My Propositions

Just to be a soundboard for arguing's sake.

We need dedicated players, we need active players, we need social players - what kind of player is more active, more social, more contributing then people like Beau, Clem or Anya?

As officers its our duty to make the guild a better place - I see how however that perhaps our hands on approach to member (make events/ pull them out/ lead runs) are mostly in vain.

You can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Those that are interested in learning the higher end parts of the game will learn them.

Like I said...
We need to stop playing this game for others and start finding people to play it with.

We're spending so much time either being complacent or tending to members that we never develop the skills we need to be competent players. In addition to that I feel like our roster is much too large. We should kick all those inactive , affiliated and for the most part no shows for the guild to make way for a COMPACT, COZY, ACTIVE guild.

We're not getting the most of what we have, with what we have.


I also propose that members/officers be able to free roam across guilds. We can be part of multiple guilds, so we shouldn't use that as a means to strap people down. I say this from this stand point. I have been inactive and active throughout various points in AoL's history - but I've always had AoL's best in mind and I give my opinion with I feel its needed (most of the time). Whats the difference between me not being here in game vs me being in game, available but not repping? I'm not a different person just because I changed cape - I don't have different priorities - I just have different friends.


If we're going to be a successful guild we can't cling to the ways of the old. Its not worth arguing and politicking over all this stupid shit because we're missing the greater point of THIS IS A GAME , IF YOU START PLAYING IT FOR SOMEONE ELSE YOUR JUST GOING TO MAKE YOURSELF MISERABLE- AS OFFICERS WE LEAD BY EXAMPLE.

The example we set now should be - we're learning from our mistakes, we're moving together as a collective and that we value the friendships we made.

I keep repeating myself but I'm in rant mode...

We need to downsize and I'll make a post of my propositions.

I've mentioned this to a couple of people and honestly I'm really scared about the state of the guild - I may be over reacting but I kind of see us on our last legs. Several of our top members have left and others are debating it - this is not a good state for us to be in. I'm going to suggest some rash changes but I hope you all can stay with me.

Down Sizing

We have become a pretty large guild; however, I fear we're drowning in our own wait. We have a lot of temporary, in & out and unactive members. We have over a 100 members and our guild chat is chronically dead. This is actually unacceptable - and to be honest if we had a better way of monitoring log-in's this wouldn't be a problem. I propose we (as officers) list all the players who are on when we log on and off the game - here in the forum (like a daily log). We could put up an announcement asking members to prepare for a "roster check". At the end of a weeks time we kick all inactive members - this does not include allies or important members.

By lowering our roster down to a core group of important members I feel we can better develop a sense of community.

Mumble Mandatory/Forum Optional

This is an invaluable tool for communication and building bonds. We most stress this to our members. I our criteria for new members should be based on if they can get mumble or not. Strict, yes. Useful? Defiantly. Also the forum is kind of dead - I feel like Forum should be optional but it should be mandatory for officers.



Free Roam Policy

We're dealing with a very very VERY large and in depth game. With the sheer amount of content and interests its really difficult for us to all be on the same page. Rather than have a social disconnect between members just because of a lack of common ground - I feel like we should allow members/ officers to guild leap. The greatest concern in this would be the question - where does the member's priority lie? The answer is themselves! People play this game for fun, this game shouldn't be miserable or boring and if you want to do something find people to do it with. That doesn't mean your abandoning your guild. I feel like us GW1 folk take the repping thing so serious because we were used to guilds being such a concrete things- now their flexible -we should embrace this and seek out the benefits of this i.e. addition guild banking, i.e. being part of guilds with WvW commanders, i.e. making use of multiple guild bounties and missions. We may hold new members in contempt but I see nothing wrong with seasoned members jumping if they remain active on Mumble and as part of our community.

Change of Leadership

We have gone through several iterations, but I think we should not choose our officers based on talent/skill so much as leadership & risk management. I would also suggest that we strongly consider where we want to have AoL - member wise & community wise, we really need a vision and goal. I don't want to petition for leadership of the guild but as I said my concerns about the longevity of the guild has moved me to say this.
I feel that we're navigating rocky waters - and if we need someone at the helm willing to get us through this I'm up for it.

Please let me know what you all think - I have no intentions of turning AoL into a dictatorship but I feel like we need to have structure and we need to be willing to take a step forward and not just twiddle our thumbs. I am very adamant about the changes I've suggested and I hope to discuss them.

I understand - I can be difficult to define a path to go down when people are vague OR worse absent. I hope my propositions give clarity as to what I think is best for now. I REALLY think we need to downsize and start driving into more team orientated material because THATS what I believe builds community.

We don't need to organize runs or make schedules I feel like it should be more off the cuff of "lets find a group to do this". That's the advantage of having allies and having different group on allies, in that we can always find people who want to participate in these actives, while we can also invite newbies into the mix.

I guess I wanted to say is that I'm always concerned about the longevity of AoL , I love the people I've met and I want to keep them - I'm just suggesting what I think may be best.

Mighty, I like your ideas. I would say though the forums while not required should be highly recomended. If we want to get together for huge guild events, we're going to need to plan in advance and this is the best place to do it. Beau is right though, Dayle is the problem. I don't think he's going to go away and for some reason I can't comprehend I don't see him giving over leadership. If he really were going to do it, why wouldn't he have done it months ago? or even after his account got hacked?

Dayle said he will fix it.

If he gets on and does this then we do not need to concern ourselves with it anymore. I hope I'm not just being blindly optimistic.

I was a step ahead with the keeping track of members idea:



But I didn't stick to it...


I honestly think we should recruit at least a bit more, we'll end up with more active members in one way or another from that approach.

I'm still interested in hearing what you all think about my suggestions

> About mandatory mumble
> About downsizing the guild so that we might develop a tighter knight community
> Free roam policy

i justv gotta say this to be answerign to the claim that we benefit from the larger availabilty of memebers... i checked thru the influence tab... and curently past 14 days we have betweeen 29-53 daily log ins-.. out of 185ppls.... so id say mighty is quite right vabout getitng some of those out that is not repping or logging even on..so we could get some more acrtive and repping persons instead,tho to do tehat we need a plan to recruit , and commmon idea what kinda players we wnat in,and what to keep out

I say we try out this C3 thing. Having our own server would a great thing; though Liar's Mumble has great utilities, we need something we can manage ourselves, branded with our name.