We need more protection against guilds being sold, or leaders going mental

katamaster81899 · October 2015

Hi all.

I come to you today, in a pissed mood. I'm so angry that I decided to come onto the vanilla forums, even though I swore I was done with the forums after the migration, just to start this thread.

First, a short anecdote:

My guild leader seems to have sold either his account or the leadership of the guild, most likely for $$$, although I have not gotten him to confess to it, it is fairly obvious that something is wrong. This has led to a rather difficult issue for me and a large portion of the guild - It started with him kicking some of the older leaders, under the pretense that they had extorted 1000 gold from him, and demanded promotions to rank 7. (Ya know, cause people with rank 10s desperately need gold and all...). Anyways, another senior member questions it - kicked. I tried to talk to someone who was kicked - I'm kicked now. New rule is supposedly put in place - you talk to someone who was kicked, you get kicked for "betraying your guild leader". Then he'll make up some story about why you were kicked, you probably called him a HAMSTER (synonym for a female who charges money to undergo certain mature activities, 5 letters long, starts with a 'W', trying to get the word across without breaking any rules :P). Now, a large portion of the guild has lost all of the hard work we have put into the guild, we were at a stronghold rank 8 and a market rank 4, we had a rank 4 lifesteal boon already. Each of us has sunk MILLIONs of AD worth of stuff into the coffer for the guild, and we lost it. Now, we can't even contact anyone in that guild cause we are all on ignore, the leader has seemingly convinced everyone we are all traitors. One of us had spent over $250 on Zen Strongholds packs during the first week of strongholds alone. Cut loose because of a whackjob leader who either sold his account, or has a nut loose in his head.

EDIT: (Some more relevant information)
About 3 weeks ago, our guild leader, who had been the only active rank 7 for months, decided to invite a new member and promote them instantly to rank 7. Nobody had ever talked to this person before. Nobody knew who she was, wasn't a very experienced or veteran player either. This is why I suspect the old leader has sold the guild, and that he is possibly following orders from this new person. I still think there is also a chance of his account being sold as well, and the new owner inviting and promoting one of their friends to rank 7, as that also makes sense.

Edit 2: Today, the guild leader sent out a mail revealing he is in a new long-distance relationship with this new mysterious leader. Sounds to me like a guild hijack, and blatantly obvious one at that. The girl claims to be half of his age for gods sake. I'm so done with this, I've given up on this guild, and have been talking to various other leaders about finding a fairly well-progressed guild willing to take on 20-30 members, possibly more.

/end Anecdote.

My point in telling this story is to point out the fact that all it takes is one account to be hacked, compromised, or to go a bit crazy, and they can destroy the hard work of a guild, efforts that might have taken years eventually. If a guild leaders account is hacked, or sold **cough cough you know if I'm talking about you**, they can utterly destroy every bit of progress made by that guilds members. They can even demand payments from you in order to let you stay in the guild. I've lost the boon I spent two months working at, all cause my guild leader had a mental break, or sold his account/the guild. I'm not the only one. People spent actual money, just to lose it.

This brings me to the assumption that this system is flawed -> The fact that guild leaders have that kind of power over you, the power to take away your boons and stuff - That's scary. They have the power to blackmail people now. Especially when all it takes is one unsecure password and suddenly you have a chinese bot with that kind of control. Previously, all the bots could do was maybe rob your guild bank if they got the GL's account. Now, if they get the GL's account, they can destroy two months of progress in 5 minutes. Even worse, they could kick every member, and sell the guild for $1000+ online if it has made significant progress in strongholds. Imagine that, one day, logging on, and finding your guild has completely disappeared, and is now being sold by Chinese Bots.

Honestly, I don't really have any suggestions on improving/fixing this, other than putting some sort of CS response protocols in handling this stuff. I don't even know what I can do, this type of thing shouldn't be able to happen, and if it does happen, support should be able to handle it.

Thoughts and Suggestions on how to prevent abuse on the boon and SH ranking system by Mental guild leaders, hacked (compromised) accounts, etc?

Edit by me: Most of the words censored are the same word - a synonym for an account being compromised. I don't want people to think that I'm cursing off guild leaders every other sentence XD

Mod edit - please do not attempt to circumvent the censor by use of *. Sorry.

rollingonit · October 2015

Sorry to hear that Kata, that's like the worst possible outcome.

I really dont think anything could be implemented to stop that. Accounts being compromised/sold is something only Cryptic/PWE can verify, if they even can, and correct.

katamaster81899 · October 2015

Something has to be done, because people are already exploiting the system like this - Surely Cryptic cannot turn a blind eye to things like this?

hustin1 · October 2015

Yikes. I'm sorry to hear that. As someone who was *literally* forced into leadership of our guild, I've been concerned about how much power that guild leaders have. I sometimes open up the guild roster window with trepidation because I'm afraid to mis-click and accidentally kick someone (that button should be a little harder to reach!)

Fortunately (or unfortunately), our guild has shrunk to a shadow of its former self with so many people leaving the game, so I've been spared any guild drama. Then again, that's why I'm where I am -- after all the old-timers left and the music stopped, I was the one without a chair

Those of us few remaining have talked about leaving for a larger guild, but your post is making me lean a lot more toward staying put, even though getting our guild hall to rank 8 will take ten years or so

dodgo · October 2015

i agree. guild leaders should not have this much power over 150 players... system is fundamentally flawed.

Cryptic what is in place regarding customer service if you get unfairly kicked from guild and lose your $1000's of dollars put in?

katamaster81899 · October 2015

hustin1 wrote: »

Those of us few remaining have talked about leaving for a larger guild, but your post is making me lean a lot more toward staying put, even though getting our guild hall to rank 8 will take ten years or so

I'm scared to join a new guild as well, I don't know who I can trust anymore, other than myself and one other guy in-game, I don't know who'd trust with that power.

oldbaldyone · October 2015

That sucks Erza. Sorry to here it. Hope something can be done, though I'm not entirely sure what.

katamaster81899 · October 2015

oldbaldyone wrote: »

That sucks Erza. Sorry to here it. Hope something can be done, though I'm not entirely sure what.

That's exactly why I am posting this. There is nothing that can be done right now, and that should change, but we need ideas.

I believe something similar happened a few days earlier with the Forsaken guild, some psycho somehow got the reins and disbanded the whole guild?

Something needs to be put into place that prevents this type of thing now that guilds are more than just a social group with a shared bank this module.

hustin1 · October 2015

Here's another concern I have: no one but the person with "Founder" status can instigate SH building. When I was hospitalized in August, no one would have been able to make any SH changes, which is a bad thing. The only saving grace was that our active membership is so small that the current building hadn't completed before I was out of the hospital and at home (I first spent a week at dad's place since I was forbidden from driving).

katamaster81899 · October 2015

hustin1 wrote: »

Here's another concern I have: no one but the person with "Founder" status can instigate SH building. When I was hospitalized in August, no one would have been able to make any SH changes, which is a bad thing. The only saving grace was that our active membership is so small that the current building hadn't completed before I was out of the hospital and at home (I first spent a week at dad's place since I was forbidden from driving).

That's just an issue with your guilds permissions, that can be changed easily

katamaster81899 · October 2015

Just thinking out loud here: What if a feature were added that if a certain amount of members agreed, the kick privelege would temporarily be revoked until customer service investigated?

edit: The destroy structure and promote privileges as well, along with maybe even bank access, like a demotion without the demotion part until it is cleared by CS,

killergilnyc1 · October 2015

If I am guild leader and I hit the "leave" button, does it automatically remove me from guild?

I think that in order for any of the guild leaders (especially the MAIN guild leader who set up the guild) to leave or disband the guild, the guild leader(s) should have to go to the "guild npc " near Sgt. Knox in Protector's Enclave and have to set it up via that npc.

I would also remove the "leave" key from every guild leader in the game.

rickcase276 · October 2015

That is why I am staying put in my guild too. Even though I am the only active member in it, I would rather stay there and not deal with all the other drama. I have guild hall level 3 and almost ready to build my marketplace level 2.

rollingonit · October 2015

katamaster81899 said:
Just thinking out loud here: What if a feature were added that if a certain amount of members agreed, the kick privelege would temporarily be revoked until customer service investigated?

Was gonna suggest something like that, but it comes with some issues as well; which is why I didnt. But it's the only thing I could think of.

katamaster81899 · October 2015

rollingonit wrote: »

Just thinking out loud here: What if a feature were added that if a certain amount of members agreed, the kick privelege would temporarily be revoked until customer service investigated?

Was gonna suggest something like that, but it comes with some issues as well; which is why I didnt. But it's the only thing I could think of.

Yeah, the only thing possible here would be to put a power check in place, it's like the way the US government is supposed to work with the three branches keeping eachother in check, only it doesn't always work that way.

darkstarcrash · October 2015

First of all, that sucks and I'm sorry it happened to you and your guildmates.

The thing is, guilds are set up as dictatorships. The rank 7 person can set any and all privileges, can kick people out at will, empty the guild bank (even if other people donated to it for other purposes), even disband the guild. None of that is disallowed. If your guildleader sold an epic artifact that you were storing in the guild bank, Support wouldn't touch the matter.

This is not unique to Neverwinter; I imagine most people who have played other mmos have had at least one bad guild experience.

It's true that you donated a lot to the Stronghold, and it hurts to lose boons and such that would take a lot to re-build in a new guild -- but I don't think Cryptic should be able to force your guildleader to take you back, or demote him, or whatever punishment you would like to see.

I guess the moral is don't donate more than you are comfortable losing.

regenerde · October 2015

Perhaps the Devs could come up with a more improved/separated character/guild progress for Strongholds?

urabask · October 2015

darkstarcrash said:

It's true that you donated a lot to the Stronghold, and it hurts to lose boons and such that would take a lot to re-build in a new guild -- but I don't think Cryptic should be able to force your guildleader to take you back, or demote him, or whatever punishment you would like to see.

Why not? The guild leader in the OP clearly was abusing his position at the expense of a lot of people. IMO something like the OP describes should be a banworthy offense. Heck if they can prove that he sold his account they could easily get it banned and put in a support ticket to take the guild back over.

15.2. J and n of the ToS applies too

ToS said:

j. engage in any actions that defraud or attempt to defraud, scam or cheat others out of any items that have been earned through authorized game
play

...

n. take any action that disrupts the Service or that negatively affects or may prohibit other users from enjoying the Website, the Games or any other aspect of the Service.

Wouldn't really be surprised if they could take this up with support and get him punished.

lemonchill · October 2015

katamaster81899 said:

oldbaldyone wrote: »

That sucks Erza. Sorry to here it. Hope something can be done, though I'm not entirely sure what.

That's exactly why I am posting this. There is nothing that can be done right now, and that should change, but we need ideas.

I believe something similar happened a few days earlier with the Forsaken guild, some psycho somehow got the reins and disbanded the whole guild?

Something needs to be put into place that prevents this type of thing now that guilds are more than just a social group with a shared bank this module.

forsaken guild??? you mean forsaken rebels????

katamaster81899 · October 2015

lemonchill wrote: »

oldbaldyone wrote: »
That sucks Erza. Sorry to here it. Hope something can be done, though I'm not entirely sure what.

That's exactly why I am posting this. There is nothing that can be done right now, and that should change, but we need ideas.

I believe something similar happened a few days earlier with the Forsaken guild, some psycho somehow got the reins and disbanded the whole guild?

Something needs to be put into place that prevents this type of thing now that guilds are more than just a social group with a shared bank this module.

forsaken guild??? you mean forsaken rebels????

Not sure, I heard the name being tossed around in legit.

katamaster81899 · October 2015

urabask wrote: »

It's true that you donated a lot to the Stronghold, and it hurts to lose boons and such that would take a lot to re-build in a new guild -- but I don't think Cryptic should be able to force your guildleader to take you back, or demote him, or whatever punishment you would like to see.

Why not? The guild leader in the OP clearly was abusing his position at the expense of a lot of people. IMO something like the OP describes should be a banworthy offense. Heck if they can prove that he sold his account they could easily get it banned and put in a support ticket to take the guild back over.

15.2. J and n of the ToS applies too

j. engage in any actions that defraud or attempt to defraud, scam or cheat others out of any items that have been earned through authorized game
play

...

n. take any action that disrupts the Service or that negatively affects or may prohibit other users from enjoying the Website, the Games or any other aspect of the Service.

Wouldn't really be surprised if they could take this up with support and get him punished.

Thank you for citing this, I will be using these clauses when I add a follow up to my ticket tomorrow. The HAMSTER leader of mine was trying to spread rumors in legit and a zerg channel that I called his new co-leader a HAMSTER. I don't think I've ever called someone that in my whole life, and I sure haven't called anyone that in Neverwinter before. He's most definitely prohibiting me and many other users from enjoying the game.

This is going to be so much fun, I can't wait to get him banned. Honestly, that's the happiest thought I've had today. That's kinda sad, considering I was playing the game today for 6 hours, I guess he really is ruining it for me... Been running around trying to find a new guild to fit 20+ people that are following me and the others that were kicked.

Mod edit - please do not attempt to circumvent the censor by use of *. Sorry.

katamaster81899 · October 2015

regenerde wrote: »

Perhaps the Devs could come up with a more improved/separated character/guild progress for Strongholds?

Yeah, that would be an alternate route to take, but it would require a lot of time I think, as that'd basically mean redoing the whole entire stronghold structures system, the boon system, the coffer system... all of it. I doubt the devs would be willing to go that far for something like this.

mattsacre · October 2015

If they hacked the GL there isn't a whole lot that can be done on the players side for sure, if the account was sold, that too is little that can be done without cryptic investigating on a one to one basis, they could accuse the new owner of course, but unless they actually have evidence that the person on the other end isn't the person that previously bought zen etc, (especially in a F2P, how can they prove "fraud").

But as to the GL flipping their lid and going on a rampage. I got a simple addition, a added layer of protection idea. A sign-counter-sign layer approach, the GL wants to make some structural changes to the guild, like kick players that have attained a certain lvl in the guild, or change boons etc? Have it take another officer confirming the action before it takes effect, GL kicks someone at senior officer lvl? It don't take effect until another officer of at least that ones lvl is logged on and concurs does the person get kicked.

This would have to have 2 exceptions of course, just like it is on the time limit thing, currently if the GL don't log on after a time, senior officers can claim the slot and make changes, so the same should be in, the GL tries to kick another officer for whatever reason and there isn't another officer on to confirm his actions in say 30 days, then the change can take effect without confirmation of another officer. So too should it be with senior officers kicking the GL, if a GL goes nuts, 2 senior officer of sufficient lvl should be able to demote the GL first (depose them), then within a certain time frame be able with the other officers concurrence kick the old GL (I would suggest 30 days as well)

This all would allow a time frame to limit the damage a flipped GL could do to the guild as a whole, as well as if 2 malcontent officers tried a coup, the time frame would allow all the other guild members to communicate their wishes, as well as time to petition Cryptic to intervene.

Of course with this system, careful consideration would have to be made in advance by the GL who he trusts to be in his officer lvl slots, they could coup after all. As well as officers considering how much they want to pour into a guilds effort toward things like strongholds, the GL and another officer could create their own coup after all the resources were poured in.

To be honest, if your GL had sold his account, he should have honorably left the guild or resigned his control before he sold the account to not create the problems you had. But then that may have been the allure they used to get more $ for his account, control and all the assets on place already. But then someone that would violate TOS so agregiously as to sell an account...they wouldn't be so honorable would they?

Of course there is a problem heading our way..as more and more people get disenchanted with what had been done with this game of late, with the structural problems that are never addressed etc., there are going to be more and more players willing to sell out their ready made accounts for some $ to get out from the investments in time and $ they have made. They really need to make structural changes like my idea above, to forestall or mitigate the damages that can be done by a single player towards another group of players.

urabask · October 2015

If they **** the GL there isn't a whole lot that can be done on the players side for sure, if the account was sold, that too is little that can be done without cryptic investigating on a one to one basis, they could accuse the new owner of course, but unless they actually have evidence that the person on the other end isn't the person that previously bought zen etc, (especially in a F2P, how can they prove "fraud").

This is really easy to prove actually. They just check to see if there's a change in the pattern of where the account is being accessed from. You wouldn't believe how stupid people can be about this sort of thing.

canmann · October 2015

This was brought up in testing. No safeties put in place.

This is a great example of why Mod 7 is such a fail. You as a player should not help build a guild... the guild should help build all of its players.

Sorry this has happened to you

wentris · October 2015

darkstarcrash said:
the moral is don't donate more than you are comfortable losing.

And this is the wisest thing. Guilds can always be ruined by 1 person and this is not going to change, because all MMOs have this problem and all possible solutions proved to be exploitable as well

Support has the power to help you if guild leader account was hacked/changed ownership (which is against ToS) or made a clear scam attempt. If they do so - its up to them. Remember that people working there are also human beings and guild dramas are going to be new for them as much as for you - they have to learn how to cope with them and this is a very ungrateful task (fake accusation because of drama anyone?). If no ToS violation occured support has no power to interact. The reason is here:

urabask said:
Why not? The guild leader in the OP clearly was abusing his position at the expense of a lot of people. IMO something like the OP describes should be a banworthy offense.

All it took was a sad story that took 10 minutes to write to make you (and most other people) feel sorry for the OP and rised your hostility towards his former guild leader which you dont even know - and you would probably ban him right now if you could. This is wrong - if you feel a need to get involved in any kind of drama (which I would avoid if I were you) you have to remember not to make any judgement after listening to 1 side of argument only. People always try to act like victims and talk like:"I dont know why is he doing this to me, must be some kind of psycho". Guess what - if you talk to other side of argument it would probably tell you the same! And the truth lies somewhere in the middle - and it can get extremely hard to tell what really happened and who is to blame - usually both sides did something wrong. This could have been error OP former guild leader could make - imagine OP and his friends conflicted with 3rd person (lets call it "Maria") for whatever reason, Maria talks to GL and says moreover the same OP tells us, the GL trusts her, because he likes her and unleashes a righteous wrath on the OP and his fellows! Dont get me wrong - I dont know OP and I feel sorry he had problems with his GL - I just used him as an example why support doesnt get involved in guild dramas and why posting dramas is usually forbidden to spread - if its not some outside reason (hacked/sold account for example) they always have some secrets and bring more trouble to outsiders, than they should.

Anyway, good luck and hope you will solve your problem.

mattsacre · October 2015

urabask said:
If they **** the GL there isn't a whole lot that can be done on the players side for sure, if the account was sold, that too is little that can be done without cryptic investigating on a one to one basis, they could accuse the new owner of course, but unless they actually have evidence that the person on the other end isn't the person that previously bought zen etc, (especially in a F2P, how can they prove "fraud").

This is really easy to prove actually. They just check to see if there's a change in the pattern of where the account is being accessed from. You wouldn't believe how stupid people can be about this sort of thing.

Umm. populations migrate. So I logged on in Spokane yesterday, and today I logged on in Amsterdam. Who at Cryptic is a super-sleuth to know if I, logging half way around the world, it isn't REALLY me? So am I businessman on assignment? Am I a sex trade worker, a international drug smuggler? Who am I? So I logged on in Las Vegas @ 10 pm PST for 2 yrs every weekend and holidays, now I log on in Moscow @ 3 pm local time every other day. Is Cryptic going to send someone to my new address to confirm that, yes, I did/didn't immigrate to Moscow?

So I used to buy Zen with a Amex card #1234-5678-9102-3456 ISS # 1234 a card registered to BofA, now I buy Zen with a Discover card #9876-5432-1098-7654 ISS #333 a card registered to wells fargo of florida..is it me or someone else? Did I move to florida and change my card/address? Or am I someone that the previous "me" sold and account to? Did I buy Zen then, but not now, because now I'm on a fixed income and I moved to florida to retire in the heat?

How does Cryptic KNOW I'm "me" and not some other "me" that bought my account? It's EXTREMELY hard to do so, that's why they very rarely if ever ban accounts because of that, is the new "me" a bigger spender than the old "me"? Maybe they don't want to risk the greater revenue flow from the new "me" from offending the new "me" questioning "me" if I'm really "me" or some other "me".

Barring some outside confirmation/evidence it's hard to prove an account has been sold, I would have to post my account for sale somewhere were they actually monitored, then trace the sale say via EBay to the purchaser, then them actually logging on and making account changes.

This is all of course presumptive that they actually want to "catch" the new "me" and ban "me". Maybe the new "me" having the cash in RL to buy the account, is a big spender and they like the new "me" better than the formerly tight fisted old "me"

ryoshinette · October 2015

Buahahah
Really?

Take a look on topic:
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1203612/stronghold-problem-what-if

I was posted it month ago and I was trolled for this.

Hard life.
Now you have to beg that some1 invite you to 8 rank guild for free.

urabask · October 2015

wentris said:

All it took was a sad story that took 10 minutes to write to make you (and most other people) feel sorry for the OP and rised your hostility towards his former guild leader which you dont even know - and you would probably ban him right now if you could. This is wrong - if you feel a need to get involved in any kind of drama (which I would avoid if I were you) you have to remember not to make any judgement after listening to 1 side of argument only. People always try to act like victims and talk like:"I dont know why is he doing this to me, must be some kind of psycho". Guess what - if you talk to other side of argument it would probably tell you the same! And the truth lies somewhere in the middle - and it can get extremely hard to tell what really happened and who is to blame - usually both sides did something wrong. This could have been error OP former guild leader could make - imagine OP and his friends conflicted with 3rd person (lets call it "Maria") for whatever reason, Maria talks to GL and says moreover the same OP tells us, the GL trusts her, because he likes her and unleashes a righteous wrath on the OP and his fellows! Dont get me wrong - I dont know OP and I feel sorry he had problems with his GL - I just used him as an examply why support doesnt get involved in guild dramas and why posting dramas is usually forbidden to spread - if its not some outside reason (hacked/sold account for example) they always have some secrets and bring more trouble to outsiders, than they should.

Anyway, good luck and hope you will solve your problem.

Oh, please. No guild leader in their right mind would kick someone that spent $250 on stronghold packs to contribute to the SH. That's like shooting youself in the foot. Kicking 20+ is a clear sign that something is wrong on his end. Furthermore your example is just as bad as OP's. Kicking a large part of your guild on word of mouth is ridiculous. These things generally are as simple as they seem when something extreme happens.

If his account was compromised I have even less sympathy. 99.9% of the time a gaming account is compromised it's because their login details were phished.

And it's not that posting drama is prohibited. Naming and shaming is prohibited. OP didn't do that.

rapo973 · October 2015

Very bad story.
I said few weeks ago that SH is a problem for many guilds.
This story shows that as soon as the SH grows and its value increases, everything can happen. A guildleader can be tempted to have some real $ business over the work of many players. This is the worst case.
Other cases are already known: guildleaders selling a guild slot to take the new Bis armor.
I even see a scenario where this business is run by some chinese bot: market RK 4 and a guild slot sold to take the gear set. Small guild members may be tempted to do it.
Such a kind of problem is difficult to manage by implementing some technical features in the game. All you have is the trust in your guildleader and few more....or run your own guild.
This is why I prefer to play in a small guild: this minimizes the dictatorship style. I don't even care to have the new gear set. I'm pve and I'm well equipped to run all the contents

We need more protection against guilds being sold, or leaders going mental

Comments

forsaken guild??? you mean forsaken rebels????