Weeding Out The Prricks!

Here’s an inside tip that might come as a surprise. Give a little freedom to people and see if they take advantage or if they use it to do good.

The way the guild is set up and the way I try to operate is to offer communication where it’s needed and give the perception of handing over some freedom for people to choose how they want to use it. Primarily this happens when new members join the guild and they see that we are pretty welcoming and it usually doesn’t take long before they are given a little guild bank access for a small amount of repairs and to allow a small amount of item withdrawals. This act of giving an inch and looking for the reaction is something I have developed little by little ever since the first time I recall being majorly ripped off in the guild.

I recall it bitterly because the offender I’m talking about was a pretty well established and generally known player, someone along the lines of a present day Cryomaniac. Now I don’t mean to do a disservice to poor Cryo there since he’s a very nice lad and I’m sure he would never dream of doing what the douchebag did all that time ago but he was someone well known, fairly well established and appeared to have plenty friends in the guild. One day he asked for a specific item in a tab he couldn’t access and I thought best to simply promote him to the current equivalent of Flight Sergeant so he could grab the item and then I would revert him back to his rightful rank, no problem.

No sooner had I promoted him had he logged out and deleted his character! I checked the bank and 1000g was removed. He had snatched it, sent it to an unknown character and deleted his lvl 80, vanished never to be seen again.

1000g might not seem that much but it was a lot back in Wrath, so I was affronted, disgusted and felt so betrayed by a supposed good friend. I opened a ticket and spoke to a GM who informed me that although this behaviour was disappointing, it’s my guild and I set the ranks up and I freely offered him the opportunity to do his worst. I showed him a gem and he snatched it in cold, calculating, conniving bastard blood! A lesson was learned that day, and not just about guild banks or ranks, a real lesson in life but particularly on the anonymous highway that is the internet. The net is full of good meaning, normal people (clearly not Spyrot) but it also has a large portion of unscrupulous parasites who are only out for personal gain at any cost.

The guild rank and banks have long since been adjusted along with my policies on promotion. We can allow a little freedom with morale buffing promotions but only if we are willing to take the risk of possibly losing a few guild bank items to highlight certain leaching individuals.

Don’t get me wrong, the rank permissions are there for all to use and I’m sure Diputs and his bank manager helplings are only too happy when guildies clear out stuff to make space for new stuff coming in but if you’re a level 3 priest and you need a stack of 20 delicate primordial rubies then there’s something fishy going on, especially if they’re on the AH and the guild sees none of the profit in the days to come. Use it but don’t abuse it because other than spending quality time with every single newcomer to the guild, the bank is the first chance I get to see interactions other than guild chat and a few /whispers.

On to the bigger end of the scale, the real business end. The lower end is catered for and pretty much manages itself. The place where I really excel is the upper management of the guild where thoughts are constantly fluctuating, people have plenty opinions and the guild can be affected in a big way..

I have mentioned this before but I will use it again as an example of how I gauge the amount of trust I allow myself to give someone who could invariably then wreck the stability of the guild. A certain former Dambuster once tried to wrest control of the guild back in Dragon Soul heroic progression times. She used every trick in the book from dramatising occurrences with other guildies who she deemed were a threat to her, ultimately turning people against them. She used this way to stifle people she knew who were strong supporters of me from our founding days. She used her influence in our raid team via her boyfriend the raid leader at the time to pug in non-Dambuster friends who she had previously bad-mouthed me to so they immediately became hostile to me in our own guild raid team as if I were some big bad Beastmaster bully boy then they slagged off my choice of hunter spec, only to choke as I smashed them on the meters lol. She had said I was a 25k man coz I did 25k on a fight one time where they totally stifled my output with silly tactics.
She also informed people that the guild would belong to her soon blah blah blah. I knew what she was up to but let her have as much rope as she wanted and she grabbed and grabbed so much that she ended up hanging herself with it.

In the end she stepped well over the line, she got too big for her own boots and I was forced to act right in the guild chat where I simply said ‘GET OUT’ and she left, I followed up removing her alts.

My point is, I allowed her the freedom to choose what she wanted to do and she snatched and snatched until I ripped her head off. Ladies and gentlemen, the freedom to play the game is right here in the Dambusters and that freedom has no strings attached if you are who you say you are, a Dambuster. Your GM ain’t here for a fight but this is the internet and there is no face to face confirmation of human body language so I can only work off your actions in game. The way this place operates will ensure stability because people who might think they have some sort of weird power simply don’t. The proven good people of this guild will rise up and will lead the activities and management of your guild so that we can all have fun without worrying too much about snakes and parasites infiltrating the guild with a twisted agenda. No such troll has any influence in the running of your guild and we will make sure they never will.

That little lady abused her freedom, tried to twist the guild to become her playground of little /swooning boys but I had none of it, and the perpetual Dambusters just keep on truckin!

You will spot that your officers are absolutely nothing like the prricks mentioned above, having stood the test of time and proven themselves to be true Dambusters at heart. Believe me however, there are plenty more within our ranks and the officers’ are always watching and commenting on people who have good attitudes etc.

Your only agenda needs to be about having fun and playing the game with like minded people so enjoy the freedom and have fun.

/Salute