I get you with the whole feeling isolated thing. My time-zone doesn't help this one bit, but in general I actually despite everything, find it hard to break in to RP if you would - I go to the quicksand now and again on both of my characters, and then I show up at events but that's about it.Â
Anyhow, one of the most important policies is our stance on events. Having lead guilds for the past four years, I've gone away entirely from having one big story-line that involves all of the guild at any given time - It's a lot of work, and I've seen so many officers burn out over time, and officers are just really important and hard to come by, I find. I also do not believe that the responsibility of generating RP should be placed on just a few roleplayers - We are all here for the same thing, so we should all be equally responsible for making it happen. So we have a policy where we encourage people as much as possible to make their own events, storylines and suchlike - involving parts of the FC, in whatever way is possible. It removes a lot of stress from my shoulders and of the ones that help me.Â
Of unpopular policies, we have a strict view of the lore. I like to follow it as much as possible, and I find it's very hard to mix different views. I'll just briefly say Fantasia and I'm sure enough people will know the debate. I like to make sure everyone is on the same page, so we do not get conflicts over it. This comes off as really restrictive to some, and we've lost people because of it, but at the end of the day it's something I do not want to go down on.Â
Our 18+ policy has been bashed at before as well, mostly by people younger than who feel discriminated. Which is not why we have that rule - We simply want to ensure that we don't have to think twice about cursing, violent themes and other such maturities because someone around us is not old enough to deal with them.Â
What we offer..Â
* Active website, we're a part of a community which also has a guild in Rift. Said community is 4 years old.Â
* As much guides, lore and information about XIV as we can find/write up.Â
* Help with event creation, fleshing out backgrounds, etc.Â
* Optional skype chat
* Optional TS serverÂ
* Optional Minecraft serverÂ
* Optional OOC ls. We don't however, have people solely being a part of the LS. We've tried, but it is much too hard to make sure these people get as involved as the rest.Â
* Guildmeetings every 14 days, larger events whenever inspiration comes up for them.
Communication goes through IC ls, fc chat and on the forums. We also have an IC board, but the trick is to get people to check the forums daily and post there as need be. Lots of people aren't as into forums as they are to facebook for example.. xDÂ
I'd say that we're newbie friendly to some extend, but we can't offer people mentors because very few people have the time to take on a mentee. At the same time, it's not always easy for someone who is new to RP, to start off in a heavy-rp guild - again, it can feel very restrictive as opposed to being a challenge on ones creativity.Â
What I appreciate in membership..Â
*People applying with characters that fit our theme. To this, our theme is loose and everchanging depending on what people want to do, but it will never make sense to join with certain character types. Rebels are very shortlived, because they can't take orders or keep to a code of conduct, and as such end up getting fired icly.Â
*People who are honest. Again with our 18+ rule, if someone says they're 25 when they're not, we usually find out eventually. A lot of lies gets unraveled in the end, and I'm tired of being presented with the truth after a while.Â
*People who read about our FC and is fine with our OOC standards. Sometimes people get very surprised we don't have a big storyline, usually down to the fact that they didn't read our description. In general, I like to have people interested in what we actually do, and not just apply because we are one EU guild out of a few choices.Â
*People who keep themselves informed. I can't personally whisper all news to everyone.Â
*People who are fine with our guildmeeting being mandatory. In the sense that, if one is online during our meeting, you show up to it. We make a few exceptions, but it's the only time we actually require people to come RP.Â
*Asks officers/GM for help when it comes to drama, so it doesn't escalate. We have a low tolerance for drama, meaning that we'll make a few attempts to resolve it, but we're not shy of kicking both sides of a conflict if it doesn't get resolved. In our 1½ years as an FC this has fortunately only happened once.Â
There's loads more I could say about a lot of things but I am running short of time. As a closing note, I'd like to encourage people to give your resident FC leader a hug today. It's a hard and often thankless job - a little hug for appreciation goes a long way to motivate
Anyhow, one of the most important policies is our stance on events. Having lead guilds for the past four years, I've gone away entirely from having one big story-line that involves all of the guild at any given time - It's a lot of work, and I've seen so many officers burn out over time, and officers are just really important and hard to come by, I find. I also do not believe that the responsibility of generating RP should be placed on just a few roleplayers - We are all here for the same thing, so we should all be equally responsible for making it happen. So we have a policy where we encourage people as much as possible to make their own events, storylines and suchlike - involving parts of the FC, in whatever way is possible. It removes a lot of stress from my shoulders and of the ones that help me.Â
Of unpopular policies, we have a strict view of the lore. I like to follow it as much as possible, and I find it's very hard to mix different views. I'll just briefly say Fantasia and I'm sure enough people will know the debate. I like to make sure everyone is on the same page, so we do not get conflicts over it. This comes off as really restrictive to some, and we've lost people because of it, but at the end of the day it's something I do not want to go down on.Â
Our 18+ policy has been bashed at before as well, mostly by people younger than who feel discriminated. Which is not why we have that rule - We simply want to ensure that we don't have to think twice about cursing, violent themes and other such maturities because someone around us is not old enough to deal with them.Â
What we offer..Â
* Active website, we're a part of a community which also has a guild in Rift. Said community is 4 years old.Â
* As much guides, lore and information about XIV as we can find/write up.Â
* Help with event creation, fleshing out backgrounds, etc.Â
* Optional skype chat
* Optional TS serverÂ
* Optional Minecraft serverÂ
* Optional OOC ls. We don't however, have people solely being a part of the LS. We've tried, but it is much too hard to make sure these people get as involved as the rest.Â
* Guildmeetings every 14 days, larger events whenever inspiration comes up for them.
Communication goes through IC ls, fc chat and on the forums. We also have an IC board, but the trick is to get people to check the forums daily and post there as need be. Lots of people aren't as into forums as they are to facebook for example.. xDÂ
I'd say that we're newbie friendly to some extend, but we can't offer people mentors because very few people have the time to take on a mentee. At the same time, it's not always easy for someone who is new to RP, to start off in a heavy-rp guild - again, it can feel very restrictive as opposed to being a challenge on ones creativity.Â
What I appreciate in membership..Â
*People applying with characters that fit our theme. To this, our theme is loose and everchanging depending on what people want to do, but it will never make sense to join with certain character types. Rebels are very shortlived, because they can't take orders or keep to a code of conduct, and as such end up getting fired icly.Â
*People who are honest. Again with our 18+ rule, if someone says they're 25 when they're not, we usually find out eventually. A lot of lies gets unraveled in the end, and I'm tired of being presented with the truth after a while.Â
*People who read about our FC and is fine with our OOC standards. Sometimes people get very surprised we don't have a big storyline, usually down to the fact that they didn't read our description. In general, I like to have people interested in what we actually do, and not just apply because we are one EU guild out of a few choices.Â
*People who keep themselves informed. I can't personally whisper all news to everyone.Â
*People who are fine with our guildmeeting being mandatory. In the sense that, if one is online during our meeting, you show up to it. We make a few exceptions, but it's the only time we actually require people to come RP.Â
*Asks officers/GM for help when it comes to drama, so it doesn't escalate. We have a low tolerance for drama, meaning that we'll make a few attempts to resolve it, but we're not shy of kicking both sides of a conflict if it doesn't get resolved. In our 1½ years as an FC this has fortunately only happened once.Â
There's loads more I could say about a lot of things but I am running short of time. As a closing note, I'd like to encourage people to give your resident FC leader a hug today. It's a hard and often thankless job - a little hug for appreciation goes a long way to motivate
