GM PSA: Protect your legacy

kringled_1

Danikat wrote: »

bellablithely wrote: »

I think this experience highlights one of the flaws in the way that Guilds are managed as part of the game. There needs to be a better system or clearer guidance as to what to expect.

I'd like to think ZOS will learn from this and make a few changes so it doesn't happen again to another guild, but I'm not feeling that optimistic today, so...

I think one solution would be an option to have two or three GMs. The person who creates the guild (or currently has that rank) can choose to promote other people as well and then they have full, equal control over the guild, at the same rank.

It would be up to them to decide if they all run the guild together or if one person is the 'active' GM and the others are backups, but the point is if something like this happens (or if the leader is sick or their house is caught in a tornado or whatever means they can't log in for a long time) someone else already has all the necessary permissions to take over and keep things running.

Of course they'd need to trust each other not to steal the guild, wipe the bank or otherwise abuse their power, but since the guild would start with only 1 leader if they don't trust someone with full control of their guild they can simply not promote them to that rank.

I believe that under the current system, any guild can only have one GM. The guild can have multiple people with almost as much permission as a GM, other than the ability to replace the GM, and I'd guess that's what Rose's had in their admin rank, but that apparently isn't enough for customer support.

kevkj

Customer service failed attempt to hijack control of guild bank for personal gain.

DragonRacer

That boggles my mind. You’d think the simplest solution would be - with obvious evidence of death - ZOS could pass the guild to the next highest-ranked officer showing recent logins.

I’d prefer, in the event of my untimely demise, that it should be OBVIOUS to pass the guild to someone literally labeled as my co-GM, rather than to have the world’s dumbest and most awkward conversation with my husband that, should I die before him, while he is in the midst of agonizing grief and sorting out financials/estate details, etc that he should also be mindful to log into my PS5, navigate a game he has never played before, and miraculously give Crown to my co-GM so 499 people don’t suffer more on top of, you know, tragically losing their GM.

ZOS, pls.

I understand some measures need to be in place to avoid attempted coups-via-support by potentially unscrupulous guild members/officers should drama occur, but after 60 days passing Crown to the first rando they see in roster ain’t it.

DragonRacer

I mean, seriously, imagine writing that into your will - that you can’t trust customer support to do the right thing, so you have to keep updating your will with any login password changes so your next of kin or the executor of your estate or whatever can log into your ESO account and pass Crown to the obvious next-in-line.

*JustinTimberlakeDisappointedStare.gif*

QueenMisi

It's not in my will (because I really need to get round to making one) but I have a family member who knows to contact someone on Roses discord, log my game, and get talked through transferring the guild if I die. It sounds dramatic but we have 2500 people in Rose Guilds, 500 in Midnight Rose which I hold, and 5300 on the Discord server which I also hold. I need those people to be crying over the Tragic Loss Of Me, not worrying about guild stuff 😁

And don't even get me started on how my guild hall will effectively become useless as new craftable sets come out...

TaSheen

QueenMisi wrote: »

It's not in my will (because I really need to get round to making one) but I have a family member who knows to contact someone on Roses discord, log my game, and get talked through transferring the guild if I die. It sounds dramatic but we have 2500 people in Rose Guilds, 500 in Midnight Rose which I hold, and 5300 on the Discord server which I also hold. I need those people to be crying over the Tragic Loss Of Me, not worrying about guild stuff 😁

And don't even get me started on how my guild hall will effectively become useless as new craftable sets come out...

*salute* Only my daughter and I have ever said stuff like that. She's got (besides the stuff in my will - I'm mid-70s so.... yeah....) a "vault" full of all my online stuff. For a long time, I had Deadman Switch set up, but like a lot of other things, it went away decades ago.

I trust my daughter like no one else in this world (well.... I trust husband that way too - but he's basically technologically incompetent; he's nearly 90, and - just doesn't "get" today's world). She has access to everything - and any time I make a change to a password, I send her the updated "vault" so she can keep on top of things.

There are very good friends she will need to contact when something happens to me - and that's outside the normal day to day stuff like financials. My friends are very important to me, and having been left wondering for months what happened to a couple of them myself.... I don't want my friends to wonder and worry.

Actually, we all have fail-safes in place. We've all played TES since forever, and we are all "best friends forever". All of us have family who know who to contact in case....

I never used to even think of this. And then.... Neil died. And we didn't know what happened for over 6 months.... We were all wrecks for a year....

[Late edit for obvious typos *sigh*]

QueenMisi

A conclusion, sort of
I have heard back from support about how a successor is decided, and they've said both of today's appointments by them were mistakes.

So, obviously not ideal, but if someone is reading this in the future because they're in the same boat: it IS worth banging away at support. And make sure that more than one trusted person has full bank access, so that they can hide the money in the meantime 😁

TaSheen

Awesome! I'm glad to find out that if mistakes are made, they are at least admitted to. After you get through the inevitable mourning process, I hope your guilds will be fine going forward.

My best to all of you, though you don't know me of course!

Danikat

kringled_1 wrote: »

Danikat wrote: »

bellablithely wrote: »

I think this experience highlights one of the flaws in the way that Guilds are managed as part of the game. There needs to be a better system or clearer guidance as to what to expect.

I'd like to think ZOS will learn from this and make a few changes so it doesn't happen again to another guild, but I'm not feeling that optimistic today, so...

I think one solution would be an option to have two or three GMs. The person who creates the guild (or currently has that rank) can choose to promote other people as well and then they have full, equal control over the guild, at the same rank.

It would be up to them to decide if they all run the guild together or if one person is the 'active' GM and the others are backups, but the point is if something like this happens (or if the leader is sick or their house is caught in a tornado or whatever means they can't log in for a long time) someone else already has all the necessary permissions to take over and keep things running.

Of course they'd need to trust each other not to steal the guild, wipe the bank or otherwise abuse their power, but since the guild would start with only 1 leader if they don't trust someone with full control of their guild they can simply not promote them to that rank.

I believe that under the current system, any guild can only have one GM. The guild can have multiple people with almost as much permission as a GM, other than the ability to replace the GM, and I'd guess that's what Rose's had in their admin rank, but that apparently isn't enough for customer support.

Yes I know. That's why I suggested ZOS (and other games) should change it to allow more.

That way players would be less likely to end up in an abandoned guild and support wouldn't end up in this situation where they apparently had to make a wild guess at who to pass the guild to and then deal with another support ticket when they got it wrong.

DragonRacer wrote: »

I mean, seriously, imagine writing that into your will - that you can’t trust customer support to do the right thing, so you have to keep updating your will with any login password changes so your next of kin or the executor of your estate or whatever can log into your ESO account and pass Crown to the obvious next-in-line.

*JustinTimberlakeDisappointedStare.gif*

I know it's not the point of the conversation, but apparently there are sites where you can store login details and other important contacts with info on who to send them to (which are easier to update than a will) and then when they're notified of your death they will send it all out automatically.

Thankfully I've not seen it in action yet but my parents set one up after my grandad died and they had trouble even finding out who to contact. Which is good because I'm in the same situation. I know they're in some professional organisations, clubs etc. but I don't even know the actual names, let alone who to contact.

Although that's not completely fool proof either. My parents are only in their 60's and hopefully still have a long time to live, I don't know if there's any guarantee the site will still be around after they die.

For now I'm using the much more low-tech solution of having a word document on a protected (and usually offline) hard drive with my passwords which my husband knows how to find should he need it.

ghastley

A great cncern for some guilds is that the guildhall, with all its crafting stations, is tied to one account, and can’t be passed on. I hope this was not the situation here.

CGPsaint

Compassion and empathy go right out the window when you're trying to deal with companies after the death of a loved one. When my father passed away we had to jump through some pretty ridiculous hoops to get access to his eBay/Paypal accounts, Ring Doorbell account, email, etc. It was a complete nightmare even with a death certificate, so I can certainly understand your frustrations. Hopefully you find yourself in touch with someone who is willing to put in a little bit of extra effort to help you out.

QueenMisi

ghastley wrote: »

A great cncern for some guilds is that the guildhall, with all its crafting stations, is tied to one account, and can’t be passed on. I hope this was not the situation here.

It was and it wasn't. As a bigger guild, we had at the time 4 guild halls that were 100% kitted out. Obviously Necrom means that the deceased GM's hall was out of date almost immediately, but we still have the other 3. We have our own Rose Guilds Guild Halls addon, so it's very easy for members to use any of the guild halls - literally one click on a tiny rose icon above the chatbox

I can see how awful it would be for guilds with only one guild hall, though. It's soooo expensive to get fully kitted out, but of course I imagine in ZOS's eyes that's a positive