Greetings Everyone,
With the launch of every game we go through an adjustment period. It usually shows weaknesses in our structure and tools that can then be fixed and adjusted. No amount of preparation can ever allow us to predict how legions of people will use a tool.
One our website there have been many updates over the last few weeks. I wanted to take a moment to share a few of them.
Guild Wars 2 Profile Setup
When I first launched this I called it the Guild Wars 2 Account Setup, which kinda implied that we had some magical plugin that talked with Guild Wars 2. People would put their ArenaNet ID in and viola in a few minutes to an hour an invite would arrive. The original was a 4 step process which pretty much walked you through the whole thing anyways regardless. So we simplified it and renamed the console Guild Wars 2 Profile Setup. Â
Now users have 1 button to click which will walk them through setting their ArenaNet ID, Their Playstyle Preference, and adding their characters to the site. After they fill out the form their ArenaNet ID get's added to the Invite List that is displayed to the Elders and we invite you to where the site tells us to. If your Saighdear or above it tells us to invite you to Anu, if your under it tells us Gaiscioch. Once the Elder Invites you you'll get a message on your Command Center telling you, you have an invite pending.
Now the unfortunate part is we have no way of telling when you accept this invite as there's no actual bridge to the game system to tell us hey bob is now a member. So that message will stay on your command center until said bridge appears.
The Command Center
The Old Mini Profile as obvious as it was was getting confused with the actual player profile. So we decided to rename it and make it a bit more obvious and user friendly. We plan to add more neat features to this over time but for now all the crucial information you need is on this Command Center. Make it your best friend, add him to facebook, and make sure to bring chocolates when he's mad at you. He'll love you for it.
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Structure Changes
Ahhh it's the panic button topic. I know a lot of people hate it when I do this but data doesn't lie. Every time we launch into a new game someone manages to find a way to prove our Structure out of date, confusing, and just not sufficient for the number of people we have on board. This is a good thing. It keeps us healthy, keeps us strong, and ensures that the Gaiscioch Way does not get lost in the mix. Unfortunately every time I do this people flip a gasket and rage all over me. That's to be expected. When I signed on to lead this family I know that when I make a decision it is mine alone and I burden the consequences no matter how vocal they are. Don't blame anyone but me for this if your going to blame someone. This sucks I know but in the long run it will be a distant memory. So Lets get to the critical stuff first.
Warlord Ranks... Yeah both of them
If you did not find yourself utterly confused by these then you must have an IQ in the 300 range... ;). We had 2 different things labeled Warlords. The Leadership Ranks in the family we're labeled Warlords a long time ago after some of our leaders who are no longer here took this a whole different direction as in "I am the boss listen to me when I''m talking to you!." So with the leadership title being mistaken as some god granted gift to man we had to rename it to something better suited for what they actually are. The Warlords were Event Leaders. They are people who focus their time on leading activities for the family. Originally we thought Activity Leaders sounded good but then the more we pondered it the more it sounded like kindergarten teachers or something. So to Celtic Mythology and Society we turned and that's when we found that Warlords or War Leaders as the celts called them were part of the War Council of Celtic Society. So now we've changed the Warlord Ranks in our Structure to War Council, which is usually comprised of Warlords.
So the second Warlord Rank was the suffix you earn from leading activities for the family. These are based off your victory points which differ from objective to objective based on how many people are required to take it. These will remain the Warlord Ranks and earning them will earn you a Suffix and once you've reached the Hall of Warlords (Rank 5) you'll be able to attend our monthly Warlord Meetings.
Active Member Time Requirements
It's become painfully obvious that people that have 1 month of Gaiscioch Experience behind their belt are just not ready and prepared for life as a Gaiscioch. The time required is just too short for them to adapt to the Gaisioch Way. Over the past month we've seen a lot of people ascend to the Saighdear rank and still have little to no understanding of who we are, what we do, and how we should behave. To counter this we've adjusted the length of time requirement for several ranks.
Updated Ranks:
- Freiceadan moved to 30 Days from 14 Days
- Saighdear moved to 90 Days from 30 Days
- Gaisgeach moved to 180 Days from 90 Days
- SeaimpÃn moved to 270 Days from 180 Days
- Laoch moved to 360 Days from 270 Days.
- Ard Tiarna moved to 450 Days from 360 Â Days.
The Remaining Ranks have been left untouched. It is our hopes that this will slow the progression enough that we see people better accept what it means to be a Gaiscioch better and that we can continue to promote our positive reputation in all things that we do.
Leadership Console
I know this has been a major point of friction, confusion, and he said she said. This largely again was my fault. I knew WvW was coming and I didn't break it out onto it's one Console. Well now I've simplified it quire a bit. This should cut back on confusion quite a bit and help ease the growing tension surrounding these objectives.
The Leadership Console is broken into 3 Types of Events:
- Instanced Adventures - For Dungeons and Instanced Scripted Content
- Instanced PvP Conquests - For WvW, sPvP, RIFT Conquest, and WarfrontsÂ
- Open-World Campaigns - For Open-World PvE Activities.Â
Each Console will only allow you to claim objectives that are claimable in that style of gameplay. This should cut back on the improper use of the leadership console and simplify things for those trying to learn. On the Plus side this change allows me to finally build our Fame (PvE) and Glory (PvP) system that will measure a players PvE vs PvP involvement and give us some idea of where the family is spending the majority of their time. Most likely resulting in some badges on their profile and maybe some sort of Fame Rank or Glory Rank for fun.
Guild Wars 2 Active Roster Requirements
We are rapidly nearing 1,500 members which is our cap in Guild Wars 2 and to avoid colliding with it full force we've taken some measures to ensure that if we are to be 1,500 people playing Guild Wars 2 we will be 1,500 active participants of Sanctum of Rall. We've put into place 2 policies on our Family Policies Page. At this point we have no Alliance system and the 3 guilds we fill isolate us from each other. The website and RaidCall are the only links we have at this point so it is crucial to our survival that we make use of them.
- 45 Days Gaiscioch Website Inactivity - Being there is no way to tell in game how long someone has been away we must go off how often you log into the website. Being you must do so to claim participation, participate in discussion and view the families event calendar this is an essential part of Guild Wars 2 membership. If a user does not visit the website in 45 days they will be removed from the Active Duty roster. At the point at which they return and relog into the website an invitation to rejoin the family in game will be sent. At no time does this removal from the Active Duty roster effect their standing or rank in the family. We understand people go away from game and welcome you to do so without risk of losing your hard work.
- Sanctum of Rall Residents Only - Members who transfer off of Sanctum of Rall or do not call Sanctum of Rall will be removed. We are extreamly limited in space so we want to only reserve our namesake for those that can and will participate in our community events. Those on other servers can not do so and also pose a security risk.
In Closing
It's my hopes that we're working towards a slightly less confusing and more user friendly system and I understand if some of you may be upset with these changes. I assure you that these changes are necessary for the preservation of our family. I will continue making tweeks here and there as I receive more data.
Next up to be overhauled is our Calendar / Events system. I have already made a iCal plugin that will allow you to sync your calendar to your mobile phones, Google Calendar, iCalendar, and Outlook that I plan to enable once I have made a few changes to how our Calendar works. This should help keep people in touch and hopefully keep them in the loop on schedule changes and what not.
If you have any questions or comments please feel free to voice them, but realize, hostile messages are best sent in private. We aren't going to let people tear down the family publicly. This isn't their fault, it's my fault.
Foghladha