I am appalled with the process that Sony has set up for guilds that have no active leadership. Years ago I created a guild and had to pay real money to create it. A few yrs later I made what I thought was a friend a co-leader and they turned around and demoted me from guild leader. I was forced to leave my own guild. The guild died in less than a month after I was gone. ALL the guild leaders stopped playing EQ2 completely. For over 9 months they had not logged in. All their alts were officers and had not logged in for over one year. Over a year later I was lucky enough to find a friend that was still a member of that guild and they invited one of my toons. I went through the process of petitioning Sony to put to vote a new leader BUT because Sony sends an email to the guild leaders, one of these ppl logged in for the first time in over 9 months and removed every new member from that guild and Im sure refused handing the leadership over to another member. I even suspect that my friend that invited my alt to the guild was removed. These guild leaders choose to leave game and should not be given any consideration by Sony or the members of the guild. Being MIA for over 9 months, they left the game, period. Now I will assume that this so called guild leader will log in every 59 days for one minute since Sony has informed them that someone wanted to become the leader of the guild. It doesn't makes sense for Sony to send an email to the very people that active members want to replace when those people have left the game in the first place. Ive been paying for my sub for over 15 yrs now and now I find that that makes little difference to Sony. They would rather think they are being considerate to the SO CALLED guild leader first. These people aren't even paying to play anymore let alone give a hoot about the game. I feel it might be time to cancel my 3 accounts after 15+ years and go find another company to screw me over. Thanks for nothing Sony.
You did make someone else leader. Not to be harsh, but as soon as you made them leader, you gave them the ability to remove you. Why did this supposed friend remove you? Did you have a fight? Could you try talking to them?
it is very important to have someone you trust as a co-leader. Really though, i thought that the original owner was manager of the guild. don't they own even the building? there should be a better way to protect yourself if you create a guild. it would suck to know that you can never have a co-leader because they can steal a guild from you. Thank goodness- knock on wood- i have a good co-leader. I chose him for his integrity and because i feel he is a good leader and can do what is needed if something happens to me- an important thing since my health is not the best.
Well I thought I could trust the person. I knew him for over 3 yrs in game. But tbh I think I was scammed right from the start by him and a few others and didn't realize it till it was too late. I gave no reason for him to demote me other than they wanted the guild from me 100%. One would think if you paid real money for a guild that you have complete immunity from anyone demoting you but you don't. As Sony states, all guild leaders have equal rights to demote ANY lvl rank including another guild leader. I have since started a new guild and I am the only leader in it due to this scam job. But it is really sad when we cant trust others and that Sony allows such things as this to happen. Makes no sense to give a leader the heads up via email when they clearly have stopped playing the game. So this guild will still be inactive due to what I call SS, [Sony Sense]. SS more and more makes less sense to us the players. Makes more common sense for Sony to send them an in-game mail. Then IF they do happen to log during the 1 week vote process they can stop the process. And Ive decided I wont be renewing my 3 memberships after this. Thanks again Dev's for another smart move.
To be fair to the Dev's they only implement what the management wants. Put the blame where it belongs not on the people who do what they can within the strictures placed on them from above.
i'm not sure who is to blame for some of the decisions soe makes. they certainly have some odd ideas on what is fair to the paying customer - in all of their games. i can tell you though that being bought with real money means nothing to them. in eq1, i spent a lot of money on guild halls and guild villages- only to be evicted if i don't log in every month on at least one toon in the guild and every three months on all of my toons that own houses. and with all access, i simply don't have time to bring all of those toons in but i use the houses. i only play a few toons at a time - not all of them. so it doesn't surprise me that they don't have rules in place to protect leaders from having their guilds stolen. When i was first planning my guild, i had read that guild leaders could not be demoted. i was surprised to find that they could. in fact it was posted in this update that the change was made: http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Update:05 before then, guild leaders could not be demoted.
I have had this problem myself and it was the GM that told me the Developers set those rules. Now as to where the buck stops is hard to really say here but if any player buys an item with real money it is their property period. What is the difference between me buying a mount or prestige house with sc or a guild? Are they not all mine? Guilds today are not bought with sc thus they can belong to no one according to Sony. But before this was so, real money exchanged hands between Sony and a player. Sony truly needs to fix this problem. Here is a simple solution to fix it....... Whom ever creates or bought a guild is the owner of said guild. They cannot be demoted or removed by anyone but themselves. Any other guild leader should have Co-leader rank not guild leader rank. There should never be more than one person that "owns" a guild and yes all guilds should have a person called owner or creator, both not being able to be demoted or removed from THEIR guild. If at best, Sony needs to refund the money spent to purchase that guild puppybreath speaks of. After all it is their rule that allowed it to be taken in the first place.
Well seems that when Sony was so kind as to notify the guild leaders that left eq2 over 9 months ago and took my guild from me, when that thief logged in they removed every member of that guild and left only 10 accounts in it. I cant believe how Sony treats us. If they looked at the records they would see that all these so called leaders and members all joined in 2013 but one and that alt of the present guild leader joined 7 months after I paid to create the guild. I can prove which of my toons paid for the guild yet that means nothing. Guess numbers mean nothing to Sony unless its dollar signs in their pockets. Everyone be warned!!!!! If you want to retain leadership of YOUR guild, make sure you are the ONLY guild leader. Sony has forced our hand so we cannot share less taking huge risk!
I sympathize with the original poster. I understand that SOE setup EQ2 guilds the way they did so that they would be self-sufficient, and so that they would not be put in a position to have to settle disputes one-at-a-time, because there would be no way to do it without accusations of favoritism. But the idea that 1 person -- who NEVER plays and only logs in once a year -- can keep a guild hostage that its members have spent tens of thousands of hours building chills me to my bones. There should be a way to detect an absentee guild leader by # of hours played in the last 12 months, and there should be a way to put these kinds of things to a vote. It would have to be an established policy. For those who say "Have you tried talking to this person?" we are talking about manipulative people who have tricked their way into leadership positions and now are laughing all the way to the bank. Their enjoyment of the game is in bullying others. Negotiation in these situations is neigh impossible because they've already got exactly what they wanted. And for those who say "Just start a new guild" would you set your real life house on fire and just start over? Some people truly have invested that much time in their guild halls.
I did start another guild after that. Even tho I lvl'd the other guild to lvl 52 by myself, and all the while my toons were low lvl and TS were low so it took a long time solo lvl'd the guild, I was not going to let my idea of a good guild be burnt to ashes by these low-life ppl. My new guild is doing well and the ppl in it all are decent ppl but again, there is only ONE GUILD LEADER and its me. I hope these guys break both their big toes. IDK Im very tempted to mention the name of the guild so if by chance anyone gets a blind invite one day they have one less mistake to worry about. But I cant, Im a better person than they are, I wont stoop.
that's the problem in a nutshell. the eula says you agree that it is NOT your property. it is virtual property and belongs to soe no matter how often or how much we pay. soe can take it from you at any time they choose and allow others to steal it from you as well. it isn't yours. but that aside, i so agree that there needs to be a system in place where no one can steal a guild from the founder. make the founder Manager - above Leader or Co-Leader - and therefore unremovable. don't let anyone else be manager- just the founder. that would solve a lot of problems. I had heard and even read about people taking over an existing guild in a coup- but i thought it was just talk and conjecture. i guess not.
if its one thing I have learned in my 10 years of playing this game never make anyone else leader and if you plan on taking a leave of absence you better log your butt in before your 60 days is up you can only be abscent for 60 days then a leadership vote will take place
Making a guild on regular servers has NEVER EVER cost real money. I don't know what it was like on the EQX server when that was around for the 1-1.5 years it was around. There is no call jumping on someone when clearly you also have a lack of information. SOE can't police everyone from other players. There's been cases for both sides, guild leaders getting removed and for guild members getting stuck with no power in a leaderless guild (aka guild where the leader has gone and no one can get in touch with them). A guild is a joint venture. You can't make one without at least 6 other accounts. It's not the sole property of any one individual unless you have made a personal guild. Now if there were some 'founder' rank in the guild for the person who actually hit the button at the guild registrar, that would work I think, as long as guild where the founder goes missing can still get someone else made leader.
right. and a leader doesn't have to be the founder. the founder should be the manager and owner. but if a guild needs a leader they should be able to choose one. this is how it is done on eq1. the account that creates the guild is the owner of it. no one can take it away. that owner can allow others to be leader, but for a guild to be deleted or renamed or anything else done to it, the actual owner had to step up. I had a problem in one of mine when i transferred my owner to another server. i forgot to appoint someone else as leader. i had to show that i actually owned both the owner that got transferred and the one who was taking over. to make another guild on that server on that account, i would have had to delete the guild.
In the end, we ALL make mistakes. And if we trusted no one what a sad world this would be. Face it, there are low lifes out there that have nothing better to do but to make others suffer for their pleasure. EVERY person that creates a guild should be called OWNER, PERIOD. They are safe from guild theft. Guild leaders are a lower rank but have all the same permissions the have now except removing or demoting OWNER. Pretty simple if you ask me. Stops those that enjoy screwing up game for others. Being out of game for 60 days or more does not apply to the OWNER. And Owner of the guild is sent an EMAIL from Sony when a vote it being held for new guild leader. This allows the Owner to assign a new guild leader. The Owner will most likely make someone that is active leader. Sony can easily prevent others from removing the person who created the guild yet they choose to inform the present leaders that have left the game that their guild is going to elect a new leader. Where is the democratic process in this? What is the point to the vote when Sony EMAILS not game mail the very ppl that have abandon the guild and or game? At best Sony should send INgame mail to leaders. Then if they do log in in the next 7 days they can assign a new leader or become active in guild/game again. As it is now, all the MIA leaders have to do is log in for ONE MINUTE every 60 days to maintain leadership. How does this define an active guild leader? When Sony corrects this HUGE mistake, they need to give back OWNERSHIP to all people that created guilds in the past where this exact thing has happened to. Give them the right to control THEIR guild!
So the OP never made an attempt to get this rectified when they were ousted? They claimed to have paid for the guild with station cash (eq2x freeport server) and never made a stink about it at the time, but only well over a year after they were kicked? I am sorry that happened, but I think I would have been a bit more careful at who I made leader and secondly I would have attempted to rectify this at the time it happened, not well over a year later as you posted.
sounds like he tried to follow protocol and procedure. yeah i would have been upset if it happened to me. and i would have been complaining. but who is to say he didn't? sony has "plans" in place and expects you to follow them. they may be wrong, but that is how they expect you to do. he first had to get invited back to his own guild so that he could petition for leadership. don't blame him for following the rules- blame the rule-makers for the mess they created.
Promoting someone else to leader gives them equal power. Just as you can demote them, they can demote you. The system makes perfect sense.
to a point yes. but that is the point of it all. it makes sense for leaders to be able to demote each other. but it doesn't make sense that if someone started the guild and is the owner of it then someone else can come along and worm their way into his trust just to get their hands on an established guild. i don't think that was the intention when the system was set up, but that is the way it works out in some cases. there needs to be something else in place to protect the founder of the guild from such manipulations. it makes sense to have co-leaders. things can happen in real life. i guess we could use the senior officer position for this, but what most guild leaders fear is that something will happen to them in real life and they won't be available for a short while to take care of the guild. such as family emergencies, hurricanes, other natural disasters, or even personal health. we try to prepare for such things by promoting someone we trust to help lead the guild. when someone takes advantage of that to take over a guild and rip it away, it is as hurtful as it would be for someone to come in and steal a company you started and worked with until it was prosperous. this i think was were the devs were shortsighted. they should have realized what a mess this would make and set some basic rules to protect the person who went through the trouble to start the guild and nourish it.
