else etc. Thanks for the info! Once Test is stable again I will get that sorted out.
I can't imagine any guild leader doing this on purpose. They generally are pretty dedicated people. But stuff happens. There is a concept in open source about how your project would survive certain people being hit by a bus.
Oh people can be far worse than that. How about someone that created the guild and transferred the leader tag coming back to petition as guild owner to take the tag back, going against the active members? This has happened. I don't know if /usurp removes the ability of someone to petition as original guild lead to steal it back, but the situation is a nightmare. If merging into a new guild tag or whatever, never ever let anyone else make the tag first then transfer it. At least in the past, it can give them nightmarish rights to spitefully mess with the guild years later. Also it shouldn't be so easy to delete guilds either.