Hello!
I just* noticed that guild permissions have all been lumped together under “is officer.” This makes it much more difficult to share responsibilities with other guildies because not everyone needs to (or should) have all the permissions. It’s much better to have a choice of who gets which permissions. Can we please have the permissions returned to the way they were? Thanks!
*just, as in 3 and a half years ago
More options readily available without having to open multiple menus?
Yes please.
Did I expect any changes to guilds with this patch? No.
Did I check the guild permissions anyway? Yes.
Am I an idiot for hoping? You decide.
Ok so just posted this on Blizzard needs to incentivize and promote guilds - #294 by Cheheals-gilneas
As a guild leader, I’m mixed on the future of guilds. 6 years ago, creating a new guild on my server after consistently disappointing experiences as an officer and raid leader in other guilds was relatively easy. I knew lotsa people and they trusted me. Bam, we had an instant guild when I announced it and we had activities, including raiding as well.
These last 2 years have been difficult for many reasons but obviously, the pandemic. People’s expectations for what the game was going to provide them in the absence of real life was , in my opinion, crazy. Suddenly people in our “no politics/controversy” guild were ignoring rules. I had to take action.
Next thing was, in the middle of CN Heroic progression, for our avowed casual guild (yes, always AotC) it was brought to my attention by officers that I needed to start benching people. What? Who cares if we don’t make AotC? The people in guild are more important! Well, that was a bad calculation, the suddenly hardcores bailed.
Then next up to bat were the people suddenly offended by the reality of discrimination and harassment in a corporate workplace. “I can’t support a company that endorses harassment!” Okay, so they all bailed. But they still buy gas, eat fast food, and all the other things that have corporate values just like Blizzard. They just choose to turn a blind eye to that? Anyways…
Alright so now it’s 9.2. I realized as all this crap was coming down in guild that what I needed was people who actually wanted to play the game. Community. Hundreds of people flocked in. Why? Cause we had activities and made no demands on them other than their time to get things done. There are hundreds if not thousands of players out there looking for this experience, which guilds used to be. Current servers are crammed full of “friends and family” and hardcore guilds but nothing in between. It’s a shame but a reality of where we are.
Solutions for guilds? IMO keep condensing servers. The proof is out there now. Players want to have choices of how to play and are willing to guild in the right situation.
Reality? Communities are the answer. No commitments, no expectations unless you commit to them. So, why doesn’t Blizz embrace their own creation? Why doesn’t Blizz allow Communities to have all the benefits of guilds? Hmmm…stay tuned, you never know.
Not an idiot, maybe you still have hope that Ion will make good.
I wish I still have your optimism.
I actually have no faith in Ion, but he’s not the only person working at Blizzard. I keep thinking that someone has this problem on their to-do list, but there have just been too many other fires to put out for them to finish it. So, maybe one day, they’ll get the coding fixed, and we’ll have our permissions again. Yeah, yeah, I know that’s not really how it works, but if I had no imagination, I wouldn’t be playing a game like WoW in the first place, right?
I have to say, I’m kind of enjoying the latest patch. (Well, not on this character, obviously.) Still disappointed in there being no fix for guilds and wondering if I should hold out any hope at all for the next expansion. Not that this issue has lasted through more than one expac now…
I fear that if Blizzard continues to dismantle the glue that binds players together and keeps them playing (guilds) there may not be too many more “next” expansions left for them to fix it.
Our wait continues.
I’ve gotten a little distracted from WoW, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think about it and how much I would like the guild permissions divided up again. We’ve described over and over how vital guilds are to WoW and how important customizable controls are to guilds.
Yes, we’ve plugged along without them for years now, but that doesn’t mean we like it, or that things wouldn’t be amazingly better if permissions were granular again. And of course, the elephant smack dab in the center of this room is the feeling that no one at Blizzard gives a fig about WoW any more. It would be awesome if that feeling were erased by some actual attention being given to this problem from people who work on this game.
(replying to you in particular cause you seem most active in this thread).
I posted a thread in Community Council about the Character Limit in Guilds and Communities (Guilds and Communities are Bursting at the Seams (AKA Character Limit)), and included a link to this thread about permissions and UI changes that people have been requesting that seemingly have been ignored.
I won’t lie - I haven’t paid that close of attention to this thread simply because I don’t lead a guild. So if you or someone else is willing to post a concise summary of the thread, I’m more than willing to post it as a reply to my thread, so the devs don’t have to comb through 5,000 posts if they do read it from my link.
That however doesn’t mean better UIs and permissions aren’t important to me. I do have moderator powers in a few communities and I’m pretty much unable to do anything I need to. But I don’t know what communities lack from guilds apart from Last Online, so there’s not much I can speak on for UI and permissions. But I also don’t know if anyone on the council IS well versed in it. Hopefully someone is and can post about it, but if not, it’d be nice to have a summary I can post.
Oh, golly. That’s a pretty big order. My alt, Fumel, had been highlighting some of the better posts earlier in the thread some years ago, but I kind of gave up on that after Ion specifically asked us to post feedback about guilds in this thread, and then all the feedback was ignored. However, I will give it some thought and when I have time, I’ll post a summary (probably on Fumel, but I’ll quote you again).
This is it! Time to get to work people! Put some hearts on that post up there in the Council thread! It only has 2!
I can respond directly as a guild leader that has opened a new Community recently. We have about 300 members, not a huge community by any means. The piece that’s missing for some of our members that are not guilded and using community to end their “pug life” is that sense of belonging. Our active schedule for M+/Raids helps but communities attract many people that have been outliers, so to speak. Having been in guilds in the past as large as this community, I’m used to gchatting, running multiple convos, etc. I have found out that many people are not used to this.
Using the Discord model for communities could be very helpful imo. Let us break our community chat into rooms for activities. This will allow people to break through some of the social isolation barriers, gain confidence by having affinity rooms for activities, and bring a real sense of community based on game activities. I guess my wish would be that Microsoft basically buys Discord and gives it the resources needed to fulfill it’s true gaming potential and have it fully integrated into the game. If not, then make Communities a robust, powerful social experience! There ya go! My 2 cents 
There are so many detailed posts within this thread that are more detailed and eloquent than I could ever match, however, I have linked my last detailed post that encapsulates my side of the narrative.
As I looked through the thread, I started wondering what you mean by “summary.” I hope I interpreted you correctly.
The essential conversation in this thread has been that the guild control permissions got all lumped together under the single heading: “Is Officer” when communities were introduced. Many guild masters were flummoxed by this unheralded change, and we asked to have granular permissions returned. Many posts were made detailing how particular GM’s utilized the separated permissions in the running of their guilds, and how they could no longer run their guilds the same way. Many were reduced to making no one but themselves an officer because there were certain permissions they wished to retain only for the GM.
I intended to quote the OP’s links to the old and new permissions UI’s, but I can’t include direct links in my posts. These will have to be copy/pasted:
https://i.imgur.com/v7WlrcH.png
https://i.imgur.com/Fi55wGh.png
During a developer Q&A many months after the changes, Ion stated the changes were unintended and they were working on a fix. In that conversation, either he or Lore (I can’t really remember which of them brought it up) suggested we put in this thread any specific guild improvements we wanted to see as well. And so many great ideas on those lines were added to the thread.
To this day, no “fix” to the permissions has been implemented, and none of the guild suggestions have been acknowledged or put in game. As the years passed, many players stopped posting in this thread. Some stopped playing. Some GM’s announced the disbanding of their guilds. At least one moved (recreated) their guild to Classic. A steady few of us have continued to post just to keep the thread alive in the vain hope that it might somehow help to get the permissions broken up again.
Communities are not the same as guilds. They fill a different niche. What most of us still posting in this thread want is a return to robust guilds with customizable management tools that allow a GM to run their guild in a way best suited to themselves and their membership.
Edit: Walkerbo’s older post, quoted in his post above this one, is very detailed and might be more useful to you.
I posted a consolidated version of the two posts. If there’s anything you’d like me to add, just let me know.
I also encouraged the devs to read this thread if they have the time, but as they are busy and it’s almost 5,000 posts, I would understand if they don’t. But hopefully the basic idea being put across will help.
I encourage all here to go and like the post that Maizou made in the community council forum; it has the greater potential of blues casting their eyes over our thread.
It is still important to regularly post here so this post does not die a slow and painful death.
I do believe they took the “Edit public notes” and made that something players could do, so you might want to edit your post. We don’t have a screen shot of the “newest” version of the guild controls (and I don’t think I can post one).
EDIT: NEVER MIND. I’M WRONG. EDIT PUBLIC NOTES IS UNDER “IS OFFICER.”
But I’m leaving my post here just because it adds to the thread post count, and I don’t mind looking stupid for making incorrect statements. (giggle)
yes. under application status we need a remove applicant option. I’ve several that have been there now for over 4 years as “approved” i don’t mind if they’re there for a few months, life happens. but after a year they can reapply
Totally agree with this. Not everyone minds having applicants hanging in there for years (I know I don’t care), but the option to remove them should still be available. GM’s need options to run their guilds as befits them, not be jammed into a one-size-fits-all box.
I don’t expect the announcement about the upcoming expansion will mention anything about guilds, but I hope that doesn’t mean there will be no guild improvements coming. At the very least, the problems with the permissions should have gotten some attention.
Yeah, I know. We’ve thought that before with a new expansion, haven’t we?
/sigh