Why do guilds need a Guild Master?

Hallothiel

Why is it that one person has to be ‘in charge’? Why can it not be set up to be a collective? Is there any real reason why that can’t be an option?

SirAndy

Btw. you can create custom guild member ranks that have all the same privileges as the GM.

This doesn't remove the GM and how the guild is bound to their account but it gives other members the opportunity to do all the same tasks one might expect from a GM.

VaranisArano

Hallothiel wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Because ownership of the guild has to be assigned to a name/playerID. You can run the guild anyway you want.

Yes, I understand that, but why can’t it be done differently?

How do you want ZOS to divide the guild assets in the case of divorce between the two guildmasters? Do they divide half of the items in the guild bank between them? Does Support need to send all correspondence to both parties?


Okay, that's kind of a humorous take on it, but that's effectively why ZOS has one guildmaster and why ESO houses have only one owner.

The Guildmaster is a singular point of contact for ZOS. The Guildmaster has a certain level of authority/ownership so in the event of a guild breakup, ZOS just shrugs. It's not their problem unless the TOS was broken in the process (such as scamming or harassment).

Beyond that, Guildmasters have a lot of freedom in how they set up their guild. Most of mine have an officer team supporting the Guildmaster. Some guilds have effectively two or more Guildmasters, where one is "officially" the owner of the guild for ZOS' purposes but they are equally integral to running the guild.

AnonomissX

Ultimately, as a former (temporary) guild master and acting Co-GM (that is how we are set up on my guild) I found you HAVE to have a functional head or it all goes "kablooey". However, a few, well-chosen and trustworthy players who have all of the same permissions as the GM has worked well for us, as well as a hierarchy of officers with some but not all duties as we do. It's been a learning process.

spartaxoxo

Because ownership of the guild has to be assigned to a name/playerID. You can run the guild anyway you want.

Hallothiel

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Because ownership of the guild has to be assigned to a name/playerID. You can run the guild anyway you want.

Yes, I understand that, but why can’t it be done differently?

spartaxoxo

Hallothiel wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Because ownership of the guild has to be assigned to a name/playerID. You can run the guild anyway you want.

Yes, I understand that, but why can’t it be done differently?

How would that even be feasible? 500 copies of the same guild? All interlinked? Like it's database thing. There has to be a guild master so ZOS can just provide basic functionality. Why does it matter if you can have any management style you please? Does your guild want to kick the guild leader or something?

ankeor

Well.. Because of human nature.
We can't ever achive collective mindset for anything.
Even if there are people who are willing to compremise their way that's not the case for everyone.

And can you imagine? You have 500 people in a guild and each of them has access to full management of one guild.
Can you imagine the mess?
And how can you make anything work?
Will hundreds of people come together for every single decision we make for a guild?
Who even has time for that?

virtus753

I can think of a few practical reasons in addition to the philosophical.

If there is one GM, then ZOS has firmer ground to stand on in saying "guild matters are up to the GM" and "we would never interfere with the GM's decisions" (as they have said). It makes it much easier on the devs to be hands off. Along similar lines, there would also be more instances in which a collective might want or need to rely on ZOS for support to settle management concerns, whereas having one GM lowers the chance that there will be an irreconcilable internal management dispute requiring ZOS to step in. It also means that if there is a problem with the guild, then there is one person formally responsible and ZOS has only that one person to interact with rather than a number of people.

Programming wise, it would probably also require new coding to allow for multiple GMs, since there are features that only GMs can control. ZOS does not seem to be interested in spending the resources on expanding or rewriting guild functions. (I don't mean getting people into guild as with the Guild Finder, but the various permissions and abilities to do things with a guild, like guild-wide emails, or more nuanced permissions to edit notes, etc.)

AlnilamE

Hallothiel wrote: »

Why is it that one person has to be ‘in charge’? Why can it not be set up to be a collective? Is there any real reason why that can’t be an option?

That was the argument my guild made during beta. They had a collective leadership.

Their solution was to cycle the GM position through the Council, and in game, the GM rank is "Tyrant" as a joke.

There is no penalty in ESO for passing guild leadership to someone else, so it works out well.

RedMuse

I've played a few games where you could have more than one guild leader, the problems that arose and that support had to deal with when conflict between guild leadership was always facepalm worthy. It is a terrible idea because humans will human.

El_Borracho

Hallothiel wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Because ownership of the guild has to be assigned to a name/playerID. You can run the guild anyway you want.

Yes, I understand that, but why can’t it be done differently?

That would inevitably lead to someone robbing the guild's bank and upsetting everyone. You can have officers who have the powers of the GM if you want

PeacefulAnarchy

Because when there's a conflict someone needs to decide. (who gets kicked from the guild, who can deposit or withdraw from guild bank, who can bid on a trader, etc). There are other ways to do that beyond having one person at the top, of course, but then they'd have to program things like councils or votes or whatever other methods.

You can have officers who have all the permissions except kicking out the guild leader, so you can run a guild as a collective if you want. If you don't trust the guild leader to not exercise their one extra power (locking others out) then your guild as a collective probably wasn't going to work anyway.

Girl_Number8

It is how ZoS set it up in ESO, much like when you pick a GT. In ESO a player must create the guild. They can however give almost the same permissions to any other members.

Most GMs create several officers and a manager to help them accomplish guild goals. Very few players are able to give the time and dedication it takes to even create a successful guild.

There have been some unscrupulous players that have tried to rob the guild by wanting ZOS to kick the GM. Thankfully ZOS has not entertained this.

A GM can give the guild to someone else though.

Hallothiel

Thanks for the replies; it’s just my political leaning is towards the collective/co-operative, rather than hierarchical. As sometimes people let things like becoming a nominal GM by ‘accident’ go to their head.

PizzaCat82

Yeah its a bit short sighted to have only 1 type of collective structure in the game, but ZOS probably has better things to worry about then adding in complicated group dynamics.

AcadianPaladin

My only concern in this area is guild halls. My guild's hall belongs to one member. Though many members of the guild have contributed countless amenities ranging from mundus stones and training dummies to countless attunable tables, all those items must be the property and bound to the one person who owns the guild hall. If that person leaves the guild, for any reason, I figure the facility and all its amenities are gone since they are tied to that one account.

I wonder if it would be possible for a guild to purchase a home and amenities in such a manner that it belongs to the guild, under the management of the GM. That way, if the GM has to pass their mantle, the ownership of the guild hall and amenities could remain with the guild.

Goregrinder

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

My only concern in this area is guild halls. My guild's hall belongs to one member. Though many members of the guild have contributed countless amenities ranging from mundus stones and training dummies to countless attunable tables, all those items must be the property and bound to the one person who owns the guild hall. If that person leaves the guild, for any reason, I figure the facility and all its amenities are gone since they are tied to that one account.

I wonder if it would be possible for a guild to purchase a home and amenities in such a manner that it belongs to the guild, under the management of the GM. That way, if the GM has to pass their mantle, the ownership of the guild hall and amenities could remain with the guild.

My question would be, if everyone leaves the guild including the GL, what happens to the house and items...it just sits there?

Jayman1000

Hallothiel wrote: »

Why is it that one person has to be ‘in charge’? Why can it not be set up to be a collective? Is there any real reason why that can’t be an option?

Imo collective guild leadership could be really fun. Other games have experimented which such things. I recall a game where you could have kingdoms and a king. The members of the kingdom could secrectly vote for a rebellion to elect a new king, nothing would happen and no one would know anything until more than 60% votes were in favour for another player to be king. I think such things are super fun, and why not offer the possibility to make different leadership styles if players wanted it. But obviously, ESO being as mainstream as it is I doubt anything else than the current traditional guild setup will happen; this is how they want the game to work and while I love far more experimental and weird crazy stuff I respect fully that this is their game and that they want to run it more traditionally and more mainstream. It does seem to work in terms of their business model.

Cendrillion21

Ugh. I was in a guild that tried to run things as a collective. Every decision had to go to a committee, seven people had to be online at the same time to vote, nothing got done/handled. Plus the lack of accountability that can happen when you're anonymous led to bad behavior that just went unchecked. I'm GM of a small social guild that pretty much runs itself but if a situation requires leadership either myself or one of my officers will handle it without hesitation.

marshill88

Hallothiel wrote: »

Why is it that one person has to be ‘in charge’? Why can it not be set up to be a collective? Is there any real reason why that can’t be an option?

socialism is extremely hard to program and in this game the logistics of a collective guild has to overcome massive logical hurdles....someone has to be in power at the end of the day, a socialism guild trader system just wouldn't work.

marshill88

Cendrillion21 wrote: »

Ugh. I was in a guild that tried to run things as a collective. Every decision had to go to a committee, seven people had to be online at the same time to vote, nothing got done/handled. Plus the lack of accountability that can happen when you're anonymous led to bad behavior that just went unchecked. I'm GM of a small social guild that pretty much runs itself but if a situation requires leadership either myself or one of my officers will handle it without hesitation.

indeed.....running even a small group...let alone a society (in this case a society of players)...off a collective without any kind of power structure beyond the collective itself is simply impossible given human nature. it will never work imho.

EmEm_Oh

Hallothiel wrote: »

Why is it that one person has to be ‘in charge’? Why can it not be set up to be a collective? Is there any real reason why that can’t be an option?

Do you know what the divorce rate of couples is just in the US alone?

XvarleyX

Hallothiel wrote: »

Thanks for the replies; it’s just my political leaning is towards the collective/co-operative, rather than hierarchical. As sometimes people let things like becoming a nominal GM by ‘accident’ go to their head.

Your political leanings should stay out of video games, imo.

AgentZenish

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

My only concern in this area is guild halls. My guild's hall belongs to one member. Though many members of the guild have contributed countless amenities ranging from mundus stones and training dummies to countless attunable tables, all those items must be the property and bound to the one person who owns the guild hall. If that person leaves the guild, for any reason, I figure the facility and all its amenities are gone since they are tied to that one account.

I wonder if it would be possible for a guild to purchase a home and amenities in such a manner that it belongs to the guild, under the management of the GM. That way, if the GM has to pass their mantle, the ownership of the guild hall and amenities could remain with the guild.

Some times guilds use a separate account to hold the guild hall. If I am in Super Awesome Guild, there will be a superawesomeguild account, which is handled by the GM/Council. This way, if the GM decides to step down, the guild account can be passed to the person who takes over.

spartaxoxo

XvarleyX wrote: »

Hallothiel wrote: »

Thanks for the replies; it’s just my political leaning is towards the collective/co-operative, rather than hierarchical. As sometimes people let things like becoming a nominal GM by ‘accident’ go to their head.

Your political leanings should stay out of video games, imo.

So guilds should just not exist?

JKorr

Hallothiel wrote: »

Why is it that one person has to be ‘in charge’? Why can it not be set up to be a collective? Is there any real reason why that can’t be an option?

"I bid on the trader at Vulkhel Guard for the guild."

"No, WHY!? Two of us decided that we should bid at Rawlkha."

"Wait, I thought the guild was DC, so I bid for a trader in Daggerfall."

"Don't forget, world boss run in Wrothgar tonight."

"I thought we were doing trials."

"No, this is drunk fishing in Cryrodiil tonight."

Gosh. I wonder why having a governing structure in place is a good idea.... Can you run a guild by committee? Yes, you can. That kinda covers the officers. Can you debate bidding duties, funding efforts and guild events? Of course. Want to get things accomplished before the guild members get bored and drop the guild? Having someone to make a final decision is a good idea.

EDIT: because autocorrect isn't

Nova Sky

Can you believe it, OP? Dragons! Dragons in your own guild!

JKorr

Hallothiel wrote: »

Thanks for the replies; it’s just my political leaning is towards the collective/co-operative, rather than hierarchical. As sometimes people let things like becoming a nominal GM by ‘accident’ go to their head.

If the GM or officers turn into tinpot dictators with delusions of godhood you can always drop the guild.