Question about Guild Member Policy

[Eisengrad]

Wanted to thank you for all inviting me to the guild. At this point, from the old Stormscale horde guild, myself/Jeremy (Eisengrad), Mara (Shoebomber), Albert (Chimaki), Harvey (Krish), and Keith (Koshan) have made characters. I understand Schadenfreude is pretty mellow and mostly RL friends in some way or another. That is what attracted us to Uldum - we want to play with you guys/gals.

With the old horde guild slowly disintegrating, there is the potential that others, not necessarily RL friends, will want to follow. To my knowledge we have not given out any information about Schadenfreude. We understand that, despite knowing many of you for years, we are new to this guild. All guilds have unique cultures/ways of being and we want to respect that.

I'd like to understand what the boundaries are so that we are on the same page.

Thanks in advance.

- Jeremy

[Logos]

First of all, welcome! I am Kevin, Dom's cousin (in law) - in game, I'm usually Logos or Kant.

We are primarily a guild of family and friends as you say, and I think whenever this issue has come up in the past (whether to start inviting lots of other people into the guild), most people have been reluctant to do so. The guild has grown a lot in the past 6 months and I think it's great that we have enough to run 25-mans now, but I also kinda like the fact that I either know pretty much everyone in game, or am related to someone who knows them

I'm not speaking for everyone of course. And I'm not trying to put a blanket rule on adding more people either. But I am a little reluctant to start giving out broad invites to people who are only tenuously connected to our tight group. Just my opinion.

[fhatee]

I'm Joe, playing Mufhintop,

I agree with Kevin 100%. However, some quick points to digest.

The RL friend line is a little blurry at this point. I have a sneaky feeling some members of our team have only met in past games and become friends without meeting in real life.

Real life contacts can be jerks in-game: Do I need to remind you of our dear friend Stompson?

[Eisengrad]

Hmm I had been hoping a discussion would ensue... does this pretty much cover everyone's opinion?

[hung]

The forums have been pretty dead lately.
Even at its peak we had maybe 10 regular posters. In other words, its never been a very good place to poll for guild wide opinions.

Guild policy topics are best brought up in the lull before/after a raid. When attendance is at its highest. Even then you'll be polling a subset, since the people at the begining of the raid are different from the people at the end (due to east vs west coast timezones).

[Daewen]

Hm, I remember replying to this, but maybe I never got it posted before something ate it. Anyways...

Two points worth mentioning- Though we play with various people on Uldum and even have them on our "friends" list, we havn't invited them into the guild because of the (RL) friends-and-family thing. There have been exceptions, since we allow (almost) anyone to /ginvite, so in the past we've had people invite their online gaming buddies- and that's fine, most of the time it worked out well- the inviting party becomes their sponsor and responsible for them, and the invitees are given the same explanation of what kind of guild we are so they're clear on it, and made to give the Drama-Free Guarantee(tm), and then it's all fine. For example, if someone was invited that most people didn't know, the guild note might have their RL name, "friend of Soandso."

The other point is that though we do raid, we're still a 'casual' guild, and the way we do things (no attendance, no DKP) is convenient for the friends-and-family nature of the guild, and thus isn't going to be for everyone. The previously mentioned Stompson was expecting that signing up meant a guaranteed raid spot, and he only did that for the loot, never to socialize or hang out or help guildies with other stuff. So he got bent out of shape over giving the raid spot to people who really needed the gear (rather than just that one drop off Prince Malchezaar or Nightbane), and when called out on being a loot whore, he /gquit his alts- he had already bounced with his mains from raid guild to raid guild trying to grab loots from their runs. There were other social problems with Stompson, but we will not repeat them here. Actually his drama was kinda funny- first he gives the "strangers more friendly than so-called-friends" blurb, then logs out, logs back in, /gquits, logs out again, back in on the alt, /gquits there... I mean, guild drama failure.

[janin]

If a Schadenfreuder is too much of a jerk in game, they suffer
consequences in real-life. If we allow people into the guild that are
only related in game, there are no consequences for bad behavior. We
could institute consequences (e.g. loot penalties, GB access, getting
booted from the guild), but that invariably leads to drama.

I'm pretty peripheral (me -> Luke -> Dom?), but I'd certainly prefer
to see the guild remain friends/family.

Adam

[Eisengrad]

There have been exceptions, since we allow (almost) anyone to /ginvite, so in the past we've had people invite their online gaming buddies- and that's fine, most of the time it worked out well- the inviting party becomes their sponsor and responsible for them, and the invitees are given the same explanation of what kind of guild we are so they're clear on it, and made to give the Drama-Free Guarantee(tm), and then it's all fine. For example, if someone was invited that most people didn't know, the guild note might have their RL name, "friend of Soandso."

Ok, some FYI on the new cluster... sorry this is old news for many of you, just wanna have everyone informed.

Mara - RL friend of Andy, Jenny, others, met many Schadenfreuders, queen of AX reg, worked Karaoke with Hank's crew...
Myself - SO of Mara Cheng, RL friend of Andy, former AX staffer and IRC #anime! denizen, also met several Schadenfreuders at Jenny and Hung's wedding
Albert - former AX chair, IRC #anime! denizen, RL friend of myself, Andy, Harvey, ... I'm sure there's other connections in there
Harvey - former AX staffer, IRC #anime! denizen, RL friend of myself, Andy, Harvey, ... I'm sure there's other connections in there
Keith - IRC #anime! denizen, my RL friend and former roommate, long time virtual friend of Albert, Harvey, etc., former guild officer in Stormscale...

[Logos]

In the past it's been OK for someone we all know pretty well (in RL or in-game or both) to invite friends in. Having someone who just joined start to invite a bunch of people might be pushing the limits a little bit. How about we let things lie for a little while, see how things go, and then revisit this question? Does that seem fair? Maybe Andy could jump in on this conversation too.

[Daewen]

Ok, some FYI on the new cluster... sorry this is old news for many of you, just wanna have everyone informed.

Right, those almost didn't require the explanations, since there was already plenty of RL connectedness. I was referring to past cases where someone would say, invite several people they met from playing other games online, but there was little to no connection. I don't know of any incidents with those invitees, but essentially blame would have been put on the inviting party. Read that as: we would have given them RL grief and razzing for bringing drama noobs into the guild. Which goes back to what Adam (Janin) said about consequences; if we don't have a strong connection to people we bring in, all we can do is kick them out and pass the blame onto the guilty party.

So, circling back to the original topic, it'd be valid to say we're a friends-and-family guild with many people who have had the same experience of being in another guild of less-connected "online" friends, and left other dysfunctional or disintegrating guilds to just play with closely-connected friends. But we're probably not the kind of refuge for the other victims of guild asplosions.