Well what can we say

[salazzarson]

After the last few days, we have certainly be shown up. 2 keep raids done in a very effictive way. What are we ging to do about rollover and keep blaming all and sundry. Ultimately it is down to us. The middy raid was poor communication and lack of direct leadership. The hibby raid showed how it can be don

Lets have a few ideas of how we can improve the Alb effectiveness in RVR and realm attacks .

here is my 2 pennies worth.

1) In large scale events we should have a command control cg, which on accasions we do have, however we should than have a seond cg where decisions should be passed down to all group leaders. then group leaders can inform their group of where they are foing and what their roles are to be. Having these mass cg's does nothing to clarify objections and improve communication.

2) Alliances have to work together better, in alb it is just not happening. On a Raid we should have a clear command structure.
Too often in the past each alliance just runs off to do their own thing. working together is the only way forward.

3) Balanced groups. Too often when we go on raids you hear this group needs speed, this one needs a healer and so on. I know we all like to be part of an uber group, but to be sucessful, groups need to be balanced, even if that means we have to join non guild groups. To often you see unbalanced groups charging into battle only to get wiped in 10 seconds flat. I know we all like to play with guild m8s or friends but sometimes for the good of the raid we have to be a touch more flexible.

4) Sticking to objectives. On many occasions we have gone on raids, everything is going swimmingly, then some shouts enemy incing, off runs half the force to kill 1 group of baddies, then what happens all objectives go out the window, everyone gets split up and wonders what the hell is going on. If you want just to farm rps stay in emain and play with the zergs, if you want to go on a raid, stick to the plan and listen to the leaders.

5) On the question of the emain zerg, i am sick of hearing about it, everybody moans about it, but day in day out we trot off do the same things. The only way we will break the monotony of emain zergs is to RVR more in Odins and our own frontier. Enough said about that.

k have ranted enough and maybe what i have said is nonsense and not achievable. and i am talking out my bottom, but i think we , as in albs have to think long and hard of how we RVR in the future, coz as it stands with hibbies having power relics and Middies having str, it is going to be quite messy out there.

It would be nice if this was a topic openly discussed, without flames and deviations from the topic for once.


Salazzar
50th Level scout
Lionhearts

 

[old.mattshanes]

I think we should stop all these grudges and anger towards certain people in the realm and do try to form one alliance.

It can be done and it should even be tried to do,i would like every gm to show up maybe at the round table in camelot sometime this month,seriously we should give it a go.

I don't want replies like it will not work etc,if hibs can do it why can't we?after all trying can't hurt can it?

 

[old.windforce]

on point 3 (of salazars excellent post)

Balanced group can be almost anything.
It just needs some sort of speed (178% is enough = minstrel speed bot level 23+ or 50-ish sorc / theurg)

and some sort of healing like paladin with FH charged, friar or cleric

Guild grouping is a good idea because at some point it should improve the perfmance as a group (more playing together = more knowing what rest of the group is going to do).

I know there will never be 1 alliance. There should be a chain of command between alliances so that they can work together more effective.

 

[old.mattshanes]

There never will be because no one bothers to try it sadly.

 

[PadreMM]

I think it would be easier to start the better communication lines amongst the GM's and the guilds warlords.

We more or less have all we need at the moment, guild structures and the aliances that are there. All it needs are improvements to communications and the best persons to start the foundations of better communications are the Officers of each guilds (In my eyes that's one of their main responsibilities). I have always thought that a command /cg + a common "soldiers" /cg is the way to go, so I support Salazzar's idea there.

I believe the rule should be simplicity. As all events need to be done and acomplished as fast as possible to have a better chance of success, I think we will have to carry on with the ways we bring our groups and join in as we are. Sorting out groups will involve too much hassle and the time spent is not worth it. Guild groups are good as if needed any group tweaks can be sorted on guild level.

Leadership is a hard nut to crack, so that should be started on a GM/Officers level. Though I think there's enough divided thoughts on how things should be done on that level as well, so if it will have any chance to succeed it will have to be overcome there.

If the GM's/Officers can come to an agreement of how communications are to work, who will be commanding etc. that's a good start. I'm not sure but I'm pretty certain these things are discussed frequently enough, just that no agreements are made, and if they are made perhaps it's just a matter of time before they are implemented.

The rest will be up to the rest of us. It is we that will have to make our best efforts to support the GM/Officers efforts to get things organised. And that will include putting reins on urges to leave the main force to chase any smaller sizes of enemies, going to emain for better and easier chance for RP's etc. That's were we are most likely to fail over and over again.

But.... there are already a few cores of people that try to do what they think is in the best interest for the Realm, TDS is the first guild I can think of that has put a lot of effort in to realm defence responces (I'm sure there are more guilds that do this alongside TDS but I have been very inactive lately so I'm not very up to date).

Anyway, I think we should try and keep it as simple as possible = Bully your GM's/Officers and demand that they contact other guilds GM's/Officers to discuss things. Use them to start the foundations for a more organised realm for the rest of us.

Damn sorry about this long post, and to repeat what probably has been said a lot of times....

PS. The thought about one huge alliance I don't think will happen, and I don't think it is necessary either. I don't know about the other aliances out there but Unity seem to be starting to come to equilibrium though there still seem to be a few issues to be sorted out. Responce times to Albion frontier being one of them. But I think you would get pretty much resistance to break up what has been created the last month or two.

Cheers,
Padre

 

[old.Gombur Glodson]

Originally posted by old.mattshanes
I think we should stop all these grudges and anger towards certain people in the realm and do try to form one alliance.

Couldnt agree more, it would be easier doing rvr and pve raids if we worked together

 

[Sojiro]

Originally posted by old.mattshanes
I think we should stop all these grudges and anger towards certain people in the realm and do try to form one alliance.

It can be done and it should even be tried to do,i would like every gm to show up maybe at the round table in camelot sometime this month,seriously we should give it a go.

I don't want replies like it will not work etc,if hibs can do it why can't we?after all trying can't hurt can it?

there have been talk about this before, and i remember you were one of the ones strictly against it matt...

I wish you all good luck with it though, can only be a good thing.

 

[old.mattshanes]

Yeah i may of been in a bad mood or drunk i dunno nah i am not now we really should give it a try,maybe if all gms could arrange to meet at the round table this month like i said.

 

[case-rigantis]

had a big talk about this last night with some peeps..

we need to communicate between all the major alliances currently this just doesn`t happen
for example my guild is in the Cthulu Knight alliance we have 280 members and 100 of those are over level 40

however we never hear about relic raids defence or attack from outside the alliance.

i know there are obvious security issues however we really need to get discussions going between the 6 main alliances

 

[old.Jadow]

The eagle soars

Majestically

It views the land from

A great height.

The ferret scampers

Disdaining

All thoughts other than food

And sees only the shadows of the trees.

 

[old.chesnor]

Originally posted by old.Jadow
The eagle sours

Majestically

It views the land from

A great height.

The ferret scampers

Disdaining

All thoughts other than food

And sees only the shadows of the trees.

Poets don't make spelling mist0ks. Its "soars" foolio.

 

[old.Jadow]

Thank you for your assistance my child. I shall mention you in my prayers.

 

[old.SadonTheGrey]

Poetic license, you fool ><

 

[old.SadonTheGrey]

But, back to the original topic, I think one big alliance would be a good idea, it might eliminate the 'localness' of being in a smaller alliance, but if this is really a problem then maybe your original alliance should form one new guild with everyone in it, so there is the friendly bit, then join the alliance for RvR and what-have-you.

 

[Turamber]

It's not an alliance issue. With more guilds in one alliance there would be even more confusion and talk during defence ... and less action !!

Each and every person in the Albion community can take positive steps to improving our realm.

1) Learn our own frontiers. If this requires taking a break from the zerg, risking an xp death or whatever then fine ... It will save people embarrasing mob deaths when trying to find Hadrians Wall next time.

2) Don't be Realm Point whores! Chasing after 1 group of Mids while Rome is burning is pointless.

3) Be willing to listen to, and follow through on orders from people you know in the realm. Okay you may not like Laird or Aethelstan (for example) but during a defence just listen and follow through ... if things work out badly then sort it out later, not dispute or hesitate at the time when action is needed.

 

[Jupitus]

I am one of the people who opposed the idea of a big single alliance before, and I would definitely do so again. Just look at these boards a bit to see the personality clashes and flames, and then imagine all of that scrolling through your chat window night after night as you try to relax and enjoy your leisure time. No thank you.

Use of /asend differs widely between different alliances, and to try to find a compromise that suits every guild is simply not realistic. Furthermore I think there is still a limit on the number of guilds in an alliance so how would we choose which to include without alienating the ones that don't get in?

Midgard had one big alliance, and they all got sooo pissed off with the asend crap that they dropped it in favour of smaller alliances of like-minded guilds. You look over the past couple of months and you can see how this has improved their situation.

A couple of days ago the former members of the Knights Alliance, Eternal Circle and Unity confirmed that they will continue in their new alliance together. There are some teething troubles to be worked on, but in general they are all like-minded guilds with a similar approach who get on together pretty well. As we get our own organisation sorted out and working better we will also work harder in working with other alliances more closely too. This is something we have always encouraged and we will continue to do so.

Sure - morale is low right now and Albions are licking their wounds and pointing fingers or asking for change. I think if we do work our alliances as they are but more closely with one another then we will get ourselves back to kicking Middie and Hibbie butts again. One thing I would like to see, though, is a wider variety of guilds or alliances helping in our own frontiers to either retake keeps or to repel invaders, and this is something I hope to discuss in the next few days.

 

[Blessus]

An idea i`ve had and maybe you already do this but......

If all 'major' players of Albion makesure their friends list is bangup to date with GM and officers of all the other guilds.Then when theres some defending to be done you can check ya list and see whos online.Send a message and ask for them to pass it on to all on their list etc.Obviously your list will be full of people you don`t normally play the game with but its those kind of people who probably won`t be hearing the same messages that your local groups do.

 

[old.Jadow]

The solution would be a minor change to the ingame dynamic - the ability to create a persistant channel (basically like IRC) and invite anyone into it (within your own realm). Therefore there could be a gazillion people idling in '#realmdefence' or whatever when the balloon goes up.

Far too many self appointed 'lords' and 'ladies' <cough> jupitus <cough> aethelstan <cough> lamont <cough> laird <cough> for any official 'single alliance' to ever work. The ego's at play are simply huge.

Kin.

 

[Lochlyessa]

Originally posted by old.Jadow

Kin.

 

[Validus]

well jadow, i find the leadership of the "self appointed lords" much more effective since it is absolute and everyone listens to them on the raids because of their high reputation and charisma, instead of listening to the random 5 ppl that have different oppinions confusing the zerg and ending up split up, dazed and confused, sitting ducks for the opposing force.

nothing wrong with charisma. if we can organise them, (and i think they can get along with each other quite well actually)
we'll have a nice strong albion. however, there are those that defy that kind of leadership and end up taking over half of the zerg and splitting it up causing the regular chaos.
nothing we can do about them actually. only stick to the main leader.

i think.

 

[old.Jadow]

Originally posted by Validus
well jadow, i find the leadership of the "self appointed lords" much more effective since it is absolute and everyone listens to them on the raids because of their high reputation and charisma, instead of listening to the random 5 ppl that have different oppinions confusing the zerg and ending up split up, dazed and confused, sitting ducks for the opposing force.

nothing wrong with charisma. if we can organise them, (and i think they can get along with each other quite well actually)
we'll have a nice strong albion. however, there are those that defy that kind of leadership and end up taking over half of the zerg and splitting it up causing the regular chaos.
nothing we can do about them actually. only stick to the main leader.

i think.

Oh give me a break. And don't put quotation marks around "self appointed". That's not an opinion it's a statement of fact.

High reputation - Err yeah right.
Charisma - Hmm that's more than debatable.

I have nothing wrong with organising someone with absolutely no 'political' aspirations to act as a kind of regular leader - it's been managed for other purposes - e.g. Gombur and the successful dragon raid, so why restrict it there?

I strongly think you need to determine whether or not people really DO listen to them on raids. Judging by recent effective raids, i'd say err no.

You need someone like ole mr OBEY. Some know to whom I am referring. It's true though guys, if you're after a leader, find a Gideon, not a fucking "lord".

J.

 

[old.TeaSpoon]

Not all players want to be in a mass realm alliance

You wouldnt catch the SB there - they'd all kill me if I joined the guild in something like that!

 

[Turamber]

Even if I don't think highly of some of the people mentioned by Jadow, I would still follow through on instructions they give in a time of crisis.

If their plans don't work out then we can look at them afterwards and discuss whether they have what it takes to lead.

But the time to disagree or dispute is -not- during the crisis.

 

[old.Revz]

People tend to confuse leadership with likeability. They are completely different things.

There are a number of ways to lead people and the 'rules' go back to the Greeks and even further in Asia. I can't think of a single great leader that followed a credo beyond "lead by example" and "command instant obediance". The trick from there is to succeed in your campaigns.

A pure dictatorship is the ideal min/max for any situation be it game/corporation/military or whatever. As long as a single person is capable of comprehending the situation adding democratic ideas just causes trouble. Plato figured that out while most peoples ancestors were busy wondering which types of grasses made better roofs. Hell, Sun Tzu simply assumed as much.

I cannot say it shocks me that the top guilds are generally autocracies, nor do I think this is a bad thing. Farm out some responsibility to the officers but never let anyone doubt that "Move to me now" means anything other than exactly that. Support feedback and ideas but a leader needs to know that calling for the entire raid to jump into the lava will result in them doing so.

Democracy in game is a bad thing unless you are just looking to make people feel good about themselves. Having ranks, command structures, meetings, votes and all those other things is a great excuse for some mutual back slapping but not much else. It might work to some extent but the weight of military history backs the side with one clear leader. You don't follow a committee you follow a hero [/melodrama].

I don't doubt this just reinforces the dislike several people have for me (take the game too seriously, very abrasive personality, arrogant etc.) but one thing you can't deny is that I'm right. It might not be the way you want to play but that is just the problem. You'll never reach your full potential until you do play a certain way. Just because it doesn't happen to fit your definition of fun doesn't mean it is wrong or even that it isn't fun for other people (some enjoy taking part, others enjoy winning).

On another note though :

"How does one man exert his power over another Winston? Exactly. By Making him Suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is tearing human minds to peices and putting them together again in your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic utopias the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will not grow less but more merciless as it redefines itself. Progress in our world be progress toward more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded upon love and justice. Ours is founded upon hate. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy - everything. Already, we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future, there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a Hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the Orgasm. Our Nuerologolists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty to the party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity , no employment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always - do not forget this Winston - always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing more subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the trill of victory, the sensation of trampling on a enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face.... forever."

 

[The Fifth Man]

Albions are often compared to chickens. It's more like goldfish sometimes. The game's designed to have relics change hands. So they do. Last week, Albion had more relics than Hibernia. This week, Hibernia has more than Albion. Good for them.

For some time now, Albion has been caught as the meat in the sandwich as Hibernia and Midgard both attacked it night after night. It was always likely that in the end defences would crack. No point in throwing accusations, rending hair, tearing shirts etc. If the relics hadn't been taken in this way, they'd have been taken another way.

Now, Hibernia and Midgard will be forced to fight each other more seriously. Albion will lick her wounds and come back in the opportunist role which Hibernia has been pursuing. Then relics will change hands again. This is how it has always been and this is how it will always be.

As for leadership, there's a lot more to it than simply being the child who stamps his foot hardest. Actually, most absolute dictators end rather nastily, so despised are they by the people they themselves so clearly revile. Just in case this still hasn't sunk home with some individuals : THIS IS A GAME. It is not a corporation or a military force. Everything quoted above is utter tripe. Mere pretentious codswallop designed to add a veneer of intellectual respectability to an argument which is so obviously flawed that the most moronic troll could see the daylight through its gaping holes. I shouldn't need to point out that Plato was not writing about people playing computer games.

How long should I devote to tearing apart the arguments you quote ? Maybe just to refer to a few examples : the dictatorial leaders of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, who were defeated by the complex western democracies ? I believe Mussolini ended up hoist on a meathook with his bird by his own people, while Hitler shot himself in a damp cellar as his capital crumbled and his sycophants deserted him. Or in your own ancient Greece, the rigid Spartan dictatorship defeated by the democracy of Athens ? Athens - that would be the city which remains capital of Greece. Sparta ... hmm ... now where did Sparta go ? Soviet Russia, perhaps, which was defeated by democratic America ? Where's that autocratic communist regime ? Oh, it's gone. Need we go on ? If I were you, I'd find new sources for your quotes - the people you're relying on clearly speak out of their arses (and that's not a quote from Plato).

Leadership in this context means persuading people who are playing for fun, to do something other than that which they might do without such direction. To convince them that if they follow that leader, they will achieve their aim - of having fun. This is not a conscript army, it is a volunteer force. Leadership in this context is not quoting Sun Tzu or Orwell and then shouting the loudest. It involves social skills. Something rules a few people out right from the start. Ultimately, people will make their own minds up who is worth listening to. As far as I know, none of the Unity leaders pretend to lead anything other than their own guilds, and if other guild members co-operate, it's because their own officers back up their allies. I don't see any of the people mentioned above coming here and demanding people follow them. Yet clearly it happens. In my book, that's what leadership is about.

It's easy to sit back and bitch about those who make the effort to try and bring organisation to the chaos. It's a lot harder to actually do it. Anyone who tries earns my respect. Those who whine from the sidelines, but who have somehow never managed to convince enough people to listen to them, deserve my contempt.

 

[Turamber]

Originally posted by The Fifth Man
Or in your own ancient Greece, the rigid Spartan dictatorship defeated by the democracy of Athens ? Athens - that would be the city which remains capital of Greece. Sparta ... hmm ... now where did Sparta go ?

A lot of good points in that post. But just to clarify a point - Sparta and it's empire defeated Athens in the Pelopenesian Wars. Bad spelling, but then I really should be in bed.

Sparta had a lot of good things going for it, but it's war machine was built on slave labour. When the Thracian League dismantled that it's brave warriors were forced to till the fields themselves ... left them with no time for the warrior idyll.

It's also wrong to suggest that Sparta was a dictatorship. It had a head of state, a King, but the real power was in the hands of the land owners.

 

[old.Revz]

You didn't address my argument and instead spent a lot of time wheeling out very emotive examples of infamous dictatorships from history. You also ignored the crucial point :

As long as a single person is capable of comprehending the situation

Which obviously isn't the case everywhere (especially in those examples you give). Think more of Alexander the Great at the battle of Issus, Zhukov at Berlin, Nelson at Trafalgar, Caesar at Alesia and Bonaparte at Asterlitz. This isn't a conscription army but then again I did say that playing the most effective way isn't always fun (unless you are playing for the outcome).

Originally posted by The Fifth Man
It's easy to sit back and bitch about those who make the effort to try and bring organisation to the chaos. It's a lot harder to actually do it. Anyone who tries earns my respect. Those who whine from the sidelines, but who have somehow never managed to convince enough people to listen to them, deserve my contempt.

Well yes but it does beg the question as to what your qualifications are to try and debunk me in this way then? I've been out there and done it, have you?

Your post was very good all in all. It just falters because we are attacking the same problem from two very different viewpoints and yet you are trying to make a lot of noise and use literary slight of hand to put your case instead of really addressing what I wrote. You would do well as a political speech writer

Having fun -> Democracy
Winning -> Autocracy

Of course you can win as a democracy and lose as an autocracy but with all things equal and in a situation where one individual can comprehend the whole situation you know which method should always win.

 

[Aurelius LH]

Very tired after yet another un-planned 14-hour day at work, so forgive the typos and occasional gibberish – or even full-time gibberish…

Quite how Albion as a whole can arrive at a choice of ‘leaders’ is beyond me to work out (even Arthur didn’t manage it!), the best we can ever have is some folks willing to try, and then judge who we as individuals want to follow based on how they perform.

In short – choose your own leader, and if you choose one then follow them.

I admire anyone who tries to lead a guild or alliance aimed at strengthening the realm as a whole, for making the attempt – it’s a lot of thankless work and often highly personal abuse, for in the end precious little payback. The fact that not everyone likes their approach really does not matter a damn, they cannot please everyone and would be mad to try. (As for those who try ‘lead’ guilds for reasons more to do with their ego, they always fail miserably, and in my opinion deserve to).

Some folks prefer being led by different styles of leader – Gideon, Laird, Aethelstan, Jupitus and a whole load of others have admirers, and followers, from amongst those who like what they are doing. If you don’t admire someone’s particular style of leading, by all means explain what you think is wrong, why you don’t follow them, and what you prefer to see in a leader – and the minute you start drifting into ranting, personal abuse, or other childishness try remember what a fool you are making of yourself and shut up. (No that’s not aimed at anyone in particular in this thread, before any more assumptions get made…. It’s a general suggestion free for anyone to adopt if they feel like it.. )


Regarding how we improve our RvR position though – well I’d suggest the first thing leaders need in order to succeed is a supply of competent people willing to be led...

From what I've seen to date, we have a lot of people who try to go help but are not very competent at RvR (and before someone shouts I include me in that category - I very rarely go to the frontier, and it's pretty rare I join groups), so I suspect until they are more practised in RvR their best role in defending the frontier is in shifting supplies to mend the doors and helping the other folks level in the ‘civilised’ land! After all, unless lower level folks reach high level, there ain’t no army to fight the war with, no matter who is leading

We also seem to have an awful lot of Albion characters who are pretty competent at what they do, but FAR from willing to listen to anyone telling them what to do - whether it be a disagreement with the person 'in charge', preference for taking whatever actions they think right, personality clashes, old grudges, or some other reason.

Neither of these groups are more right, or wrong, than anyone else. It's just different ways of playing the game.... however, unless we manage to become more organised, then we are unlikely to see relics at our keeps.


Since we have a slight ‘Classical’ theme developing in this thread (Incidentally, “rigid Spartan dictatorship defeated by the democracy of Athens” is pushing things a lot, as is implying comparability between modern and Athenian ‘democracy’ – but that’s a different argument and belongs somewhere other than this thread ) I’d recommend slightly adapting an instruction given to Roman soldiers as part of their basic training :

“Silence. Observe orders. Do not worry. Keep your position. Follow the standard. Do not leave the standard and pursue the enemy"


If the aim is for Albion to be more effective in RvR then we do need a few things sorting out, and I’d suggest starting with :

Better communications in an emergency : – we need to know WHO is meant to be issuing orders, so we know who to listen to, and we need those folks who are not meant to be issuing orders to stay quiet so the genuine orders can be heard in all the chatter.

Practice makes perfect, or at least better... ;- More organised keep raids, hunts battles etc. etc. where groups larger than the usual 8-player team can get used to co-ordinating what they do in bigger events. 8-person teams are brilliant at a lot of things, but just like the way single players capabilities are hugely multiplies by grouping, the same effect could be gained by ‘groups of groups’.

Castle Storming classes :- the most impressive thing to me about the recent Mid and Hib relic raids was the sheer speed they hit and exited the Relic Keeps, those doors may as well have been paper for the time it took them to fall. Yes, it would have been better if we had had people there to respond, but not many folks are prepared to level to the high 40s or 50 to ‘sleep’ at a relic keep in case it’s attacked. If we can’t have a reserve of those sort of people, then I’d suggest the best way to defend the Relic Keep would to be to reinforce the doors as much as we can, have all the other keeps so it’s as well guarded by NPCs as possible, and rely on being able to put some sort of response in place to stop the relic making it back to another realm.


Of course all these comments come with the observation that you can (and I’m sure will!) regard them as rubbish and ignore them… I’m a fairly useless RvRer, as several you have learned in the past – and unless I can make it an utter dictatorship this time round, complete with real life injury for those who don’t do as they are told, I’m not going to try run a Guild either, done that too many times in other games as a democratic, listening, inclusive and reactive leader and got the grey hair to prove it… .

If you feel like rubbishing these comments though, please try be constructive doing it….

 

[Roo Stercogburn]

This is a really interesting thread (sorry for invading).

I've always believed that the leadership style of any organisation sets the culture for that organisation, and this applies be it in companies in real life or guilds in game. The culture the leadership creates in turn affects their relations with other organisations.

Here's one of life's little ironies: quite often, the leader of an organisation, the one who got it going and grew it to what it is, can actually become a liability to that organisation because the organisation outgrows them and they don't have the skills or mentality to deal with it at that new level. You see this often in corporations which have grown and then buy in expert management to handle them at a new level.

Note: this is a general observation which has been proven by oocupational psychologists, its not a subtle dig at anyone. I include it here out of interest in the subject.

There are generally two types of leader: persuaders and bullies. Most leaders have one or other of these attributes. The most successful leaders have both of these attributes and know when to apply them - at least according to the same occupational psychologists that gave me the previous info.

Going back in-game now...

I think quite often people quote guild groups as the way to build teamwork is because there is usually an already established pecking order which people fall into without any problem. When its mixed guilds, you have the usual wannabe-alphas strutting their stuff and team cohesion suffers. There are limits to how effective the guild-group thing is though. You are aiming at getting a whole realm working together and actually one of the best known ways to get people working as a team is to put them through hell together and they come out as buddies.

Some things which may seem obvious, obscure or downright stupid but is meant with best intentions...

1) organise big stuff with guilds you aren't allied with.

2) Do hunts together that help people get to know/like each other. Not foolproof this, but better than ignoring each other.

3) Organise things that will help rebuild the links between people that previously wouldn't talk to each other.

4) The odd selfless act doesn't go amiss either: the big guilds can easily go without drops from a single hunt to allow the smaller guilds to get those rare drops they wouldn't otherwise get. (This is something I know, because when Fedaykin were small we had zero help pretty much, and this is something we would have been extremely grateful for. We're starting to do things with small guilds now deliberately because of our experience here)

5) Leaders: listen to your officers.

6) Leaders: listen to other leaders. Its extremely rare that one of the other leaders you encounter has nothing to offer. You don't have to pick out curtains together but at least respect that other points of view have some kind of validity.

7) Try to bear in mind that being good at small scale skirmishing doesn't automatically qualify someone to automatically lead when doing something bigger. They are two different things. The same applies in reverse. Nobody is good at everything. Find people that excel in particular areas and use them to your realm's best advantage.

If points 5 and 6 are ignored, nothing else here will help.

I know I've generalised a lot and completely missed out some of the difficulties (selfish people, structuring inter-alliance stuff, etc) but in the main I believe the things I've posted apply.

Hope most of that makes sense and doesn't sound preachy, was just rattling the stuff down partly because its a subject I'm interested in. Midgard doesn't always get it right and we are far from perfect ourselves. Got lots of great peeps working at it though

See you on the battlefield

/bow