templar_heal wrote: »

What is really irritating for me is that you actually can't delete this guild messages after reading them! They just stuck in your post until expiring!

This is likely an addon conflict. Hopefully the related addons will get updates soon.

Also another tip for another addon issue:
If you can't open the Guild Mail section - click it, close mail, reopen and click again. It should open on the 2nd try.

For GMs/Officers:
*delete* guild mails that are no longer relevant (like for a raffle that's been drawn). This will retract it from everyone's inboxes and help reduce clutter.

hiyde wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Everything I need to know is posted in Discord for us to see at our own leisure.

The point is that different people pay attention to different things. For every "I'd prefer everything be on Discord" person, there's a person that doesn't use Discord or ignores notifications. If you were the only member of my guild, I'd be happy to tailor communication to your exact preferences! But we're talking about 500 people who all engage in different ways.

First and foremost, Guilds should be able to effectively communicate activities *in* the game. Guild Mail is a terrific tool to have in the toolbox. Other platforms like Discord, Social Media, website, etc are also good to do.

I'm noticing some folks displaying quite a bit of animosity towards GMs & Officers trying to communicate with their guilds, ( I've also not seen one complaint from anyone getting carpet-bombed with overwhelming amounts of Guild Mail.)

GMs and Officers are unpaid volunteers who are donating their time to providing you a great guild and trying to use various tools to let people know what's going on with the guild and to deliver on whatever the guild has promised to it's members. An active Guild & Officer team should be treasured, not treated as an annoyance.

If a guild is sending you multiple raffle mails, it means *they are trying to pay for the bid* that won the kiosk you are selling on. They are trying to get as many people as possible to share the costs of it, instead of relying on a select few big contributors. That's a really good thing.

In exchange for the features the guild is providing, is it really that big of a deal to scan their mails for information that interests you and ignore if it doesn't? I am sad to see some of the responses here.

Also, not everyone is an E-Mail marketing expert. Give them some time to figure out best uses. Provide constructive feedback. If you truly cannot stomach Guild Mail, find a guild that communicates less (or make one!).

I wouldn't say it's animosity on my end, it's just more of communicating preferences and frustrations with the existing system. I'm not blaming GMs for what they have to do. It's just not for me because my threshold is pretty low from other stressors. A lot of guilds demand you join discord, participate in raffles, donate - the list goes on. It does start to feel like a job after a while. I've been in guilds that overshare, and this is one more avenue for that, so it's helpful to share how it impacts people.

And I get it from the GM perspective, I do. You guys are providing a service. When I was a more active trader, those services were helpful. Now, with a stressful job, a toddler, and an infant, the last thing I want to deal with is a guild asking for donations and my time.

hiyde wrote: »

Destai wrote: »

I wouldn't say it's animosity on my end, it's just more of communicating preferences and frustrations with the existing system. I'm not blaming GMs for what they have to do. It's just not for me because my threshold is pretty low from other stressors. A lot of guilds demand you join discord, participate in raffles, donate - the list goes on. It does start to feel like a job after a while. I've been in guilds that overshare, and this is one more avenue for that, so it's helpful to share how it impacts people.

And I get it from the GM perspective, I do. You guys are providing a service. When I was a more active trader, those services were helpful. Now, with a stressful job, a toddler, and an infant, the last thing I want to deal with is a guild asking for donations and my time.

I appreciate the productive dialogue. I could be wrong, but it sounds like you may have joined guild(s) for highly active traders and your situation changed. If you aren't able to support them at the level they need/want, it might make sense to change guilds. There are trade guilds in good locations that are more laid back with little or no requirements. There are chill social guilds that don't make you join Discord or attend PvP nights. Hell there are guilds out there that only exist for free ports, or to provide a guild crafting house (we actually have a low-key 3rd guild that purely exists for Guild Houses crafting access (it's on PC-NA and our Crafting Village / Target Dummy area is beautiful and organized for quick access to everything - if anyone needs a quiet guild like that on PC-NA, hit me up here or in-game!).

For the trade guild(s) you're in, perhaps reach out to the management, tell them your RL situation has changed and ask if the support you're providing now is sufficient to stay.

In the case of guild mail, we're talking about clicking through some mails to turn off the "new" indicator and maybe clicking x to delete. Not a huge deal if the guild is worth it otherwise.

Also just to be clear, I'm not in favor of endless Guild Mail spam. We send 2-3 per week and strive to ensure they are interesting/entertainting and/or contain solid content that we feel members would find value in. Like any communications platform if low quality repetitive messages are sent, the danger of people tuning out/ignoring it rises.

And if anyone in my guilds has an issue with our communications, I welcome the feedback and would absolutely adapt good suggestions. What I don't welcome is some of the disdain I've been seeing. Most of us are trying to do our best to help others get the most out of ESO and make our guild a helpful ESO community.

This. I know I said I made my last post on all this, but what you summed up above kinda gives voice to the awkwardness I was feeling in this thread last night.

Asking that guilds not abuse this new system by spamming multiple mails a day/multiple mails a week/mails that have no purpose or don’t contribute is completely and totally valid. It’s logical. It’s fair. I myself am also a human being with a busy life besides being a GM here and I myself don’t want to be spammed with guild mails.

It’s the attitude of “if you dare send more than one mail every few months” or “if my trader guild sends even ONE mail about raffle, I am immediately quitting that guild!” that I found wildly shocking. I don’t think that’s a very fair or reasonable onus to put on your guild’s GM or officers, particularly the latter which is essentially a direct quote from a post in this very thread. It comes off as guilting people about using a new, wanted feature at all like how dare we.

Surely there is a happy medium.

DragonRacer wrote: »

It’s the attitude of “if you dare send more than one mail every few months” or “if my trader guild sends even ONE mail about raffle, I am immediately quitting that guild!” that I found wildly shocking. I don’t think that’s a very fair or reasonable onus to put on your guild’s GM or officers, particularly the latter which is essentially a direct quote from a post in this very thread. It comes off as guilting people about using a new, wanted feature at all like how dare we.

Surely there is a happy medium.

Here's where that statement comes from. I was in a guild that updated the MOTD multiple times an hour. I typically don't mind if it's once a day or whatever, but it was every time I turned around. So right away, they're overcommunicating. Now, typically, I don't play with the chat window on, and when I do, literally all I see is raffles and auctions from these guys. Again, nothing wrong with that, just not my thing. But then, test emails started coming out, and then the raffle email landed. I made the decision that guild's not for me. I know where it was going and that's that.

But taking a step back here, here's what I see right on log in:
1. Guild MOTDs
2. Crown Store pop ups.
3. Crafter emails.
4. Tomes dailies.
5. Whatever event thing is going on.
6. The latest golden pursuit.
7. Curtaros. God.
8. Someone spamming spells.

It can be a lot. Now, I do apologize for coming off as cranky. Newborn has me sleeping really little, but still wanted to convey where these mailers can quickly land in some annoying territory. I take ownership of the fact that a lot of it is on me and my situation, and I adjust my memberships and setting accordingly. But in the interest of the community building, it's good to know some people have lower thresholds. Best of luck finding that happy medium.

Destai wrote: »

DragonRacer wrote: »

It’s the attitude of “if you dare send more than one mail every few months” or “if my trader guild sends even ONE mail about raffle, I am immediately quitting that guild!” that I found wildly shocking. I don’t think that’s a very fair or reasonable onus to put on your guild’s GM or officers, particularly the latter which is essentially a direct quote from a post in this very thread. It comes off as guilting people about using a new, wanted feature at all like how dare we.

Surely there is a happy medium.

Here's where that statement comes from. I was in a guild that updated the MOTD multiple times an hour. I typically don't mind if it's once a day or whatever, but it was every time I turned around. So right away, they're overcommunicating. Now, typically, I don't play with the chat window on, and when I do, literally all I see is raffles and auctions from these guys. Again, nothing wrong with that, just not my thing. But then, test emails started coming out, and then the raffle email landed. I made the decision that guild's not for me. I know where it was going and that's that.

But taking a step back here, here's what I see right on log in:
1. Guild MOTDs
2. Crown Store pop ups.
3. Crafter emails.
4. Tomes dailies.
5. Whatever event thing is going on.
6. The latest golden pursuit.
7. Curtaros. God.
8. Someone spamming spells.

It can be a lot. Now, I do apologize for coming off as cranky. Newborn has me sleeping really little, but still wanted to convey where these mailers can quickly land in some annoying territory. I take ownership of the fact that a lot of it is on me and my situation, and I adjust my memberships and setting accordingly. But in the interest of the community building, it's good to know some people have lower thresholds. Best of luck finding that happy medium.

I do agree ESO in general has a ton of notification overload.

And that guild sounds entirely over the top, I agree on that very clearly. That’s something I would view as an individual guild issue, though, rather than what originally felt like a blanket statement regarding all guilds daring to use the new mail system even once.

For my part, I feel like this new system - for my trading guild, at least - will actually lead to LESS spamming plus will give me time back. There is a noticeable uptick in people buying raffle tickets when I would put the typical “reminder” in guild text chat every few hours or so. Which, of course, only catches people online at the time and who are even noticing chat. People log in, get distracted by the 8,000 other notifications, and forget. Go off and do their thing. See the GM advertise raffle in text chat and suddenly remember “Oh, right, I had wanted to buy tickets. Let me do that right now.” And ding pops my mail.

I have had folks even say in chat that they had meant to buy tickets, had forgotten, and appreciated the reminder.

Now, thanks to guild mail existing, I no longer have to a) feel weird/annoying about spamming guild chat every so often and b) can actually go play other games/run in trials/do other stuff besides guild management without feeling I am missing out on raffle reminders to support the guild trader. I can simply pop off a guild mail covering one to two updates and include the raffle reminder in it and know that every member received it. Not just who is online the same time I am. And I can do that once rather than spam chat throughout the day.

To me, that feels far less spammy/annoying than the old methods we had for advertising guild fundraisers, hence part of my general excitement over the new system.

Congrats on the newborn! I know it must be stressful and exhausting, but hopefully the rewarding experience as your family grows will more than make up for it. Wishing you wellness and happiness in that endeavor!

What I find interesting is that over the years I've seen complaints about nearly every method guilds use to communicate.

The Message of the Day is annoying. Guild chat is spam. Discord shouldn't be required. Mass mail addons were criticized. Now in-game guild mail is being criticized as well.

At some point, though, successful guilds need a way to communicate with their members. Traders don't fund themselves, auctions don't organize themselves, raffles don't run themselves, and guild halls don't appear by magic. All of those things require volunteers contributing time, gold, resources, and effort.

What stood out to me in this discussion is that some people seem to want all of the benefits of a highly organized guild while objecting to every method the guild uses to stay organized.

This reminds me of discussions around sales-data addons. Many players want accurate pricing, personal sales tracking, and market information instantly available, but often don't want to think about the work required to collect, process, and maintain that information. It's a bit like expecting a streaming service experience without considering the infrastructure behind it.

Not every guild has sales requirements, donations, raffles, or Discord expectations. There are plenty of casual guilds, social guilds, housing guilds, and crafting guilds available. If a guild's communication style or participation level isn't a good fit, finding a different guild is usually a better solution than expecting every guild to stop communicating.

Of course nobody wants endless low-value spam. But a few well-timed messages each week about guild activities seem like a reasonable trade-off for the services and opportunities that active guilds provide.

Sometimes I wish we had a settings page only for options. There are so many facets of this games that make me wish for opting out (some parts of the game), ideally per character.

However a dedicated Options Settings Page is unfortunately just my pipe dream.

DragonRacer wrote: »

Sadly, I find this in my daily job as well. It is a people problem. Some pay attention but many, many others do not and instead come to you asking things that *should* be obvious.

Also sometimes life just happens and it can throw people off. Sometimes people are busy. Sometimes they're going through some private tragedy. Sometimes they've just not been getting enough sleep. So they'll ask questions they should already know or forget things that they meant to do.

I think the guild mail system is a good thing.