Guilds have come a long way from the days when a “guild bank” was one or more characters who stored all the items gathered and utilized by a guild for leveling and raiding. The introduction of Guild Banks allowed guilds to share resources with one another more easily and gave Guild Leaders more control over their guild.
No matter the size of your guild, or how many bank tabs you may have purchased, it is important that you guard against those who may take advantage, intended or not, of the permissions given to them.
Remember, the Guild Leader has sole control over maintaining the integrity of their guild and guild bank by limiting who is given access through guild permissions.
Guild members should exercise discretion when joining a guild and when choosing to contribute to the guild bank. Any item or amount of gold deposited into the guild bank may be accessed and removed by anyone with permissions to do so. Once deposited into the guild bank the depositing character holds no ownership over the items/gold.
As a Guild Leader, take some time and go over the permissions you have granted to each rank. By inviting a player to your guild and promoting them to a specific rank, you are granting them certain access and control.
- For example, if you have promoted a guild member to a rank that is able to invite/kick, they could remove all guild members that were at least one rank below them.
How to set up ranks for your Guild
Guild ranks are a powerful tool for organizing your members, providing incentive to advance (and rewards for doing so), managing your guild bank as well as determining who may take over leadership in your absence. Before getting into the details of how to set up guild ranks, there are a few general rules to keep in mind:
- Guild ranks are always added to the bottom of the rank list.
- New members are always added to the lowest rank.
- Avoid providing the lowest rank with lots of access to the guild and guild bank for safety.
- A rank cannot be deleted if there are any guild members in it, so they will need to be moved out of the rank first.
- A guild can have a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 9 ranks plus 1 guild leader.
- Ranks can be moved up and down the list, but will retain the permissions that were originally granted to it.
- Ranks can be renamed and permissions adjusted at any time.
- The 1, 2 and 3 ranks are eligible to use the dethrone system to replace an absent guild leader (More information on that below in the Guild Dethrone section).
To adjust guild ranks, open your guild window (“J” key by default), click on the “Roster” tab and then click on the “Guild Settings” button at the bottom right corner. This will open the guild control window where you can add and remove ranks, adjust the guild permissions for the rank and set the guild bank permissions for the different ranks and tabs (NOTE: More information on setting guild bank permissions, and protecting the items in your guild bank can be found in the section on Setting Guild Bank Permissions).
The top of the guild control window has a drop down where you can switch between the Guild Ranks, Rank Permissions and the Bank Tab Permissions option.
On the Guild Rank window you can add a new rank by clicking on the "New Rank" button in the lower left corner of the window. Here you’ll also be able to change the name of the selected rank, raise or lower the rank, or delete the rank entirely (as long as it is empty).
How to set up Rank Permissions
One of the most important features of guild control is the one listed at the very top of this tab: “Requires Authenticator”. By setting this option for a rank, only those accounts who have a physical or mobile Authenticator on their account will be able to be moved into that rank.
This allows you to protect the guild bank, as well as various key permissions, from an account that may have been compromised (hacked). While no security measure is 100% impervious, having an Authenticator on the account greatly improves that account’s security. If the Authenticator is removed for any reason, all characters on the account will be dropped to the first available rank that does not require an Authenticator.
- Note: If an Authenticator is added to the account it will require up to 72 hours before the character will be able to occupy a rank where one is required. This is an extra security feature that deters a compromised account from adding their own Authenticator so they can access a guild’s bank.
Next, we have “Is Officer” This is a set of permissions intended to make it easier for guild management. When checked, it grants anyone in that rank many of the standard officer permissions.
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Access officer channels
- The officer channel is accessed using /o. Limiting these permissions to your highest ranks can allow you to discuss things with your officers without the rest of the members being able to see.
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Remove people from voice chat
- Allows an officer to remove a member from Guild Voice Chat (This is not currently functioning).
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Delete other people’s chat messages
- Allows an officer to delete a guild members message in guild chat. It does leave a note that the message was deleted and who deleted it.
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Delete other people’s guild events
- Allows an officer to remove a guild event from a member of a lower rank.
Note: An in-game mail notification is sent letting the event creator know when that happens and who removed it.
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Edit public notes
- Permission to “Edit Public Note” allows the rank to add or modify the public notes that can be created for individual guild members. The Member Note is visible to all available members of the guild regardless of rank.
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Edit Guild Info
- Allows the rank to add or edit the Guild Information under the Info tab.
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Edit Message of the Day
- Allows officers to add or edit the Message of the Day for the guild. All members will see this message when they log into the game.
Note: There is no way to determine who set or altered the MOTD or added/modifies the Public and Officer notes.
There are other options that must be selected individually, they fall under two basic categories: Guild Management and Guild Bank.
Guild Management
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Promote and Demote
- These will determine if the current rank can promote and demote members. Ranks with promote or demote permissions can only promote members up to the rank below theirs, or demote members from the rank below theirs and lower
NOTE: Who has access to these functions and how they are used can have a huge effect on the safety of your guild bank.
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Invite & Remove Member
- These options obviously allow members with those permissions to invite new members to the guild as well as remove any member that is of a rank below theirs.
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Guildchat Speak
- Allows the player to speak in the guild chat channel.
Guild Bank
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Guild Bank Repair
- With this option checked, is allows any member of that rank to charge their item repair costs to the guild, if funds are available. The funds are taken from the limit set under the gold/day option. If there is not enough gold to cover the costs, the user will receive a message indicating that when they go to repair.
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Modify Bank Tabs
- Allows the character to rename the individual bank tabs and change icons.
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Withdraw Gold
- This option allows those guild members in that rank to, once a day, withdraw the amount of gold that is listed. As noted early the Guild Bank Repair option counts towards this total.
How to set up permissions for your Guild Bank
Permissions for your guild bank are set based on two things:
- The guild bank tab
- The guild rank.
In other words, each tab in the guild bank has individual permissions for each rank.
To set up your permissions, you will need to open your guild window (“J” key by default) and hit the “Guild Settings” button at the bottom right (guild permissions can only be changed by the guild master). This will open the guild control window. At the top of the window is a drop down that lets you select between Guild Ranks, Rank Permissions and Bank Tab Permissions.
Select: Bank Tab Permissions
Another drop down will be available under that to select which Rank to modify.
Once the rank is selected, the current permissions for that rank when looking at the specified tab are displayed. There are 3 check options available for guild banks plus an entry box (NOTE: Guild bank permissions will be saved even if you hit X out of the window).
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View Tab
- Checking this box will allow members in that rank to look at the selected tab in the guild bank. This can be useful to turn off in order to prevent new members from seeing what is in the bank before they have proven themselves trustworthy.
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Deposit Items
- Checking this box will allow members in that rank to deposit items in the selected tab. This can limit the amount of junk in your bank by limiting who can add to it.
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Update Tab Text
- Allows that rank to update the title of that particular bank tab.
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Withdraw Items
- The value placed in the entry box determines how many stacks of items per day a member in the current rank can remove from the current tab. This is not based on the size of the stack, so a single item and a stack of 200 items both count as one stack.
NOTE: Member of your guild are allowed to remove gold and items from the guild bank based on their permissions. As such, Game Masters will be unable to assist with most cases if someone removes a large amount of gold/items and leaves the guild. More information on things you can do to protect your guild bank can be found in the next section on Preventing Guild Bank Theft.
Preventing Guild Bank Theft
The items in a guild bank can represent a great deal of work on the part of all the members of a guild, and the loss of these items can be a big blow to the guild members. To protect your items, there are a few simple steps you can take:
- Make sure your lowest rank (the one players default into when you invite them into the guild) has little or no access to the guild bank. This will prevent a newly invited player from being able to take a bunch of items and leave.
- Be sure to limit who can promote characters in the guild to people you know and trust very well. Laying down ground rules on promotions, and being sure anyone with the ability to promote can be trusted to follow those rules, will go a long way in protecting those items.
- Guild Leaders and members who have invite permissions should be wary of any players claiming to be a guild member’s “alt.” Before giving them access to rank that has guild access, it might be prudent to have them swap to the a known character to verify that the “alt” is them.
It is important to keep overall account security in mind for your guild. If a member of your guild is compromised (hacked), it is likely during that time that any items/gold that the character has access to could be vulnerable.
You can help protect your guild bank from such scenarios by requiring any rank that has access to a guild bank tab to have an Authenticator.
Above all, use common sense. The guild bank is the responsibility of the guild leader, our In-Game Support staff will be unable to to recover losses that occur from someone removing items that their current permissions allow them to take.
Guild Dethrone
An active guild leader is usually an important factor for a healthy guild. For that reason, if the Guild Master is away for 90+ days an automated system will kick in that allows any member in a qualifying rank to take over. This is for those times when the guild master may stop playing, so that the guild can continue to flourish.
As the Guild Master, you have full control over if you can be dethroned by controlling who occupies the eligible ranks. To be eligible to dethrone the guild master, an active member must be in guild rank 1, 2, or 3. If no members, or active members, occupy any of those ranks the dethrone option will not be available.
Our In-game support staff is not able to circumvent this functionality or otherwise transfer leadership to another. Only the dethrone option can. Additional details on this system can be found in the Replacing an Inactive Guild Master support article.