07/19/2018 03:13 PMPosted by HathloHello Blizzard. It's my hope that this can actually have some positive effect.
Thus far, I haven't met a single guild leader who isn't upset about the homogenization of guild permissions under a single checkbox for "is officer". It's a major step backwards for guild management. Personally, I can't imagine trying to lead a large-scale guild again with the current level of permission granularity.
With the addition of voice chat and communities to the game, we have some new permissions to play with overall. Specifically, Remove people from voice chat, and Delete other people's chat messages. I cannot fathom how it's appropriate for people with permission to edit notes or the motd to also be assumed to have permission to kick people from voice chat or delete logged guild chat messages and calendar events.
I suggest the following changes to guild/community rank management:
0.) Guild Logs should be improved across the board. Please allow us to look back at actions such as membership changes, public and officer note changes/edits, guild calendar event changes/audits, motd changes, chat messages and chat message deletions, as well as bank access. The basic logs should still be kept available to all players, and the advanced logs should be available to the guild master and designated ranks. The advanced logs should be searchable and filterable up to 7 days, regardless of the number of logged actions taken within that time span. Currently, actions can be hidden in the basic logs by performing actions to "push" certain actions out of the viewable log.
1.) All permission controls should be individually controlled and toggle-able, not grouped together. This should be a given for any system with permissions; it is impossible to account for every situation when permissions are forcibly granted or denied as a group.
2.) Access to officer channels should again be split to it's two previous controls: View officer chat, and speak officer chat. There are many situations where I might want to bring a non-officer rank into officer chat in a temporary manor without simultaneously granting access for that rank to make changes to guild information. With the addition of voice communications, this could be expanded to access to voice officer channels, and access to officer chat channels.
3.) There should be new permissions for guild notes as follows:
- Edit Own Public Note
- Edit Others Pubic Note (Implies Edit Own Public Note)
- View Own Officer Note
- View Others Officer Note (Implies View Own Officer Note)
- Edit Own Officer Note (Implies View Own Officer Note)
- Edit Others Officer Note (Implies View Others Officer Note)
4.) Additional Ranks, and Customizable Permissions should also be added to communities. Specifically, it would be nice to set notes or change the community message of the day without also granting permission to remove members, or vice versa.
I'd love to hear some developer feedback about these ideas, thank you for your time.
- Hathlo of WrA
See the mega thread other folks have posted in as well:
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20765907165
This is a post from a different thread. The poster made a post in the original thread linking this post. (Complicated, I know.) But here is their post from that other thread:
2 Likes
From original thread:
07/24/2018 06:58 PMPosted by Æthelwulf07/24/2018 06:30 PMPosted by AngosiaI'm going to argue against Blizzard in the case of the guild control changes but not in the context most are presently doing.
As Blizzard's security staff knows, when doing role-based access control permissions (and/or profiles), the principle of "Least Privilege" applies. This, in lay terms, means "Only what permissions are required to do the necessary tasks for that job role".
In this context, I am not comfortable granting a person who I did not designate an officer to have all officer permissions. Nor do I necessarily want to grant an officer all of the current permissions. In my guild hierarchy, the structure only allows 3 people to invite to the guild AND remove from the guild even though we may have a separate structure for officers.
(This is to combat the notion that 1 person is the benevolent dictator {i.e. GM}. We have a council of 3 Founders. If 2 disagree, I act as the tie-breaker as the "GM". Generally speaking, we don't disagree, but we can.)
I have a separate tier of "officers" in the context that most guilds use them today. These do my guild recruiting, raid leading, and class officer roles that most guilds have today. However, I do not grant them the ability to remove individuals from the guild nor would I.
This is a way of decentralizing power but also not providing a scenario where officers might disagree and act against each other intentionally or otherwise. They should be able to discuss this as a group and make the recommendation to the Founders. As a rule, I tend to let the two Founders handle those disputes (we really don't see any, but that's why the structure is there). I know both of the other Founders in person and I trust both implicitly, so it is a simple phone call or text from either of them to get my opinion if a tie should result.
In this context, as a person who has drafted security policies in a past architect role and as a current Operations Manager role, I am disinclined to give ranks permissions that I do not want them to have. It was granularly set in this fashion for a very good reason - and it is a technical control to help ensure that officers in my guild can't act on a whim.
While my vetting process is actually pretty good, it isn't perfect as nothing can be perfect. You're removing my ability to set practical guild permissions for the sake of simplifying the experience. I don't mind if there's a "simple" mode for folks who don't want to manage it, but give me an "advanced" mode so that folks who want to manage those things can.
I would like to expound on this topic and actually focus in on the principle stated in the second paragraph. Specifically the Principle of Least Privilege. There are literally enough volumes on this concept to fill libraries to overflowing.
The Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP) is the standard of Information Security that is adhered to by most if not all corporations (both public and private) government agencies (whether Global Federal State or Local in scope). It is the heart and soul of profile or role based security systems.
At its heart PoLP maintains that you only give the least permissions to a role that is necessary for that role to perform its function. You then assign users to that specific role so that should you need to change the scope of the role and the users in that role you do it once and each member then has the role's scope adjusted.
It saves the administrator time and effort in having to track down all the users of a role. He simply need only change the permissions assigned to that role.
Likewise if a user must be removed from a role there is no need to change the other users permissions you simply remove that person from the role. This can save enormously valuable time if the user is found to be a bad actor. You remove that users role from them while not disturbing the operations of others and prevent the bad actor from causing damage to you system.
Then there is the implied concept of granularity in the PoLP. Invoking PoLP allows the administrator to clearly define a role by assigning certain permissions to that role and not others.
A guild raid leader might need more access to guild bank resources and or guild reward systems for loot from bosses than a Class Officer might need. Similarly a Production Fire Team might need read access to Production Servers but probably should not be given write or modify permissions. A Production DBA who is the DB Owner might need read write and modify but certainly should not have sa privileges on a DB he does not own and likely should not have remote access OS Level permissions to a Production server.
By compromising this system intentionally, by flagging all of the above roles as simply Officer, you invite disaster.
You invite the accidental or incidental promotion of a bad actor to a level that has access to the guild bank and can then rob that guild blind. Then you have GL's sending in tickets for recovery of items and demanding (rightfully so since you put them in that position by lumping all Officer roles under one set of permissions) that they be reimbursed for the items.
Then you start getting false reports from gl's that think they can 'game' the system by filing false tickets and getting items they never had. This creates FAR more work for your GM's than you had previously slowing down the system AND making you hire more of them to handle the unexpected volume.
But lets turn the tables just for an instance. What if tomorrow you came in to work and all of the permissions for all of the data in your corporation were set to a single role. Could you be expected to continue business as usual? No? Then you have your answer for GL's too.
2 Likes
From the original thread:
07/24/2018 08:06 PMPosted by Æthelwulf07/24/2018 07:05 PMPosted by AngosiaIt's the same things companies do now: You choose to have less security for the less hassle upfront, but the security folks know on the back-end that it creates a mound of issues later on... OR, you can take more time to set it up the right way at the start and have less changing to do later on with a clearly defined access control policy and technical controls to enforce the aforementioned policy.
In today's information-as-product environment you have to know about the five classification levels of information:
- Public
- Internal Use
- Restricted
- Confidential
Each of those classifications of information have implied exposure, access, risk, and retention schedules. The PoLP was discovered over time and agreed to be the best solution to resolve the problems of exposure access risk and retention of information.
Public information is the lowest level of information security. Anyone has access to it and usually its better if everyone does have access to it as these are generally fliers for products, advertisements, promotions and other things that are used to generate revenue.
Internal Use (lawyers and other professionals often refer to it as work product), is the "sharp knives hot stoves and other machinery in the restaurant kitchen" Raph Kimball always talked about in reference to data warehouse development. Its necessary for the developer to see it. Necessary for the business people to see it, but unnecessarily complicates interactions with customers if the customer is exposed to it. Work Flows, Venn Diagrams, Data Bus Matrices etc. All are usually considered work product and labeled Internal Use
Restricted information: Information that if exposed to the general public may increase operational, reputational, compliance, strategic, or regulatory risk.
This is the stuff that if you divulge it HR and you are going to discuss your future with the company if any and potentially discuss the color of the wall coverings in the cinderblock institution you may soon be a new resident at.
Confidential information: Information that if exposed could cause other people, customers, business partners, vendors, contractors and employees, immediate harm in the form of loss of reputation, violation of compliance and or regulatory rules which in turn result in regulatory risk in the form of fines and loss of stature within the community. Divulge this stuff you are going to be out on your ear at the end of the day and district attorney is likely going to be looking to use your backside to decorate his wall while every newspaper and media outlet scream DATA BREACH THOUSANDS OR MILLIONS AFFECTED.
Without the tools (the PoLP) to be granular enough Data Loss is a near certainty. Data Exposure of Restricted and above PII is also close on to a certainty.
The guild leaders need these tools as they have just as much a duty to their guildmates at every level to protect their data and their inventory as their real world counterparts do.
If it is illegal to divulge CPII in the real world (it is. HIPAA, BSA. PPAAFCA, FCRA, and the list goes on interminably just to name a few that provide severe penalties for divulging CPII), then the virtual world should be doubly careful about its data and its inventories as the speed at which that data makes the rounds is measured in lengths of copper wire 11.8 inches long according to the Good Admiral (Lower Half) Hopper.
Taking away the tools that allow the guild leader to structure his guild is tantamount to making him divulge his company secrets.
2 Likes
From the original thread:
07/25/2018 12:01 AMPosted by NarumataI'm also going to echo asking to bring the cherry picking of guild permissions back. Sorry for the short novel ahead, but I want to maybe help provide more points if any others missed, or reinforce ones that have already been said.
We had several roles aside from GM such as Officer, Recruiter, Members, and Casuals as the main used ranks.
GM/Officer
Only the GM and Officers are able to read "officer" chat as they are the people who are leading the raid, finalizing how we are puling the encounter, and making rotations. It allowed us to let our raiders privately alert all of us of any issues, comments, or concerns instead of worrying about whispering everyone and praying someone catches it (some of our players are notorious for not reading at times). We also take volunteers to rotate out for our bench all go to officer chat so whispers aren't spammed everywhere.
-With the new system installed, non GM/Officer can no longer type in officer chat. When we were looking for volunteers to sit and to see who needed to be in for loot from the bosses we were pulling, we were confused when our members were not able to type in officer chat, and it was super unexpected and a real shame. It also hurts the ability for people to ask questions and not feel shamed that they were unsure or our people with anxiety issues to voice themselves privately to our officer core during a guild activity.
Recruiter
Recruiter rank entails going out and getting new blood for any spots we need. The reason this role was set up, is because our Officer core was simply too busy to dedicate the time needed for this very important raiding guild function. Recruiters set up verbal interviews and go over the applications to see if they are a good fit. They are typically on more often then are officer core and have the permission to invite players. Upon inviting a player we typically make sure whoever invites them sets a note to let us know when they joined the guild and that they are a trial.
-Recruiters can no longer invite our trials, guild alts, or edit notes. Recruiters have no need to be reading officer chat, because it is an extra stress that they did not want to sign up for. With this being a now officer only rank, this has destroyed their ability to send out invites/set notes so they are unable to complete their jobs. Players such as our applicants/member alts can potentially be "punished" to wait for an officer to be online (Waiting for 1 of 3 people to log on vs 1 of 6).
Members/Casuals
Members/Casuals had free reign to edit their guild notes for fun. A favorite "game" that was done would have to be an quote that a player has said during raid, voice, guild chat, ect. is quickly put in their note for all to see and remember. Sometimes we forget about them until a new quote or moment comes up to change the note and all re-laugh at the notes. This has been going on in my guild for 10 years now (Yes! 10 year anniversary of an end game raiding community! We are doing something right here!). Member/casual alts were also put into the notes so we knew who their mains were.
-Felt like our fun was detected and removed. The thrill of randomly checking your note and seeing something amusing has been stripped of us. Having to wait for an officer to be online now not only to invite, but remember to change the note with main/alt info so we can remember who it is, just annoying.
--------------------------------------------------
TL/DR
There was nothing wrong with the original design! Please bring it back!
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Cross Server Discord groups with Human Resource assistants to screen new recruits is the new Guild, get used to it.
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NOTE: Some guild permissions were separated out in a fix in August. The posts that date from before that time may reference wanting changes that have been made. However, not all the wanted changes have been implemented, so the posts I'm quoting are still mostly relevant.
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From original the thread, an excellent suggestion for additional guild functions:
09/26/2018 09:05 AMPosted by VenjinSuggestion: Implement Guild Rep mechanics for actual in-game factions that offer bonus rep gains with said factions after established requirements are met.
How we'd use it: To mitigate the dang rep grinds and give people a reason to stay in guilds.
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More ideas about guild improvements from the original thread:
07/25/2018 03:30 AMPosted by ÐirtMost of the things I've thought of over the years, have already been suggested along the way in this thread.
Some additional ideas (that may or may not be plausible)...
Guild banks should recognize the difference between single items and stacks. Having to split things into smaller stacks for members to withdraw (particularly raid necessities) is very tedious and consumes a huge chunk of space. On top of that, clever greedy members can just re-stack the smaller stacks and take a whole stack anyways. Likewise, members sometimes accidentally take whole stacks of things without realizing when they only wanted to take one item (this happened in my guild with Gems and Enchants constantly). Be able to set either (or both) single item and stack limits.
A limited amount of time in which a person may withdraw items from guild bank that they deposited, if they have no withdrawal permissions. People accidentally put the wrong things in sometimes, having to wait around for someone that can return it for them is, quite frankly, really stupid.
Additional withdrawal limit and Guild Repair settings... like x-amount per day, up to x-amount per week (and possibly up to x-amount per month)
Offline Guild invite ability. I believe this was mentioned either in this thread or a similar one, but it's important. It's so hard to catch a player online sometimes who has applied to join. There should be a way to extend an invite automatically when the player comes online.
Building off the previous suggestion, there should also be a way for the guild system to recognize a person's alt who already has a character in guild, and allow them to join without having to catch someone online to invite them. This should be a toggle permission, as some guilds do not want the roster cluttered with alts.
This one isn't specifically a guild thing, but pretty please can we be allowed to have an increase to the amount of in-game mails we are allowed to have sent at one time? Every Christmas, I mail gifts to my members... and partway through, I have to sit around and wait for some members to retrieve their mail before I can continue sending. I want to send it all, people getting their mails before I can even send other members' gifts spoils the surprise of what's in there for those I haven't been able to send yet!
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From the original thread:
07/25/2018 09:13 AMPosted by GreenstoneAs a Guild Master I have been dealing with this since the new patch.
Basically I had to get rid of two of my ranks due to the changes.
My officers have more permissions than I intended for them to have now.
And my guildies can not do functions that they normally should be able to do.
1. Since the "IsOfficer" permissions are so broad, we can no longer set up different types of officer ranks. Normally in the guild we would have 2 or 3 different types of officers.
For example:
Officer
Raid Captains
Recruiter
Each rank would have a different job, each rank could only do certain things, and it would allow a Guild Master to reward individuals that have shown loyalty or interests in performing a job, giving them their own title.
2. Removal of the "MUTE" ability also destroyed the ability to stifle problems in a guild.
A mute rank is setup as the lowest permission rank.
Meaning when someone new is added to a guild by a non-officer who can not promote, they are in that rank until an officer promotes them.
Overall the mute rank is a way we have more control over who speaks in gchat so that we don't have spam or insults flying around.
For example:
A fight starts between 4-5 regular guildies over loot or something silly, something you know will pass, basically you can mute them in gchat and control the fight until they calm down. Rather than kicking 4-5 people for not following guild rules.
So the ability the mute a guild member is a double use ability. Removing or deleting chat from communities is not the same as muting someone so trying to equate the two is apples to oranges. Especially if its a fight between four or five individuals.
3. You no longer allow guildies to change their own note - only officers can do so which means now every time someone is added an officer needs to be involved - believe me that is not easy, I normally do the notes because my officers are not around half the time and my guildies tend to forget to do it.
4. On live currently (patch 8.0) Guildies seem to be unable to invite since they do not have the "isofficer" permission, the invite button is greyed out. Not sure if the actual /ginvite command still works for them.
5. The new Comunity UI panel is nothing but complaints from my officers and members, from missing people who are online, to being unable to check how many people are online, also being unable to invite to guild, or having chat channels being included.
For example:
ZONE - shows everyone's zone except those who are offline, for them it shows how long they have been offline, makes sense, except if you wanted to remove people now you have to contend with trying to figure out sorting order.
/JOIN Channel - The channels added this way do not show up in the community chat at all and rather than give you a way to merge a channel that previously was created into the chat it just creates a new community with that channel name.
Removed information such as the list of who has has achieved exalted with guild.
Removed information such as the number of people who are currently on versus the number characters in the guild.
People missing from the list even though they are clearly online and talking in party chat.
Basically we would have been better served if the old "Guild Roster" button was put on the bottom of the "Community UI" panel, and all the extra tabs were removed.
I have complained about these things on BETA, PTR and on LIVE but still no changes have been made or fixes done.
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I thought about changing my avatars for posting these quotes so it doesn't look like the ideas are all coming from one poster (Fumel). I decided that would make the quoting take too long. I'm not going to get everything transferred over as it is, considering I really do have better things to do with my time. So y'all are going to just have to put up with Fumel's dorky mug.
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From the original thread:
07/25/2018 02:12 PMPosted by SaraMy solution would honestly be to roll back all guild admin changes entirely and give us the ability to cherry pick what we want our members to be able to do. While my guild is pretty social when it comes to chatter, I'm already seeing a decrease in attendance for various social activities and it's heartbreaking. People want to do things, but they tend to feel bad about bugging officers or myself to set it up for them. Or they try to make things on their own and only a few people see it because it was made as a community event and not everyone feels the need to join the community because we already have a guild.
I understand that Blizzard wants to push their community agenda, and I don't think that communities are an inherently bad idea because they do have their place. But they quite simply do not replace a guild itself nor should they be trying to replace guilds. I can make a community because me and 20 other people have a love for Bob Ross but that doesn't mean it in any way replaces what I have with my guild. It honestly feels like Blizzard is trying to find a way to shoehorn in the idea of linkshells from FFXIV into the WoW social setting but they did a really poor job of it. And instead of actually separating it, as is done with guilds (or Free Companies as they're called in FFXIV) and linkshells, they just tried to fold the entire system together into one buggy and convoluted mess.
Please consider reverting these changes, Blizzard. Even if you wont budge on the work put into the consolidated social UI, give us back control of our guilds. My guild members know that I'm not the one restricting them and they understand. And even though my officers are extremely active and giving in my guild, your supposed streamlined admin functions have created a hard dividing line between "important" guild functions and "unimportant" ones. All of my guild members are important to me, as are all of their contributions. Please don't take that away from them.
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From the original thread:
07/26/2018 10:35 AMPosted by Greenstone07/26/2018 09:18 AMPosted by DarkpunisherI am super surprised that the backlash is not more intense.. as a guild co-gm the changes have affected our guild greatly on functionality.. I cannot properly perform my duties while our main gm is MiA because the blanket change messed up the entire setup we had put in place and destroyed our intended uses to function as a progressive earn your way up guild.. we wanted our members to feel they were progressing in the guild, not be stuck with the same generic crap for each rank.. we need some action on this before it destroys the value of guilds
Exactly the idea of most guilds is that you have an upward value to the ranks, lowest rank has lowest permissions.
For Example:
Main GM
GM Alts / Co GM
Main Officers
Captains / Recruiters
Raiders
Part Time Raiders
Non Raiders / Higher Level Guildes
Non Raiders / Medium Level Guildies
New Guildies
Muted Channel
(Above is just one example of a tiered guild.)
This overall setup gives a way to upgrade a non-raiding user three levels, and raiding users five levels, giving an overall progression to guild mates. It also gives rewards as you increase in levels including the ability to repair with guild gold at increasingly higher levels, ability to invite to guild so on. The higher levels would have the ability to change their own guild note as well.
Honestly we need the permissions back the way they were even if you keep the horrible new guild UI smashed into the community UI the permission issue needs to be fixed. Its damaging the whole concept of rewards in a guild.
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I have to bring at least one of Venjin's lyrical posts here:
10/04/2018 11:59 AMPosted by VenjinIs it the UI? Or is it the Rank Controls?
Caught in an impasse, no escape from this rabbit hole.
Open your eyes.
Click into this thread and see...
We're just some GM's, looking for sympathy,
Because we're waiting here, wanting more.
Please tell us, what's in store?
Fix it or say we're wrong, doesn't really matter to me....to me...
Blizzard, just killed our guilds.
Tried to copy from Discord,
ended up stabbing with a sword.
Blizzard, the expac's just begun!
But now you've gone and thrown the guilds away!
Blizzard! Oooooooo!
Didn't want our guilds to die!
If a blue doesn't post in here this time tomorrow,
Carry on, carry on, 'cause nothing else really matters.
Too late, for change to come.
These controls are asinine,
Guildies complaining all the time.
C'mon everybody, we've got to post!
Gotta let the devs all know about the truth!
Blizzard! Ooooooooo!
Don't let this issue by,
We all just wish you'd never changed things all!
I see a little silhouetto of Ythisens...
It's a blue, it's a blue, time to get a response-o
Updates in the PTR showing not a thing has changed!
Hazzikostas, Hazzikostas.
Hazzikostas, Hazzikostas
Hazzikostas please respond We need you nooooooooooow!
We're just the players paying our monthly fee,
He's just a player on a bad posting spree, spare him his pain from this monstrosity!
Easy fix, easy change, will you change it back!
We are Bliz, NO WE WILL NOT CHANGE IT BACK!
Change it back!
We are Bliz, WE WILL NOT CHANGE IT BACK!
Change it back!
Will you never change it back, change it back...
Oh no no no no no no no
Oh mamma mia, mamma mia - mamma mia change it back!
The Blizzard Devs have decided not to look at this...at this...at THIS!
*Guitar Riff*
So you think you can change this and not say a word?!
So you think we accept that we're not being heard?
Ohhhh Blizzard! Can't do this to us Blizzard!
Just wanna get out, just wanna get right out of here!
Oooh yeah, Oooh yeah
Nothing else really matters...
This whole thing's a bust...
Nothing else really matters...
To us...
Anyway the Windfury Blows...
1 Like
From the original thread:
I'd just like to re-iterate that I think the consolidation of guild rank management options introduced in 8.0 is effectively taking choice away from guild leadership on how to structure ranks and guilds, and it leads to a less fulfilling feeling of promotion, and less impact demotions. Our guild used to have a muted rank, for members who are in trouble, but not quite to the point that a full kick is needed, and now we have no way to try to damage control without just outright kicking a player.
Guilds should be empowered to make more choice, not less, and I think the changes I listed above are a good way to begin doing that.
Thank you for your time.[/quote]
From Fumel: All of the above^ is from Hathlo, not me. It just quoted weird.
07/26/2018 06:14 PMPosted by HathloThis is from the Mob Scaling thread, https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20766196849?page=34#post-678.07/26/2018 12:56 PMPosted by WatcherIf any of the communication thus far, or the lack of visible action, has given the impression that we don't consider the issues raised in this thread and others like it to be a problem, I'd like to emphatically state that nothing could be farther from the truth.
Now i'm not trying to take anything out of context here, but I have faith that folks see these threads.
I tweeted @WatcherDev a few days ago about some changes I mentioned in another thread, i'll quote them here for the heck of it:07/19/2018 03:13 PMPosted by HathloI suggest the following changes to guild/community rank management:
0.) Guild Logs should be improved across the board. Please allow us to look back at actions such as membership changes, public and officer note changes/edits, guild calendar event changes/audits, motd changes, chat messages and chat message deletions, as well as bank access. The basic logs should still be kept available to all players, and the advanced logs should be available to the guild master and designated ranks. The advanced logs should be searchable and filterable up to 7 days, regardless of the number of logged actions taken within that time span. Currently, actions can be hidden in the basic logs by performing actions to "push" certain actions out of the viewable log.
1.) All permission controls should be individually controlled and toggle-able, not grouped together. This should be a given for any system with permissions; it is impossible to account for every situation when permissions are forcibly granted or denied as a group.
2.) Access to officer channels should again be split to it's two previous controls: View officer chat, and speak officer chat. There are many situations where I might want to bring a non-officer rank into officer chat in a temporary manor without simultaneously granting access for that rank to make changes to guild information. With the addition of voice communications, this could be expanded to access to voice officer channels, and access to officer chat channels.
3.) There should be new permissions for guild notes as follows:
- Edit Own Public Note
- Edit Others Pubic Note (Implies Edit Own Public Note)
- View Own Officer Note
- View Others Officer Note (Implies View Own Officer Note)
- Edit Own Officer Note (Implies View Own Officer Note)
- Edit Others Officer Note (Implies View Others Officer Note)
4.) Additional Ranks, and Customizable Permissions should also be added to communities. Specifically, it would be nice to set notes or change the community message of the day without also granting permission to remove members, or vice versa.
I'd love to hear some developer feedback about these ideas, thank you for your time.
I'd just like to re-iterate that I think the consolidation of guild rank management options introduced in 8.0 is effectively taking choice away from guild leadership on how to structure ranks and guilds, and it leads to a less fulfilling feeling of promotion, and less impact demotions. Our guild used to have a muted rank, for members who are in trouble, but not quite to the point that a full kick is needed, and now we have no way to try to damage control without just outright kicking a player.
Guilds should be empowered to make more choice, not less, and I think the changes I listed above are a good way to begin doing that.
Thank you for your time.[/quote]
From Fumel: All of the above^ is from Hathlo, not me. It just quoted weird.
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From the original thread:
07/27/2018 03:06 AMPosted by CarthorinnAnd also I see several people complaining about the extension not being an answer. Giving the one blizzard rep that has commented so far a hard time is not exactly appealing and it needs to stop before this thread becomes toxic. Lets keep moving forwards instead of backwards.
I personally would like to see the Rank permissions separated from where it is and have it assignable by toon. This way we can promote people without having permissions tied to it and gives us a bit more freedom when setting up rank structure. I know this would take another massive overhaul but we need freedom with rank so we can give guildies a sense of progress within the guild.
I would also like to see the ability to make more channels for the guilds with a custom name so GM's can set up several chats for their guildies preferences. I would also like to see the incentives to run in a guild group increase for dungeons / raids. Both for the guild and it's members. It's like you killed the first boss in the raid ok guild is almost done with the reward ok you got the achievement for completing the raid ok cool. It unlocks nothing but you have a nice shiny achievement. Than thats it for 6 months till the next raid comes out and rinse and repeat. It's dull.... There is little sense of accomplishment.
I would also like to see the return of some perks the ones we have now are "OK" I guess but they just feel completely lacking. The gathering one was cool and I understand why you got rid of it to a degree but is there any way we can get a perk that SLIGHTLY increases the chances of getting soulbound mats from scrapping gear?
As far as recruiting goes. Is there anyway you can implement a change where if a request is pending and said person isn't online we it can just send them a mail with an accept invite button kinda like the guild charter? It is so hard sometimes to send someone an invite because we aren't online at the same time. Can we please get a better interface for that system too the current one is lacking utility. Like can you make it so we can inspect the player requesting look at their gear. Check their raid progress etc without having to look them up on the armory. We also need an overhaul for the looking for guild interface... It also lacks utility and does not offer good sorting options.
We need our logs extended they are too short and sometimes things get buried unless we stalk them. Can we get a check box for permissions that distinguishes if someone has the ability to move things within our tabs or not. The way it is currently if you put 20 stacks of 5 in there and said person can take out 3 items.... they combine the stacks to 20 and than take it out and it counts as 1. In the meantime this is not what intended that permission to be. Please fix it.
Also please give guild masters the option to turn off the tattle features if we have to demote someone or kick someone that is simply a matter between the GM/Officer and that person. It shouldn't be broadcasted. Also for editing the chats and deleting messages. If the GM does it it shouldn't say anything to the lower ranks. Unless you add a check box for us to allow those ranks to see them. When an officer censors a chat message it should be sent to a report to the GM. With the original message attached for review. Guild masters need more tools to keep us informed of whats going on when we aren't online. I trust all of my officers with my life but this should be a feature.
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From the original thread:
07/27/2018 04:09 AMPosted by HathloI think Carthorinn has pointed out some good suggestions. In Addition to making guild tools and permissions more powerful, I think it would be cool to see tighter integration with the communities features too.
I think each guild should be able to create a single 'guild-linked' community. From the guild end of things, players in that community would show in the guild roster and show a separate 'community' rank. That rank would have access to guild chat with the option of being muted like any other rank, optional access view the guild calendar events, and likely no bank access (that should be a privilege for full membership.) Obviously, this would be an optional feature that Guild Leads can use, and inviting people to the guild-linked community would be an additional permissions node for ranks, so that guild leaders can choose what ranks, be it everyone, or officers, or anywhere in between, have the ability to invite to the guild-linked community.
The separate ranks for communities, Member, Mod, Lead can and should still be utilized within the community. The Guild Master of the guild the community is linked to would have 'ownership' rights in the community.
What this would achieve is a way for players to have 'try-before-you-buy' membership experience to a guild. Currently, if I want to invite somebody from another guild who might be looking for a change of pace, they'd need to spend time on an alt in our guild. The logistics of doing that aren't always friendly. For example, a player on the other faction or on another realm would likely need to roll an entire new character to experience even chat with the guild, or they'd need to buy a character service and leave their current server behind, if they're the type of player who really only plays one character. The other benefit to this is that it can effectively act as a second guild membership. This builds everyone's ability to form community, in and out of guild, and basically allows guilds to have honorary members who either don't have the means or for other reasons cannot leave their current group or realm without social penalties.
Currently, addons like Greenwall and Guild-to-guild try to do similar things, and really I see no reason why Guilds and Communities can't benefit from each other and live in harmony rather than being quite segregated as they are. Basically communities now are just custom chat channels with a new UI, and some features like basic ranks.
Keep the train rolling folks. I think there's some good ideas around here.
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A very heartfelt post from the original thread:
10/10/2018 06:56 AMPosted by Druunah10/09/2018 01:38 PMPosted by VenjinBefore the "communities" idea was even conceived, we had already created our own community. This was our Family. We had the tools to make our family great, but those have been taken away.
Blizzard, this is not "generalizing" or "aggrandizing". This is my reality. My wife's reality. This is our story. OURS. Separate from any crafted narrative you could have created. We want to make something special again, so let us do it.
And I'm not the only one asking this.
Get it done.
TL;DR: Our guild is the only thing that keeps us engaged due to the emotional investment we've put in to keep it alive. You're preventing us from doing our best to keep it going.
^That^
There is some of that human emotion / feeling that I've mentioned several times lately.
That's something you can not include in a bug report.
My guild's story is much like Venjin's story (to a point) The main difference is we haven't ever taken off (much) time. Certainly not for several expansions.
However, that difference aside, we are certainly very similar.
We as guild leaders whether we are the leaders of small guilds, medium guilds, or extremely large raiding guilds are all in the same boat in many ways.
We've all created communities of our own. (In my case and I think Venjin's we started back in Vanilla before communities were a sadistic gleam in Blizzard's eye)
We've all been adversely effected by the deliberate slash and burn of OUR guild's guild permissions.
I would also bet my last dollar that we all have some sort of story to tell about our guilds.
Please bear with me.
Another brief guild story from myself.
Years ago during Wrath we were having our own guild's "golden age"
Even in our small guild, there was not a time day or night that you could log on to Wow and not find someone online. We had guildies from all over the world. New Zealand, Germany, the US, several solders stationed in Iraq, and at least one person who claimed to be playing in Japan.
Over the years we've had entire families play so we keep guild chat respectful and PG rated.
We've had doctors, writers, soldiers, factory workers, food service workers, nurses, engineers, computer programmers, parents, grandparents, their kids, and even grand-kids etc...etc...etc....I could continue.
One story of many:
Back in Wrath we had a young married couple join us. Carr and Xe
I found them questing together in Lakeshire.
They were the definition of noobs.
No proper gear, they had out-leveled the area but didn't realize it, and had not even heard of dungeons if I remember correctly.
I invited them to our guild.
Our family.
Our community.
They joined us and "grew up" quickly.
As a Wow player Xe started learning fast. She got good.
She started doing dungeons and getting better and better gear and learned how to run content. She always claimed to randomly smash buttons, but I had my doubts. Once as we were about to wipe in (Ulduar?) I watched her last for a good 10-15 min alone against one of the tougher bosses (I forget which one after all these years) while the rest of us all lay dead. She almost beat it too, except she finally ran out of mana on her now exhausted pally.
Carr was different.
He liked to quest and explore the virtual world of Warcraft.
He would message me most days and just tell me what newness he'd discovered that day.
Oddly enough I discovered what he had to say very interesting.
One day he's got a rare whelpling drop from the Wetlands. This was long before pets were account wide.
He asked me if i wanted it, as he wasn't into pets. I told him he could make a fortune on the AH if he sold it there.
He didn't care about gold much and said he did not know much about the AH.
He mailed me the pet.
I was sorta "struck" by this gift. I don't know how else to describe what i felt.
Looking back, i think I had the vague idea that if I held onto the pet long enough he'd come to his senses sooner or later, wish he'd used or sold it and regret giving it away for free.
I stuck the welpling in my bank.
Several weeks passed.
Carr died suddenly.
Xe whispered me. "Carr died at work this morning"
I thought she was joking...
No joke. Carr had gotten up, went to work at the factory. He'd said he felt a little off to Xe that morning, but nothing specific.
Apparently at the young age of barely 30-something he'd had a massive heart attack and died in the arms of his coworkers.
This was shortly after Xe herself had recently been hospitalized after a miscarriage.
A boy.
They (Carr and Xe) grieved.
So did the guild family.
Carr was dead and Xe was a mess.
She continued to log in day after day clearly distraught and not thinking clearly.
This was Wrath so to distract herself she created a Deathknight.
Back then the DK starter zone was actually hard and she was having a particularly hard time with one quest.
She asked me to take her account and complete it for her. I refused, but "talked" her through it until she got it done on her own.
We talked. And talked. And talked.
At some point I happened to think of the unused whelpling in my bank Carr had given me.
I told he about his gift and asked her if she'd like to have it.
She said "YES!"
I hope she still has it in her collection, and I hope it brings her fond memories of her lost husband.
The rest of us were in shock at Carr's sudden death. We wanted to do something, but we didn't know what we could do.
We thought of sending someone to Xe's location as a guild emissary, but no one lived anywhere near her. We were spread out all over the country and the world.
So.
We had an in-game memorial service at the same time Carr's funeral was taking place.
It was touching. We gathered at our usual guild meeting place and everyone took a few minutes to speak a memory or two about Carr in the circle of our toons we'd created.
I had no way to record the event back then, but I took screenshots and wrote down some of the "better" tributes to Carr on good old fashioned paper so i could show Xe later.
She was astonished at the outpouring of love and grief from her guildies.
I wasn't so much. We're a guild family.
Xe went on to become and officer in BloodOath.
She still plays Wow to this day, although not as avidly.
That Blizzard is a REAL Warcraft community
After all these years, it still is a real community.
It's our guild, it's out family, it's our home on Warcraft.
You are KILLING it
Thank you for bearing with me.
Here's to you Carr.
Rest in peace guild brother.
You are not forgotten.
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From the original thread:
07/27/2018 04:33 PMPosted by SaraDaily bump to help keep this within the scope of dev attention. My original post can be found here
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20765907165?page=12#post-231
I'm really hoping this can be reverted, and that it's done as soon as possible, until a better solution can be found. If Blizzard is at all interested in some ideas as to how guild admin can function in the future, this thread has some very good ideas that would allow Blizz to feel as though they're updating things but also help keep guild masters in control. Some of the suggestions that stick out to me were the ability to cherry pick ranks and permissions again, as well as, the ability to invite offline characters. This is especially helpful if person is trying to add an alt to the guild.
A few of the bugs/issues we are still having in my guild are:
1) People who transferred from another server can join the guild but are forever tagged with Name-Server label. Wyrmrest Accord is not a connected realm so unless someone phases in, everyone in guild is from WrA.
2) Related to the first issue, we also can't reliably invite those transfers to guild events using the calendar invite option and are frequently unable to invite via the roster. Only sometimes are we able to invite using /invite Name-Server but it's hit or miss.
3) Previously, all my guild members could make guild events and then the ability was taken away. Now, for some reason, only some can even though I've not messed with the settings and not everyone in guild can see or confirm their attendance. So the member made events are just hanging in the wind.
4) Guild (and community) chat is frequently nonfunctional. We had several issues yesterday and one today where anywhere from a few to all of the guild members online (upwards of 16 at a time) were unable to use guild chat.
5) Occasionally, the roster and chat panel will be blank except for my own name (which still may or may not display my online status correctly), and maybe some odd dashes ( - ). Chat history is semi-public so I don't really care if the history is saved, but it seems that if I look at the chat window first, I may not be able to see the roster. I've restored to using a /guildroster macro entirely so I can correctly, and reliably, view my guild window. This is not an add-on issue as I am running stock UI to determine if anything odd is happening in relation to any social features.
Additionally, world channels randomly turn off when I log in. I always have trade and looking for group up in their own tab away from things like party, guild, etc. Since the addition of communities, global/local channels will randomly turn themselves off even if I log out and back in while in a capital city. We also don't need an ability to create a separate "Guild" channel since we already have a guild chat.
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From the original thread:
07/28/2018 08:45 AMPosted by TakodaI've been in the same guild for 10+ years. This is my home, and these people are my family. Even when I actively hated the content of the game, I stayed for my guild.
On a more pragmatic level, I'm trying really hard to find a way to make it work. What will I do if Blizzard says, "this is the way it is now?" Scream into a pillow first, I suppose. After that, I'm not sure. At least some of the issues (like GM being unable to edit officer notes) are clearly bugs and will be addressed eventually. But I'm really worried about the "Officer" permissions box since it appears this is not exactly a bug.
Unless Blizzard intervenes, I don't foresee this going well. If the permissions are what they are, then I cannot run my guild because I do not have the tools to do it. Some things can be relocated to Discord (like event planning - I want any member to be able to organize a guild event). But other things (like marking alts or setting up a recruitment officer) are tricky or impossible.
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From the original thread:
07/28/2018 02:08 PMPosted by DrfeistyGM with a few issues:
1) Can I please get an option turn off guild chat history for my guild? We have a discord for persistent chat already and it just feels weird to use guild chat to now memorialize every "grats" or random convo between the only 2 people online at 3am.
2) I agree the grouping of officer permissions is awful - we need more granular assignment of permissions for things like member notes.
3) It just seems terribly bloated and buggy in general - the previous guild panel was small and easy to navigate, and put guild news on top as the first thing you see. The new UI isn't nearly as sensible in its layout and requires more clicking around. Half the time the news UI is empty now for reasons I can't explain. People online don't initially show in the roster. It feels buggy to me.
I am not really a reactionary and tend to roll with changes but this is one of the most awful things I have seen blizzard do in WoW interfaces in a very long time. It doesn't do much to make running a guild easier at all.
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